Archive of Our Own ^beta

No one sees it coming; Rodney just gradually balloons over the course of several months. It's annoying, because his favourite pants no longer fit, then people start giving him funny looks. "Stress," he snaps when Zelenka looks at him the wrong way. "Stress, because I work with a bunch of rock-eating maniacs with no sense of decorum or self-preservation."

"We are only concerned for your health, Rodney," Zelenka drawls back, eyes fixed on his work. Rodney scratches a newly formed stretch mark under his ribcage and glares at the roof. It isn't that he's stopped working out-- although missions have dwindled for the last few months, he still spends a great deal of time running for his life and dodging deadly projectiles like a gazelle or a big-horned sheep. He even still does some sessions with Teyla, although they make his legs hurt from the arch of his foot all the way to his mangled kneecaps.

He gains five more pounds while picking at salads and glaring resentfully at his peers, and then goes to Keller. "I have a tumour," he announces. "Or a tapeworm. My high pain threshold may have prevented me from noticing its growth, but it's significantly hindering my mobility and health now. I feel faint."

He does, actually, for once, and sits hard on a medical bed to make his point. The world clenches before his eyes and he takes a shuddery breath. "Rodney?" she asks, the right sympathetic tone in her voice even though her eyes are doubtful.

"I may also be dying," he snaps.

Keller stares at him long and hard, then prods his stomach gently. He glares and does his best not to twist away instinctively, watches as her face goes from the resigned look she when he enters her sickbay to something more -- concerned. "You're not dying," she cuts in before his mouth is all the way open, and then hesitates with her lip caught between her teeth. "I'm just going to run some tests."

Some tests involve Rodney being poked and prodded, then gaped at by several nurses, then scanned and prodded and discussed in low voices. "I think I deserve to know my fate," he says loudly enough for the entire bay to hear.

"Rodney," and this time her voice is so gentle that he thinks this might actually be it for him. She rests a hand on his arm. "You're -- pregnant."

"Ah ha," he says immediately, unmoving. "Breaking the tension?" But she stares at him, eyes all glossy with medical curiosity, and he feels the bile rise in his throat again. "I think I need a second opinion."

She gets out the equipment and shows him the head, the little hands and the curved back on an Ancient screen. Then he does vomit, violently and all over her shoes. "I am going to kill him," he announces. She radios for Sam.

The problem, indirectly, is that Rodney doesn't know who it might be. Getting laid doesn't actually happen that often for him, but it's still not like he's made a list or something. Besides, he thinks, pregnancy is due to unusual sex -- it must have been a ritual or a device and he's certain he hasn't ever had sex in a ceremonial cave or under the light of the thirteenth moon's full glow, or even with an irregularly flashing light in the background. It could be alien drugs. It could be human drugs, Rodney has heard of roofies. It could, he thinks in a panic, be Alien, period, and he's doomed to die of abnominal explosion. Parentage is also the first question that Sam asks when she arrives, looking bemused. Rodney does his best to act flippant. "Oh, you know, the list is so long -- I'm actually quite a commodity."

She radios Sheppard, and Rodney says, "He doesn't know!" and the radio is clicked off. Both women stare at him with sympathetic faces and Rodney swallows. "What I mean is, he doesn't know who -- No, really, that's what I mean!"

"Oh, Rodney, I'm so sorry," Keller says and wraps him up in a hug with his head against her shoulder, squashed uncomfortably into the yellow fabric there. Rodney stiffly considers taking advantage of the situation, but feels too mottle-fleshed and horrified to make a move. "We'll figure out a way for you to tell him."

"Get some rest, Rodney," Sam adds and squeezes his hand. Rodney has never been so mortified in his whole, entire life.

"It's not Sheppard!" He can tell no one believes him.

Teyla enters the room first after his restless night, bringing a basket of herbs and a serene smile. "Rodney," she says. "We were all surprised at the news, but I wish to inform you that my support is entirely available. You are my friend." She rests her forehead against his and Rodney actually feels soothed for a millisecond. "John is nervous," she adds like a dire warning.

"He has no reason to be," Rodney snaps. It's his body that's being warped horribly, anyway. "I'll submit to a paternity test."

Sheppard chooses that moment to enter, and Rodney realizes that it's entirely possible that every second from this time on is going to be a new low in his life. John Sheppard is holding a very tiny pair of booties like they might bite him. He looks resigned and more than a little confused, and Rodney says, "Oh no, oh no, oh--"

"I brought you these," Sheppard offers back, leans in close like they might be monitored by enemy agents. "What's going on?"

"I have been transported into the worst nightmare of nightmares, so dire I never even dreamed that my life would come to this. And I am possibly dying."

"Uh, congratulations," Sheppard drawls. Rodney can tell he means, about the baby. He glares anyway. Ronon enters the room barehanded, and even the comfort of being surrounded by the team doesn't make Rodney's awful day better. He pinches himself.

Ronon offers, "I'll get you something when the kid is born. I want to make sure that it's the right colour."

"Babies don't care about colours," Rodney snaps, then feels stupid for responding to that out of everything.

"I care about colours," Ronon says. "I hope it's a boy so I can make it a teal blanket."

Rodney lies back and shuts his eyes resolutely. If waking up isn't an option, sinking into a blood-sugar coma and dying peacefully still is. "We will leave you to rest, you must maintain your strength," Teyla says. He hears manly throat clearing from Sheppard and Ronon and stays still as they take turns squeezing his hand and file out. When the room's silent, Rodney cracks an eye open. The lights are dimmed like they're feeling kind of sorry for him too. The hormones seething in his system make him want to cry. Instead, Rodney pulls out an info tablet and writes, "Things to do before the baby arrives: 1. Find the biggest room in Atlantis. 2. Look sad enough that someone agrees to massage my ankles and/or back. 3. Name baby. 4. Find baby's father. 5. Kill baby's father."

The list goes up to 316, and when Keller comes to check on him he has the screen back to Hawney's work and is editing it with a sullen look on his face. She walks on eggshells around him, suggests that he have a talk with Sheppard even as she gives him neonatal vitamins and invites him to come back any time with questions or concerns. If Rodney had known that it would take being pregnant to make a doctor sympathetic, he thinks, he would have done it a lot sooner. Theoretically.

***

Jack O'Neill is playing minesweeper in his big, non-alien-infested, totally normal Pentagon office when the phone rings. A call from General Landry isn't exactly unusual, but a phone call from a giggling Landry is. What could make a man like Landry giggle is a frightening thought, even for someone who has seen more frightening things than pretty much anybody else on Earth. "Jack, I don't even know what to do with this one," he says.

"Spit it out," Jack sighs, fiddling with a paperweight. It's got to be something with Atlantis.

"It's...Atlantis."

"Isn't it always." He doubts McKay could've blown up anything larger than a solar system, but it never really pays to doubt McKay on matters like that.

"It's Rodney McKay."

"I'm shocked. No, really."

"He's pregnant." Jack experiences a moment of blinding, paralyzing panic and hangs up. Landry calls him back, still giggling, and swears he isn't kidding. Jack tells himself all the many, many reasons that there's no fucking way.

***

The days pass faster with a prioritized list of necessary tasks. Sam dares his wrath by suggesting he cut back on caffeine while pregnant and he decides that he likes her a lot less than he though he did, back before she meddled in his life. Sheppard visits him five times a day, looking confused and afraid and always on the brink of initiating a conversation. Rodney refuses to make things easier, since he's seventy nine percent certain that Sheppard isn't the father, mostly because of the qualifable evidence that a) sex with Sheppard is a memorable event and b) the baby has neither tried to drive Rodney insane, nor kill itself to save the population of an alien base. Besides, he's still the pregnant one. Everyone should cater to him. If Sheppard wants to make both their lives miserable, he'll start the conversation himself.

Zelenka takes to bringing him portions of porridge every day and Miko has taken up the task of being his personal masseuse, Teyla tries to initiate meditation lessons again, and Ronon offers him a pudding once at dinner. Besides the fact that he can no longer singlehandedly maintain Atlantis -- as he can no longer fit into the appropriate vents and crannies -- Rodney figures this may not actually be the worst thing in his life.

He steals Zelenka's computer one day to search for the most nutritionally-rounded baby formulas -- no way he wants that backed up to him, let them start a rumour that Zelenka has an industrious baby mama hidden in some corner of the base -- when he finds the spreadsheet. It seems, he thinks with a growing irritation, that several people are of the opinion that Zelenka's baby mama is less than well hidden. (7%.) More than that (76%) believe that Sheppard has a vested interest in the well-being of Rodney's fetus. He's also mortified to learn that Sam has several bets in her favour -- and how would that even work? -- and that Ronon also seems a likely candidate to the multi-talented idiots of Atlantis. The last name draws an audible noise of rage from Rodney -- he breaks his mug, knocks over a chair, and bruises his shin before hobbling towards the nearest huddle of terrified scientists. "What do you think you are!" he yells.

Behind him, "Todd -- 12 votes" continues to light up the screen of Zelenka's computer.

***

The "who's-the-daddy" spreadsheet makes its way through the SGC servers about two weeks after Jack forces himself to forget about Landry's news. He's been intentionally ignoring any and all operational memos from Atlantis, but he can't stop his own morbid curiosity, so he clicks through it with something approaching disgust.

Sure, the many votes for Sheppard aren't surprising, nor Zelenka, or even Ronon, given their proximity. The Wraith and the women are a bit out there, but it is Atlantis, and a healthy number of Cheyenne Mountain employees have put their money on Daniel Jackson. Jack finds himself a little indignant at the insinuation, even though Daniel is the man who managed to sire an entire jacuzzi full of baby Goa'uld. He's relatively certain that Daniel's sperm hasn't been in the same zip code with Rodney McKay, powerful as it may be.

He considers the shared document for a long moment, watches another vote get tallied for Zelenka and a second person wager that McKay self-pollinated, and then he figures, what the hell? If he's fucked, he may as well get paid. And he starts a new entry: "General O'Neill."

***

The carnage in the lab is massive. The Marines are called in as another coffee pot goes flying, and Rodney is given the suggestion that he might want to go on light duties for the baby's health. He fumes for three days, pacing on increasingly swollen ankles and cursing everyone who comes near him -- except Teyla, Rodney isn't that brave, even under the influence of near-insanity. Sheppard brings him some things to play with and a cd case with the original Dawn of the Dead, Batman Forever, and the Notebook. They watch all three, and if Rodney's nose becomes congested during the final movie, well, Sheppard's eyes are also a little shiny. They sit side by side, only their elbows touching, and Rodney temporarily wishes Sheppard could be the father. Not that he'd be any good at it, but there are worse people in the world for Rodney to spend twenty years chained to by the bonds of child nightmares and failures of the educational system.

Seventeen movies in, he realizes that Sheppard might not be the only threat to his existence. He has twelve pillows cushioning him and Sheppard has one and the Keira Knightly remake of Pride and Prejudice is sweeping blandly onward in the periphery of his thought. Rodney opens his mouth and says, "You know what would taste really good? Pie. Lemon meringue pie."

Sheppard looks at him and blinks twice, even more bland than the so-called charming Mister Darcy. "Rodney," he offers.

Rodney leaps up, pillows flying and the video player snapping closed. "I knew it!"

"Knew what, Rodney?" as if saying his name repeatedly in that same ridiculous tone is going to pacify him.

"I'm being sabotaged! First -- first the exile from my own lab, and now this! The alien parasite has integrated itself into my subconscious and is trying to stimulate me to poison myself! Call Keller! I need an abortion!"

"I'm pretty sure you've come too far for that?" John offers. "And anyway, it's not like--"

"Not a word from you! You're in cahoots with the saboteur!"

Sheppard chooses that moment to say, "So Todd is the father?" Rodney considers killing him, breaks a lamp, and is sedated, in that order. Surprisingly, Sheppard turns up the next day he's released, holding out Serenity like a promise of universal peace. "Truce?"

Rodney doesn't look kindly at him, but does accept the pack of pudding and ergonomic desk chair that Sheppard tries to placate him with.

***

When McKay hits six months (yes, he made a cryptic note on his desk calendar so he could keep track of the fetus' development), Jack starts making discrete logistical inquiries. Sure, Atlantis is equipped for This Sort Of Thing, but is McKay going to be allowed to stay on the mission with an infant? Should both of them be brought back to Earth? Should Rodney deliver at the SGC? Should the fetus have to stay on Earth even if Rodney returns to his post, because of the danger?

His senior staff shoot edgy looks at one another, but no one seems to know. Jack tells them that they're all idiots, and after this many years of the Stargate program, someone should have foreseen this. He might've yelled.

They agree to have a male pregnancy protocol on his desk by the morning, and he feels better, even if it doesn't change the fact that he's half-responsible for the pregnancy in question.

***

Rodney has a shortcut to the bet table on his PAD, and he checks it periodically. Most of the time, his cursor sits blinking next to O'Neill's name as Rodney fantasizes about scathing add-ons that will let O'Neill know exactly how Rodney feels about the situation. The realization hadn't come to him in a flash. It had been a rational progression -- if there were no alien drugs in his system, it wasn't that, and if there were no strange ceremonies, it wasn't that, and if no one else was pregnant -- not even the women -- well. That left Rodney's one sexual encounter within the viable time frame. With a man he doesn't even really like. Who may share half the genes of the developing organism within Rodney's pseudo-uterine device. Because Rodney is going to be a father.

That doesn't mean he's obsessed with parenthood, because no one actually knows and no one is brave enough to ask -- least of all Sheppard, despite the fact that suddenly he has a flux of movies that Rodney hasn't even dreamed of watching since grad school and an unending supply of food that Rodney desires and then regrets immediately after eating. Contrary to what they must think, he doesn't suddenly find himself submerged in maternal instincts, or gripped by awe the first time the little thing makes a death-grab for his kidney. He has to pee all the time and he's cranky even more often, and he takes to abandoning his extensive vocabularly and saying that everything is "stupid, really stupid," when asked how his life is.

That's not entirely true, because one of the things in his life is the regular checkup with Keller. The team normally shows up, helps sooth his injured pride with a snack and a few poorly timed jokes. Today is a longer session, with Keller tiptoeing around the subject of amniocentesis and Rodney saying, "No! No needles! I'm too old--"

"Rodney, what if your child has defects that we could have detected--"

Rodney thinks, you just want to do a paternity test now, you stupid -- and says, "No. Needle." Ronon shows up to fold his arms intimidatingly and Keller backs off with a sigh and an irritated look, setting up the ultrasound equipment instead.

Teyla says, "Your child's head is perfectly formed, Rodney," to break the awed silence over the watery sound of the fetus's heartbeat. John rests his sweaty palm against Rodney's wrist, against the bed on the far side of Keller, and Ronon grunts his approval.

"Boy," he says. Rodney is pretty sure it's not the stereotypical gratification of masculine gender that makes him feel so good at this moment. Sheppard's thumb is just barely stroking the inside of his wrist.

***

Jack fucks up at seven months and accidentally tells somebody, which he definitely didn't mean to do, especially on the phone, when he should be apologizing for sneaking out of Daniel's apartment before dawn, even though they both know he's not going to. He's actually trying hard to feel bad about sleeping with Daniel again, but pretty much he's failing.

"You're not...feeling weird, are you, Daniel?"

"I am not the father of Rodney McKay's baby," Daniel says loudly.

"Of course not," Jack tells him quickly. "I know that."

"Define weird," Daniel sighs, slightly mollified, and Jack shifts his phone to the other ear.

"...like, morning sickness, or anything?" It takes Daniel about four seconds, and Jack has to pull the phone away from his ear and wince.

"IT'S YOU?!" Jack usually prides himself on keeping Daniel off-balance, but he doesn't like being yelled at. Daniel seems to resign himself to the news quickly. "Of course it's you, and you picked yourself in the pool, didn't you?"

Jack frowns. "...maybe."

A few days later, a second vote clicks over to his name on the spreadsheet. Jack keeps watching, but nobody else takes the bait.

Immediately after, Daniel starts texting Jack twice a day with inane commentary on artifacts that Jack supposes Daniel expects him to remember. Daniel's way of checking on him. It's annoying, but it's also sort of sweet.

At eight months, Jack gives in and starts plotting how to get to Atlantis. Turns out, no one at Cheyenne Mountain had realized a supply run would be necessary to take McKay baby things, which does not actually surprise Jack. He schedules the mission, assigns the crew, and adds himself to the roster.

***

At eight and a half months, Rodney walks into the infirmary to find his team, Sam and Keller gathered around what appears to be a poorly drawn diagram of his body. "Good thing you're not an artist," he sniffs and the majority of the group jump and turn. Ronon stands and offers Rodney a chair, and Rodney thinks that, again, having Ronon as the father wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Better than Jackson. Jackson would try to teach the baby Latin songs about the weather and farm animals.

"We're just discussing the birthing process," Keller offers. John (and when did that happen, Rodney wonders) bumps his knee against Rodney's and shrugs. "I think that a Caesarean would be safest for you and the child, considering that we're uncertain of the extent your physiology is functional in the -- you know."

"Never say that again," Rodney gasps. He imagines that even Teyla seems green at the thought. "Drug me up, get it out, and never ever tell me the details. My decision is final."

"Not going to go au-naturel, Rodney?" John asks, drawling his name out in a particularly annoying way. Rodney takes back every consideration of Sheppard's paternal capabilities, ever. He would probably want to name the child Susan or Henry. Todd would be a more effective father.

"There's also the question of paternity and nationality," Sam offers as if Sheppard had never spoken. Rodney shrugs. "This sets an important precedent."

"What do you want me to say? That I want to be ferried to the QEII and have several people ogle me and my harem of potential alien lovers while I'm prodded at, sliced open like a side of beef, and ultimately handed a cheese-encrusted, wailing infant who has fifty percent of my randomly selected genes?" Rodney didn't even know he was holding that in until it comes out, shrill and fast. "I want it born here," he says. "And I want Keller to do it. And I am a father, seeing as I have the appropriate male chromosones, so that matter is moot."

"But I want to know who the father is," Ronon says. He folds his arms and calmly adds, "I did bet on self-pollination, so it's okay if you want to keep it a secret."

"I do not believe you are supposed to expose the nature of your bets," Teyla offers serenely. "Although I admit, in the privacy of this room, that I did consider directing my interests in John's camp. I then concluded that it would be immoral to compromise my relationship with both of you by being involved in the process." She gives Ronon a look that's almost disdainful and lifts her chin.

"I'm going to use my winnings to get more chocolate," Ronon counters solemnly. "Chocolate and teal silk, for the baby blanket." Rodney had hoped he forgot about that, and the sudden image of living with Ronon in a house full of doilies is enough to make him cross that name off his list of ideal parental candidates as well.

"We can do a DNA test to conclude paternity after the baby is born," Keller offers as though she's decided to omit Rodney's outburst-- she probably has, he thinks sullenly. It's clear why she's not an option in the pool, she has no respect for his emotional needs and physical limitations. "Since Rodney has declined to know previously -- I think it'll be important, for the birth certificate."

"It's really not necessary," Rodney adds, feeling his cheeks begin to warm. He doesn't want to say, actually I don't want you to know. The only thing worse than spontaneous male pregnancy is feeling like a small town girl after prom. He doesn't even really like the guy. He has no patience, and he's funny looking, and in hindsight the sex was -- but Rodney isn't sure he even wants a father, period, and no matter his strengths or weaknesses, not if that'll jeopardize the dangerous balance of power that he and John have had since that first awkward pair of booties. Maybe this is good for him. "I don't want it."

"I'm going to have to make it mandatory," Sam says. Rodney glares with all his might.

"I'm feeling faint," he says and Keller still rushes to his side. Women are so much more helpful when babies are involved. "I should lay down."

Jack flies to Colorado the morning Daedalus is scheduled to leave. No one but Daniel seems to find it odd that he's on the roster and not, oh, doing his job at the Pentagon. Jack supposes he should be more worried about the organization's lackadaisical attitude in regards to his idiosyncrasies, and vows to send a memo as soon as he gets back. Daniel takes him aside as the crew is gathering to beam up and asks if he's ok, and what they're going to do, and if he can help. Jack doesn't answer, but they do have sex, which Jack thinks is very helpful.

The trip is boring, and Jack steadfastly refuses to be nervous about things. He doesn't visit any websites involving babies, but he does send Daniel emails daily about morning sickness, until Daniel sends back a virus that threatens the entire ship's computer system, and gives all the geeks something to do for a couple hours. Jack quits asking, for the moment.

Twelve hours before they're scheduled to hit orbit, he realizes that he hopes it's a boy. Three hours after that, he decides a girl would be ok, too. Another hour, and he wonders if McKay will let the kid have his name, then figures there's no way. And forty-five minutes from contact, he sends Daniel a blank email, and gets back, twenty seconds later, a set of instructions for what to do when you're hyperventilating. They're very helpful, though all in all, Jack would rather have sex.

***

It's possible that he should have known that the Daedalus was coming, that they were bringing things and that it'd be a whole new crop of people to prod at him and ask him awed questions like, "How does it feel?" (Rodney usually answers, "like an idiot is poking my stomach,") He's resigned to the banter, even shuts down the spreadsheet so he can receive them with the grace of his full attention. He isn't expecting O'Neill to come all this way without an emailed greeting or even an -- e-card. It's not like it's their problem.

Unlike Stargate Command, which seemed to have little to no interest in his presence onboard the Daedalus, Jack's beaming down seems to have an immediate effect on the gossip in Atlantis. He acts casual, of course, asks inane questions and wanders around looking harmless, sends Daniel pictures of Ancient stuff to make him jealous, and you haven't vomited, right?, but he can only put off visiting the infirmary for so long.

Keller's eyes widen when he strolls in, wearing a carefully cultivated look like he just happened upon this section of the city, but she's practically shell-shocked as she points out Rodney's room. He can't be sure if she's just nervous about all his General-ness, or if she guesses the reason for his visit, though.

It's ridiculous, he thinks, that this is happening. Not even that McKay is pregnant, which on the SGC weirdness scale barely registers as a shrug, but that out of all the people he's slept with, this is the one, this ill-advised, mostly-drunken (ok, not the next morning, but at least the first time), relatively high-quality encounter has resulted in...well, a fetus. He stares for a moment, then his phone beeps, a message relay from the ship, and in response to his latest inquiry, Daniel has sent a picture of himself peeing on a pregnancy test. Jack puts aside time later to be properly grossed out; as it is, he awaits the second picture of a negative result.

Rodney thinks that this time, he might actually be either dreaming or hallucinating. O'Neill has no place here, not unless he's finally decided to propose some incestuous thing to Sam and take her away (and after her frequent abuse of Rodney, he might not even regret that!) or has finally decided to check out the labours of Daniel's love. Rodney still feels the insane urge to fix his hair or something, not have his feet propped up on a mound of pillows and the sound of his own voice playing low against his stomach to educate the kid. He has the absurd fear that O'Neill is going to laugh himself hoarse, and Rodney wonders if it's tasteless to say, "I don't need you" before even confirming to anyone that the child does have two daddies. Sort of. "What are you doing here?" he asks instead, once he's listened closely for a nurse to confirm O'Neill's name.

Picture two arrives; properly negative. Daniel has added a tag indicating how much he hates Jack. you should stop having sex with me, then, Jack replies, and clears his throat. It's a decent question, really, and yes, it has crossed his mind that the right thing to do would have been to ignore this entire affair until it was specifically brought to his attention. There's no guarantee he's the father, it's just the timing that makes him think so, and it's not like McKay asked to see him, or even asked him to have anything to do with the dubious offspring, so he just needs to come up with something dismissive and pithy to say, and, "My son died," is what comes out, which is none of those things.

"Recently?" Rodney asks, unable to inject any sympathy into his tone. "My ankles are swollen," he adds. "And I have heartburn."

"No," Jack replies, relieved, and refuses to go into any more detail. "I'm not going to propose," he adds back, "and I won the pool."

"I'm pretty sure I deserve half of that money," Rodney says pointedly. "I couldn't bet myself. Too high a risk of it being traced back to me." He pauses, rubs a hand idly over his stomach and then hopes that O'Neill didn't see. "Besides, everyone thinks it's Sheppard."

"Sorry, I already have to split it with Daniel," Jack replies, but adds magnanimously, "but I can probably manage some child support." He checks his phone discretely. Daniel has replied a succinct No. Jack assumes that's an answer to the sex suggestion, which satisfies him. "You and Sheppard..." he makes a vague, crude hand gesture.

"None of your business," Rodney says, and adds, "not really. Why'd you come?"

He'd missed Charlie's birth, being deployed. Jack shrugs. "Had some vacation time. Nice city."

Rodney looks mortified. "This is a scientific expedition, not a pleasure cruise!" He props himself up on his elbows, grimacing with the effort. "You came about this, didn't you!" he crows, feels a laugh starting for the first time since bedrest started.

Jack gives Rodney an annoyed look, crossing his arms over his chest and refusing to sit. "No," he growls.

"If it makes you feel better, I didn't even consider you as a father for months," Rodney adds, looking pointedly between O'Neill and the chair.

"Oh," Jack says, staring at the chair, and finally giving in. "I considered you the mother the whole time."

"I don't even like you," Rodney adds, but is willing to admit, thanks to the near high of the drugs he mooched out of Keller for his sore back, "but the sex was alright. I guess I need to keep him here. I don't trust public schools."

Jack swallows a few times, replays the conversation in his head, and finally manages, "...him?"

"Oh, I guess you didn't know," Rodney says, slumps himself back down flat against the bed. "But he's going to be a scientist. Not a grunt."

Jack doesn't even bother arguing. The kid's, like, negative a week old, Jack isn't going to pick out a career yet. He does, however, look pointedly down at his insignia. Grunt indeed. "Washington's safer," he says, finally.

"I don't want my child growing up in that-- capitalist gun-hungry den of sin," Rodney retorts, trying to get himself upright again. He's terrible with bed rest, probably, it's lucky Keller can't see his attempts. "Ronon's in Atlantis."

Jack reaches over, pokes at Rodney's shoulder to get him to lie back. He can't bring himself to get too worked up, but he's finding he wants to see the kid. Know him. "Man-eating vampires," he points out.

"Technically, they don't eat--" Rodney hesitates, folds his arms. "I can't even figure out why I'm arguing to keep him here. He'll-- cramp my style." He hesitates, lets the silence stretch by trying to look like he's just about to speak every second. "I guess you can have him."

Jack thinks about that, about getting up at his age with a crying infant, about changing diapers, about telling the Pentagon he needs paternity leave, about the way Daniel would poke at the baby, and talk to it in other languages. "I guess you can name him," he counters. He knows McKay realizes that it won't be forever; he wouldn't just keep him, and he knows a little science.

"I already picked the name," Rodney says calmly. "But we can use your last name as a middle name, if you'd like." He feels the kid kick, considers offering to let O'Neill feel it. "And private school."

"You can choose the school," Jack offers, wondering why he doesn't feel the need to fight over any of this. He looks between McKay's belly and his face. "What'd you pick?"

"Carson," Rodney says calmly with a glare that dares O'Neill to argue. "Teyla says it's a good gesture."

Carson O'Neill McKay, Jack thinks to himself, and likes it. "Very Anglican," is all he says. His gaze strays to Rodney's belly again, and he ventures, "...how do they know when it's...time?"

"Keller is monitoring it obsessively. It's not exactly like a few hours early or late will make a difference." Rodney clears his throat. "Uh, you can feel if you want. But open palmed only. C-section."

"Don't suppose Keller knows how the hell it happened in the first place," he murmurs, tentative hand stretching out, looking startled as he feels the movements.

"I'm never having sex with you again," Rodney replies. "I've decided to leave a lot of questions unanswered, anyway, it's good to preserve a sense of mystery in the world." He almost keeps the sarcasm out of his voice, too.

Jack snorts. Sense of mystery, indeed. Rich, coming from someone who blew up an entire solar system. "I'm never having sex with you again, either," he retorts, reluctantly taking his hand back, and adds, just so McKay doesn't think this is all Jack's fault, "Daniel's not pregnant."

"What a relief," he snaps. "And what are you, some kind of loose woman? How many people do you contact regarding male pregnancy in a given week?"

"Only the ones I've had sex with," Jack says defensively, and immediately regrets it. Like McKay needs to know he and Daniel are on-again. Sort of. Maybe.

"That's disgusting," he says flatly. "And a definite evasion."

Jack briefly considers defending Daniel's honor, but decides not to bother. "I'm not evading anything," he says instead, which is totally true because he came to fucking Atlantis, didn't he?

"The baby should have a west facing bedroom," he adds thoughtfully. There's a grumble low in his stomach and he scowls, mutters to himself about the pain in the small of his back. "So that its sleep cycle isn't disturbed by direct morning sunlight. I always found natural behavior cycles to be unsuitable when I was a child." He pauses. "I am surprised to see you, though. I didn't take you for the territorial type."

Jack thinks about his townhouse and frowns, because he knows exactly how he'll remodel, and it's disturbing that it's such an easy thought. "I'm not territorial," he mutters.

"You travelled across galaxies to tell me you won a paternity bet and touch my stomach."

Jack figures the tidbit about Charlie was plenty of information, and he scowls. "I did not. I didn't think you'd bother to tell me otherwise."

"I had decided it was a non-issue. I was going to place the baby up for bid on Atlantis."

Jack scowls further, starts to protest, but finally just asks, "...who do you think would've bought him?"

"Probably Teyla and Ronon," he says calmly. "Ronon apparently likes babies. I would have given them a discount."

"Very thoughtful of you." Jack's hands rest awkwardly on his knees as he examines Rodney. "...do you...want to get some rest, or something?"

Rodney shrugs, not feeling overly tired but closing his eyes in preparation. "You can come visit once he's born. It probably won't be long now, I'm tired of waiting."

Jack figures that's not really how it works, but if anyone can rush a C-section out of boredom, it's McKay. "Ok, then." He pats Rodney's leg awkwardly as he rises, and wonders if Daniel's checking his email. He wants to know if men really would have positive pregnancy tests, even if they were pregnant.

Rodney clears his throat, nods. "So-- see you in a few days. Enjoy the ocean views and-- stuff. Whatever tourists do," putting a spiteful edge on the word.

Jack considers that it's about time for Atlantis to have a real command visit, and the thought of making John Sheppard squirm over the next few days lightens his mood. "If you need anything..." he offers from the door, like McKay doesn't have a dozen people or more he'd call first.

Coughing uncomfortably, Rodney waves a hand in his direction. "Yes, yes. Thank you."

Jack's pretty sure, as he makes his way back toward the command center, that it was the strangest conversation he's ever had, or at least up in the ranks of them. Sell the baby to the highest bidder? A west-facing bedroom? Whatever, he figures, McKay's letting him take the kid home, and that's good enough.

Two days later, two agonizingly long days where Rodney considers breathing to be a chore and impinges endlessly on his team for stories to keep him from flinging himself off the bed, headfirst, concussing himself and destroying his career and possibly life, it's time. Healthy curiosity had led him to read about the birthing process, but all he feels is the shift in the baby as it moves lower, tiny limbs prodding at the inside of his abdomen.

"It's a closed circuit, buddy, wait this one out," he says with his arm stretched palm up over the side of his bed. Keller eases the needle into the crook of his arm and he feels everything grow dim around the edges. "Wish me luck," he slurs to John at his other side, and then his vision blacks out.

Jack's hovering, of course, meeting Sheppard's cool gaze over Rodney's bed and pretending he can't see the challenge there, like he cares to compete with John for Rodney. He doesn't even like Rodney, and the fact that he's got a stake in this is an accident of nature (or something), that's all. Also, he figures if John hasn't even managed to tell Rodney himself that they're dating, he doesn't have anything to challenge over.

"I'm just here for the kid," Jack points out, as Keller clears her throat at both of them.

"I know," Sheppard drawls, and adds as a deliberate afterthought, "sir."

"Good," Jack replies, and gives Sheppard's decidedly non-regulation hair and t-shirt and wristband and general gayness a thorough look. He wonders if Sheppard read the memo where Jack suspended Don't Ask, Don't Tell for everyone assigned to Homeworld Security. "Colonel."

Keller tells them to do their alpha-male dance somewhere else. She's a lot scarier when she has a patient.

***

The first time he wakes, he hears nothing but his own heartbeat. "Oh no," he croaks, "I've been transported to a universe where no one is waiting to give me a drink of water after my agonizing experience."

He hears a sigh from the left but can't force the energy to turn his head, and then Keller is leaning over him, features still blurred together by the after effects of her drug cocktail. "Do you want to see your son?" she asks.

"Water first," and he awkwardly sips at the straw, feeling water dribble down his chin, and then waves his hands just above his stomach. "Now hand him over."

Carson scowls up at him, tiny fists clenched and tiny eybrows furrowed. He makes Rodney feel like adjectives are insufficient. "Carson there is perfectly healthy," Keller offers.

"Yes, yes, I know," because it's painfully obvious that any child of his will be okay. Carson waves a fist and howls. "Hello," Rodney says dumbly, and then hands the baby back and passes out again.

The second time, he sees Jack clearly. Again, he hopes it's an illusion-- not really who he wanted, but Jack is near the basinet and Rodney figures, well, he does have a part in this. "Hey," he says, clears his throat. "Hydrate me."

"I think you have an IV for that," Jack points out, but Carson fits easily in the crook of one arm, so he wanders over and picks up the water glass next to the bed. The baby's asleep, but Jack still can't bring himself to put him down. He's sent about two dozen pictures to Daniel by now, who's been replying with pictures of artifacts from SG-1's latest expedition. Jack figures that means he wants more pictures of Carson.

"My mouth is dry," Rodney retorts, takes a long drink. "He has my looks," he adds smugly.

Jack doesn't think so, but Carson's still a little squishy, so it's hard to tell. He does look like Charlie, though, Jack's pretty sure of that. "That probably just means he's got my brains," Jack points out, and delights in Rodney's eyes widening in horror.

"You-- it--" he sputters, waves his hands wildly. "Stop that. Don't even say that, you'll stunt his development by sheer implication!"

Jack rolls his eyes, saying sedately, "Shh. You'll wake him."

"And would that be the worst thing in the world? He'll sleep again." Rodney has dropped the volume and pitch of his voice, though, settles his hands uncomfortably at his sides. "You really like kids, huh."

Jack shrugs. He never really thought about it. He didn't have much contact with them before his own, and then, well, obviously. Since SG-1...Daniel always thought it was because he was so juvenile himself. "They like me," he says instead.

"Good. I'm horrible with most children," Rodney says briskly. "Particularly when they talk back. You can have him for that. I'll reintegrate myself more successfully when he can hold a crayon, and then bond with him when his teenage petulence is done. Although my niece is capable of speech and semi-independent thought and still thinks I'm alright, I guess that has to be a vote in my favour. Even if her father is a hippie."

Jack waves a vague hand. "You'll be...integrated. What, do you think he's not gonna know who you are?" Jack may be a lot of things, but he's not that sort of guy.

"I did record several videos for him to watch," Rodney muses. "Highly confidential stuff, but that's what having flesh and blood is for. I'm sure he'll recognize my name from my publications, I just can't imagine that I'll get away much." He looks down at Carson, frowns crookedly. "I'll try."

"Figure out how to make a ZPM and you can come visit whenever you want," Jack points out. That's why he's a General, it's all that forward-thinking leadership ability.

"As if it's that easy!" Rodney retorts, but silently reassigns the priority of the project. "I'll have you know--"

"I don't want to know," Jack says quickly. He knows from long geek-experience that you have to cut them off early or you practically have to be sucking their cock before they shut the hell up. Inappropriately, that makes him think of Daniel, and he sort of wishes he'd invited Daniel along on this trip. He frowns, cutting those thoughts off as quickly as they'd begun.

"I should go to sleep again," Rodney says, looking wildly insulted.

Jack ignores the look and wanders back to the other side of the room. "Feel free," he says, not bothering to do anything like leave. Rodney shuts his eyes and resolutely falls asleep.

The third and fourth times, there's the reassuring low tones of medical life in the background. Rodney sits up slowly, hand pressed against his stomach to hold all his valuable parts in place. Carson stares at him, which is seven steps up from glaring but doesn't ignite the passion Rodney had been told to expect with children. "I did that," he says to himself, but adds, "Although it's not as good as my work on the ZPMs."

Carson's face twists into a frown. Rodney tugs the basinet over and touches his little face, rests a thumb against his chest to feel him suck in breath as his heart beats steadily. "Huh," with a flood of pride. "Not bad at all, huh?" Carson makes a noise that isn't desperate or angry or hungry. Rodney holds him until his entire body feels like it's trembling lowly, breathing in time.

Keller tells him they're still monitoring Carson, checking him out, so he has to stay in the infirmary for a couple more days. Jack spends his nights alone in guest quarters, not sleeping, just thinking. Of what he's going to do with a baby, of whether or not Daniel will go along with it, of how he could possibly be allowed to have another child after what happened to the first, what he let happen. He doesn't tell anybody that part, and partially, he's glad Daniel's not around to ask. Partially, he wishes he were. To compensate, he just sends e-mails.

sheppard is a terrible commanding officer, he starts with, because he can't picture Sheppard helping raise anything, much less an infant.

You just don't like him because his 'command' style is too close to yours.

Maybe. But his hair is stupid too, Jack thinks, and replies, you're allergic to dogs, aren't you?

I'm allergic to everything, is the prompt response, but that's what medication's for.

Jack turns off his computer, and when he closes his eyes this time, he feels an odd, disjointed sort of happiness, and he sleeps.

When Rodney wakes up for the fifth time, Sheppard is there next to the basinet. The baby is staring up at him, wide eyed and mouth opened and Rodney kind of thinks, yeah, I get that. John is smiling and his pinky finger is gripped in Carson's fist. When Rodney clears his throat, John goes to lurch away and finds himself stuck by the solid grip. The baby begins to drool agressively.

"Hey," Rodney offers, voice cracking. John shifts his posture into the customary slouch.

"I brought a portable dvd player," he says. "And Snakes on a Plane."

"I heard it's awful," Rodney grunts, tries to shift without dislodging his IV. Sheppard hesitates and then disentangles himself from Carson and sits on the side of the bed, swings his leg up and leaves bootprints on the sheets. Rodney kind of leans into his side to make sure he stays in place and John settles an arm over Rodney to keep the screen in place between them. Rodney leans back and surprises himself by keeping silent throughout the first five minutes of the movie.

Jack wanders by to peek in the window several times, but Sheppard's usually there, if not the whole team, and he doesn't disturb them. He's mildly nervous that Rodney will change his mind, try to keep Carson here, and Jack's pretty sure he would if it were him. But he doesn't want to be pushy, and as long as their arrangement stands, he has no problem with giving McKay these days with the kid, until he's healthy enough to go back to work. Then, Jack figures, they can go home.

why do people go so crazy over babies? He sends to Daniel later that night, chafing over their cozy little Atlantis family.

You've sent me 34 pictures of the baby.

it's my baby. i mean other people.

Daniel knows what he means, of course. He always does. I'm pretty sure Teal'c is planning a baby shower. Mollified, Jack closes his e-mail and goes to pester Carter. His family's just not in this galaxy.

Teyla and Ronon probably bond with baby Carson more than he does, Rodney thinks without regret. Teyla handles him with the grace she brings to everything, cooing softly and stroking the ridiculous tufts of hair into a semblance of neatness. Ronon surprises everyone with a sleeper, a pair of mittens, a hat with a tassel, and a blanket with the Team knitted into it in yellow. Rodney can tell which one is himself, because his representation has a tiny frowning face. He tears up and calls it allergies, and then says 'Carson is going to vomit all over it," and means, this is kind of amazing.

Ronon says, "It's washable. Want to go for a run later?" and claps a hand down on Rodney's shoulder. He doesn't wait for an answer, which means that Rodney doesn't have a choice in the matter. He misses having the child inside him for a second, for entirely selfish reasons. With the next breath, he's relieved that -- and not that this ever would need to be said, he reassures himself, but relieved that Carson is going to have a good home, instead.

Carter comes by while he's packing up, leaning against the wall next to the door and watching him fold shirts. "You ok?" she asks finally, and Jack's just glad she dropped the 'sir'.

"I impregnated Rodney McKay," he points out, which means yes.

"Better him than me," Sam chirps brightly, and Jack's automatic smile falters. Carter takes a quick breath and asks, "How's Daniel?"

"Fine," Jack says, automatically. "He's..."

"Daniel," Sam finishes with him, and they both smile. "He's going to be good for you," she adds, and Jack isn't sure if she means Daniel or Carson. Maybe both. He nods, zips his bag. "Take care, sir," Carter finishes softly, and their hug isn't even all that awkward.

Carson howls when everything is wrapped up and Jack has picked up his carrier. Rodney leans over him and says, "Hey, hey, don't worry. I'll like you when you stop looking like a beach ball and form coherent thoughts." He rests his fingers against the delicate curve of Carson's ear and smiles awkwardly. "Don't let him read Archie Comics, O'Neill," he adds through the sudden thickness in his throat.

Teyla rests her forehead gently against Carson's and smiles at O'Neill. "We hope to visit you when Carson is settled in his new home," she murmurs, smiles down at Carson again. "He will prosper under your care, Jack O'Neill."

Ronon solemnly takes Carson's hands in his own and says, "Be good, kid," like Carson is large enough or developed enough to do anything other than produce waste. Rodney chooses not to sully the moment by commenting on the emotion in Ronon's voice. He figures he should say some last words, finds his mouth inexplicably dry again. A weight settles over his shoulders, and he turns his head to see a blunt fingered hand attached to a ridiculous black wristband, attached inevitably to Sheppard's whole body.

"See you around, O'Neill," Sheppard drawls, hip against Rodney's.

Rodney says, "Well," and takes a half step forward, not enough to lose Sheppard's touch but extending his hand to O'Neill.

***

The first night he spends alone with Carson is on the Daedalus. It's surreal, loading him up, supplied with some sort of super-formula that Zelenka has concocted, all kinds of handmade garments from Ronon and Teyla's people that somehow make Jack feel awkward, because that's for Rodney, not him. He didn't really know what to say to McKay before they beamed up, so he settled on, "I'll take good care of him," which is true, and Rodney shakes his hand, which Jack is relieved about. A hug would be weird.

The days pass quickly on Daedalus between feedings and diaper changes and Jack avoids the crew and sleeps when the kid does, and it works. But returning to Cheyenne Mountain brings a flurry of activity, lots of cooing over Carson that Jack's entirely unprepared to deal with, and more checkups and tests that have him growling at Lam's vampiric tendencies and stroking Carson's hair gently while he hiccups out high-pitched cries of indignancy. Jack takes a picture and sends it to McKay -- you're right, he does look like you.

Eat paste, Rodney writes back. Don't let Daniel near him, I want him to speak English, even if that one's not likely to be heeded. Jack smirks, forwards the e-mail to Daniel, and doesn't reply.

Daniel mostly looks wary around Carson, afraid to touch him, giving Jack space and staying on the periphery of the activity surrounding the infant. Jack doesn't really mind, Daniel's around, and he's no good with kids anyway, but Jack does catch him one night, hand in the crib, talking to Carson low, in a language Jack doesn't recognize. The words are lyrical, but not musical, and Jack thinks it must be poetry of some sort. The next morning he writes to McKay, Good news, Daniel's teaching him Greek.

Rodney tries to whine to his staff about the abuse of his requests, but can't argue that multilingual children have an advantage in the educational system so he only replies with >:(, send me pictures of the beach ball

Jack sends him pictures of Teal'c's beach ball, and waits four whole hours to pass along legitimate photos of Carson. The baby's growing like a weed, practically doubling every couple days, starting to get curious, to grab for things, eyes following every move Jack makes. But he's quiet, doesn't cry like Charlie, and so Jack captions his picture series, you sure this one's yours? it doesn't whine. Still, there's McKay in his eyes, Jack can see that, and it's late one night, accompanied by a snapshot of Carson curled up with a stuffed puppy (Jack's waiting until DC to get him a real one), that he admits to Rodney, i don't want him to be a soldier.

That's what I said from the beginning! Rodney fires back immediately, pauses before adding, Good. He's going to be a scientist. He's already smarter than most children.

he still tries to eat his toes, don't give him too much credit, Jack responds the next morning, a little self-conscious over his admission, his fear. It's strange to be telling these things to McKay of all people, but it's easier than telling Daniel, and Daniel already knows anyway, Daniel knows everything. Now and again, Jack wonders if Rodney knows how Charlie died, if it gives him pause, to have Carson in Jack's care. But he isn't going to ask. Rodney can hack whatever he wants, if he wants to know, he will.

***

Jack's personal leave is up right after Carson turns three months old. He takes well to the move back to Washington, just gets a little clingier, fingers latched in Jack's shirt as blue eyes take in his new surroundings. Jack sends Rodney an array of pictures of Carson in his new room, slobbering on his new puppy's ear, slobbering on Daniel. daniel refused to be a stay-at-home mom, Jack writes, so i hired a nanny. she's polish, you'll like her. She's competent, no-nonsense, and talks constantly to Carson in a heavy accent, asking questions, describing the world around them. Jack figures that can't be bad for the baby's development. daniel wouldn't let me circumcise him, sorry. he likes the puppy. He tries to think of any other tidbits of information, but Carson's pretty boring most of the time, gurgling, playing, eating, pooping, not much else. come visit, he adds, and sends the e-mail.

Rodney takes four days to respond to it, an almost unheard-of lapse. He spends the time frantically fixing things that don't require any computers, and then finds himself beginning performance evaluations for the pleasure of interviewing someone in person, glaring down at them.

John says, "Rodney, you're being ridiculous," and Rodney pushes him out in favour of Zelenka. He's interviewed Zelenka four times in two days, because every time he asks, "How would you rate your dedication to team projects?" Zelenka rolls his eyes and ignores him, letting the interview lapse into the silence that Rodney is trying so hard to avoid. The offer he's trying to avoid.

Teyla decides for him, over breakfast, when she announces, "I have taken the liberty of scheduling our shore leave for next week."

Several dozen protests emerge immediately, but the only one Rodney manages to voice is, "But what if they're busy?" Teyla shoots him a look, supremely powerful in the lack of derision.

"Rodney, I am certain that Jack O'Neill will make himself available for this experience. I may also be correct in the assumption that he has already offered such a visit to you." Zelenka is a loudmouth idiot, he thinks, but doesn't have time to adjust his ratings because everyone is looking at him.

"We will join you," Teyla adds. "I believe it will be a good experience for us to escape daily business here and reunite with your child."

"Yeah, we're all in this, McKay," Sheppard says. Rodney feels relieved that he was spared the first name, avoids packing until the night before they leave and then frantically shoves everything he could possibly need into a duffle bag as the clock blinks minutes in glaring red from his desk. He packs the clock too.

The problem is that Rodney isn't sure if he can make himself available, not without having an aneurysm from the inexplicable nerves, but Ronon steers him through the gate with a vicegrip on his shoulder and somehow, the awkward barely spoken communication between O'Neill and himself results in a careful transfer of his bags to Ronon's arm and Carson into the newly vacated space at the crook of his elbow. "Huh, hello," he offers and smiles up at O'Neill. "So about this nanny."

"She's fine," Jack says with an eyeroll. "Cars likes her." McKay opens his mouth again, but Jack quickly inserts, "Plane to catch!" and postpones the conversation.

The Air Force flies them back to Washington, and Jack dozes at the front while Carson makes the rounds among the Atlantis natives and Teal'c, who hasn't seen the baby since the move to DC. Daniel sits with him, freshly back from a mission, wired on caffeine and pretending he's not exhausted. Jack wonders how long he can keep up his commute, trying to be in DC and on SG-1 at the same time. Jack also wonders which one he'll pick, when he has to. He can't decide which he'd prefer, but tries to make himself stop worrying about it. He closes his eyes and slides his hand over Daniel's. It helps.

The trip goes by too fast, but also cements Rodney's confidence in his long distance parenting skills. Carson doesn't wail whenever Rodney picks him up, listens intently to his lectures on power consumption and the threats of division-of-labour and waves his tiny fist in a motion that, John remarks, is a lot like Rodney's emphatic arm wave. John holds the baby only when they're both lying down, balancing him with the same ease he brings to everything (whether or not he feels it) and hypnotizing Carson into dozes with his recital of sports facts. He buys Carson a baby-sized sports jersey. Rodney buys him a rubber telescope, possibly intended for an animal. Carson gnaws at the base arhythmically and shares it with the dog, so Rodney figures that a sports success metaphor encapsulates his prowess at present buying: Hole in one. Hit it out of the park. Touchdown.

He tells John this as a sign that he's trying to appreciate his life. John says, "That's really great," without looking away from Carson. Somewhere in the trip, half of Rodney's dirty shirts get packed into John's bag, and three of John's guns ("three," Rodney says, "Really?") go into Rodney's.

Carson cries when the trip is over, small arms flailing as Rodney kisses his forehead awkwardly and edges away, promising to send video mail. Jack can't comfort him, but eventually he just wears himself out. Daniel goes the next morning, and Jack's only half-awake in the pre-dawn dark when they kiss. He fucks Daniel slowly, face buried in the crook of his neck, and wonders how to ask him to stay.

Carson wakes when the alarm system beeps, signaling Daniel's exit, and he whines, then whimpers, then wails. "I know how you feel, little guy," Jack murmurs, and makes himself get up.

The pace of Rodney's life on the trip doesn't seem to slow once they return to Atlantis. He has a folder on his desktop, nestled between shortcuts to primary systems and complex equations, entitled "personal keep out zelenka," tracks every record of O'Neill and Carson, and makes a picture of Carson gnawing at the arm of a teddy bear his screensaver. He saves the universe frequently and makes time to send video messages to Carson detailing his successes. His family sized, newly-claimed room is gradually rearranged with Johnny Cash between his diplomas on the wall and an awkward team shot taken by an enterprising photographer at one of the many Washington memorials given a place of honor above his desk. They're all there, all eating (even Teyla, although she manages to make even scarfing cotton candy look graceful), and for some reason, Carson is balanced between Jackson, who's trying to dab at his hands with a cloth, and John, who has both arms around Carson's middle like he's trying to pull him back from an accident rather than cradle a child. Rodney looks at the picture every time he goes out, and then again before bed each night.

John calls it a family photo, and is only partially kidding.

Carson is set to turn one on June 17. Rodney books his vacation nine months in advance, three weeks (although the length of time away from Atlantis makes him feel a little sick, he wants to take Carson to see Jeannie and possibly to Disneyland) in June. Defensively, he adds, "It's not like I don't have several years of time off saved up, thank you very much."

No one is arguing, technically. "We will be fine without you, Rodney," Zelenka offers. Rodney has his bags packed a month in advance, and two days before he's busy pouring over a map of Disneyland, trying to figure out the best way to go on the Star Wars ride at dusk without missing the magical fantasy land parade. His comm clicks to life.

"No, no, no, no, no," Rodney says, feels a pang that it sounds like Carson's last recording. But-- it's a spike in the energy recording around MX-968, a planet they'd previously visited with no abnormalities to speak of. It is dangerously distant from the hub of Atlantis-friendly planets. "I have one day," he says. "And then it can wait."

MX-968 doesn't wait, just imprisons them and leaves them in an eerie, dense silence. Rodney is certain that there's an abundance of pollen in the air, spends his time hacking miserably into a fistful of kleenex and trying to jury-rig the sheets from the bed into a pully system. When Sheppard's watch bleeps twice, interrupting what is almost a brilliant idea, Rodney snaps, "Great, now we're stuck here forever."

John silences the alarm. "Twenty-one-twelve," he offers. "Happy birthday, Carson."

And Rodney hadn't exactly forgotten, because that would make him something close to the worst parent in the entire galaxy, but at the same time he definitely had. There's the comfort of knowing that Carson probably doesn't entirely understand what's happened, and that O'Neill and Jackson probably know exactly what command knows. When Sergeant Dreger comes barging in, guns blazing to save the day and earn herself a place in Sheppard's military-soft-core-porn group, he doesn't even look up.

Technically, it's because his blood sugar had crashed that he spent the remainder of the week (even when his health returned, because Keller "didn't like how he looked," what kind of medical evaluation was that?) in the sickbay. He gets a message from O'Neill that's just a picture of Carson on the Dumbo ride, throws a fit, and buries himself in his work for three weeks.

"Would you ever forget your kid's birthday?" he asks Reider over their joint rewiring effort.

"Nope," Reider says. Rodney transfers him to data entry and sends seven large, harmless Ancient toys from a conveniently located nursery on the next Daedalus trip. He reschedules for January, even though the cold will be miserable and John will probably whine. It isn't the same.

***

Carson is fifteen months old, walking steadily, speaking in full sentences, throwing tantrums that always remind Jack of McKay, and being generally demanding every minute of every day when Jack decides he needs to meet with Landry and the department heads. It's coming up on budget meetings, and he likes to make everyone justify their spending to him before he has to go do it in committee.

The fact that Daniel's been off-world for nearly three weeks, and that his and Carson's trip will coincide with SG-1's return is entirely by accident.

There's a problem, of course, and the team is a couple days late, so Jack holds his meetings, drags them out, hangs around and makes the 'Gate teams nervous, annoys Landry, starts to teach Carson to swim, but finally SG-1 has cleared up their cultural misunderstanding and is on the way home.

Jack takes Carson down to Daniel's office to wait out debriefings and medical checkups, amusing him with monster stories, stifling laughter as the boy acts out all the gruesome deaths by writhing on the floor. Jack's pretty sure he should be worried about the kid's love of all things gory, but Rodney isn't, so he doesn't let it bother him. Daniel comes in during a particularly dramatic act, letting his bag slip to the floor and tossing his hat on top of it, and Jack is pretty sure he's not misreading the fond expression on Daniel's face.

Carson notices when he's done not-breathing, and he bounces to his feet, squealing, "Dan-i-yel!" and runs into Daniel's legs.

"Oof," Daniel says eloquently, ruffling Carson's hair and raising his eyebrows as Jack rises and wanders over, sliding his arms over Daniel's shoulders and kissing him with the kid still sandwiched between them.

He doesn't say anything, no welcome home, not how he much missed Daniel, but he doesn't really have to. Neither of them notice Carson squirming away, and when Jack laces his fingers into Daniel's hair and closes his eyes, he misses the toddler wobbling into the hallway.

Daniel's tugging Jack closer, kissing him with purpose, and it's only because they have to actually breathe that he breaks away and realizes. "Shit, Cars," he mutters, moving to check the other side of Daniel's desk, and then the hallway.

He's there, of course, and Jack breathes out a sigh of relief and starts to collect the boy, scold him for wandering off, but the instant he registers what Carson's doing, he can't do anything but freeze. It's just a pile of equipment dumped outside a lab door, and it's just a zat, shiny and alluring to a toddler, but Jack can't see that. All he can see is Charlie's lifeless body, all he can hear is that echoing gunshot

Daniel spares Jack a worried glance, but he doesn't pause to check on him, just scoops up Carson and gently extracts the weapon from his small hand. "Not a toy, buddy," he admonishes, and Carson forgets the gun in favor of tickling. "Jack--" Daniel starts, shifting the child to his hip, but O'Neill doesn't seem to hear him. He just whirls, and while his pace isn't all that fast, he's fleeing nonetheless.

"Daddy?" Carson asks doubtfully, and Daniel presses an absent kiss to his head.

"He's just feeling sick. It's ok," Daniel adds, though he suspects it isn't. Still, he forces a smile for the boy and bounces him. "Want to go to see Teal'c?"

Daniel finds Jack in the SG-1 locker room some time later, having settled Carson with the rest of the team eating pudding in the commissary. "It's ok," he starts cautiously. "It was just..." But he trails off, because it really was a close thing, and there's no way to pretend otherwise, even if Carson could only have stunned himself with the weapon.

"It was me," Jack says dully, staring down at his hands. He's shaking, has already thrown up twice. "I wasn't watching him. I wasn't paying enough attention, just like--"

Daniel kneels, covering Jack's cold, clammy hands with his own, and leans forward. "He's a toddler, Jack. It was just a couple seconds, he wandered off, you didn't do anything wrong. And he's fine."

Jack just shakes his head slowly, and Daniel feels a chilling sort of fear as he pulls away and stands. "This isn't...I can't..." but he doesn't have a choice. He can't send Carson to Rodney, after all, can't bear the thought of his son living on Atlantis, with their fucking man-eating space vampires. He's the only home Carson has, and still the safest.

"It's ok, Jack, it's going to be fine," Daniel pleads, because he can feel where this is going. He was the distraction, after all.

"We can't do this anymore," Jack says anyway, and his voice is firm. "I have to focus on him. You're..." His eyes meet Daniel's, and his words are deliberate, calculated, "in the way."

He leaves, because he doesn't want to see Daniel's reaction, but it doesn't matter because Daniel's too gutted to speak anyway.

Jack tells himself over and over that he had to do it, that it was the only way to keep all his attention on Carson, and he goes about their routine like everything's fine. He still sends McKay a daily picture, and if Rodney notices the conspicuous absence of mentions of Daniel, well, he doesn't say anything. At night, he watches Carson sleep, eyes steady on the comforting rise and fall of the boy's chest, and he starts leaving his weapons at work, even if it's against protocol.

The truck pulls up early on a Saturday morning two and a half weeks later. Jack's sitting on his front step with coffee, watching Carson toss leaves in the air, delighted, while the dog leaps and twists in the air in pursuit. He's trying not to think very hard, trying not to fall asleep sitting up, and paying very little attention to the traffic on the street.

So he blinks in somewhat dumbfounded disbelief when Daniel sits down next to him, and a parade of movers starts inching by them with boxes. "Um," is his eloquent greeting.

"You were right," Daniel says briskly. He looks calm, but his words are bumping into one another, and Jack can tell he's nervous. "We couldn't do that anymore."

"But."

"Shut up, Jack. It wasn't fair for me to try to be in two places at once. It was distracting. You couldn't count on me." He rubs his hands together, blows on them. "So! Now you can."

"Daniel," Jack sighs, starting to shake his head, but Daniel interrupts again, staring out at Carson and speaking quickly.

"Don't, Jack. Don't tell me no. I love him, and you, I'm staying." He glances over, and there's a brief slip in his mask of bravado, a definite vulnerability, and he adds, more softly, "If you'll let me."

Jack's still, quiet, for a long moment, but he couldn't tell Daniel no again even if he wanted to. Slowly, about when Daniel's first starting to shiver in the crisp fall air, Jack slides an arm around his shoulders and hands over his coffee cup.

Daniel huffs out a breath in relief, leaning into Jack's side and closing his eyes, inhaling the steam from the coffee, and he warns, "I have to be in Colorado two weekends a month."

"I might need to find a bigger place," Jack muses.

John and Teyla are out on some diplomatic mission, and Rodney is fighting with Zelenka over the placement of power crystals in what appears to be an Ancient musical device that seems like the perfect gift for Carson's second birthday. All children like banging on things that make noise, he thinks, and all parents who don't have to live with their children deserve to give them gifts that make noise.

"If you would only pay attention to me, Rodney, the colour--" Zelenka protests. Their comms crackle to life, and Rodney doesn't even pay attention, just jabs it until he can respond.

"McKay."

"Doctor McKay, Teyla and Colonel Sheppard have failed to report in," Jonson says.

"Of course they haven't. They're probably out drinking and making eyes at each other while I slave over the happiness of my flesh and blood. Contact me when it's an emergency." It's fourteen hours later when Jonson comes back to say yes, it may be an emergency. Rodney gets to the gateroom at a run, grimacing and trying to ease his gun out of the holder. Ronon is already there, tall and strapping and angry, and Rodney snaps, "If this is a communication error, I am going to banish you all from -- from everything. Ever."

The plaza where the ceremonial feast was supposd to be held is empty. Perfectly laid out, of course, with bejeweled goblets and stuffed alien animals and fruit that's just barely starting to blemish under the blinding sunlight. Ronon has his gun out and murder in his eyes. Rodney wipes a hand through his hair and gasps.

The first thing he does when the nausea ebbs from his stomach is pull out his scanners and radio for backup and bite his cheek hard enough that he tastes copper. There's an energy reading that's so low that he wouldn't even have noticed it if John and Teyla weren't gone, and there's a series of adapters in the narrow temple. Rodney feels like he's on a treasure hunt, finds the panel he needs and tries to wire himself in. There's a crackle and a burst of light and Rodney yelps, "But--"

The panel is in front of him, unresponsive. Rodney punches the ground and squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, then gently feels around the edges for the catch and glares into the wiring like it's personally insulted his family. They set up camp and he forces himself into twenty hour days, taking the time where he should have in the first place. He sleeps when he has to sleep, stares blearily at his notes and writes the same equations time after time. One week in, he takes a day to sleep, wakes every hour expecting to feel Sheppard next to him, and within another three days thinks he has it solved.

His team steps back and Ronon is at his shoulder, stretching up to set the final crystal in place. And there's a flicker, and life signs blip back into existence on his detector. It's possible that he dashes out, heart pounding and fully prepared to strangle Sheppard seventeen different ways. The crowd is gradually dissipating, mostly looking confused. He looks, finds Teyla, grins.

"Rodney," Teyla says and the calm resignation in her voice makes him want to punch her -- or at least something that belongs to her but isn't of great value. "I am sorry."

"Where is he?" Rodney snaps, the faintest sense of panic beginning in his stomach. He looks around again, like maybe this just slipped his notice.

"John informed me that he had to go," Teyla murmurs. Rodney's vision tunnels. "When he sensed that his presence was causing the source to gain power, he departed swiftly to disengage the primary focus of the satellites. He was too late to prevent our stasis, but I fear that the results would have been much more damaging, had he not acted with such speed and bravery."

Rodney says the first thing that comes into his mind, insanely, "He couldn't have waited for me? He had to go flinging his life away without a how-do-you-do to me? I could have--"

"You woulda said not to," Ronon points out. Rodney wants to punch him too. "Sheppard did what he had to do to save these people.

"Of course I would have said not to! Who in their right mind says yes, let's go out in a silent space bang? Who else would make self-sacrifice the primary mode of attack disengagement? I would have said -- he has -- e was--!" Rodney thinks, he has a life here, he has a kid, pretty much, he's got responsibilities that don't involve throwing his life away on the first righteous cause that flickered into the periphery of his vision.

"I am so sorry," Teyla says, he can see her lip tremble and her eyes soften. He doesn't care for her sympathy either.

His head is whirring with the probabilities. They creep upwards -- the integrity of the jumper hull being maintained throughout the damage by plasma beams, 198788 to 1 against. John not being fatally injured in the turbulence of a landing with a damaged jumper, 4676665 to 1 against. The jumper making it to land, that one's better -- 471 to 1, but the possibility that that land isn't the Sahara's bitter, ugly twin sister -- 219983 to 1 -- doesn't leave Rodney comforted. The planet's chemistry makes the probability of locating his subdermal tracker, if it's still functional (27 to 1), a near impossibility -- 99278909 to 1.

"Two point five eight two times ten to the twenty ninth," he says aloud. "If we had known. That first day." Every day since increases the odds astronomically, until even Rodney can't stomach the math.

"It's Sheppard," Ronon says gruffly. He means, he'll make it somehow. Rodney doesn't think so. He collects his data pad, shoulders his bag, and heads back to the gate without another word.

When he spends the night in his -- their -- stupid room, it's not really sleeping. He stares at the wall, and then at the light, and then at a mixed pile of dirty laundry. He paces, then takes a shower, then considers beating his head against the desk. Halfway through a revision of a proof he's done several thousand times, it hits him. Sheppard is dead.

Rodney curls up in bed and sleeps for seventeen hours, for the first time in what is possibly his entire life. He wakes up in a haze and walks straight to his lab without changing, cuts the process tree for any form of communication on his laptop, and resolutely edits the proposals of his exploratory science teams for another three hours. Keller comes to find him for lunch, her tiny hand on his shoulder and her eyes too-wide with shock. "Jump off a bridge," Rodney snaps when she comments on how long it's been since he's eaten.

In the privacy of his too-large room, Rodney recalculates every factor he can imagine. Maybe Sheppard and his luck -- but every day that he falls asleep alone, the hope grows dimmer. Sheppard is lost with no final indications of Wraith kidnapping or supernova abnormality to give Rodney that -- that factor. That saving grace one percent that John wiggles himself into every time he sets foot on an alien planet. Rodney rewires the heating system in the residential quarters to be more precise, then reorganizes the solar panels for higher effectiveness. He tries to golf, once, and reorganizes his desk for the first time since he claimed it.

He takes savage bites of power bars, feeling his throat and stomach burn at the effort it takes to keep them down. Teyla stops by once, just standing in the doorway with her haunted eyes, and Rodney takes to finding areas of the city that are more difficult to locate. After two weeks, he turns on his email and filters the results to only top secret/priority. There's one there from Sheppard, nearly a month old now, a tag-you're-it with a link to their game of battleship. Rodney chokes and deletes it, presses delete five more times so that every message around it is gone too. Unbidden, his inbox opens a message from O'Neill.

daniel always finds a way to get back.

Rodney checks himself into a private room in the med bay because he's pretty sure the statement has driven him insane. He can't stand waiting for John and breathing John. "Maybe you should go to see your son," Keller says and Rodney sleeps and sleeps and sleeps.

"Rodney," the voice drawls through his subconscious and Rodney feels his face twist, another nightmare. He reaches up, scratches at his nose and feels callused fingertips take his palm and steer him away. "Rodney, wake up."

"This isn't funny," Rodney says. He sees John before he's opened his eyes, but then the sleep bleariness has ebbed and John's stupid grin is in place. "Are you a clone?" he asks, voice trembling so violently that it sounds steady to his own ears. "Or a replicator? Are you -- are you--"

John leans forward to rest their heads together, exhales against Rodney's upper lip. "I'm just really tired," he says which is the most trivial, insensitive, perfect, Sheppardish thing that Rodney has heard in years. John looks him in the eye and says, "But I'm okay."

Rodney snaps, "Explain to me later, you oaf," and stretches his hands as wide as they'll go, feeling Sheppard for any injury or imperfection or sign that he can't trust again. John climbs up next to him, stretches and rests one arm behind his head while leaving the other laced through Rodney's.

"I'm out there risking my life and you decide to hog the medical concern by dibsing a private room?" he teases, staring up at the ceiling.

"I thought of nearly a trillion ways I would like to kill you," Rodney replies, twists to rest his forehead against John's shoulder. "But my health has never been better, suddenly. Miraculous rebound. I can feel my flesh healing."

"I missed you too," John says with too much casualness. Rodney squeezes hard enough that John's joints pop.

"If you ever do that again, I'm lighting your poster on fire. We have -- things, here. For us." John nods and looks at him with some intense -- affectionate, stupid thing that makes Rodney's heart clench. "Because I won't be okay," he adds threateningly, voice cracking. Carson is twenty-five months and three days old, right this moment, Rodney remembers. John has hand-drawn their kid a birthday card by the end of the day, and Rodney hopes that Carson somehow understands it.

 

***

 

The damn dog gets hit by a car a week before Christmas. It's nobody's fault; he jumped the fence and ran in front of a UPS truck. The driver was very apologetic, carrying the poor thing's lifeless body to the front door practically in tears. Jack's a little more upset than he would've expected, and Carson is inconsolable.

"Rodney will be here in two days," Jack reminds him desperately, trying to extract sharp fingernails from his neck and pull his damp shirt away from his skin. Daniel relieves him eventually, stroking Carson's hair and explaining life and death and other philosophical bullshit that Jack has to leave the room for.

He sends Rodney an email. 911. the fucking mutt ran in front of a truck. you better bring good presents. Then he gives Carson some benadryl and puts him to bed.

The next morning Jack has a memo in his inbox detailing Atlantis' lockdown, and that they're going to be in quarantine for at least a couple weeks, maybe longer. i hate you so fucking much, Jack sends to Rodney. Naturally, there's no reply.

Daniel goes and buys an entire store's worth of extra presents to mark from Rodney, John, Teyla and Ronon. Jack gives in and buys a damn puppy. "Why this one?" Daniel sighs, poking at a fuzzy paw late on Christmas Eve, once Carson's asleep.

"I don't know," Jack replies. He takes in the creature's floppy ears and oddly-tufted hair, strokes a finger over the soft back, smiles as the puppy yawns and resettles, too-long tail curving around its body. He's cute, but it's going to be a pain in the ass to house-train and obedience-train another one. "He kind of reminded me of you."

Daniel gives an offended huff, but Jack can tell he doesn't mean it.

Christmas morning is a quiet affair. Teal'c gets snowed in back in Colorado Springs, and if Jack were a sappy kind of guy, he'd probably admit to enjoying having just him and Daniel and Carson. They eat cinnamon rolls and drink hot chocolate, and for a couple hours, Carson forgets how upset he is over the dog and Rodney not being there and squeals with delight at all the new toys. He starts to get sad once the sugar rush ends and the wrapping paper's picked up, and Jack figures it's time to bring out his secret weapon.

"What's his kingdom, Daniel?" Carson asks, once the new puppy's settled in his lap and enduring with good grace Carson's sloppy petting.

"Animalia, just like you."

"What's his phylum?"

"Chordata," Daniel tells the boy, walking his fingers up Carson's backbone, "because he has a spinal cord too."

Jack goes to clean up breakfast while Daniel and Carson continue their exploration of the mutt's Linnaean classification. When he returns, Carson has settled on a name. "It's Mammal, Daddy!" He seems pleased.

Jack sends Rodney pictures later that night, Carson with his stocking, Carson and the tree, Carson and the puppy. He types, he missed you. After a moment of consideration, he changes 'he' to 'we' and hits send.

Rodney owes O'Neill more thank yous than he could ever bring himself to form, he's perfectly aware of that. In thirty six months of Carson's existence, the only momentous occasion that Rodney has directly participated in was the birth, which he was unconscious for. He knows that Carson was upset on his first birthday, and on his second-- and on those Christmases, no matter how little Rodney had to do with the evasion, and it's not that he wouldn't want to be there -- but he's no father, most of the time, and O'Neill definitely is.

He takes his time to work up on the nerve. On their seventh visit to earth, stuck on a patio and nursing a crappy beer, Rodney looks at O'Neill in the dim light and finds that his throat has yet to knot itself up and save him the embarrassment of the admission. "You're--" he starts, fully prepared to compliment Jack's prowess with child rearing, and then stops and starts again. "We did a pretty good job with this."

Jack's watching through the window as Daniel and Sheppard try to decide if Carson and Mammal are playing tug-of-war or trying to bite each other. "It's only been three years," he murmurs, glancing over at McKay, and back in time to see Ronon scoop up the dog and Teal'c the boy. He's happy enough for family visits, for getting a night or three off from baths and bedtimes and answering why, why, why (even though he usually passes Carson off to Daniel at about the second 'why'). And in an entire life of evasion and an entire relationship with Daniel of never saying what they mean, Jack knows exactly what McKay can't quite admit. "We've got a long way to go."

“It’s all downhill from here,” Rodney says flippantly, fully aware that he won’t have to do the heavy lifting on this one. “He’s an easy kid to get along with.”

"Those are not your genes," Jack points out with a smirk, and wonders exactly how things are going to go the first day Carson has to draw his family in preschool. He might need a big piece of paper.

“You still aren’t funny,” Rodney responds, clears his throat noisly. “Thanks, Jack.”

Jack has a dozen flippant responses, but it's Carson's birthday tomorrow, and it's not really the time. "I...didn't think I'd get a second chance," he says instead, staring at the label on his beer.

“Hey, I’m no spring chicken,” Rodney says, feeling like the statement sums up his fears over the last few years—that it might happen again and he’s not sure he wants to actually deal with a child, while simultaneously sort of wanting his gene pool out there. He catches up to what O’Neill says, coughs. “Oh. Well —- glad I could -— um.”

Jack snorts, gets over his moment. "Become spontaneously pregnant? I've told Cars he's magic, I hope that's ok." He leaves out the part where Carson has begun requesting a sibling. That seems like a bit too much for either one of them to begin to address.

“I’ll explain how it actually works later. I have a baby book, back at Atlantis.” Rodney shrugs. “Magic isn't real. He’s just an excellent combination of biological factors and timing.”

Jack likes the idea of Rodney being responsible for all the uncomfortable conversations. "Or something," he agrees, and sighs. "You should go tell him goodnight."

Rodney nods, claps a hand on O’Neill’s shoulder on the way past. “Have to prepare myself for that messy party, too.” Carson leaves off the fighting to hug his legs and Rodney says, “Hey, kneecaps.”

Carson says, “I want a dinosaur, Rodney. An Albertasaurous.”

“No. We’ll see,” Rodney says, but glares at the rest of the guys because one of them is responsible. “It’s bedtime.” He lifts Carson carefully, wheezing his protest at his son’s new weight, lets the boy messily kiss his cheek. “Maybe Ronon will tell you a scary story before you fall asleep. Come on.”

"No wraith!" Jack calls out futilely from the patio. "Or dinosaurs!" he adds, less futilely, but only because Rodney's not a geneticist. Daniel wanders out as Rodney's team troops after him for joint bedtime, or something, and ignores Rodney's vacated chair in favor of Jack's lap. Jack tries to find fault with this arrangement, and fails. "Did you break the news yet?" Jack asks, and Daniel looks shifty. "Mm, didn't think so." No matter how annoying it is that his son and Daniel have a secret code (and it's really annoying), Jack enjoys the Rodney-subversion that goes along with a polyglot child.

Rodney takes the best spot on the bed, John sits on the floor, and Teyla and Ronon find perches near Carson’s feet. “Tell me about the time that Teyla outsmarted a Wraith and cooked him for dinner,” Carson says promptly, seated upright without the least interest in sleeping. Rodney sighs resignedly, somewhere between Carson’s advanced reading skills and Rodney’s willingness to let Ronon exaggerate, the stories of Atlantis have taken on a life of their own that borders on the Grimm.

“How about I tell you about the time that I met Sheppard and McKay?” Ronon offers instead. Carson looks placated and sits back.

”But don’t leave out the dialogue,” he commands imperiously as he folds his arms around Rodney. He falls asleep mid-sentence during the operation scene, so Rodney knows he must be tired, finds himself smoothing down the soft hair in confusion.

“Here we are,” he mutters. Teyla squeezes his leg and smiles up at him. “Huh.”

It's funny, Jack thinks, as Daniel slips off for more beer with a kiss, how all of this just sort of happened. He didn't ask for this tie to McKay, didn't plan to be raising a preschooler with a veritable village now and again and practically on his own now and again, but mostly with Daniel, who teaches Carson Greek and Ancient and takes care of him when he's sick and Jack's stuck in meetings with the joint chiefs. But it's not like he's sorry. He looks up when Daniel comes back, and he surprises himself when he says, "We should take Cars to Atlantis next year."

"Are you expecting an argument?" Daniel asks incredulously, straddling Jack's lap, hands lacing into his hair. "I'm dying to go there." It's a terrible choice of words, Jack thinks, considering the survival rate of the Atlantis expedition. Then again, it's not like Daniel can die. The thought comforts Jack all the time.

"I love you," Jack says, before can think about it. He's said it to Carson a million times, but never to Daniel, and it's stupid.

Daniel rolls his eyes. "You're an idiot." But Jack thinks he looks happy.

When Rodney has been disentangled gently from Carson, he brushes his teeth and washes his face and crawls into bed in his boxers and a t-shirt. John settles behind him and Rodney can feel his own mind racing, ignores the sleepy hum as John artlessly drapes an arm over Rodney’s waist. “O’Neill tells Carson that he was made by magic,” he says abruptly, fortunately not so loud that Teyla and Ronon come in.

“Yes, Rodney, and I’m sure you and science are very upset,” John drawls into his shoulder.

“No,” Rodney says, can hear the shock in his own voice. He’s in bed with Sheppard, of all people, three years later and with the faintest scar on his stomach and his best friends near him and his own son absorbing the world around them. “I think he might not be wrong."