Marcato, by Sophonisba [wordless challenge]
-title- Marcato
-author- Sophonisba (saphanibaal)
-rating/warnings- Suitable for general audiences. Gen.
-spoilers- "McKay and Mrs. Miller," "The Return, Part One."
-characters- Rodney
-disclaimer- SGA, of course, is not mine. The poem mentioned is by Robert F. Service; certain turns of phrase are borrowed from other writers for effect.
-word count- 1314
-summary- What you lose on the swings you gain on the roundabouts.
Marcato
Rodney first noticed it soon after he had moved in to his new office -- his hard-won habits of checking everything around the place he was in, in the absence of suitably well-informed trusted bodyguards to do it for him, ensured that he explored every inch of the facility, armed with his clearance and his sidearm.
(Then there was that bother about the sidearm, which was perfectly unjustified, and if they really thought he was part of some, some Grand Canadian Plot to steal U. S. Air Force Secrets, why had they made him head of the labs in the first place? Right Hand, please let me introduce you to Mr. Left. Please.)
But in a room that currently seemed to be used for storage, covered by a dust cloth, the shape was unmistakable.
*
At first he let it be. It wasn't as if he didn't have enough things in his life to make him miserable already, and he certainly didn't mention it on the phone or in email to Sheppard or Elizabeth or Carson or --
-- well, it wasn't as if he could get in touch with THEM, so it was hardly unsurprising that he never thought of telling them about this, either.
He started a letter to Jeanie, and then deleted half the paragraphs and postponed it until he could think of what to say.
*
But, given the incredible, unutterable, ineffable STUPIDITY of his current underlings (even the bright ones! One would think that people so intelligent wouldn't be so stupid! If it weren't for the ridiculous nationality thing, he could at least be snapping his fingers for Radek or Miko-kun instead of Mobile Igor #3), one day he found himself storming out of the lab and winding up in the storage room.
He flipped the dust cover off, lifted the lid, and absently tapped a key.
Ow.
He tried a few others.
To add to the already manifold iniquities of the American government and its defense arm, it was a crime and a shame to let such a fine instrument get into this state.
Well.
He had deciphered and rebuilt alien devices, often from the ground up. He had married three different technologies into one smoothly working item, often on a deadline and under pressure.
It could not be that hard to tune a piano.
*
Eventually -- many stolen moments, several barked fingers, and at least one fit of infuriated disgust and frustration that he had taken back to his lab and unleashed on his minions rather than risk a delicate instrument -- he rather thought he was done.
Maybe he should just check one last time --
It seemed that, clearly as he recalled the method, his fingers had yet to remember the tricks of playing scales.
Stupid piano.
It wasn't even as if he -- he'd been told of his lack, had taken that into engineering where he'd at least been competent --
Competent.
As the minions the Americans had seen fit to wish on him were competent, except for the parts where they really weren't.
He'd thought it was good enough then, back when he had only been able to encompass so much, back before he'd even dreamed of the perfect and unutterable purity of what physics was even when veiled by --
Rodney shut the piano, shaking.
Then his brain had not encompassed. Now, he had worked with, he could make, he had brought bits together and worked the sort of gestalt that he had seen Sam do, that he had seen Radek do, had kept his city safe and seen the disturbing beauty (never its asymptote of mere prettiness) of the visual effects of same --
He pulled the dust cover over it, savagely, and marched off to call Carson, who would endure his bitching even when he didn't know the reason for it, and maybe manage to snap him out of it anyway.
*
A week later, he came back, carting Disposable Minion #6's office chair. (#6 had left his employ earlier that day, apparently taking exception to being identified as a number. Really. Sanchez had had the elementary sense to place her name legibly and clearly upon her articles of clothing, was it too much to ask that the others follow her lead?) Rodney put the chair at the piano, bared the keys, and tried the scales once more.
It could not be that hard. He had done it, once, with smaller hands than these. He could type QWERTY and Dvorak (to the confounding of the prankster who had switched the signal on his laptop keyboard, for a joke. Rodney'd noticed the problem, switched methods, and left it that way as added security while nevertheless making sure to wreak appropriate retribution for the crack. Not that he was going to think about that now; it was in another galaxy, and besides, the man is dead). At any rate, the sheer revulsion of taking his thoughts where they were going finally drove him to set fingers to keys once more.
It was awkward. They were almost, but not quite, entirely unlike scales.
Lather, rinse and repeat.
Over again, and over again, and now he had the trick of it, properly overlaying memory onto new and adult muscles...
Eventually, he moved from scales to such mainstays as Chopsticks and Fuer Elise and Jingle Bells, venturing to add the original ornamentation to the second and third verses of the latter.
And then that stupid Chopin piece that had never sounded right before (and still didn't sound right now, not least because he'd forgotten some of the chords and a few of the notes, but at least sounded much closer to right than it had when he was twelve), and then into --
Well, he tried Sam for a few notes, and left that aside to think about more. Elizabeth leapt into mind as one glittering phrase, but -- no, he wasn't going to try to put her together, not yet, not either. He tried, now, working out half-formed ideas he'd had back before it smashed on the wall of reality, bits and pieces to go with a poem that had made a disproportionate impression on him; but hunger and night and the stars were too close to something he was not going to put into music, not now, not when it would be a requiem rather than a paean.
And that meant none of his friends-and-relations either, and that meant....
That meant that he could.
He could do this.
He could throw up this stupid gilded cage tomorrow and fill his days with music, if he wanted -- it certainly wasn't as if he couldn't afford to.
And the possibility was -- was freeing. Was this the sort of thing Elizabeth had found? Not that he'd be as stupid about it as she was; he did have something of a contract, and he'd give Area 51 thirty more days before he threw it up, talked to those friends he still had, and found a hole with a piano and pulled it in after him (except for the connecting wires).
He turned back to the piano, knowing now what he should work on first. What he should, perhaps, have been working on all along.
And phrase seemed to follow phrase, a fortunate hacking run, as he began to play Meredith, Meredith who had been a good if somewhat unsociable kid and who had made his peace with his secrets and who had been braver than he'd thought and who was not, could not, be as utterly effaced as Rodney had believed (and oh, Jeanie would joy in that, Jeanie would gloat over that, Jeanie might even stop pressing him for it now that it had become apparent on his own) and to whom Rodney owed. Well. Everything he'd ever wanted, even when he hadn't gotten to keep it.
-author- Sophonisba (saphanibaal)
-rating/warnings- Suitable for general audiences. Gen.
-spoilers- "McKay and Mrs. Miller," "The Return, Part One."
-characters- Rodney
-disclaimer- SGA, of course, is not mine. The poem mentioned is by Robert F. Service; certain turns of phrase are borrowed from other writers for effect.
-word count- 1314
-summary- What you lose on the swings you gain on the roundabouts.
Marcato
Rodney first noticed it soon after he had moved in to his new office -- his hard-won habits of checking everything around the place he was in, in the absence of suitably well-informed trusted bodyguards to do it for him, ensured that he explored every inch of the facility, armed with his clearance and his sidearm.
(Then there was that bother about the sidearm, which was perfectly unjustified, and if they really thought he was part of some, some Grand Canadian Plot to steal U. S. Air Force Secrets, why had they made him head of the labs in the first place? Right Hand, please let me introduce you to Mr. Left. Please.)
But in a room that currently seemed to be used for storage, covered by a dust cloth, the shape was unmistakable.
*
At first he let it be. It wasn't as if he didn't have enough things in his life to make him miserable already, and he certainly didn't mention it on the phone or in email to Sheppard or Elizabeth or Carson or --
-- well, it wasn't as if he could get in touch with THEM, so it was hardly unsurprising that he never thought of telling them about this, either.
He started a letter to Jeanie, and then deleted half the paragraphs and postponed it until he could think of what to say.
*
But, given the incredible, unutterable, ineffable STUPIDITY of his current underlings (even the bright ones! One would think that people so intelligent wouldn't be so stupid! If it weren't for the ridiculous nationality thing, he could at least be snapping his fingers for Radek or Miko-kun instead of Mobile Igor #3), one day he found himself storming out of the lab and winding up in the storage room.
He flipped the dust cover off, lifted the lid, and absently tapped a key.
Ow.
He tried a few others.
To add to the already manifold iniquities of the American government and its defense arm, it was a crime and a shame to let such a fine instrument get into this state.
Well.
He had deciphered and rebuilt alien devices, often from the ground up. He had married three different technologies into one smoothly working item, often on a deadline and under pressure.
It could not be that hard to tune a piano.
*
Eventually -- many stolen moments, several barked fingers, and at least one fit of infuriated disgust and frustration that he had taken back to his lab and unleashed on his minions rather than risk a delicate instrument -- he rather thought he was done.
Maybe he should just check one last time --
It seemed that, clearly as he recalled the method, his fingers had yet to remember the tricks of playing scales.
Stupid piano.
It wasn't even as if he -- he'd been told of his lack, had taken that into engineering where he'd at least been competent --
Competent.
As the minions the Americans had seen fit to wish on him were competent, except for the parts where they really weren't.
He'd thought it was good enough then, back when he had only been able to encompass so much, back before he'd even dreamed of the perfect and unutterable purity of what physics was even when veiled by --
Rodney shut the piano, shaking.
Then his brain had not encompassed. Now, he had worked with, he could make, he had brought bits together and worked the sort of gestalt that he had seen Sam do, that he had seen Radek do, had kept his city safe and seen the disturbing beauty (never its asymptote of mere prettiness) of the visual effects of same --
He pulled the dust cover over it, savagely, and marched off to call Carson, who would endure his bitching even when he didn't know the reason for it, and maybe manage to snap him out of it anyway.
*
A week later, he came back, carting Disposable Minion #6's office chair. (#6 had left his employ earlier that day, apparently taking exception to being identified as a number. Really. Sanchez had had the elementary sense to place her name legibly and clearly upon her articles of clothing, was it too much to ask that the others follow her lead?) Rodney put the chair at the piano, bared the keys, and tried the scales once more.
It could not be that hard. He had done it, once, with smaller hands than these. He could type QWERTY and Dvorak (to the confounding of the prankster who had switched the signal on his laptop keyboard, for a joke. Rodney'd noticed the problem, switched methods, and left it that way as added security while nevertheless making sure to wreak appropriate retribution for the crack. Not that he was going to think about that now; it was in another galaxy, and besides, the man is dead). At any rate, the sheer revulsion of taking his thoughts where they were going finally drove him to set fingers to keys once more.
It was awkward. They were almost, but not quite, entirely unlike scales.
Lather, rinse and repeat.
Over again, and over again, and now he had the trick of it, properly overlaying memory onto new and adult muscles...
Eventually, he moved from scales to such mainstays as Chopsticks and Fuer Elise and Jingle Bells, venturing to add the original ornamentation to the second and third verses of the latter.
And then that stupid Chopin piece that had never sounded right before (and still didn't sound right now, not least because he'd forgotten some of the chords and a few of the notes, but at least sounded much closer to right than it had when he was twelve), and then into --
Well, he tried Sam for a few notes, and left that aside to think about more. Elizabeth leapt into mind as one glittering phrase, but -- no, he wasn't going to try to put her together, not yet, not either. He tried, now, working out half-formed ideas he'd had back before it smashed on the wall of reality, bits and pieces to go with a poem that had made a disproportionate impression on him; but hunger and night and the stars were too close to something he was not going to put into music, not now, not when it would be a requiem rather than a paean.
And that meant none of his friends-and-relations either, and that meant....
That meant that he could.
He could do this.
He could throw up this stupid gilded cage tomorrow and fill his days with music, if he wanted -- it certainly wasn't as if he couldn't afford to.
And the possibility was -- was freeing. Was this the sort of thing Elizabeth had found? Not that he'd be as stupid about it as she was; he did have something of a contract, and he'd give Area 51 thirty more days before he threw it up, talked to those friends he still had, and found a hole with a piano and pulled it in after him (except for the connecting wires).
He turned back to the piano, knowing now what he should work on first. What he should, perhaps, have been working on all along.
And phrase seemed to follow phrase, a fortunate hacking run, as he began to play Meredith, Meredith who had been a good if somewhat unsociable kid and who had made his peace with his secrets and who had been braver than he'd thought and who was not, could not, be as utterly effaced as Rodney had believed (and oh, Jeanie would joy in that, Jeanie would gloat over that, Jeanie might even stop pressing him for it now that it had become apparent on his own) and to whom Rodney owed. Well. Everything he'd ever wanted, even when he hadn't gotten to keep it.