Team, Week 3: It's More Than That They Save Your Life
Title: It's More Than That They Save Your Life
Author: Jem
Prompt: In My Youth
Word count: 2022
Rating: PG-13 for one instance of language; PG otherwise.
Warnings: Rampant sappiness. A tiny bit of language.
Spoilers: None (placement is latter half of Season 3).
Summary: “I'm going to my high school reunion.”
“And this requires that all four members of your team take leave?” said Elizabeth, in a slightly bewildered tone of voice. “No,” said Rodney, at the same time Sheppard said, “Yes.”
“I guess we've got Lillian.”
The absurdly thin girl looked up with hollow eyes lined with heavy black eyeliner and sort of floated over to Graham Stein's line-up.
“Can't you take Mary McKay also? We're good with one less,” muttered Aaron Cerviccio to his the opposing captain, just loud enough for everyone to hear.
Rodney crossed his arms. “Your Stone Age contests of brute physical stamina mean nothing to me,” he said loftily, heading over towards Aaron's team.
“Cause you're just too pretty for the rest of us, that it?” said Aaron mockingly, giving Rodney a “friendly” slap on the back as he walked by. Rodney staggered, biting his lip and refusing to lift a hand to rub his shoulder. The idiotic cretin had probably left a bruise. And of course their moron of a gym teacher said nothing to such abusive treatment.
“In five years, he'll be flipping burgers and I'll have a six-figure consulting job,” Rodney said to the girl next to him as he joined the back of the line.
She looked at him disdainfully. “Maybe, but you'll still be a virgin.”
-------------------------
“You should totally go,” said Sheppard. “Come on.”
“I'm not going, and I should point out that this would not even be an issue if you hadn't insisted on reading my mail,” said Rodney irritably.
“Go where?” said Ronon, throwing a leg over an empty chair and immediately digging into a tray that held more food than existed in the entire country of Ghana. Teyla sat down next to him more elegantly.
“Nowhere,” said Rodney pointedly.
“His high school reunion,” answered Sheppard cheerfully.
“This is a gathering of the students from your high school?” Teyla clarified.
“No, it's a ridiculous contest to see who has the hottest wife and the highest paying job. People only go to reunions to show off how much they've outclassed their classmates in fame and fortune.”
“It seems it would also be a good time to reconnect with former friends,” Teyla pointed out.
“That assumes that I actually had any friends in high school,” Rodney shot back. It was more a statement of fact than anything else, but surprisingly, it still stung to say.
“Come on, McKay,” wheedled Sheppard. “I want to see who you went to high school with.”
“What? First of all, I'm not going. And second, if I were to go, who says I would take you?”
“I'll go with you,” offered Ronon.
“What! What is it with you people? What is this fascination with my high school reunion?”
Ronon shrugged. “It's the subject of a lot of movies. Besides, Jeannie told us you used to get beat up in high school. Thought I could return the favor.”
“What? No! That would be illegal, and petty, and slightly unfair given that you have the approximate size and aggression of a saber-toothed tiger, and-wait, really?” Unwilling, his mind started flying into absurd imaginings of revenge against Aaron Cerviccio.
Ronon shrugged. “Why not?”
“Because I am sure that Rodney does not want his trip to Earth marred by his teammates being taken to prison,” said Teyla, placidly but pointedly.
Rodney groaned. “For the last time, I am not going!”
-------------------------
“I'm going to my high school reunion.”
“And this requires that all four members of your team take leave?” said Elizabeth, in a slightly bewildered tone of voice.
“No,” said Rodney, at the same time Sheppard said, “Yes.”
“I'm being coerced,” Rodney added.
“Come on, Elizabeth,” wheedled Sheppard, with his best winning smile. Rodney hated that smile. “We'll only be gone two days. The city can handle being without us for two days.”
“Actually,” said Rodney, “Given the frequency of disaster in Atlantis, the probability-”
“Zelenka can handle it,” Sheppard interrupted, loudly and firmly.
Elizabeth took a breath. “All right.”
Sheppard grinned.
Rodney groaned.
“You don't want to go?” asked Elizabeth, sounding even more puzzled.
“No, I don't want to go! They're making me go!”
“Why?”
“Cause it'll be fun,” said Sheppard, with that same shit-eating grin. “You want to come?”
Elizabeth looked between the two of them, an all-too-familiar “the two of you make no sense whatsoever to me” expression on her face. “I think I'll pass, thanks.”
-------------------------
Rodney's door chimed. That was actually unexpected; Sheppard usually just walked right in. Muttering about how much scientific progress was going to be set back because he was being forced to spend time in an archaic ritual, Rodney grabbed his bag and went to the door, pressing the release. “Yeah, yeah, I'm rea-”
Teyla stood there, dressed in a backless Earth-style evening gown and heels, her hair swept up in a style Rodney recognized as “fancy.”
“Uh, wow,” Rodney stammered, trying like a madman to keep his eyes on her face and (luckily for his physical well-being) largely managing it. “Um, you look, um-why?”
“John explained that it would raise your stature in the eyes of your classmates if you appeared with a beautiful woman,” said Teyla primly. She narrowed her eyes a bit and added, “My willingness to accompany you in this manner does not imply anything more than friendship.”
“Right! Oh, yeah, um-message received, and all that,” Rodney got out. “Uh, shall we go then?” He offered an arm, feeling spun silly. Teyla slipped a slender hand through his elbow. “You know, Teyla-you were already a knockout without dressing up. This wasn't, um, really necessary.”
“Why, thank you, Rodney,” said Teyla, squeezing his arm slightly, and Rodney, who had just sort of been stating a fact, found himself straightening a little and congratulating himself for saying something right.
-------------------------
Rodney and Teyla arrived at the gateroom to find Sheppard and Ronon waiting for them, both wearing dark suits.
“And who are you supposed to be? The Men in Black?” asked Rodney, genuinely confused.
“Naw, we're your bodyguards,” explained Sheppard, smiling. “Ultra-high security job, and all that.”
“Oh,” said Rodney. “Uh, cool.” Wonder of wonders, he was actually starting to look forward to this. Arriving at the reunion with Teyla on his arm, bracketed by two dangerous-looking men . . . the rest of those idiots could just eat their hearts out.
Oh crap-I'm succumbing to reunion syndrome, he realized suddenly. I'm being NORMAL! The idea disgusted him for a moment before he thought, Well, why not? Someone has to show those morons exactly what they are on a level they can understand. Why can't it be me?
He straightened his jacket a little, imagining the looks on all of his classmates' faces when he walked in. Just having Teyla accompany him would make half of them turn green with envy. The male half.
-------------------------
“So? Happy you're going now?” Sheppard asked on the way to the airport from Cheyenne Mountain, in the midst of raiding the limo's mini bar.
“Yeah,” Rodney admitted. “Yeah, I am.”
“I just want to hear some more good stories about you,” said Ronon with a little bit of a devilish smile. But there was no actual mocking in it, and somehow Rodney felt the opposite-that Ronon was coming to have his back. It was a queer sort of fizzy feeling, and he liked it.
Just let them say one little mocking word to me now. Even if Ronon did keep his hands to himself (Teyla's orders), he could loom very convincingly. Very convincingly.
And he had come along in order to loom on Rodney's behalf. And Teyla had come along to be superficial arm candy, and considering just how many orders of magnitude more than that she was, that was a generous sacrifice indeed. And Sheppard-Sheppard had orchestrated all of this, just to help Rodney show up classmates who had made every effort to beat him down as much as they possibly could during high school.
His team.
Team. The word rattled around pleasantly in his head for a few minutes. He'd actually never really thought about the word “team” before-back in high school, he'd been on science teams and math teams, sure, but usually because he was the smartest person there so everyone knew he'd make them win. He'd never believed in that so-called “team spirit,” or the team camaraderie that so many other people seemed to be so fond of. In fact, he'd scoffed at it. And the only sports teams he'd ever been on had been in (shudder) gym class, and he had always been the last one picked. Always.
Except with Sheppard. Sheppard had picked him first.
It was the first time that had struck him in this light, and it was like a revelation. Sheppard had picked him first.
And Sheppard and Teyla and Ronon were coming to help him show off at a stupid reunion full of stupid people, and some part of him had started to be vindictively glad about going because he wanted to show them all up, to see their faces when he arrived with the most beautiful woman in the room on his arm and had a job that financed two full-time bodyguards, but suddenly he realized that he really didn't give a nickel for what all of those people thought, because suddenly, it didn't matter.
“Hey, let's go to Disneyworld instead.”
Sheppard frowned. “What?”
“Let's go to Disneyworld. It's an amusement park,” he added, for Teyla and Ronon's sakes.
“We know,” said Teyla in a puzzled tone of voice. “But you hate amusement parks.”
“Even more than you hate reunions,” added Sheppard.
“Yeah, but you love them,” said Rodney. “And Teyla and Ronon have never been, and it's supposed to be this place everyone goes, right? At least, everyone being the subset of the population who live in our privileged Western society, or something like that. And it will be way more fun than hanging out at some boring cocktail party all night long with exceedingly boring people.”
“Thought you were looking forward to it now,” said Ronon.
“I was, I just-you know, I'd rather-I don't know.” What he wanted to say was, “What I'd really rather do is spend time with the three of you,” but the words didn't fit together right when he tried to get them out of his mouth. So instead, he just said, “It just . . . it doesn't matter anymore. I'd rather take you guys to Disneyworld.”
-------------------------
“Hey, remember that ridiculously smart kid? The one who was jumped up like three grades and was massively arrogant about it?” asked Gordon Kimich, lounging against the bar.
“Yeah, he had some girl's name or something, didn't he?” answered Aaron Cerviccio. “I always thought his parents must have hated him.”
“He's not here, is he? I was kind of curious as to where he ended up.”
“Eh, probably some high-paying finance job or something,” said Aaron. “That's where all the money is these days, isn't it?” He idly twirled his champagne glass by the stem. “Wherever he is, he's probably still getting beaten up for his lunch money.” The two of them laughed.
-------------------------
Five thousand kilometers away, Rodney McKay munched on deep-fried snacks and watched Teyla, still in her evening gown and heels, chase down Ronon and upend a bag of popcorn over his head in return for some cheeky Pegasus insult.
“Settle down, boys and girls!” Sheppard called with a smile, slurping on an lemon-lime slushee that Rodney was pretty sure he had gotten just to be annoying. He turned to Rodney. “Now, let's show those Pegasus brats what Ferris wheels are like.”
“You know I hate Ferris wheels, right?” moaned Rodney.
“I know,” answered Sheppard, grabbing him by the arm. “Come on.”
Fifteen minutes later, swooping high above the grounds with Teyla pressed against his shoulder and Ronon leaning way farther over the edge of the basket than was really safe and Sheppard standing up in the wind with a massive grin on his face, Rodney couldn't help thinking, This right here-this completely unscientific emotional response-I think I finally understand. This is what it means to be on a team.
He smiled.
Author: Jem
Prompt: In My Youth
Word count: 2022
Rating: PG-13 for one instance of language; PG otherwise.
Warnings: Rampant sappiness. A tiny bit of language.
Spoilers: None (placement is latter half of Season 3).
Summary: “I'm going to my high school reunion.”
“And this requires that all four members of your team take leave?” said Elizabeth, in a slightly bewildered tone of voice. “No,” said Rodney, at the same time Sheppard said, “Yes.”
“I guess we've got Lillian.”
The absurdly thin girl looked up with hollow eyes lined with heavy black eyeliner and sort of floated over to Graham Stein's line-up.
“Can't you take Mary McKay also? We're good with one less,” muttered Aaron Cerviccio to his the opposing captain, just loud enough for everyone to hear.
Rodney crossed his arms. “Your Stone Age contests of brute physical stamina mean nothing to me,” he said loftily, heading over towards Aaron's team.
“Cause you're just too pretty for the rest of us, that it?” said Aaron mockingly, giving Rodney a “friendly” slap on the back as he walked by. Rodney staggered, biting his lip and refusing to lift a hand to rub his shoulder. The idiotic cretin had probably left a bruise. And of course their moron of a gym teacher said nothing to such abusive treatment.
“In five years, he'll be flipping burgers and I'll have a six-figure consulting job,” Rodney said to the girl next to him as he joined the back of the line.
She looked at him disdainfully. “Maybe, but you'll still be a virgin.”
-------------------------
“You should totally go,” said Sheppard. “Come on.”
“I'm not going, and I should point out that this would not even be an issue if you hadn't insisted on reading my mail,” said Rodney irritably.
“Go where?” said Ronon, throwing a leg over an empty chair and immediately digging into a tray that held more food than existed in the entire country of Ghana. Teyla sat down next to him more elegantly.
“Nowhere,” said Rodney pointedly.
“His high school reunion,” answered Sheppard cheerfully.
“This is a gathering of the students from your high school?” Teyla clarified.
“No, it's a ridiculous contest to see who has the hottest wife and the highest paying job. People only go to reunions to show off how much they've outclassed their classmates in fame and fortune.”
“It seems it would also be a good time to reconnect with former friends,” Teyla pointed out.
“That assumes that I actually had any friends in high school,” Rodney shot back. It was more a statement of fact than anything else, but surprisingly, it still stung to say.
“Come on, McKay,” wheedled Sheppard. “I want to see who you went to high school with.”
“What? First of all, I'm not going. And second, if I were to go, who says I would take you?”
“I'll go with you,” offered Ronon.
“What! What is it with you people? What is this fascination with my high school reunion?”
Ronon shrugged. “It's the subject of a lot of movies. Besides, Jeannie told us you used to get beat up in high school. Thought I could return the favor.”
“What? No! That would be illegal, and petty, and slightly unfair given that you have the approximate size and aggression of a saber-toothed tiger, and-wait, really?” Unwilling, his mind started flying into absurd imaginings of revenge against Aaron Cerviccio.
Ronon shrugged. “Why not?”
“Because I am sure that Rodney does not want his trip to Earth marred by his teammates being taken to prison,” said Teyla, placidly but pointedly.
Rodney groaned. “For the last time, I am not going!”
-------------------------
“I'm going to my high school reunion.”
“And this requires that all four members of your team take leave?” said Elizabeth, in a slightly bewildered tone of voice.
“No,” said Rodney, at the same time Sheppard said, “Yes.”
“I'm being coerced,” Rodney added.
“Come on, Elizabeth,” wheedled Sheppard, with his best winning smile. Rodney hated that smile. “We'll only be gone two days. The city can handle being without us for two days.”
“Actually,” said Rodney, “Given the frequency of disaster in Atlantis, the probability-”
“Zelenka can handle it,” Sheppard interrupted, loudly and firmly.
Elizabeth took a breath. “All right.”
Sheppard grinned.
Rodney groaned.
“You don't want to go?” asked Elizabeth, sounding even more puzzled.
“No, I don't want to go! They're making me go!”
“Why?”
“Cause it'll be fun,” said Sheppard, with that same shit-eating grin. “You want to come?”
Elizabeth looked between the two of them, an all-too-familiar “the two of you make no sense whatsoever to me” expression on her face. “I think I'll pass, thanks.”
-------------------------
Rodney's door chimed. That was actually unexpected; Sheppard usually just walked right in. Muttering about how much scientific progress was going to be set back because he was being forced to spend time in an archaic ritual, Rodney grabbed his bag and went to the door, pressing the release. “Yeah, yeah, I'm rea-”
Teyla stood there, dressed in a backless Earth-style evening gown and heels, her hair swept up in a style Rodney recognized as “fancy.”
“Uh, wow,” Rodney stammered, trying like a madman to keep his eyes on her face and (luckily for his physical well-being) largely managing it. “Um, you look, um-why?”
“John explained that it would raise your stature in the eyes of your classmates if you appeared with a beautiful woman,” said Teyla primly. She narrowed her eyes a bit and added, “My willingness to accompany you in this manner does not imply anything more than friendship.”
“Right! Oh, yeah, um-message received, and all that,” Rodney got out. “Uh, shall we go then?” He offered an arm, feeling spun silly. Teyla slipped a slender hand through his elbow. “You know, Teyla-you were already a knockout without dressing up. This wasn't, um, really necessary.”
“Why, thank you, Rodney,” said Teyla, squeezing his arm slightly, and Rodney, who had just sort of been stating a fact, found himself straightening a little and congratulating himself for saying something right.
-------------------------
Rodney and Teyla arrived at the gateroom to find Sheppard and Ronon waiting for them, both wearing dark suits.
“And who are you supposed to be? The Men in Black?” asked Rodney, genuinely confused.
“Naw, we're your bodyguards,” explained Sheppard, smiling. “Ultra-high security job, and all that.”
“Oh,” said Rodney. “Uh, cool.” Wonder of wonders, he was actually starting to look forward to this. Arriving at the reunion with Teyla on his arm, bracketed by two dangerous-looking men . . . the rest of those idiots could just eat their hearts out.
Oh crap-I'm succumbing to reunion syndrome, he realized suddenly. I'm being NORMAL! The idea disgusted him for a moment before he thought, Well, why not? Someone has to show those morons exactly what they are on a level they can understand. Why can't it be me?
He straightened his jacket a little, imagining the looks on all of his classmates' faces when he walked in. Just having Teyla accompany him would make half of them turn green with envy. The male half.
-------------------------
“So? Happy you're going now?” Sheppard asked on the way to the airport from Cheyenne Mountain, in the midst of raiding the limo's mini bar.
“Yeah,” Rodney admitted. “Yeah, I am.”
“I just want to hear some more good stories about you,” said Ronon with a little bit of a devilish smile. But there was no actual mocking in it, and somehow Rodney felt the opposite-that Ronon was coming to have his back. It was a queer sort of fizzy feeling, and he liked it.
Just let them say one little mocking word to me now. Even if Ronon did keep his hands to himself (Teyla's orders), he could loom very convincingly. Very convincingly.
And he had come along in order to loom on Rodney's behalf. And Teyla had come along to be superficial arm candy, and considering just how many orders of magnitude more than that she was, that was a generous sacrifice indeed. And Sheppard-Sheppard had orchestrated all of this, just to help Rodney show up classmates who had made every effort to beat him down as much as they possibly could during high school.
His team.
Team. The word rattled around pleasantly in his head for a few minutes. He'd actually never really thought about the word “team” before-back in high school, he'd been on science teams and math teams, sure, but usually because he was the smartest person there so everyone knew he'd make them win. He'd never believed in that so-called “team spirit,” or the team camaraderie that so many other people seemed to be so fond of. In fact, he'd scoffed at it. And the only sports teams he'd ever been on had been in (shudder) gym class, and he had always been the last one picked. Always.
Except with Sheppard. Sheppard had picked him first.
It was the first time that had struck him in this light, and it was like a revelation. Sheppard had picked him first.
And Sheppard and Teyla and Ronon were coming to help him show off at a stupid reunion full of stupid people, and some part of him had started to be vindictively glad about going because he wanted to show them all up, to see their faces when he arrived with the most beautiful woman in the room on his arm and had a job that financed two full-time bodyguards, but suddenly he realized that he really didn't give a nickel for what all of those people thought, because suddenly, it didn't matter.
“Hey, let's go to Disneyworld instead.”
Sheppard frowned. “What?”
“Let's go to Disneyworld. It's an amusement park,” he added, for Teyla and Ronon's sakes.
“We know,” said Teyla in a puzzled tone of voice. “But you hate amusement parks.”
“Even more than you hate reunions,” added Sheppard.
“Yeah, but you love them,” said Rodney. “And Teyla and Ronon have never been, and it's supposed to be this place everyone goes, right? At least, everyone being the subset of the population who live in our privileged Western society, or something like that. And it will be way more fun than hanging out at some boring cocktail party all night long with exceedingly boring people.”
“Thought you were looking forward to it now,” said Ronon.
“I was, I just-you know, I'd rather-I don't know.” What he wanted to say was, “What I'd really rather do is spend time with the three of you,” but the words didn't fit together right when he tried to get them out of his mouth. So instead, he just said, “It just . . . it doesn't matter anymore. I'd rather take you guys to Disneyworld.”
-------------------------
“Hey, remember that ridiculously smart kid? The one who was jumped up like three grades and was massively arrogant about it?” asked Gordon Kimich, lounging against the bar.
“Yeah, he had some girl's name or something, didn't he?” answered Aaron Cerviccio. “I always thought his parents must have hated him.”
“He's not here, is he? I was kind of curious as to where he ended up.”
“Eh, probably some high-paying finance job or something,” said Aaron. “That's where all the money is these days, isn't it?” He idly twirled his champagne glass by the stem. “Wherever he is, he's probably still getting beaten up for his lunch money.” The two of them laughed.
-------------------------
Five thousand kilometers away, Rodney McKay munched on deep-fried snacks and watched Teyla, still in her evening gown and heels, chase down Ronon and upend a bag of popcorn over his head in return for some cheeky Pegasus insult.
“Settle down, boys and girls!” Sheppard called with a smile, slurping on an lemon-lime slushee that Rodney was pretty sure he had gotten just to be annoying. He turned to Rodney. “Now, let's show those Pegasus brats what Ferris wheels are like.”
“You know I hate Ferris wheels, right?” moaned Rodney.
“I know,” answered Sheppard, grabbing him by the arm. “Come on.”
Fifteen minutes later, swooping high above the grounds with Teyla pressed against his shoulder and Ronon leaning way farther over the edge of the basket than was really safe and Sheppard standing up in the wind with a massive grin on his face, Rodney couldn't help thinking, This right here-this completely unscientific emotional response-I think I finally understand. This is what it means to be on a team.
He smiled.