Fic: The Trials and Tribulations of Uncle Rodney (McKay/Sheppard, PG-13)
Title: The Trials and Tribulations of Uncle Rodney or It Takes A Village
Author: ca_pierson
Recipient: earlwyn
Beta: Anon until reveal
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis does not belong to me, nor do I make money from this story.
Summary: It takes a village to raise a child.
Words: 3.301
Author’s Notes: This is for you, earlwyn, who wanted John/Rodney, likes affectionate moments of team-bonding, and the team bringing up Torren. I hope I managed to fit everything in and that you like it. Merry Christmas! Thanks to darkmoore and dashadowpanther.
I.
After Torren had been born there was some kind of ceremony. The Athosians did a lot of things with ceremonies and to Rodney they all sounded the same. ‘Thank you, oh honored Ancestors’ generally was the start of what were several hours of what Rodney generally classed as ‘blah blah’, which - incidentally - was also what he heard while his higher brain functions were busy with his latest pet project.
So when Teyla was suddenly - and sneakily - in front of him, pulling his head down into the traditional Athosian hug and smiling Rodney couldn’t help but think that he somehow had missed something really important. That feeling intensified when Teyla muttered, “it takes a village to raise a child,” before she let go of him.
He was still wondering what that could possibly mean when Teyla turned up at their place with Torren a few days later, a bag with necessities and a huge smile on her face. She placed the baby in Rodney’s arms gently - but rather insistently - and with a foreboding expression on her face, then handed the bag to John.
“He already had his meal,” she said, smiling serenely at both of them, “and should sleep for three hours once you put him down. Do not worry, you cannot miss it when he wakes up, return him when he does.”
It took for Teyla to turn around and the door to close behind her before Rodney really understood what was going on. “She’s leaving Torren with us for three hours?” Rodney asked John, his voice as hushed as possible.
“You weren’t paying any attention at Torren’s naming ceremony at all, were you?” John answered his question with a question and a rather amused smile.
Thinking that over, Rodney grimaced. “You mean we are the village?” Before John could do anything more than laugh, Torren gurgled and waved his tiny fists in Rodney’s face.
Maybe being the village wouldn’t be all that bad.
II.
Rodney both dreaded and loved Thursdays. He dreaded them because he was absolutely terrified of having to spend three hours with John and himself being the primary caregivers of Torren. But he loved Thursdays because of the very same thing, because he and John could spend a few hours with Torren and it was just them.
Tonight though, they had the honorable - Rodney had to suppress a snort at that - duty of also feeding Torren. Teyla had said it was time he started to eat solids months ago and they’d fought with spoons and mashed baby food and little fingers that got into everything for a while now. But recently Teyla had decided she wanted Torren to learn how to eat by himself. Apparently that was part of the village’s responsibility. Rodney was starting to think that Teyla was just making it all up along the way by now.
At least that’s what it felt like as he sat in the mess hall, wiping baby food off his face while John was collapsed next to him laughing and Torren was gurgling happily and opening and closing his fists in his mashed vegetables.
“Not funny,” Rodney told John, reaching for the pieces of clothes that Teyla used as wipes, basically. She had handed them with a nod in addition to the normal bag. “So not funny.”
“Yeah,” John wheezed, “it is. You should see yourself.”
In response, Rodney smiled at Torren as he took the spoon from the table. He was still smiling as he hit John in the face with the mashed vegetables. John did stop laughing at that long enough to retaliate with some of the … whatever it was they fed the grown-ups. The ensuing food fight certainly hadn’t been too bad. Explaining to Teyla why her son was covered in vegetables when she walked into the mess hall half an hour later was much worse.
III.
Every week Torren spent an adequate time with his ‘village’. Well, with John and Rodney, anyway. Rodney wasn’t entirely sure of Teyla’s definition of village and he hadn’t scraped together his courage yet to admit that he hadn’t been listening to her. John had just shrugged and said ‘that’s us’ and that had been that. Rodney was sure that Ronon, John, and Rodney were part of it, Teyla had been quite clear about that one. But apparently other people were as well. Radek, Evan, Carson, Cadman, and many other members of the expedition were regular babysitters. So by now Rodney was sure that Teyla just made it up as she went along, but he wasn’t suicidal enough to actually say anything to Teyla about it. For one, being part of a village was actually kind of cool. John especially enjoyed it for some reason, and Rodney wasn’t about to hurt his lover by possibly getting them kicked out of said village.
So every now or then either Teyla or Kanaan, or both of them showed up at their door with Torren, and they’d all set out together to get Ronon and then spend time playing with Torren in what was Torren’s playroom. Generally during their downtime. Well, it had started out as Rodney feverishly padding a room that wasn’t in use so Torren couldn’t hurt himself as he started walking; now it was filled with toys. It was actually quite nice.
That was until Torren made his way slowly around the room, hanging on to everything in reach, and the pile of toys came crashing down with him as he fell, landing on his face. Generally, that wasn’t a problem, Torren would pick himself up, laugh and then climb to his feet again, with a determined expression. This time though, he didn’t. Instead, he started crying and they were all running towards him at the same moment.
It was dumb luck that Rodney was the closest and when he picked Torren up there was blood everywhere. Torren had hit his forehead on the edge of the wooden box that held his building bricks. Rodney had always been very aware of his health and what could go wrong. It was what got him classed as a hypochondriac more often than not, but he really wasn’t. He just knew way too much about voodoo and didn’t want to die before he got a Nobel Prize. The sight of Torren with blood running down his face was worse than anything that had ever happened to him before. “It’s okay Torren,” Rodney muttered, and rubbed Torren’s back awkwardly as the kid clung to Rodney’s neck. “It’s okay, see, your mommie’s here,” Rodney said and tried to hand over the toddler to Teyla. But Torren wouldn’t let go, instead he sobbed and hugged Rodney harder.
That was how Rodney ended up carrying Torren to the infirmary. He kept telling him about how uncle Carson was going to make it all better while Teyla walked next to him, a proud smile on her face for no reason whatsoever. They must have looked like a strange procession with Ronon and John trailing behind them, but Rodney didn’t care. By the time Carson had determined that it was just a ‘wee cut’ and ‘nothing to worry about’, Torren had stopped crying and just hiccupped now or then.
Even with all the blood it had been a good feeling, to be the one able to comfort Torren. And for the first time since the ceremony that had made him part of the village, Rodney actually felt like a resident.
IV.
“I didn’t know children could be that fast,” John muttered, spread out artlessly over their bed. With a none too gentle shove Rodney made some space for himself, then gratefully sank down on the mattress. It was heaven, especially when John immediately curled up around him, tangling their legs, and wrapping an arm around Rodney’s middle. “I’m pretty sure he wasn’t that fast last week. Did you know that children could be that fast?” John repeated, his breath warm against Rodney’s cheek.
“No,” Rodney told him. Rodney hadn’t known that Torren could be that fast. Everything hurt, his arms and legs felt like lead, and his head still hurt from an unfortunate encounter with a workbench Torren had decided was a good place to hide with his loot.
Torren had gone from getting up on wobbly feet and holding onto everything to move from one point to the next, to running through the corridors at top speed without thought or care. It had happened from one day to the next and both John and Rodney had trouble keeping up with the energetic kid. Rodney’s legs started cramping and he winced as he moved himself into a more comfortable position, facing John, whose eyes were closed already. “And good god, he must have had a growth spurt because he can reach the top of the workbenches now. He got hold of one of the broken Ancient devices in Lab 15 - and don’t think I won’t have a word with Alrics, these things shouldn’t be lying around, really - and then Torren put it into his mouth,” Rodney told John. They’d separated for only an hour with Rodney taking care of Torren and John taking care of something important or other, Rodney didn’t really care right then. John didn’t answer, but he started to snore softly after a moment. If Rodney had had the energy he would have been furious about John falling asleep on him like that. As it was, he’d rarely been so exhausted, and that included running for his life. Taking care of Torren for the day hadn’t been this much work before. Sure, he’d wanted to play, he’d been getting into everything and had wanted fresh diapers and what not, but he hadn’t been running around, wreaking havoc everywhere. It had certainly been a lot easier take care of Torren when all they’d had to do was watch a film as Torren slept. So Rodney really couldn’t be all that angry with John that he’d fallen asleep in the middle of their conversation. With John’s breathing in his ear and the warmth of John’s body slowly seeping into his, Rodney fell asleep as well.
V.
It took Rodney a while to realize, but it wasn’t just the team that was Torren’s village. It was the entire expedition, together with the Athosians, really, but the team was the core family. They couldn’t have been closer to Torren if they’d been Teyla’s siblings. She’d made that one clear early on, but it had taken a while to completely sink in.
As the only child on Atlantis, Torren was spoilt by everybody, and food and toys found their way to Teyla’s quarters almost daily- It was amazing, really, how the expedition pulled together around Teyla and her little family. However, it was Rodney, or Ronon, or John Torren would pick out of a crowd and run to. It was Ronon’s hand Torren held onto tightly while he yelped and squealed with happiness at the small waves hitting his legs.
“Maybe we should put some more sunscreen on him,” Rodney hedged as Torren took John’s hand as well and demanded ‘up’ and soon he was swinging back and forth between John and Ronon, laughing loudly.
All the water worried Rodney more than he’d ever admit out loud, though John and Ronon could probably tell. Still, they waded in deeper and Teyla came to join them as well while Kanaan seemed happy enough on the beach.
“We’ve got enough sunscreen, McKay,” Ronon rumbled and grinned when Torren squealed, batting at the water with one hand while holding onto Ronon’s dreadlocks with the other.
They were breast deep in the warm water, then Ronon carefully disentangled Torren’s fingers from his hair and threw him at John without any forewarning whatsoever. Torren, of course, loved it, while Rodney almost had a heart attack. He was about to launch into a lecture on the possibilities of drowning when Torren reached towards Rodney and John pushed the toddler his way, practically floating him into Rodney’s arms.
Torren, Rodney figured, was a really poor kid; his village was full of immature, overgrown children. At least he had his uncle Rodney to make sure his education would be the best possible. Torren’s laughter as Rodney gave him to Teyla, who promptly threw Torren back to Ronon, could probably be heard over the din of music one of the scientist had organized for the barbeque.
Maybe Rodney was wrong, maybe Torren was the luckiest kid ever.
VI.
“Uncle Rodney,” Torren said and tugged on Rodney’s sleeve while at the same time managing to climb up on the empty chair next to Rodney without toppling over the tray of food. Rodney looked up from his plate, feeling the same kind of warmth he always felt when Torren called him ‘uncle’. “Yes, Torren?” Torren would always come to Rodney with the hard questions. Like … why the sky was blue. Rodney knew that more often than not Torren would ask Teyla first, who’d tell him of the myths of her people and then send him to Rodney for the scientific answer. Maybe he didn’t understand that it was because molecules in the air scattered the blue light from the sun more than they did the red, but he’d always nod seriously and Rodney felt like he’d given Torren a little bit of himself. It was a mutually agreeable situation. That was why Rodney steeled himself for one of Torren’s questions and put down his stylus.
“Where do babies come from?” wasn’t exactly the question he’d expected, though. Perplexed, Rodney blinked.
This was one of the questions he’d obviously - very obviously - not asked his mother first, and Rodney was very tempted to tell Torren to go and ask her. But Teyla had been very firm with all of them on the rules of answering questions.
1) Always be honest. 2) Never postpone answers. 3) Never ever say he’s too young to understand.
Rodney agreed wholeheartedly with all of the rules. He’d always hated it when his parents had tried to get out of answering one of his questions; it’d have been acceptable for them to say that they didn’t know, but they never had.
“Uhm,” Rodney said and looked for help in the faces around him. John was obviously nearly bursting with laughter, while Ronon just watched Rodney expectantly, like he wanted to know the answer just as much. “When two people love each other very, very much, they have babies,” Rodney finally said, hoping that subject was done for now. Because telling Torren what sex was and how babies actually were made wasn’t high on Rodney’s list of things to do in the near future.
“When are you and Uncle John going to have a baby then?”
John coughed violently and Ronon helpfully hit him on the back repeatedly. Opening his mouth a couple of times, Rodney didn’t know what to say. Apart from staring at Torren in what was probably abject terror, there was nothing he could do right then.
“Two guys can’t have babies, needs a woman and a man,” Ronon grumbled and took a bite of his sandwich. “Like the animals on the mainland,” he added helpfully at the little frown on Torren’s face, “needs a buck and a nanny goat, right?”
At that the kid grinned and nodded a couple of times. “Right!” He was off, back to Teyla and Kanaan’s table before either John or Rodney could recover.
Rodney didn’t know if he should be relieved or not; sure, he hadn’t known what exactly to say in answer to Torren’s question, but … it was his job in the village: answering the hard questions. That Ronon had been able to when he hadn’t hurt Rodney’s pride a little.
But then Ronon grinned at Rodney. “I’ve got your back, McKay,” he said, and Rodney smiled at that. Finally he got why the Athosians did it that way, why it took a village to raise a child. It wasn’t to teach anybody something and it wasn’t to make the team into something more of a family than they already were. It wasn’t because Teyla thought the world of them, or because Ronon would rip out the arms of anybody daring to touch Torren. It was all of that and more. But … there was always going to be someone there for Torren. No matter what happened to Teyla and to Kanaan, there was always going to be someone in Atlantis who was going to give everything to see that Torren was happy and well cared for. Always. That was what the village was.
“Thanks,” Rodney said, and they went back to eating with John having a peculiar expression on his face and threw Rodney sideways glances every so often.
“No, I know exactly what you’re thinking and no,” Rodney said firmly when they were alone in their quarters again, “we are not going to adopt or find a surrogate. We have Torren, that’s enough.”
“I wasn’t thinking about that,” John told him, and from the way his expression was the one he wore when he went into battle Rodney figured it wasn’t the last time he’d heard about that.
VII.
They all knew that when Teyla and Kanaan invited them over for a meal there was going to be a discussion afterward. Most of the time about Torren and something he had to learn, or about how skateboarding around Atlantis wasn’t a required skillset, or about how even talking about jumping off a pier for a swim wasn’t something they should do around Torren for at least another thirty years. But this time, it was decidedly different.
For one Teyla wasn’t frowning at them. And she’d brought their favorite foods from the mess hall, making it more a celebration than an impending lecture on proper behavior. Rodney wasn’t sure why, but the situation had him a little nervous.
“Kanaan and I have to tell you something,” Teyla said, her smile brilliant. She looked very happy and Rodney figured it couldn’t be something too bad. “Soon, Torren will have a little brother or sister. We wanted to tell you first, because we will need your help to explain to Torren, and to reassure him that we all still love him.” She smiled at each of them, then she turned serious. “Nothing is going to change.”
The last one was an order, which Rodney was inclined to chalk up to hormones. Of course nothing was going to change, who did she think they were?
“Course nothing’s going to change,” John said, then added, “congrats.”
“When’s it due?” Ronon asked, more interested than Rodney would have thought.
Teyla exchanged a glance with Kanaan. “In summer,” she said, then turned to Rodney, who didn’t know what to think yet.
“That’s great news,” Rodney told her, knowing she’d expect an answer of some kind. But Rodney wasn’t sure if his heart could take another baby falling over and hurting themselves. All the little accidents, the demands, the needs of a baby and then a toddler - he’d gone through enough of those with Torren. But then he thought about the way Torren squealed when Ronon threw him in the air and caught him again. How he’d always say “’gain!”, how he’d watch keenly as Rodney repaired his toy, how he was still taking in so much information, was still so interested. Then Rodney tried to imagine going through all that with another kid. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. “Great news,” Rodney repeated, this time meaning it, and Teyla returned his smile. They’d done it once, and … it had been good … really good. They’d do just as well again. Together.
After all, they were the greatest village ever, one just had to look at Torren to see that.
The End.
Author: ca_pierson
Recipient: earlwyn
Beta: Anon until reveal
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis does not belong to me, nor do I make money from this story.
Summary: It takes a village to raise a child.
Words: 3.301
Author’s Notes: This is for you, earlwyn, who wanted John/Rodney, likes affectionate moments of team-bonding, and the team bringing up Torren. I hope I managed to fit everything in and that you like it. Merry Christmas! Thanks to darkmoore and dashadowpanther.
I.
After Torren had been born there was some kind of ceremony. The Athosians did a lot of things with ceremonies and to Rodney they all sounded the same. ‘Thank you, oh honored Ancestors’ generally was the start of what were several hours of what Rodney generally classed as ‘blah blah’, which - incidentally - was also what he heard while his higher brain functions were busy with his latest pet project.
So when Teyla was suddenly - and sneakily - in front of him, pulling his head down into the traditional Athosian hug and smiling Rodney couldn’t help but think that he somehow had missed something really important. That feeling intensified when Teyla muttered, “it takes a village to raise a child,” before she let go of him.
He was still wondering what that could possibly mean when Teyla turned up at their place with Torren a few days later, a bag with necessities and a huge smile on her face. She placed the baby in Rodney’s arms gently - but rather insistently - and with a foreboding expression on her face, then handed the bag to John.
“He already had his meal,” she said, smiling serenely at both of them, “and should sleep for three hours once you put him down. Do not worry, you cannot miss it when he wakes up, return him when he does.”
It took for Teyla to turn around and the door to close behind her before Rodney really understood what was going on. “She’s leaving Torren with us for three hours?” Rodney asked John, his voice as hushed as possible.
“You weren’t paying any attention at Torren’s naming ceremony at all, were you?” John answered his question with a question and a rather amused smile.
Thinking that over, Rodney grimaced. “You mean we are the village?” Before John could do anything more than laugh, Torren gurgled and waved his tiny fists in Rodney’s face.
Maybe being the village wouldn’t be all that bad.
II.
Rodney both dreaded and loved Thursdays. He dreaded them because he was absolutely terrified of having to spend three hours with John and himself being the primary caregivers of Torren. But he loved Thursdays because of the very same thing, because he and John could spend a few hours with Torren and it was just them.
Tonight though, they had the honorable - Rodney had to suppress a snort at that - duty of also feeding Torren. Teyla had said it was time he started to eat solids months ago and they’d fought with spoons and mashed baby food and little fingers that got into everything for a while now. But recently Teyla had decided she wanted Torren to learn how to eat by himself. Apparently that was part of the village’s responsibility. Rodney was starting to think that Teyla was just making it all up along the way by now.
At least that’s what it felt like as he sat in the mess hall, wiping baby food off his face while John was collapsed next to him laughing and Torren was gurgling happily and opening and closing his fists in his mashed vegetables.
“Not funny,” Rodney told John, reaching for the pieces of clothes that Teyla used as wipes, basically. She had handed them with a nod in addition to the normal bag. “So not funny.”
“Yeah,” John wheezed, “it is. You should see yourself.”
In response, Rodney smiled at Torren as he took the spoon from the table. He was still smiling as he hit John in the face with the mashed vegetables. John did stop laughing at that long enough to retaliate with some of the … whatever it was they fed the grown-ups. The ensuing food fight certainly hadn’t been too bad. Explaining to Teyla why her son was covered in vegetables when she walked into the mess hall half an hour later was much worse.
III.
Every week Torren spent an adequate time with his ‘village’. Well, with John and Rodney, anyway. Rodney wasn’t entirely sure of Teyla’s definition of village and he hadn’t scraped together his courage yet to admit that he hadn’t been listening to her. John had just shrugged and said ‘that’s us’ and that had been that. Rodney was sure that Ronon, John, and Rodney were part of it, Teyla had been quite clear about that one. But apparently other people were as well. Radek, Evan, Carson, Cadman, and many other members of the expedition were regular babysitters. So by now Rodney was sure that Teyla just made it up as she went along, but he wasn’t suicidal enough to actually say anything to Teyla about it. For one, being part of a village was actually kind of cool. John especially enjoyed it for some reason, and Rodney wasn’t about to hurt his lover by possibly getting them kicked out of said village.
So every now or then either Teyla or Kanaan, or both of them showed up at their door with Torren, and they’d all set out together to get Ronon and then spend time playing with Torren in what was Torren’s playroom. Generally during their downtime. Well, it had started out as Rodney feverishly padding a room that wasn’t in use so Torren couldn’t hurt himself as he started walking; now it was filled with toys. It was actually quite nice.
That was until Torren made his way slowly around the room, hanging on to everything in reach, and the pile of toys came crashing down with him as he fell, landing on his face. Generally, that wasn’t a problem, Torren would pick himself up, laugh and then climb to his feet again, with a determined expression. This time though, he didn’t. Instead, he started crying and they were all running towards him at the same moment.
It was dumb luck that Rodney was the closest and when he picked Torren up there was blood everywhere. Torren had hit his forehead on the edge of the wooden box that held his building bricks. Rodney had always been very aware of his health and what could go wrong. It was what got him classed as a hypochondriac more often than not, but he really wasn’t. He just knew way too much about voodoo and didn’t want to die before he got a Nobel Prize. The sight of Torren with blood running down his face was worse than anything that had ever happened to him before. “It’s okay Torren,” Rodney muttered, and rubbed Torren’s back awkwardly as the kid clung to Rodney’s neck. “It’s okay, see, your mommie’s here,” Rodney said and tried to hand over the toddler to Teyla. But Torren wouldn’t let go, instead he sobbed and hugged Rodney harder.
That was how Rodney ended up carrying Torren to the infirmary. He kept telling him about how uncle Carson was going to make it all better while Teyla walked next to him, a proud smile on her face for no reason whatsoever. They must have looked like a strange procession with Ronon and John trailing behind them, but Rodney didn’t care. By the time Carson had determined that it was just a ‘wee cut’ and ‘nothing to worry about’, Torren had stopped crying and just hiccupped now or then.
Even with all the blood it had been a good feeling, to be the one able to comfort Torren. And for the first time since the ceremony that had made him part of the village, Rodney actually felt like a resident.
IV.
“I didn’t know children could be that fast,” John muttered, spread out artlessly over their bed. With a none too gentle shove Rodney made some space for himself, then gratefully sank down on the mattress. It was heaven, especially when John immediately curled up around him, tangling their legs, and wrapping an arm around Rodney’s middle. “I’m pretty sure he wasn’t that fast last week. Did you know that children could be that fast?” John repeated, his breath warm against Rodney’s cheek.
“No,” Rodney told him. Rodney hadn’t known that Torren could be that fast. Everything hurt, his arms and legs felt like lead, and his head still hurt from an unfortunate encounter with a workbench Torren had decided was a good place to hide with his loot.
Torren had gone from getting up on wobbly feet and holding onto everything to move from one point to the next, to running through the corridors at top speed without thought or care. It had happened from one day to the next and both John and Rodney had trouble keeping up with the energetic kid. Rodney’s legs started cramping and he winced as he moved himself into a more comfortable position, facing John, whose eyes were closed already. “And good god, he must have had a growth spurt because he can reach the top of the workbenches now. He got hold of one of the broken Ancient devices in Lab 15 - and don’t think I won’t have a word with Alrics, these things shouldn’t be lying around, really - and then Torren put it into his mouth,” Rodney told John. They’d separated for only an hour with Rodney taking care of Torren and John taking care of something important or other, Rodney didn’t really care right then. John didn’t answer, but he started to snore softly after a moment. If Rodney had had the energy he would have been furious about John falling asleep on him like that. As it was, he’d rarely been so exhausted, and that included running for his life. Taking care of Torren for the day hadn’t been this much work before. Sure, he’d wanted to play, he’d been getting into everything and had wanted fresh diapers and what not, but he hadn’t been running around, wreaking havoc everywhere. It had certainly been a lot easier take care of Torren when all they’d had to do was watch a film as Torren slept. So Rodney really couldn’t be all that angry with John that he’d fallen asleep in the middle of their conversation. With John’s breathing in his ear and the warmth of John’s body slowly seeping into his, Rodney fell asleep as well.
V.
It took Rodney a while to realize, but it wasn’t just the team that was Torren’s village. It was the entire expedition, together with the Athosians, really, but the team was the core family. They couldn’t have been closer to Torren if they’d been Teyla’s siblings. She’d made that one clear early on, but it had taken a while to completely sink in.
As the only child on Atlantis, Torren was spoilt by everybody, and food and toys found their way to Teyla’s quarters almost daily- It was amazing, really, how the expedition pulled together around Teyla and her little family. However, it was Rodney, or Ronon, or John Torren would pick out of a crowd and run to. It was Ronon’s hand Torren held onto tightly while he yelped and squealed with happiness at the small waves hitting his legs.
“Maybe we should put some more sunscreen on him,” Rodney hedged as Torren took John’s hand as well and demanded ‘up’ and soon he was swinging back and forth between John and Ronon, laughing loudly.
All the water worried Rodney more than he’d ever admit out loud, though John and Ronon could probably tell. Still, they waded in deeper and Teyla came to join them as well while Kanaan seemed happy enough on the beach.
“We’ve got enough sunscreen, McKay,” Ronon rumbled and grinned when Torren squealed, batting at the water with one hand while holding onto Ronon’s dreadlocks with the other.
They were breast deep in the warm water, then Ronon carefully disentangled Torren’s fingers from his hair and threw him at John without any forewarning whatsoever. Torren, of course, loved it, while Rodney almost had a heart attack. He was about to launch into a lecture on the possibilities of drowning when Torren reached towards Rodney and John pushed the toddler his way, practically floating him into Rodney’s arms.
Torren, Rodney figured, was a really poor kid; his village was full of immature, overgrown children. At least he had his uncle Rodney to make sure his education would be the best possible. Torren’s laughter as Rodney gave him to Teyla, who promptly threw Torren back to Ronon, could probably be heard over the din of music one of the scientist had organized for the barbeque.
Maybe Rodney was wrong, maybe Torren was the luckiest kid ever.
VI.
“Uncle Rodney,” Torren said and tugged on Rodney’s sleeve while at the same time managing to climb up on the empty chair next to Rodney without toppling over the tray of food. Rodney looked up from his plate, feeling the same kind of warmth he always felt when Torren called him ‘uncle’. “Yes, Torren?” Torren would always come to Rodney with the hard questions. Like … why the sky was blue. Rodney knew that more often than not Torren would ask Teyla first, who’d tell him of the myths of her people and then send him to Rodney for the scientific answer. Maybe he didn’t understand that it was because molecules in the air scattered the blue light from the sun more than they did the red, but he’d always nod seriously and Rodney felt like he’d given Torren a little bit of himself. It was a mutually agreeable situation. That was why Rodney steeled himself for one of Torren’s questions and put down his stylus.
“Where do babies come from?” wasn’t exactly the question he’d expected, though. Perplexed, Rodney blinked.
This was one of the questions he’d obviously - very obviously - not asked his mother first, and Rodney was very tempted to tell Torren to go and ask her. But Teyla had been very firm with all of them on the rules of answering questions.
1) Always be honest. 2) Never postpone answers. 3) Never ever say he’s too young to understand.
Rodney agreed wholeheartedly with all of the rules. He’d always hated it when his parents had tried to get out of answering one of his questions; it’d have been acceptable for them to say that they didn’t know, but they never had.
“Uhm,” Rodney said and looked for help in the faces around him. John was obviously nearly bursting with laughter, while Ronon just watched Rodney expectantly, like he wanted to know the answer just as much. “When two people love each other very, very much, they have babies,” Rodney finally said, hoping that subject was done for now. Because telling Torren what sex was and how babies actually were made wasn’t high on Rodney’s list of things to do in the near future.
“When are you and Uncle John going to have a baby then?”
John coughed violently and Ronon helpfully hit him on the back repeatedly. Opening his mouth a couple of times, Rodney didn’t know what to say. Apart from staring at Torren in what was probably abject terror, there was nothing he could do right then.
“Two guys can’t have babies, needs a woman and a man,” Ronon grumbled and took a bite of his sandwich. “Like the animals on the mainland,” he added helpfully at the little frown on Torren’s face, “needs a buck and a nanny goat, right?”
At that the kid grinned and nodded a couple of times. “Right!” He was off, back to Teyla and Kanaan’s table before either John or Rodney could recover.
Rodney didn’t know if he should be relieved or not; sure, he hadn’t known what exactly to say in answer to Torren’s question, but … it was his job in the village: answering the hard questions. That Ronon had been able to when he hadn’t hurt Rodney’s pride a little.
But then Ronon grinned at Rodney. “I’ve got your back, McKay,” he said, and Rodney smiled at that. Finally he got why the Athosians did it that way, why it took a village to raise a child. It wasn’t to teach anybody something and it wasn’t to make the team into something more of a family than they already were. It wasn’t because Teyla thought the world of them, or because Ronon would rip out the arms of anybody daring to touch Torren. It was all of that and more. But … there was always going to be someone there for Torren. No matter what happened to Teyla and to Kanaan, there was always going to be someone in Atlantis who was going to give everything to see that Torren was happy and well cared for. Always. That was what the village was.
“Thanks,” Rodney said, and they went back to eating with John having a peculiar expression on his face and threw Rodney sideways glances every so often.
“No, I know exactly what you’re thinking and no,” Rodney said firmly when they were alone in their quarters again, “we are not going to adopt or find a surrogate. We have Torren, that’s enough.”
“I wasn’t thinking about that,” John told him, and from the way his expression was the one he wore when he went into battle Rodney figured it wasn’t the last time he’d heard about that.
VII.
They all knew that when Teyla and Kanaan invited them over for a meal there was going to be a discussion afterward. Most of the time about Torren and something he had to learn, or about how skateboarding around Atlantis wasn’t a required skillset, or about how even talking about jumping off a pier for a swim wasn’t something they should do around Torren for at least another thirty years. But this time, it was decidedly different.
For one Teyla wasn’t frowning at them. And she’d brought their favorite foods from the mess hall, making it more a celebration than an impending lecture on proper behavior. Rodney wasn’t sure why, but the situation had him a little nervous.
“Kanaan and I have to tell you something,” Teyla said, her smile brilliant. She looked very happy and Rodney figured it couldn’t be something too bad. “Soon, Torren will have a little brother or sister. We wanted to tell you first, because we will need your help to explain to Torren, and to reassure him that we all still love him.” She smiled at each of them, then she turned serious. “Nothing is going to change.”
The last one was an order, which Rodney was inclined to chalk up to hormones. Of course nothing was going to change, who did she think they were?
“Course nothing’s going to change,” John said, then added, “congrats.”
“When’s it due?” Ronon asked, more interested than Rodney would have thought.
Teyla exchanged a glance with Kanaan. “In summer,” she said, then turned to Rodney, who didn’t know what to think yet.
“That’s great news,” Rodney told her, knowing she’d expect an answer of some kind. But Rodney wasn’t sure if his heart could take another baby falling over and hurting themselves. All the little accidents, the demands, the needs of a baby and then a toddler - he’d gone through enough of those with Torren. But then he thought about the way Torren squealed when Ronon threw him in the air and caught him again. How he’d always say “’gain!”, how he’d watch keenly as Rodney repaired his toy, how he was still taking in so much information, was still so interested. Then Rodney tried to imagine going through all that with another kid. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. “Great news,” Rodney repeated, this time meaning it, and Teyla returned his smile. They’d done it once, and … it had been good … really good. They’d do just as well again. Together.
After all, they were the greatest village ever, one just had to look at Torren to see that.
The End.