Roo'verse update: Fathers and Sons (McShep, John/Cam, mpreg) (1/2)
Title: Fathers and Sons
Author: Tzzzz
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: mpreg
Parings: John/Rodney, John/Cam
Spoilers: None
Summary: With John’s help, Rodney and Jeannie confront their father about their parentage. Follows Tables Turned, Once There Was a Man Named Holland, Not a Henry, The Kangaroos and the Bees, What Rodney Wants, Conception, The Good of the One, Transferred, Baby Deedee, Brothers and Sisters, and Dominus, Secundus, Pleb.
A/N: Nothing says Mother's Day like mpreg! I felt a little close to the Real Person Fic category, using Hawking and company in Rodney's father's backstory, but I assure you that I treated them with much more respect than TPTB treated poor Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson in Brain Storm. Andrew Hirsch is a completely made up scientist.
If John had thought traveling with Cam had been bad, it was only because he hadn’t taken into account traveling by himself. As usual, he barely paid any attention when he dressed - throwing on a tight green long-sleeved shirt without even looking in the mirror. It was only after the third pleb asked him if he needed help with his duffel bag that John realized how obvious that shirt made his condition.
“Theodore Roosevelt killed a bear with a hunting knife further along that I am,” John grumbled under his breath. Stupid plebs. John was in the middle of using his Guild card to get the free upgrade to business class for carrying Guild members when the the Guild concierge informed him that Dave had already phoned ahead and put his first class upgrade on the company tab. Years ago, when John tried to keep his heritage a secret and only took military transport, even to go on leave, he would have taken offense at Dave’s offer, but now his pouch slit was sensitive where it was rubbing against his too-tight shirt, his feet ached after walking through the airport after weeks of bedrest and his arm was bothering him enough that he actually regretted not bringing the brace that Lam had given him. Maybe he was getting old or maybe he’d just realized the futility of the pointless anti-Guild rebellion of his youth.
Carson had told him once that he didn’t believe that Guilds were good for society, but so long as they existed, Carson didn’t mind the perks. The special line through airport security was nice, as was the first class cabin and the warm milk that the flight attendant brought for him without asking. He curled up, far away from all the ignorant hoards who thought that John’s condition gave them the right to just touch his stomach and slept all the way until dawn in Vancouver.
John slung his duffle over his shoulder and popped in his earbuds so he could let Johnny Cash drown out all the offers of help. Rodney was waiting for him at baggage claim looking frazzled and manic, hopped up on caffeine. Jeannie was standing next to him. She was wearing a tight white summer dress with a scarf around her head, bright red heels and sunglasses. She looked like a photo John had once seen of Marilyn Monroe.
“John,” Rodney smiled, but he was staring at John’s stomach with that eye-bulging look of near disaster he sometimes got the moment he realized that they were all going to die a horrible death. “You look good. I mean, the baby looks like . . . well, things are coming along nicely, I see. Not to say that you don’t actually look good too. Glowing. Not literally Ancient glowing, but I can see why they say that. If anything, I think that you look better with a little more weight. Not that you’re fat. I mean . . .”
“Rodney,” Jeannie laughed. “The man is carrying not dying. It’s like you’ve never seen an incubation before, when you barely saw Dad any other way.”
Jeannie made her way around a paralyzed-looking Rodney to give John a hug. “Congratulations, John. I know the Registration isn’t for another week, but do you have a name? I won’t tell anybody that you told me.”
John smiled. “Cam and I like Dane. What do you think, Rodney?” John ignored Rodney’s continued fixation on John’s belly to give him a peck on the lips. It wasn’t the ‘I haven’t seen you in over a month’ kiss that John had imagined when he left Maryland, but he wasn’t going to do that in front of Rodney’s little sister. He was so dazed that he let Jeannie, of all people, grab his bag and walk them out towards a waiting Guild car.
“Dane?”
“I asked you for help with names, but I don’t think you took me seriously. Except maybe by suggesting, Rodney. I could see that being serious.”
“Well if you don’t mind your child being compared to Dane Cook, Great Danes, and Danishes, I’m sure that’s perfectly fine.”
John frowned. “So you don’t like it?”
Rodney thought about it for a second. “It’s not something I would call my child, but considering the kind of all-American handsome genes that the kid’s going to inherit, you could probably name him Cowturd Von Douchington and everyone would still like him.”
Jeannie shot her brother a glare. “Well I think it’s a sweet name,” she said. “In fact, this whole situation has made me reevaluate whether Kaleb and I should try for another.”
“Easy for you to say,” Rodney grumbled. “You take advantage of your Z gene and just gestate them and then force your poor husband to handle most of the incubation.”
“Please, Mer. I don’t envy women who have to do it the XX way. Besides, the Guild specialists say it’s healthy for both parents to carry if they have the opportunity. It allows them both to form a bond with the child.”
“Oh, yes, Guild specialists. How very noble of you. Can’t help but slip that into conversation, can you? Well, we can’t all . . .”
Before Rodney could whine any more about how his sister had married just to get into a Guild, John interjected. “Guild doctors are there to enforce Guild rules, Rodney. If you’re lucky they might treat you while they’re at it. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Trust me. Now, Jeannie, you mentioned a situation? Did this happen to be a major situation on Atlantis that you neglected to tell me about,” John complained. Before he’d left he had made Rodney and Elizabeth promise to keep him in the loop, but he knew that probably wouldn’t happen.
“Carson said not to stress you out,” Rodney whined. “He said that because of the Pasteur rupture you had to take it easy.”
“Look, I’m not fragile. You don’t have to protect me. Now, do you want to fill me in on this ‘situation’ and why you made me abandon Cam alone with my family to fly out here?”
Rodney hung his head. “Well, um, it wasn’t a major situation. Okay, so not teeny tiny, or bite sized, but not huge.”
Jeannie rolled her eyes. “Please, Mer. Moving the city, turning on the replicators’ directive to kill the Wraith, and you saving my life with the ascension machine. Those aren’t little things.”
“You moved the city,” John growled. He expeccted his reunion with Rodney to be more happy (and with more sex) than angry. “You didn’t think I’d want to know about that?”
“I was busy all right. My sister was in a coma and I just found out that,” he gulped.
“You just found out what?” John asked.
Rodney looked blank, hunted. It was a familiar expression, one that John had learned long ago didn’t bode well.
“Mer learned that he and I share the same donor,” Jeanie explained.
“So? You’re brother and sister. It’s not that unusual.”
Rodney finally woke from his shocked stupor, pointing out, “yes, it’s not uncommon. Except our father always told us that we were conceived for business purposes. My donor was a Henry who hired my father to conceive me because he couldn’t impregnate his wife but then reneged on the deal. Jeannie was conceived because he was in the hospital for too long after a lab accident and his pouch closed up. But don’t you see, there’s no way that our father would have gone back to a man who had broken a business deal in order to have Jeannie. He said he got an open donation, but it can’t be true.”
John nodded. It made sense. Their father must have had some attachment to the donor to go back to him twice, nearly eight years apart. “And there’s another weakness in his story,” John added. “Because Jeannie is female, the donor must have been a pleb.” The only way to get an XZ child from a ZY father would be to mate with an ordinary XY and get the Z from the carrier and the X from the donor. “And because the Guilds run the Open Breeding Registry, it’s mostly imperials, royals, and women. Almost no plebian males.”
“I always thought the Registry was just Dad’s coded way of saying that he had a one night stand,” Jeannie admitted. “I can’t believe he lied to us all these years.”
“So, you found out this big family secret. What are we doing in Canada?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Rodney asked in the tone that meant he didn’t actually think it was obvious, but he wanted to make the people around him feel stupid anyway. “We’re going to confront my father about it.”
“Okay, great, very Hardy Doublets, brother and sister team solving mysteries, but what do you need me for?”
“Moral support?” Rodney spluttered just as Jeannie said, “Bait.”
***
Jeannie drove while John rested in the back seat, his head leaning up against the comforting warmth of Rodney’s shoulder. Rodney wrapped an arm around John, but avoided the bump that Cam was so fond of touching when he held John.
John was fully aware that he wasn’t dealing with the whole relationship situation very well, if at all. John knew that he wanted to stay on Atlantis and he didn’t want to just dump the baby on Cam and only see him for a couple of weeks a year when he had leave. That wasn’t fair to Dane and it wasn’t fair to Cam. But it also wasn’t fair to Cam to make him move all the way to Atlantis when John was in a relationship with Rodney.
John thought about Cam and his warm smile and the way his eyes lit up whenever he saw John. He thought about how he’d practically thrown himself at Cam when he thought that Leo had broken up with him and how Cam had resisted the temptation in favor of being a good friend. He thought about how easy they were together and about how Cam was the only non-family member in two galaxies that had seen John cry for a reason that didn’t involve physical pain. He thought about how Cam had been there for John throughout everything, not pushing him, just supporting him - actually helping John make decisions. And Cam would be an amazing father. He was practically made for it. John vowed that no matter what happened between them, he would not keep Cam from his son. But there was that one thing - the small, niggling seed of doubt that Rodney had planted in his head: had Cam deliberately decided not to wear a condom?
But maybe it was a moot point, because John wasn’t in love with Cam. He loved Cam and he was attracted to Cam and if there wasn’t the matter of John’s career, he’d probably be willing to have more than one of Cam’s children, but was that enough?
Ever since college, John had wanted what Dave had with Darren. He’d thought he’d found it with Leo, but then Leo died. John thought Rodney came close. He certainly felt the same way about Rodney as he had about Leo, but Leo had something that Rodney didn’t, something Rodney might never have. John had trusted that Leo would never hurt him and would always do right by him. John loved Rodney with all his heart, but Rodney’s brilliant dysfunction sometimes crossed the line into unpredictability. John trusted Rodney with his life, but he didn’t trust Rodney not to hurt him. John was deeply afraid that if he gave in and let Rodney give him a child or even allowed Rodney into Dane’s life, then he’d end up cleaning up all the messes and putting out all the fires because Rodney wasn’t capable of putting his ego aside enough to just do what needed to be done for a child.
So John didn’t really have what Dave and Darren had with Rodney either. If he could just have someone who was both like Rodney and like Cam (the way Leo had been), it would be perfect. If he could not have that, then what he really wanted was to have them both. And really, there was no reason why he couldn’t. All he needed to do was to marry Cam and take Rodney as his secundus.
***
The first place they went was a paternity store. John had never actually been inside one. Even when he had to get a present for Dave, he’d stick to things for the baby and not for the father. The place Jeannie had picked out reminded John of where his father used to take him to get suits tailored - all rich woodwork and deep colored carpeting. Half the items on display were suits and the rest were upscale casual. John wondered where he could buy a sweatshirt with a pouch opening.
“I don’t understand why we’re here. I’m not really showing yet. I can just wear Rodney’s clothes for now,” John protested.
Jeannie actually had the nerve to laugh, patting John the way she would a confused child. “Oh, honey, you are definitely showing. It’s time for you to embrace it.”
After they stepped inside, the shop attendant frowned at John (and the giant slurpie that he’d made them stop for). Jeannie rolled her eyes and pulled out her Guild card. John grabbed her wrist before she could hand it over and pulled out his instead. If Jeannie and Rodney were going to force him into a place that cared about pedigree then he might as well show them exactly how good his pedigree was.
The shop attendant’s frown immediately disappeared once she glimpsed the Guild name and the neat script that pronounced John to be an imperial beneath it.
“Right this way, Mr. Sheppard,” the attendant offered. “Your first?”
John nodded, eyeing the mannequins displaying the more advanced stages of incubation suspiciously. Was he really going to get that big?
“Now, what can we do for you today? Are you looking for something just for now or are you stocking up for the later stages as well? We have quite a variety of designs with no pouch opening. There aren’t any items that will comfortably take you from where you are now to the post-emergence time period, but if you are looking for something that will comfortably expand in the later stages, I can show you some of our newest styles. We also have quite a variety of non-expanding items if you prefer. We are part of a Guild partnership that will let you get free tailoring on our items in any shop that recognizes your Guild anywhere in Canada. I assure you that there isn’t a Guild-partnered store that doesn’t recognize the Potentia Guil.”
John knew he probably looked bewildered, so it was easy to let Jeannie answer for him. “John’s just here for a visit. He can find more clothes in America. For now, he just needs a few paternity shirts for this stage.”
The saleswoman and Jeannie then went over to look at John’s options. John decided to take his slurpie over to a high backed leather sofa tucked into the corner of the shop. Rodney followed him.
“So why do I need a new wardrobe?” John asked.
“My father is a very secretive man and he obviously doesn’t want this particular secret to come out, considering that it was important enough to him to not have us Registered. Jeannie thinks we should hit him with a one-two punch - the fact that you and I have a baby on the way and the fact that Jeannie and I found out.”
“So you’re having me all dolled up so I can play your incubating boyfriend?”
“Exactly. Look, my father is very motivated by ego. If he thinks his son’s marriage to an imperial from a good Guild is at stake, he’s more likely to relent. You just need to tell him that your Guild has very strict rules about Registration and that your Guild genealogists found some discrepancies when they looked into my background. Tell him you just need a name for my donor, not to have me be officially Registered.”
“Well, if your father was so motivated by his ego, then why did he let you guys go unregistered in the first place?” John asked.
“I have no idea, but I think that this our best bet.”
“And when he finds out that this isn’t your baby and you and I aren’t getting married?” John really hated the idea of having to do the introduction thing with another set of in-laws. He was stressed out enough by Cam meeting Dave’s family, not to mention the inevitable doom of clan Mitchell-Wilder intersecting with the Sheppards.
Rodney waved his hand dismissively. “So what?”
“Well, he’s going to be mad that you lied to him.”
“I’m mad that he lied to me!” Rodney squawked indignantly.
“Okay, you do have a point there.” John wasn’t really the best person to give advice on how to interact with family anyhow. “So then once you have the name, you’ll go visit him too?”
“That’s the plan. I’m curious, but Jeannie is like a dog with a bone on this and after what happened . . . they cut open her brain, John.” That explained the headscarf. “I can’t really deny her this.”
Deja vu. John had been in Rodney’s exact position years ago and it hadn’t really gotten him anywhere. “Look, I’m willing to help you if you want, but you should really think about this, Rodney.”
“What’s there to think about? I want to know the truth.”
John sighed. Of course Rodney wanted to know the truth. He probably didn’t even think about how bad the truth could be and how it could potentially mess up his relationship with his family. “Look, I never told you this,” or really anything about his family. “I was the product of an open donation.”
“I knew that already. You mentioned that you and your brother were fratres animorum and there’s no way your mother could have knocked your dad up.” John hadn’t expected that Rodney would remember that. He hadn’t even been sure that he’d been listening when John had be answering Teyla’s questions about the pictures of John’s family when they’d first arrived in Atlantis. He couldn’t help the grin that came to his face when he remembered the look on Teyla’s face the first time she saw the picture of Dave and Darren with P.J. poking out of Dave’s pouch. Her expression reminded John of how he must have looked the first time he saw the chestbuster scene in Alien.
“Yeah, well, it was obvious to me too. My father never hid my donor’s identity. I mean, there was no point, considering that I’d have the right to check the Registry myself when I turned 18. But my parents wouldn’t give me a lot of information about him. They told me his name, which features I shared with him, his career, and that he didn’t have any other children, but that’s about it. He was a classics professor at Harvard and when Dave and I ended up going there, it seemed natural to contact him.”
“I didn’t know you went to Harvard,” Rodney said. “No offense, but it seems like a waste of a liberal arts education if you end up in the military anyway.”
John laughed. “I transferred to the Air Force Academy my junior year. Those bastards wouldn’t admit me because they thought as an imperial I’d get knocked up at the first opportunity. It took two years of ROTC and petitioning for them to let me in. The thing was, before I met my donor, my father and I had an okay relationship. He didn’t take my military ambitions seriously and he was always busy and he was definitely a snobbish asshole, but I looked up to him. But my father is definitely a Henry.”
“I didn’t think you were prejudiced,” Rodney replied. He didn’t seem to think John was actually prejudiced, but he knew that in some circles, Henry was considered a bad word.
“Oh, I accept it as an orientation, Rodney. But my father is more of a Henry in the disastrous Henry VIII sense than the nice couples who adopt or get sperm donations to deal with their counter-reproductive relationships. My father couldn’t stand the stigma of being counter-reproductively oriented. He was already engaged to my mother and they were trying to conceive, but it wasn’t going well. He panicked, and in the days before genetic testing he suspected the reason they couldn’t get my mother pregnant was that he was an imperial. So he used the Guild matching service to start dating men behind my mother’s back. He seduced my donor, even made him fall in love with him, but then dumped him as soon as they found out my mother was pregnant with Dave. It made me see my father in a whole different light and now that I’ve seen it . . . it’s not something I can unsee.”
Rodney looked like he might want to give John a hug, which really wasn’t necessary. “I’m sorry.”
John shrugged. “It doesn’t bother me anymore. I’m happy to know my donor. He’s a good man. It’s just sad that in getting to know him I had to lose respect for my father.”
“I can’t imagine what my father could be hiding that would cause us to lose more respect for him. Knowing that Jeannie and I are full siblings and he lied to us about it is enough for me to lose a large part of whatever respect I did have for him. My father’s only real redeeming quality is that he was a brilliant scientist and that he defended his idea even when others didn’t believe him.”
“Those are pretty admirable things,” John tried to encourage. He sympathized with how Rodney must be feeling right now, but something that he’d learned over the years was that even if he didn’t respect his father, even hated him sometimes, he was glad that they still had a relationship.
“Well, we’ll see how you feel when you meet him.” Rodney paused looking conflicted before finally asking, “So, how’s the baby-deedee?”
That actually made John smile. “He’s been great. After the transfer Cam had to go back to work, but SG1’s on stand down while Jackson does research on some weapon he saw while he had Merlin’s memories and Sam is working on the technology left to us by the Asgard. Cam’s been doing recruitment and training of new personnel. It’s nine-to-five. And they let Cam take this week off to visit my family before the Registration ceremony. Despite his pleb values, he actually gets along with my brother’s family well. When we get back home, we’re going to start swimming, which is apparently a good low impact exercise for me and fixing up the house a bit so after the baby emerges Cam can sell it.”
“Why is he selling his house?” Rodney asked, looking for all the world like he was being held hostage by a Wraith, not watching his sister bicker with a sales assistant at a paternity boutique.
John reached out and squeezed Rodney’s shoulder in a way he hoped was reassuring. “Cam’s going to move to Pegasus.”
“What?! Why would he do that?”
John had been expecting a huge reaction from Rodney, but not the confusion. He and Cam did not part on good terms when John had decided to come back to Earth and John knew that, with Rodney, resentment festered like a plague.
“Because he wants to be closer to his son?” It seemed fairly obvious to John, who also couldn’t imagine being separated from the life growing inside him.
“Closer to you, you mean,” Rodney grumbled.
John laughed. “Yeah, closer to me too.” Cam had been pretty persistent making his desire for John known. And John could sympathize. It was hard, sleeping in the same bed with Cam and not just rolling over and having his way with him. It was hard to accept small kisses and so many little acts of kindness without it feeling like a relationship. And the hardest part by far was carrying Cam’s baby without being a family.
Rodney crossed his arms across his chest, defensive. “It doesn’t sound like you mind.”
John wasn’t just going to up and say that he’d been thinking more and more about Cam’s proposal because that would obviously blow up in his face in the form of a giant McKay rant or even worse, that quiet hurt look that could completely devastate John. “If he wants to be close to his son, it’s not my right to stop him. I’m not a horrible person, you know.”
“I’m not talking about being closer to his son. I actually agree with that part because it means that you and the baby will be coming back to Atlantis and not staying on Earth. I’m saying that it doesn’t seem as though you mind the idea of getting closer to Mitchell.”
Just John’s luck that Rodney would pick now of all times to actually be perceptive. “I guess I wouldn’t mind.”
There was the hurt look. Except Rodney was trying to spare John even that because he looked away. Jeannie was blatantly giving them time to talk now, John figured, as she was looking at clothes for when John would be much further along in his incubation.
John sighed, grabbing Rodney’s hand and pulling him around so that their eyes met. The resigned look Rodney gave him broke John’s heart so he cupped his cheek and kissed him deeply. “I’m not good at talking about . . .”
“Feelings?” Rodney filled in for him.
“Yeah,” John admitted, ducking his head. How was he going to talk to Rodney if Rodney kept looking at him? “But, I need you to understand. Rodney, I would give my life for you.”
“I know that. You haven’t met a cross you haven’t wanted to martyr yourself on.”
“It’s more than that,” John protested. “It’s . . . I never want to be in a world that doesn’t include you. Even a world where you’re still alive but you’re not by my side. I wouldn’t leave you, Rodney. You have to believe me.”
Rodney was stroking his thumb down John’s cheek now, forcing their eyes to meet. John could see the love he felt for Rodney returned, but the pain was still there. “You won’t leave me, but you want Mitchell too.” It was a statement, not a question.
John nodded. He needed to be honest. “The three of us could be a family, together.”
Rodney tensed. His fingers stopped and his hand fell limply from John’s cheek. But Rodney no longer looked hurt or terrified, just pensive. “I’ll have to think about it.”
“That’s fair,” John replied, leaning forward to give Rodney a chaste kiss. They lingered, foreheads pressed together like the Athosian embrace. John was the one to pull back, standing and announcing. “Okay, Jeannie, what have you got for me?”
Jeannie looked troubled by what she had observed of their conversation, but she smiled, walking over to them. “I’ve picked out a few things. The saleswoman put them in a changing room for you.”
“Do I really have to try them on?” John whined.
Jeannie rolled her eyes. “Men.” She bustled him towards the back where there were changing rooms that looked more like walk-in closets, complete with some pads that a man could use to pretend like he was further along. John shuddered. He didn’t need to imagine that.
Jeannie stepped in with him, leaving Rodney outside.
John raised his eyebrows at her.
“Come on, John. You’re just trying on shirts. I want to see.”
John gave in with a put upon sigh, turning his back to where Jeannie sat on a leather bench, watching him avidly.
Just as John was getting tangled pulling his shirt off, she spoke briefly. “I love my brother, John.” Her voice was low and menacing. John wouldn’t find that voice out of place in negotiations with the Wraith. “I admit that if he had any common sense whatsoever he would have started a relationship with you before you were already carrying, so he can’t expect things between you to be easy. But that’s not going to stop me from eviscerating you if you hurt him.”
John gulped. He didn’t doubt her sincerity. “Understood,” he replied.
“Great!” Jeanne went from menacing to bubbly in a heartbeat. “Now turn around and let me see that on you!”
After more costume changes than John could count, they had settled on a white and a light blue Oxford with the distinctive incubation tailoring, a long and short sleeve version of a soft black shirt that were long in the waist and stretchy enough to accommodate John’s belly for the next few months, and a cream colored cardigan that had been knit so that John could return to any guild store and have the crucial parts reknit. As they were exiting, Jeannie tossed in one of those bands that held your pants up once you couldn’t buckle them anymore and a wrap around felt coat with a pouch opening in it.
They had plans to visit Rodney’s father for dinner, so Jeannie suggested that they stop at a diner for brunch before heading back to the hotel for so John could sleep. John was content to wolf down a plate of waffles and a tuna melt while the siblings told him the story of how they’d taken care of the Replicators, with frequent interruptions for bickering. Cam had mentioned that Jeannie was one of the names he and Sam were looking at for full time recruitment at the SGC. John found that he liked the idea, so long as Jeannie stayed about a galaxy away from where their sibling rivalry could cause any explosions (literally and figuratively). He kept the information to himself, though, wondering how being in a coma and then being saved using her brother’s DNA would affect her opinion of the Stargate Program.
They’d also had a good laugh at the antics Madison and Bradley had gotten up to while Jeannie was away. Apparently Kaleb had almost had to call the fire department because they had tried making cookies in a bundt pan and had ended up overflowing batter in the oven.
John found himself cupping his stomach, imagining the kind of mischief Dane would one day cause and finding himself looking forward to how he and Cam would deal with it. Rodney too.
Back at the hotel, Jeannie took a stack of journal articles down to sit by the pool and Rodney surprised John by not following her, but rather curling up behind John in bed. John fell asleep to Rodney’s soft snores and an arm thrown haphazardly across John’s chest.
John found he missed Cam’s strong arms around him, but he fell into a deep sleep anyway.
***
Rodney’s father lived in a quaint little two story house close to the harbor. The red brick streets and the black wrought iron fences and the nice spring plants flowering in people’s front gardens were entirely too quaint for what was supposed to be a big city, but then most of Vancouver felt that way. The house was yellow with white trim, a strangely Victorian style.
Jeannie, who had been leading them to the house, paused at the beginning of the front path. She turned to her brother and took a deep, bracing breath. John could easily recognize the sentiment. He and Dave often shared that exact same look before they had to deal with their father. In John’s family, Dave was by far the one who was better able to get along with father; John was eager to see which of the McKay siblings would take the lead. On one hand, Jeannie was overall more personable, but on the other, she also seemed to be much more image-driven and judgemental than Rodney.
Rodney wrapped his arm around John, cupping his belly for the first time since John had arrived this morning. It was probably just an act in order to convince his father that the baby was his. John felt a pang of loss. He wanted Rodney to be comfortable with this. Even if Dane was Cam’s biologically, Rodney would definitely have a role in raising him. He had to know that.
The front door opened even before they had made it all the way up that path. Rodney’s father had been waiting for them, probably even looking out the window in order to catch a glimpse of them, particularly John. John supposed that Jeannie was right and that “bait” would help.
Rodney’s father didn’t look at all like John had pictured him. He was tall and lanky with a small gut that rounded out the mustard-colored sweater he wore over a white Oxford. To someone who hadn’t grown up in Guild society, it looked like he had a beer belly, but John saw the signs of a man who had done more than his fair share of carrying. His hair was that murky stained-looking color hovering between blond and going white, limp and grown out too long for him to be a man who cared about appearances. He had Rodney’s crooked smile, but it didn’t look half as good on him. He had none of the stockiness that seemed to run in the family with Rodney and Jeannie and he didn’t have curly hair or what John had come to think of as the trademark McKay brilliant blue eyes. What surprised John the most about Rodney’s father was that he looked so normal. He had been expecting some kind of mad scientist, but all John saw was a friendly old man living out his retirement in suburbia.
“Jeannie, Rodney, I’m so glad you came.” Their father greeted his children. His voice was deep and scratchy. It reminded John of David Carradine, but he assumed it would be out of line to ask him if he could hear the grasshopper. “It’s been so long.”
“Well, I’ve been on a very important mission for the US government and Jeannie has her family,” Rodney announced defiantly.
“Yes, my grandchildren. I wish I saw them more often as well,” the man said to Jeannie. “That goes for this one, too,” he winked at John, before extending his hand. “Cesan McKay, and you must be John.”
John returned the smile, but couldn’t help wondering how much Rodney had told his father about his relationship with John. Luckily, Cesan answered his unspoken question right away. “Of course, I had hoped that I would have heard about your relationship long before there was a child. I mean, Jeannie emailing me that Rodney is making me a grandfather again two days before I meet his boyfriend is certainly leaving things to the last minute. Still, you are one of the only people Rodney mentioned when he visited two years ago, so I might have suspected.”
“We weren’t together then,” John offered.
Cesan nodded decisively before heading inside and calling out, “you’re my children, you don’t need a written invitation,” when they didn’t all rush inside.
Inside, the house was old, but fastidiously maintained. From the shag carpet to the low ceilings and linoleum flooring in the kitchen it was clear that it had last been renovated when Rodney was young, but other than the fact that most of the walls were lined with bookshelves, it was suspiciously organized, compared to Rodney’s messy habits. There wasn’t even a whiteboard or a computer in sight, at least in the main living area.
“So, John,” Cesan asked in the same tone that Patrick Sheppard used to ask what Guild someone belonged to, “where did you get your Phd?”
Rodney and Jeannie immediately shared a look. Clearly, Cesan kept his mad scientist on the inside. John tried not be insulted by the implication that of course Rodney’s boyfriend would have a PhD.
“Um, I actually don’t have one. I have a masters in aerodynamics from the Naval College,” John offered.
Cesan had looked momentarily taken aback, but he didn’t seem judgemental. “Oh, I thought that when Rodney said that you lead his team that you were the lead researcher. According him him, you solve a lot of problems.”
John suddenly realized how a non-classified description of what they did could easily provoke such an assumption. Maybe so many years dealing with his own father’s prejudices made John predisposed to see prejudices in others. John laughed. “No, as Rodney has told us many times, he’s a one man team for research purposes. What Rodney does sometimes requires field work and even a military escort. I’m the leader of our field team.”
“And the commander of the military base we work out of,” Rodney added, beaming. John liked the feeling of Rodney being proud of him and showing him off a little. John didn’t know why it bothered him so much when Cam did it, but when Rodney did it, John felt a happy flutter in his stomach that had absolutely nothing to do with the baby.
“That’s rather impressive,” Cesan replied. “They must be disappointed to lose you for the incubation.”
John blushed a little, shrugging. “I guess they are. Any change in leadership is difficult in a bureaucracy the size of our base.”
Jeannie slapped John on the thigh, hard enough to sting, but with no real force behind it. “John Sheppard, there’s no such thing as modesty in the McKay family. I consulted on the base both before and after John took his paternity leave and John both does a wonderful job and is sorely missed.”
John shot Jeannie a shy smile. Of the siblings, she was by far the more forceful of the two, which was saying a lot considering how many of his minions Rodney made cry on any given day.
“You must be very proud of him,” Cesan gave Rodney an encouraging smile. When Rodney had explained how their father had dedicated his life to science to the point of incubating other people’s children as a living, John hadn’t imagined the man would have good social skills - better than both John and Rodney.
Rodney blushed, but nodded. John couldn’t help but smile at him. Part and parcel of never discussing their feelings was that they rarely directly praised each other in any form other than backhanded or grudging compliments. John admitted that he often took Rodney for granted, so he squeezed Rodney’s hand and told his father what John always imagined he’d like someone to say to his own dad, “Rodney does a good job too. You should be proud to have him as a son.”
Cesan chuckled. “Oh, believe me, I am. I may never have been able to prove my theories to the scientific community, but I had a son who has, according to you, somehow found a way to do field work in astrophysics,” he winked at John. Maybe Cesan McKay had found a more practical way to prove his work to himself - maybe he knew, instinctively, what Rodney was doing with his life. “And a beautiful daughter who is both a well-respected professor and an accepted member of a prominent Guild.”
Jeannie didn’t seem very inclined to be charmed, but she jumped on the opportunity when it presented itself. “Speaking of Guilds,” she added. “This isn’t purely a social call. Rodney has something to ask you.”
Rodney gulped.
“Is that so, son?” Cesan inquired jovially.
Rodney still looked moderately terrified (somewhere between ‘cell on a Wraith hive ship’ terrified and ‘heard Teyla is angry at him’ terrified), so John stepped in for him. “It’s mostly a question of logistics. We’re Registering the baby soon and my Guild is saying that they won’t Register him unless I can provide at least three generations of genealogy for his donor. We just need the name of Rodney’s donor.”
John made sure he wore his most innocent smile - the one that Rodney said looked innocent only in that John looked like he wanted to make sweet love to the recipient rather than have dirty kinky sex.
Cesan sighed, levering himself up. “That’s a tough task, m’boy. I’m sure Rodney told you that his donor was a client, so I do have a copy of his certificate of pedigree up to five generations on file somewhere. But it’ll take me some time to find it.”
“If you just give me the name, I’ll send it to my Guild’s genealogy department and I’m sure they can sort it out using the inter-Guild database.”
“I’ve heard of that,” Cesan replied. His body language was casual, but John could see the beads of sweat forming on his brow. “I didn’t realize it was complete.”
John laughed. “They completed it a while back. When I was still in Afghanistan.” John had only known because the representative he’d talked to about adding Leo to the family tree had laughed and told him that even the new electronic database wouldn’t help him find background on a pleb and that he’d have to contract one of the Guild’s pedigree investigators.
“And didn’t they just finish the DNA database this year?” Jeannie asked, not even bothering to try to hide her glee.
“Yeah, I think they did.”
Cesan frowned and Rodney and Jeannie shared a look. They had him cornered.
“Well, I suppose I was going to have to tell you eventually.”
Rodney and Jeannie were on the edge of their seats. John might have been as well, if not for the uncomfortable way such a position stretched his pouch.
“Rodney, your donor was not a client of mine and he was not a noble.”
John stepped on Rodney’s toe to reminded him to look surprised by the news. At least Jeannie was doing a good job of faking it.
“So, you . . . what, you needed a starter baby to get your business off the ground?”
Cesan winced. This was the sore spot with Rodney. He didn’t seem to actually care about the way that his father had made the siblings so hyper-competitive or that his father had been obsessive about his science to the degree that it resembled an addiction, or even that he’d never had a mother or a donor. No, what hurt Rodney the most was that he thought he was business transaction that his father didn’t want of his own right.
Cesan stared at his children for a long time, clearly making a decision between telling them the truth and spouting more lies.
It was Jeannie who broke the silence with a frustrated huff. She crossed her arms across her chest and tilted her chin up, looking so much like Rodney when he was determined and defiant, right down to the pain in her intense blue eyes. “Give it up, Dad. We know that we share the same donor. One of the top geneticists in the world told us so.”
Cesan finally relented. “I’m so sorry, Jeannie-bean. I wanted to tell you, but I was too ashamed.”
“Ashamed about what?” Rodney exploded. “What could possibly be more shameful than living as an unregistered carrier, having no idea who my donor is and wondering if my father even wanted me?”
John wasn’t often in the position to be the one restraining Rodney from punching someone, but after spending so much time with Ronon, it was reflex.
Cesan McKay looked away from his angry son, imploring his daughter. “You children were always loved. You know that, right, Jeannie?”
Jeannie’s anger was not explosive. It was cold and deadly, like a snake laying wait in the tall grass. “We know you loved us, in your own way,” she spoke slowly. “But did you want us?”
“I wanted you more than anything,” Cesan admitted. “I wanted you so badly that I was willing to raise you alone.”
“Why?” Rodney demanded. “What happened to our donor? Did he die?” John found the possibility unlikely, considering how long Cesan had waited between his children.
“No. He’s very much alive,” Cesan replied.
“Where is he, then? Why didn’t you marry him?” Jeannie demanded.
Cesan ignored the question, starting from the beginning instead. “We were at Cambridge together. He was brilliant, absolutely bloody brilliant and I was so in awe of him.” He smiled softly, looking at Rodney, but clearly seeing his old lover. “I went into the program as the smartest guy I knew, but I couldn’t hold a candle to Andrew. I’d watch him at the chalkboard. I’d clean up his notation sometimes or correct his math, but I didn’t have the same kind of insight he did. His theories were art. But, he tolerated my pitiful attempts to keep up, even indulged me.”
John knew the feeling. It was exactly the kind of relationship he had with Rodney. Except Cesan was a genius of his own right - genius enough to develop the equations for the Stargates without ever having seen one. This Andrew must have been . . . . John gaped, doing the math about when Rodney’s father must have been at Cambridge. “Andrew Hirsch?”
Cesan chuckled. “Your fiance is a bright one, Rodney.”
Rodney’s eyes were wide as saucers. Andrew Hirsch was one of Rodney’s heros. He’d used complex models of solar systems in order to predict the existence of Naquadah and Naquadria as elements and had been instrumental in the development of Skylab and the Hirsch telescope. He’d also been one of the key figures to break the “glass ceiling” for plebs in government when he’d was appointed as the head of NASA in the early eighties. His birthday was even part of Rodney’s override password (at least the one he’d had before Elizabeth found out that John knew it and made Rodney change it).
“Our donor is Andrew Hirsch and you didn’t think to tell us?!” Jeannie exclaimed. “I could’ve . . . he was on the Board of the Wolf Prize.”
“Which you got,” Rodney pointed out.
Jeannie was flustered, fidgeting. “I’ve sat next to him at conferences. I called him an old coot on a panel on materials construction for nanotech design!”
“That sounds about right,” Rodney murmured.
“He asked me out for dinner once and I turned him down because I thought he was being a letch,” Jeannie wailed. The list of her negative interactions with the man went on and on, but John was forming another list. Hirsh was short and stocky, well-muscled for a scientist. He’d lost his hair early and had shaved it, but it must have been curly based on Rodney and Jeannie. He wore black thick-framed glasses and had serious blue eyes. As the head of NASA he wore suits, but he always wore a royal purple tie with a single white stripe down its middle - the symbol for non-reproductive rights. Hirsch was his father’s name. He’d taken it because his mother had left the family when he was young and he thought that just giving birth to him didn’t give her the right to his name.
Jeannie concluded her rant with, “And when he testified in front of the Senate Labor Committee, he said the fact that he didn’t have children didn’t mean he should be paid less than people who had a family to support.” After taking a moment to catch her breath and wipe away her tears, Jeannie asked, “He’s my donor?”
Her father nodded.
“Do you think, all those times he tried to get closer to me, he wanted to tell me?”
Cesan shrugged. “I have no idea. Andrew always does what he wants. He’s not used to people telling him ‘no.’ I know I never have. I was shocked he agreed to let me have you, to be honest.”
“Let you have me?!” Jeannie shouted. “That arrogant son of a bitch. It’s your choice if you wanted to bind, Dad.”
“Honey, it’s not like that. What I told you about the lab accident was true. If I wanted to keep up my business, I did need another child. I didn’t want anyone else’s. It was generous of Andrew to agree to donate even though he would have preferred to support me rather than have me keep up my breeding business.”
“And me?” Rodney demanded.
“You were slightly less planned. But let me go back to the beginning. As I said, I don’t know why Andrew put up with me in the lab. I was not his peer. Andrew was working with Hawking and Penrose and Carter. The only reason I was even allowed in the Sciama lab was because Andrew would basically throw a tantrum otherwise. They called me ‘Hirsch’s pet nobleman.’”
“That’s right,” Jeannie added. “They were all plebs.” In the 20th century it hadn’t been unusual for scientists to be plebs. Nobody had ever thought that plebs weren’t equally capable of being smart and it was widely acknowledged that in previous times nobles had only outnumbered plebs in higher education because they tended to have more money to pay for it. But the 60s and 70s had been a time of social upheaval, particularly about the dominance of the Guilds in what Marx called the superstructure of society. Cambridge in particular had been leading the charge for a Technocratic Revolution - to have those with the intelligence to manage be the ones to manage. John remembered seeing an interview with Hawking saying that as intelligent as he and his friends were, they’d rather be left alone by management than, god forbid, have to do it themselves. But they had supported Hirsch. When Hirsch was up for the job at NASA they had all used their influence to get most of the astrophysics community to sign a petition promising that they would refuse to collaborate with NASA unless the Senate approved Hirsch’s appointment.
Cesan laughed. “It made me so angry at the time, but in retrospect, they weren’t wrong. I was only at Cambridge because the Highland Guild of Scotland had two reserved seats, which the protestors had gotten removed by the time I got my PhD. And I highly doubt that Andrew kept me around for my skills as a physicist.”
“Why did he keep you around, then?” Rodney blurted.
John thought it was fairly obvious, but Rodney could be dense sometimes.
“He kept me around because we were in love. I defended my thesis a year before Andrew, but instead of looking for professorships or fellowships, I spent the year teaching at a Guild high school in Cambridge. Andrew wouldn’t have any trouble getting offers once he finished and the plan was for me to follow him. I wanted nothing more than to marry him and have his children. We could work at the same University. He’d research and I would be one of the professors whose purpose was to actually teach.”
“You wanted to teach?” Jeannie sounded incredulous.
“Oh, yes. I was actually quite good at it. At Cambridge all the students wanted to be in my section. But then I got the idea for conducted Lorentzian wormholes. I got it from Andrew’s materials studies, actually, because it wouldn’t be possible without the elements he identified. The other guys were full of these kinds of theories, but this was the first thing I’d thought up on my own.”
“Let me guess,” Jeannie growled. “Andrew didn’t want to share the spotlight.”
“Oh, no. Andrew was very encouraging. He’s always been. Why do you think that as Director of NASA he authorized missions to actually go look for those elements and bring them back to Earth?”
John squirmed, thinking about how when they were back on Earth, Lorne had been reassigned to the Naquadah mining operation on Pluto. By the time the Penelope Probe reached Pluto, there would be nothing there. John thought back to the launch of the probe. He remembered it because he was fairly sure that that temporary leave in Dubai had been when John and Leo had conceived. Leo had gotten a bullet graze on a mission and was on medical leave and John had decided to use his Guild connection to get himself some kind of special family planning leave and the Guild concierge had booked them into some ridiculous underwater hotel. John should have known not to stay there when Dave told him he liked it. Leo had teased John mercilessly about wanting to watch a probe they were sending to Uranus (“And Pluto!” John had reminded him) and also about being a giant Chair Force nerd.
John remembered wondering why it was called the Penelope, when Penelope waited at home for Odysseus to return and the probe was going on the long journey to return to Earth in many years. Hirsch had said something about how space travel mirrored life in many ways, especially how long one often had to wait for revelation, or even for love. He said he dedicated the voyage to all the wonderful people in the lives of his employees at NASA who waited patiently as their spouses dedicated themselves to exploration. It all made sense now.
“Penelope, that’s you!” he exclaimed.
“Seriously, Rodney, you really picked a good one,” Cesan chuckled. “You’re right, John. Andrew and I never really did break up. We were just waiting.”
“That’s strange, because I don’t remember having a Deedee. Do you, Jeannie?”
“Look, even though Andrew believed in me and the whole lab considered my theory, they couldn’t prove it. Most everybody assumed that if the greatest minds of our generation couldn’t make it work then it probably wasn’t right. They tried to gently suggest that I just stick to teaching and pumping out children like I was meant to.”
“And Hirsch didn’t bother to defend you? That bastard,” Jeannie growled.
“Andrew did defend me, but they were right, in a way. We hadn’t discussed children, so we were completely unprepared when Rodney came along. Andrew was one of the heads of the Technocratic Movement at the time and though he wasn’t ashamed of me, he didn’t exactly advertise his noble boyfriend.”
“It sure sounds like he was ashamed to me,” Jeannie snapped.
“I don’t really expect you kids to understand, but sometimes there are causes bigger than one’s own self. Andrew was committed to a world in which reproductive fitness had nothing to do with social and political status. He never wanted children.”
“Then why the hell did you stay with that asshole?”
“I could either bind or we could go our separate ways. I wanted Andrew’s child, even if it meant I’d have to leave him. So I left. We still see each other. We were never unfaithful.”
“So all those ‘business trips,’” Jeannie said, eyes widening in wonder.
“They were Andrew’s business trips, really. I just went along.”
“And he never wanted to come to our home? To see us?” Jeannie demanded.
“Andrew was afraid that if he did, he’d never want to leave.”
“He should have come,” Jeannie had finally given in and the tears were flowing. “He should have stayed.”
“Maybe. But Andrew was the first non-military presidential appointee to not come from a Guild family and I got to raise our two beautiful children.”
“And your theory?” John asked quietly. “It doesn’t bother you that it was never proven.”
“Come now, John,” Cesan replied. “We both know that’s not true.”
“Rodney!” Jeannie snapped, reaching over to pinch her brother even through the quiet sobs that she couldn’t seem to shake. “You told him! You were the one who lectured me about classified material.”
Cesan laughed. “Andrew told me, actually. Someone has to falsify the data when an alien armada almost takes out the Hirsch Telescope. He got me clearance a few years ago. It was touching to find out that you and Samantha Carter always cite me in your papers queued for publication, Rodney. Why do you think I wasn’t more upset with you not coming to visit often enough?”
“Your work might not be published for years,” Jeannie pointed out. “You might not be vindicated in this lifetime.”
Cesan shrugged. “It was never about fame, Jeannie-bean. It was always about scientific progress.”
“So, now that we know,” Jeannie pointed out, “Do you think Hirsch would want to see us?”
Cesan laughs. “Maybe if you promise not to call him an old coot this time.” Even though her eyes were red and puffy, Jeannie laughed. “Andrew cherishes his time with you, honey, but he talked my ear off about that one. Something about failing to raise a proper lady.”
“And me?” Rodney asked.
“Andrew has been trying to get scheduled for a conference with you for years, but he complains that military-industrial complex has swallowed you up better than a black hole.”
“Were you ever planning to tell us?” Jeannie asked, the tears getting their second wind.
“Yes. Andrew is retiring this fall. We bought a house in Santa Barbara. That way we’ll be close enough to see Jeannie and the grandkids, but still far enough away from JPL and Edwards AFB that Andrew won’t be tempted to work.”
“I can’t believe you, Dad!” Jeannie outright sobbed. “How could you keep something like this from us? How could you make us think that you were lonely and unhappy and that we were unwanted?! And you have your ever after planned. But what about us?”
“You and Rodney already made your own ever afters, sweetheart.”
John thought it was a nice sentiment. If this were a movie, it would make a good ending. But Jeannie jumped up then, looking murderous. “I can’t look at you right now, Dad. John, Rodney, let’s go.”
After the loud clack of Jeannie’s high heels had faded, Rodney just sat there and stared.
“Don’t worry, son,” Ceran said. “She’ll get over it. Now, I’ll get Andrew to email you his pedigree and we’ll get everything sorted. When’s the Registration?”
“Next week,” Rodney snapped. “But John and I aren’t going to get married and it’s not my kid. Some ever after.”
Rodney yanked John up off the couch and followed his sister out.
“I’m sorry, Dr. McKay,” John managed as Rodney pulled him out the door. The thing was, John could understand Cesan. He could understand loving someone so much that you were willing to let them go. And as much as Rodney called him a martyr, John knew that it wasn’t about that. It was about choices. Sometimes you couldn’t have everything you wanted. Sometimes you had to choose and sometimes those choices were hard. Sometimes they hurt people. Sometimes, no matter how much you wanted them to, people couldn’t compromise. Hirsch could have compromised his political goals and his personal freedom in order to be with Cesan, but Cesan had recognized that he couldn’t force Hirsch to compromise. He needed to give Hirsch the ability to make the choice.
John himself had given Rodney a choice and now he had to see if Rodney would agree.
Part 2
Author: Tzzzz
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: mpreg
Parings: John/Rodney, John/Cam
Spoilers: None
Summary: With John’s help, Rodney and Jeannie confront their father about their parentage. Follows Tables Turned, Once There Was a Man Named Holland, Not a Henry, The Kangaroos and the Bees, What Rodney Wants, Conception, The Good of the One, Transferred, Baby Deedee, Brothers and Sisters, and Dominus, Secundus, Pleb.
A/N: Nothing says Mother's Day like mpreg! I felt a little close to the Real Person Fic category, using Hawking and company in Rodney's father's backstory, but I assure you that I treated them with much more respect than TPTB treated poor Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson in Brain Storm. Andrew Hirsch is a completely made up scientist.
If John had thought traveling with Cam had been bad, it was only because he hadn’t taken into account traveling by himself. As usual, he barely paid any attention when he dressed - throwing on a tight green long-sleeved shirt without even looking in the mirror. It was only after the third pleb asked him if he needed help with his duffel bag that John realized how obvious that shirt made his condition.
“Theodore Roosevelt killed a bear with a hunting knife further along that I am,” John grumbled under his breath. Stupid plebs. John was in the middle of using his Guild card to get the free upgrade to business class for carrying Guild members when the the Guild concierge informed him that Dave had already phoned ahead and put his first class upgrade on the company tab. Years ago, when John tried to keep his heritage a secret and only took military transport, even to go on leave, he would have taken offense at Dave’s offer, but now his pouch slit was sensitive where it was rubbing against his too-tight shirt, his feet ached after walking through the airport after weeks of bedrest and his arm was bothering him enough that he actually regretted not bringing the brace that Lam had given him. Maybe he was getting old or maybe he’d just realized the futility of the pointless anti-Guild rebellion of his youth.
Carson had told him once that he didn’t believe that Guilds were good for society, but so long as they existed, Carson didn’t mind the perks. The special line through airport security was nice, as was the first class cabin and the warm milk that the flight attendant brought for him without asking. He curled up, far away from all the ignorant hoards who thought that John’s condition gave them the right to just touch his stomach and slept all the way until dawn in Vancouver.
John slung his duffle over his shoulder and popped in his earbuds so he could let Johnny Cash drown out all the offers of help. Rodney was waiting for him at baggage claim looking frazzled and manic, hopped up on caffeine. Jeannie was standing next to him. She was wearing a tight white summer dress with a scarf around her head, bright red heels and sunglasses. She looked like a photo John had once seen of Marilyn Monroe.
“John,” Rodney smiled, but he was staring at John’s stomach with that eye-bulging look of near disaster he sometimes got the moment he realized that they were all going to die a horrible death. “You look good. I mean, the baby looks like . . . well, things are coming along nicely, I see. Not to say that you don’t actually look good too. Glowing. Not literally Ancient glowing, but I can see why they say that. If anything, I think that you look better with a little more weight. Not that you’re fat. I mean . . .”
“Rodney,” Jeannie laughed. “The man is carrying not dying. It’s like you’ve never seen an incubation before, when you barely saw Dad any other way.”
Jeannie made her way around a paralyzed-looking Rodney to give John a hug. “Congratulations, John. I know the Registration isn’t for another week, but do you have a name? I won’t tell anybody that you told me.”
John smiled. “Cam and I like Dane. What do you think, Rodney?” John ignored Rodney’s continued fixation on John’s belly to give him a peck on the lips. It wasn’t the ‘I haven’t seen you in over a month’ kiss that John had imagined when he left Maryland, but he wasn’t going to do that in front of Rodney’s little sister. He was so dazed that he let Jeannie, of all people, grab his bag and walk them out towards a waiting Guild car.
“Dane?”
“I asked you for help with names, but I don’t think you took me seriously. Except maybe by suggesting, Rodney. I could see that being serious.”
“Well if you don’t mind your child being compared to Dane Cook, Great Danes, and Danishes, I’m sure that’s perfectly fine.”
John frowned. “So you don’t like it?”
Rodney thought about it for a second. “It’s not something I would call my child, but considering the kind of all-American handsome genes that the kid’s going to inherit, you could probably name him Cowturd Von Douchington and everyone would still like him.”
Jeannie shot her brother a glare. “Well I think it’s a sweet name,” she said. “In fact, this whole situation has made me reevaluate whether Kaleb and I should try for another.”
“Easy for you to say,” Rodney grumbled. “You take advantage of your Z gene and just gestate them and then force your poor husband to handle most of the incubation.”
“Please, Mer. I don’t envy women who have to do it the XX way. Besides, the Guild specialists say it’s healthy for both parents to carry if they have the opportunity. It allows them both to form a bond with the child.”
“Oh, yes, Guild specialists. How very noble of you. Can’t help but slip that into conversation, can you? Well, we can’t all . . .”
Before Rodney could whine any more about how his sister had married just to get into a Guild, John interjected. “Guild doctors are there to enforce Guild rules, Rodney. If you’re lucky they might treat you while they’re at it. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Trust me. Now, Jeannie, you mentioned a situation? Did this happen to be a major situation on Atlantis that you neglected to tell me about,” John complained. Before he’d left he had made Rodney and Elizabeth promise to keep him in the loop, but he knew that probably wouldn’t happen.
“Carson said not to stress you out,” Rodney whined. “He said that because of the Pasteur rupture you had to take it easy.”
“Look, I’m not fragile. You don’t have to protect me. Now, do you want to fill me in on this ‘situation’ and why you made me abandon Cam alone with my family to fly out here?”
Rodney hung his head. “Well, um, it wasn’t a major situation. Okay, so not teeny tiny, or bite sized, but not huge.”
Jeannie rolled her eyes. “Please, Mer. Moving the city, turning on the replicators’ directive to kill the Wraith, and you saving my life with the ascension machine. Those aren’t little things.”
“You moved the city,” John growled. He expeccted his reunion with Rodney to be more happy (and with more sex) than angry. “You didn’t think I’d want to know about that?”
“I was busy all right. My sister was in a coma and I just found out that,” he gulped.
“You just found out what?” John asked.
Rodney looked blank, hunted. It was a familiar expression, one that John had learned long ago didn’t bode well.
“Mer learned that he and I share the same donor,” Jeanie explained.
“So? You’re brother and sister. It’s not that unusual.”
Rodney finally woke from his shocked stupor, pointing out, “yes, it’s not uncommon. Except our father always told us that we were conceived for business purposes. My donor was a Henry who hired my father to conceive me because he couldn’t impregnate his wife but then reneged on the deal. Jeannie was conceived because he was in the hospital for too long after a lab accident and his pouch closed up. But don’t you see, there’s no way that our father would have gone back to a man who had broken a business deal in order to have Jeannie. He said he got an open donation, but it can’t be true.”
John nodded. It made sense. Their father must have had some attachment to the donor to go back to him twice, nearly eight years apart. “And there’s another weakness in his story,” John added. “Because Jeannie is female, the donor must have been a pleb.” The only way to get an XZ child from a ZY father would be to mate with an ordinary XY and get the Z from the carrier and the X from the donor. “And because the Guilds run the Open Breeding Registry, it’s mostly imperials, royals, and women. Almost no plebian males.”
“I always thought the Registry was just Dad’s coded way of saying that he had a one night stand,” Jeannie admitted. “I can’t believe he lied to us all these years.”
“So, you found out this big family secret. What are we doing in Canada?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Rodney asked in the tone that meant he didn’t actually think it was obvious, but he wanted to make the people around him feel stupid anyway. “We’re going to confront my father about it.”
“Okay, great, very Hardy Doublets, brother and sister team solving mysteries, but what do you need me for?”
“Moral support?” Rodney spluttered just as Jeannie said, “Bait.”
***
Jeannie drove while John rested in the back seat, his head leaning up against the comforting warmth of Rodney’s shoulder. Rodney wrapped an arm around John, but avoided the bump that Cam was so fond of touching when he held John.
John was fully aware that he wasn’t dealing with the whole relationship situation very well, if at all. John knew that he wanted to stay on Atlantis and he didn’t want to just dump the baby on Cam and only see him for a couple of weeks a year when he had leave. That wasn’t fair to Dane and it wasn’t fair to Cam. But it also wasn’t fair to Cam to make him move all the way to Atlantis when John was in a relationship with Rodney.
John thought about Cam and his warm smile and the way his eyes lit up whenever he saw John. He thought about how he’d practically thrown himself at Cam when he thought that Leo had broken up with him and how Cam had resisted the temptation in favor of being a good friend. He thought about how easy they were together and about how Cam was the only non-family member in two galaxies that had seen John cry for a reason that didn’t involve physical pain. He thought about how Cam had been there for John throughout everything, not pushing him, just supporting him - actually helping John make decisions. And Cam would be an amazing father. He was practically made for it. John vowed that no matter what happened between them, he would not keep Cam from his son. But there was that one thing - the small, niggling seed of doubt that Rodney had planted in his head: had Cam deliberately decided not to wear a condom?
But maybe it was a moot point, because John wasn’t in love with Cam. He loved Cam and he was attracted to Cam and if there wasn’t the matter of John’s career, he’d probably be willing to have more than one of Cam’s children, but was that enough?
Ever since college, John had wanted what Dave had with Darren. He’d thought he’d found it with Leo, but then Leo died. John thought Rodney came close. He certainly felt the same way about Rodney as he had about Leo, but Leo had something that Rodney didn’t, something Rodney might never have. John had trusted that Leo would never hurt him and would always do right by him. John loved Rodney with all his heart, but Rodney’s brilliant dysfunction sometimes crossed the line into unpredictability. John trusted Rodney with his life, but he didn’t trust Rodney not to hurt him. John was deeply afraid that if he gave in and let Rodney give him a child or even allowed Rodney into Dane’s life, then he’d end up cleaning up all the messes and putting out all the fires because Rodney wasn’t capable of putting his ego aside enough to just do what needed to be done for a child.
So John didn’t really have what Dave and Darren had with Rodney either. If he could just have someone who was both like Rodney and like Cam (the way Leo had been), it would be perfect. If he could not have that, then what he really wanted was to have them both. And really, there was no reason why he couldn’t. All he needed to do was to marry Cam and take Rodney as his secundus.
***
The first place they went was a paternity store. John had never actually been inside one. Even when he had to get a present for Dave, he’d stick to things for the baby and not for the father. The place Jeannie had picked out reminded John of where his father used to take him to get suits tailored - all rich woodwork and deep colored carpeting. Half the items on display were suits and the rest were upscale casual. John wondered where he could buy a sweatshirt with a pouch opening.
“I don’t understand why we’re here. I’m not really showing yet. I can just wear Rodney’s clothes for now,” John protested.
Jeannie actually had the nerve to laugh, patting John the way she would a confused child. “Oh, honey, you are definitely showing. It’s time for you to embrace it.”
After they stepped inside, the shop attendant frowned at John (and the giant slurpie that he’d made them stop for). Jeannie rolled her eyes and pulled out her Guild card. John grabbed her wrist before she could hand it over and pulled out his instead. If Jeannie and Rodney were going to force him into a place that cared about pedigree then he might as well show them exactly how good his pedigree was.
The shop attendant’s frown immediately disappeared once she glimpsed the Guild name and the neat script that pronounced John to be an imperial beneath it.
“Right this way, Mr. Sheppard,” the attendant offered. “Your first?”
John nodded, eyeing the mannequins displaying the more advanced stages of incubation suspiciously. Was he really going to get that big?
“Now, what can we do for you today? Are you looking for something just for now or are you stocking up for the later stages as well? We have quite a variety of designs with no pouch opening. There aren’t any items that will comfortably take you from where you are now to the post-emergence time period, but if you are looking for something that will comfortably expand in the later stages, I can show you some of our newest styles. We also have quite a variety of non-expanding items if you prefer. We are part of a Guild partnership that will let you get free tailoring on our items in any shop that recognizes your Guild anywhere in Canada. I assure you that there isn’t a Guild-partnered store that doesn’t recognize the Potentia Guil.”
John knew he probably looked bewildered, so it was easy to let Jeannie answer for him. “John’s just here for a visit. He can find more clothes in America. For now, he just needs a few paternity shirts for this stage.”
The saleswoman and Jeannie then went over to look at John’s options. John decided to take his slurpie over to a high backed leather sofa tucked into the corner of the shop. Rodney followed him.
“So why do I need a new wardrobe?” John asked.
“My father is a very secretive man and he obviously doesn’t want this particular secret to come out, considering that it was important enough to him to not have us Registered. Jeannie thinks we should hit him with a one-two punch - the fact that you and I have a baby on the way and the fact that Jeannie and I found out.”
“So you’re having me all dolled up so I can play your incubating boyfriend?”
“Exactly. Look, my father is very motivated by ego. If he thinks his son’s marriage to an imperial from a good Guild is at stake, he’s more likely to relent. You just need to tell him that your Guild has very strict rules about Registration and that your Guild genealogists found some discrepancies when they looked into my background. Tell him you just need a name for my donor, not to have me be officially Registered.”
“Well, if your father was so motivated by his ego, then why did he let you guys go unregistered in the first place?” John asked.
“I have no idea, but I think that this our best bet.”
“And when he finds out that this isn’t your baby and you and I aren’t getting married?” John really hated the idea of having to do the introduction thing with another set of in-laws. He was stressed out enough by Cam meeting Dave’s family, not to mention the inevitable doom of clan Mitchell-Wilder intersecting with the Sheppards.
Rodney waved his hand dismissively. “So what?”
“Well, he’s going to be mad that you lied to him.”
“I’m mad that he lied to me!” Rodney squawked indignantly.
“Okay, you do have a point there.” John wasn’t really the best person to give advice on how to interact with family anyhow. “So then once you have the name, you’ll go visit him too?”
“That’s the plan. I’m curious, but Jeannie is like a dog with a bone on this and after what happened . . . they cut open her brain, John.” That explained the headscarf. “I can’t really deny her this.”
Deja vu. John had been in Rodney’s exact position years ago and it hadn’t really gotten him anywhere. “Look, I’m willing to help you if you want, but you should really think about this, Rodney.”
“What’s there to think about? I want to know the truth.”
John sighed. Of course Rodney wanted to know the truth. He probably didn’t even think about how bad the truth could be and how it could potentially mess up his relationship with his family. “Look, I never told you this,” or really anything about his family. “I was the product of an open donation.”
“I knew that already. You mentioned that you and your brother were fratres animorum and there’s no way your mother could have knocked your dad up.” John hadn’t expected that Rodney would remember that. He hadn’t even been sure that he’d been listening when John had be answering Teyla’s questions about the pictures of John’s family when they’d first arrived in Atlantis. He couldn’t help the grin that came to his face when he remembered the look on Teyla’s face the first time she saw the picture of Dave and Darren with P.J. poking out of Dave’s pouch. Her expression reminded John of how he must have looked the first time he saw the chestbuster scene in Alien.
“Yeah, well, it was obvious to me too. My father never hid my donor’s identity. I mean, there was no point, considering that I’d have the right to check the Registry myself when I turned 18. But my parents wouldn’t give me a lot of information about him. They told me his name, which features I shared with him, his career, and that he didn’t have any other children, but that’s about it. He was a classics professor at Harvard and when Dave and I ended up going there, it seemed natural to contact him.”
“I didn’t know you went to Harvard,” Rodney said. “No offense, but it seems like a waste of a liberal arts education if you end up in the military anyway.”
John laughed. “I transferred to the Air Force Academy my junior year. Those bastards wouldn’t admit me because they thought as an imperial I’d get knocked up at the first opportunity. It took two years of ROTC and petitioning for them to let me in. The thing was, before I met my donor, my father and I had an okay relationship. He didn’t take my military ambitions seriously and he was always busy and he was definitely a snobbish asshole, but I looked up to him. But my father is definitely a Henry.”
“I didn’t think you were prejudiced,” Rodney replied. He didn’t seem to think John was actually prejudiced, but he knew that in some circles, Henry was considered a bad word.
“Oh, I accept it as an orientation, Rodney. But my father is more of a Henry in the disastrous Henry VIII sense than the nice couples who adopt or get sperm donations to deal with their counter-reproductive relationships. My father couldn’t stand the stigma of being counter-reproductively oriented. He was already engaged to my mother and they were trying to conceive, but it wasn’t going well. He panicked, and in the days before genetic testing he suspected the reason they couldn’t get my mother pregnant was that he was an imperial. So he used the Guild matching service to start dating men behind my mother’s back. He seduced my donor, even made him fall in love with him, but then dumped him as soon as they found out my mother was pregnant with Dave. It made me see my father in a whole different light and now that I’ve seen it . . . it’s not something I can unsee.”
Rodney looked like he might want to give John a hug, which really wasn’t necessary. “I’m sorry.”
John shrugged. “It doesn’t bother me anymore. I’m happy to know my donor. He’s a good man. It’s just sad that in getting to know him I had to lose respect for my father.”
“I can’t imagine what my father could be hiding that would cause us to lose more respect for him. Knowing that Jeannie and I are full siblings and he lied to us about it is enough for me to lose a large part of whatever respect I did have for him. My father’s only real redeeming quality is that he was a brilliant scientist and that he defended his idea even when others didn’t believe him.”
“Those are pretty admirable things,” John tried to encourage. He sympathized with how Rodney must be feeling right now, but something that he’d learned over the years was that even if he didn’t respect his father, even hated him sometimes, he was glad that they still had a relationship.
“Well, we’ll see how you feel when you meet him.” Rodney paused looking conflicted before finally asking, “So, how’s the baby-deedee?”
That actually made John smile. “He’s been great. After the transfer Cam had to go back to work, but SG1’s on stand down while Jackson does research on some weapon he saw while he had Merlin’s memories and Sam is working on the technology left to us by the Asgard. Cam’s been doing recruitment and training of new personnel. It’s nine-to-five. And they let Cam take this week off to visit my family before the Registration ceremony. Despite his pleb values, he actually gets along with my brother’s family well. When we get back home, we’re going to start swimming, which is apparently a good low impact exercise for me and fixing up the house a bit so after the baby emerges Cam can sell it.”
“Why is he selling his house?” Rodney asked, looking for all the world like he was being held hostage by a Wraith, not watching his sister bicker with a sales assistant at a paternity boutique.
John reached out and squeezed Rodney’s shoulder in a way he hoped was reassuring. “Cam’s going to move to Pegasus.”
“What?! Why would he do that?”
John had been expecting a huge reaction from Rodney, but not the confusion. He and Cam did not part on good terms when John had decided to come back to Earth and John knew that, with Rodney, resentment festered like a plague.
“Because he wants to be closer to his son?” It seemed fairly obvious to John, who also couldn’t imagine being separated from the life growing inside him.
“Closer to you, you mean,” Rodney grumbled.
John laughed. “Yeah, closer to me too.” Cam had been pretty persistent making his desire for John known. And John could sympathize. It was hard, sleeping in the same bed with Cam and not just rolling over and having his way with him. It was hard to accept small kisses and so many little acts of kindness without it feeling like a relationship. And the hardest part by far was carrying Cam’s baby without being a family.
Rodney crossed his arms across his chest, defensive. “It doesn’t sound like you mind.”
John wasn’t just going to up and say that he’d been thinking more and more about Cam’s proposal because that would obviously blow up in his face in the form of a giant McKay rant or even worse, that quiet hurt look that could completely devastate John. “If he wants to be close to his son, it’s not my right to stop him. I’m not a horrible person, you know.”
“I’m not talking about being closer to his son. I actually agree with that part because it means that you and the baby will be coming back to Atlantis and not staying on Earth. I’m saying that it doesn’t seem as though you mind the idea of getting closer to Mitchell.”
Just John’s luck that Rodney would pick now of all times to actually be perceptive. “I guess I wouldn’t mind.”
There was the hurt look. Except Rodney was trying to spare John even that because he looked away. Jeannie was blatantly giving them time to talk now, John figured, as she was looking at clothes for when John would be much further along in his incubation.
John sighed, grabbing Rodney’s hand and pulling him around so that their eyes met. The resigned look Rodney gave him broke John’s heart so he cupped his cheek and kissed him deeply. “I’m not good at talking about . . .”
“Feelings?” Rodney filled in for him.
“Yeah,” John admitted, ducking his head. How was he going to talk to Rodney if Rodney kept looking at him? “But, I need you to understand. Rodney, I would give my life for you.”
“I know that. You haven’t met a cross you haven’t wanted to martyr yourself on.”
“It’s more than that,” John protested. “It’s . . . I never want to be in a world that doesn’t include you. Even a world where you’re still alive but you’re not by my side. I wouldn’t leave you, Rodney. You have to believe me.”
Rodney was stroking his thumb down John’s cheek now, forcing their eyes to meet. John could see the love he felt for Rodney returned, but the pain was still there. “You won’t leave me, but you want Mitchell too.” It was a statement, not a question.
John nodded. He needed to be honest. “The three of us could be a family, together.”
Rodney tensed. His fingers stopped and his hand fell limply from John’s cheek. But Rodney no longer looked hurt or terrified, just pensive. “I’ll have to think about it.”
“That’s fair,” John replied, leaning forward to give Rodney a chaste kiss. They lingered, foreheads pressed together like the Athosian embrace. John was the one to pull back, standing and announcing. “Okay, Jeannie, what have you got for me?”
Jeannie looked troubled by what she had observed of their conversation, but she smiled, walking over to them. “I’ve picked out a few things. The saleswoman put them in a changing room for you.”
“Do I really have to try them on?” John whined.
Jeannie rolled her eyes. “Men.” She bustled him towards the back where there were changing rooms that looked more like walk-in closets, complete with some pads that a man could use to pretend like he was further along. John shuddered. He didn’t need to imagine that.
Jeannie stepped in with him, leaving Rodney outside.
John raised his eyebrows at her.
“Come on, John. You’re just trying on shirts. I want to see.”
John gave in with a put upon sigh, turning his back to where Jeannie sat on a leather bench, watching him avidly.
Just as John was getting tangled pulling his shirt off, she spoke briefly. “I love my brother, John.” Her voice was low and menacing. John wouldn’t find that voice out of place in negotiations with the Wraith. “I admit that if he had any common sense whatsoever he would have started a relationship with you before you were already carrying, so he can’t expect things between you to be easy. But that’s not going to stop me from eviscerating you if you hurt him.”
John gulped. He didn’t doubt her sincerity. “Understood,” he replied.
“Great!” Jeanne went from menacing to bubbly in a heartbeat. “Now turn around and let me see that on you!”
After more costume changes than John could count, they had settled on a white and a light blue Oxford with the distinctive incubation tailoring, a long and short sleeve version of a soft black shirt that were long in the waist and stretchy enough to accommodate John’s belly for the next few months, and a cream colored cardigan that had been knit so that John could return to any guild store and have the crucial parts reknit. As they were exiting, Jeannie tossed in one of those bands that held your pants up once you couldn’t buckle them anymore and a wrap around felt coat with a pouch opening in it.
They had plans to visit Rodney’s father for dinner, so Jeannie suggested that they stop at a diner for brunch before heading back to the hotel for so John could sleep. John was content to wolf down a plate of waffles and a tuna melt while the siblings told him the story of how they’d taken care of the Replicators, with frequent interruptions for bickering. Cam had mentioned that Jeannie was one of the names he and Sam were looking at for full time recruitment at the SGC. John found that he liked the idea, so long as Jeannie stayed about a galaxy away from where their sibling rivalry could cause any explosions (literally and figuratively). He kept the information to himself, though, wondering how being in a coma and then being saved using her brother’s DNA would affect her opinion of the Stargate Program.
They’d also had a good laugh at the antics Madison and Bradley had gotten up to while Jeannie was away. Apparently Kaleb had almost had to call the fire department because they had tried making cookies in a bundt pan and had ended up overflowing batter in the oven.
John found himself cupping his stomach, imagining the kind of mischief Dane would one day cause and finding himself looking forward to how he and Cam would deal with it. Rodney too.
Back at the hotel, Jeannie took a stack of journal articles down to sit by the pool and Rodney surprised John by not following her, but rather curling up behind John in bed. John fell asleep to Rodney’s soft snores and an arm thrown haphazardly across John’s chest.
John found he missed Cam’s strong arms around him, but he fell into a deep sleep anyway.
***
Rodney’s father lived in a quaint little two story house close to the harbor. The red brick streets and the black wrought iron fences and the nice spring plants flowering in people’s front gardens were entirely too quaint for what was supposed to be a big city, but then most of Vancouver felt that way. The house was yellow with white trim, a strangely Victorian style.
Jeannie, who had been leading them to the house, paused at the beginning of the front path. She turned to her brother and took a deep, bracing breath. John could easily recognize the sentiment. He and Dave often shared that exact same look before they had to deal with their father. In John’s family, Dave was by far the one who was better able to get along with father; John was eager to see which of the McKay siblings would take the lead. On one hand, Jeannie was overall more personable, but on the other, she also seemed to be much more image-driven and judgemental than Rodney.
Rodney wrapped his arm around John, cupping his belly for the first time since John had arrived this morning. It was probably just an act in order to convince his father that the baby was his. John felt a pang of loss. He wanted Rodney to be comfortable with this. Even if Dane was Cam’s biologically, Rodney would definitely have a role in raising him. He had to know that.
The front door opened even before they had made it all the way up that path. Rodney’s father had been waiting for them, probably even looking out the window in order to catch a glimpse of them, particularly John. John supposed that Jeannie was right and that “bait” would help.
Rodney’s father didn’t look at all like John had pictured him. He was tall and lanky with a small gut that rounded out the mustard-colored sweater he wore over a white Oxford. To someone who hadn’t grown up in Guild society, it looked like he had a beer belly, but John saw the signs of a man who had done more than his fair share of carrying. His hair was that murky stained-looking color hovering between blond and going white, limp and grown out too long for him to be a man who cared about appearances. He had Rodney’s crooked smile, but it didn’t look half as good on him. He had none of the stockiness that seemed to run in the family with Rodney and Jeannie and he didn’t have curly hair or what John had come to think of as the trademark McKay brilliant blue eyes. What surprised John the most about Rodney’s father was that he looked so normal. He had been expecting some kind of mad scientist, but all John saw was a friendly old man living out his retirement in suburbia.
“Jeannie, Rodney, I’m so glad you came.” Their father greeted his children. His voice was deep and scratchy. It reminded John of David Carradine, but he assumed it would be out of line to ask him if he could hear the grasshopper. “It’s been so long.”
“Well, I’ve been on a very important mission for the US government and Jeannie has her family,” Rodney announced defiantly.
“Yes, my grandchildren. I wish I saw them more often as well,” the man said to Jeannie. “That goes for this one, too,” he winked at John, before extending his hand. “Cesan McKay, and you must be John.”
John returned the smile, but couldn’t help wondering how much Rodney had told his father about his relationship with John. Luckily, Cesan answered his unspoken question right away. “Of course, I had hoped that I would have heard about your relationship long before there was a child. I mean, Jeannie emailing me that Rodney is making me a grandfather again two days before I meet his boyfriend is certainly leaving things to the last minute. Still, you are one of the only people Rodney mentioned when he visited two years ago, so I might have suspected.”
“We weren’t together then,” John offered.
Cesan nodded decisively before heading inside and calling out, “you’re my children, you don’t need a written invitation,” when they didn’t all rush inside.
Inside, the house was old, but fastidiously maintained. From the shag carpet to the low ceilings and linoleum flooring in the kitchen it was clear that it had last been renovated when Rodney was young, but other than the fact that most of the walls were lined with bookshelves, it was suspiciously organized, compared to Rodney’s messy habits. There wasn’t even a whiteboard or a computer in sight, at least in the main living area.
“So, John,” Cesan asked in the same tone that Patrick Sheppard used to ask what Guild someone belonged to, “where did you get your Phd?”
Rodney and Jeannie immediately shared a look. Clearly, Cesan kept his mad scientist on the inside. John tried not be insulted by the implication that of course Rodney’s boyfriend would have a PhD.
“Um, I actually don’t have one. I have a masters in aerodynamics from the Naval College,” John offered.
Cesan had looked momentarily taken aback, but he didn’t seem judgemental. “Oh, I thought that when Rodney said that you lead his team that you were the lead researcher. According him him, you solve a lot of problems.”
John suddenly realized how a non-classified description of what they did could easily provoke such an assumption. Maybe so many years dealing with his own father’s prejudices made John predisposed to see prejudices in others. John laughed. “No, as Rodney has told us many times, he’s a one man team for research purposes. What Rodney does sometimes requires field work and even a military escort. I’m the leader of our field team.”
“And the commander of the military base we work out of,” Rodney added, beaming. John liked the feeling of Rodney being proud of him and showing him off a little. John didn’t know why it bothered him so much when Cam did it, but when Rodney did it, John felt a happy flutter in his stomach that had absolutely nothing to do with the baby.
“That’s rather impressive,” Cesan replied. “They must be disappointed to lose you for the incubation.”
John blushed a little, shrugging. “I guess they are. Any change in leadership is difficult in a bureaucracy the size of our base.”
Jeannie slapped John on the thigh, hard enough to sting, but with no real force behind it. “John Sheppard, there’s no such thing as modesty in the McKay family. I consulted on the base both before and after John took his paternity leave and John both does a wonderful job and is sorely missed.”
John shot Jeannie a shy smile. Of the siblings, she was by far the more forceful of the two, which was saying a lot considering how many of his minions Rodney made cry on any given day.
“You must be very proud of him,” Cesan gave Rodney an encouraging smile. When Rodney had explained how their father had dedicated his life to science to the point of incubating other people’s children as a living, John hadn’t imagined the man would have good social skills - better than both John and Rodney.
Rodney blushed, but nodded. John couldn’t help but smile at him. Part and parcel of never discussing their feelings was that they rarely directly praised each other in any form other than backhanded or grudging compliments. John admitted that he often took Rodney for granted, so he squeezed Rodney’s hand and told his father what John always imagined he’d like someone to say to his own dad, “Rodney does a good job too. You should be proud to have him as a son.”
Cesan chuckled. “Oh, believe me, I am. I may never have been able to prove my theories to the scientific community, but I had a son who has, according to you, somehow found a way to do field work in astrophysics,” he winked at John. Maybe Cesan McKay had found a more practical way to prove his work to himself - maybe he knew, instinctively, what Rodney was doing with his life. “And a beautiful daughter who is both a well-respected professor and an accepted member of a prominent Guild.”
Jeannie didn’t seem very inclined to be charmed, but she jumped on the opportunity when it presented itself. “Speaking of Guilds,” she added. “This isn’t purely a social call. Rodney has something to ask you.”
Rodney gulped.
“Is that so, son?” Cesan inquired jovially.
Rodney still looked moderately terrified (somewhere between ‘cell on a Wraith hive ship’ terrified and ‘heard Teyla is angry at him’ terrified), so John stepped in for him. “It’s mostly a question of logistics. We’re Registering the baby soon and my Guild is saying that they won’t Register him unless I can provide at least three generations of genealogy for his donor. We just need the name of Rodney’s donor.”
John made sure he wore his most innocent smile - the one that Rodney said looked innocent only in that John looked like he wanted to make sweet love to the recipient rather than have dirty kinky sex.
Cesan sighed, levering himself up. “That’s a tough task, m’boy. I’m sure Rodney told you that his donor was a client, so I do have a copy of his certificate of pedigree up to five generations on file somewhere. But it’ll take me some time to find it.”
“If you just give me the name, I’ll send it to my Guild’s genealogy department and I’m sure they can sort it out using the inter-Guild database.”
“I’ve heard of that,” Cesan replied. His body language was casual, but John could see the beads of sweat forming on his brow. “I didn’t realize it was complete.”
John laughed. “They completed it a while back. When I was still in Afghanistan.” John had only known because the representative he’d talked to about adding Leo to the family tree had laughed and told him that even the new electronic database wouldn’t help him find background on a pleb and that he’d have to contract one of the Guild’s pedigree investigators.
“And didn’t they just finish the DNA database this year?” Jeannie asked, not even bothering to try to hide her glee.
“Yeah, I think they did.”
Cesan frowned and Rodney and Jeannie shared a look. They had him cornered.
“Well, I suppose I was going to have to tell you eventually.”
Rodney and Jeannie were on the edge of their seats. John might have been as well, if not for the uncomfortable way such a position stretched his pouch.
“Rodney, your donor was not a client of mine and he was not a noble.”
John stepped on Rodney’s toe to reminded him to look surprised by the news. At least Jeannie was doing a good job of faking it.
“So, you . . . what, you needed a starter baby to get your business off the ground?”
Cesan winced. This was the sore spot with Rodney. He didn’t seem to actually care about the way that his father had made the siblings so hyper-competitive or that his father had been obsessive about his science to the degree that it resembled an addiction, or even that he’d never had a mother or a donor. No, what hurt Rodney the most was that he thought he was business transaction that his father didn’t want of his own right.
Cesan stared at his children for a long time, clearly making a decision between telling them the truth and spouting more lies.
It was Jeannie who broke the silence with a frustrated huff. She crossed her arms across her chest and tilted her chin up, looking so much like Rodney when he was determined and defiant, right down to the pain in her intense blue eyes. “Give it up, Dad. We know that we share the same donor. One of the top geneticists in the world told us so.”
Cesan finally relented. “I’m so sorry, Jeannie-bean. I wanted to tell you, but I was too ashamed.”
“Ashamed about what?” Rodney exploded. “What could possibly be more shameful than living as an unregistered carrier, having no idea who my donor is and wondering if my father even wanted me?”
John wasn’t often in the position to be the one restraining Rodney from punching someone, but after spending so much time with Ronon, it was reflex.
Cesan McKay looked away from his angry son, imploring his daughter. “You children were always loved. You know that, right, Jeannie?”
Jeannie’s anger was not explosive. It was cold and deadly, like a snake laying wait in the tall grass. “We know you loved us, in your own way,” she spoke slowly. “But did you want us?”
“I wanted you more than anything,” Cesan admitted. “I wanted you so badly that I was willing to raise you alone.”
“Why?” Rodney demanded. “What happened to our donor? Did he die?” John found the possibility unlikely, considering how long Cesan had waited between his children.
“No. He’s very much alive,” Cesan replied.
“Where is he, then? Why didn’t you marry him?” Jeannie demanded.
Cesan ignored the question, starting from the beginning instead. “We were at Cambridge together. He was brilliant, absolutely bloody brilliant and I was so in awe of him.” He smiled softly, looking at Rodney, but clearly seeing his old lover. “I went into the program as the smartest guy I knew, but I couldn’t hold a candle to Andrew. I’d watch him at the chalkboard. I’d clean up his notation sometimes or correct his math, but I didn’t have the same kind of insight he did. His theories were art. But, he tolerated my pitiful attempts to keep up, even indulged me.”
John knew the feeling. It was exactly the kind of relationship he had with Rodney. Except Cesan was a genius of his own right - genius enough to develop the equations for the Stargates without ever having seen one. This Andrew must have been . . . . John gaped, doing the math about when Rodney’s father must have been at Cambridge. “Andrew Hirsch?”
Cesan chuckled. “Your fiance is a bright one, Rodney.”
Rodney’s eyes were wide as saucers. Andrew Hirsch was one of Rodney’s heros. He’d used complex models of solar systems in order to predict the existence of Naquadah and Naquadria as elements and had been instrumental in the development of Skylab and the Hirsch telescope. He’d also been one of the key figures to break the “glass ceiling” for plebs in government when he’d was appointed as the head of NASA in the early eighties. His birthday was even part of Rodney’s override password (at least the one he’d had before Elizabeth found out that John knew it and made Rodney change it).
“Our donor is Andrew Hirsch and you didn’t think to tell us?!” Jeannie exclaimed. “I could’ve . . . he was on the Board of the Wolf Prize.”
“Which you got,” Rodney pointed out.
Jeannie was flustered, fidgeting. “I’ve sat next to him at conferences. I called him an old coot on a panel on materials construction for nanotech design!”
“That sounds about right,” Rodney murmured.
“He asked me out for dinner once and I turned him down because I thought he was being a letch,” Jeannie wailed. The list of her negative interactions with the man went on and on, but John was forming another list. Hirsh was short and stocky, well-muscled for a scientist. He’d lost his hair early and had shaved it, but it must have been curly based on Rodney and Jeannie. He wore black thick-framed glasses and had serious blue eyes. As the head of NASA he wore suits, but he always wore a royal purple tie with a single white stripe down its middle - the symbol for non-reproductive rights. Hirsch was his father’s name. He’d taken it because his mother had left the family when he was young and he thought that just giving birth to him didn’t give her the right to his name.
Jeannie concluded her rant with, “And when he testified in front of the Senate Labor Committee, he said the fact that he didn’t have children didn’t mean he should be paid less than people who had a family to support.” After taking a moment to catch her breath and wipe away her tears, Jeannie asked, “He’s my donor?”
Her father nodded.
“Do you think, all those times he tried to get closer to me, he wanted to tell me?”
Cesan shrugged. “I have no idea. Andrew always does what he wants. He’s not used to people telling him ‘no.’ I know I never have. I was shocked he agreed to let me have you, to be honest.”
“Let you have me?!” Jeannie shouted. “That arrogant son of a bitch. It’s your choice if you wanted to bind, Dad.”
“Honey, it’s not like that. What I told you about the lab accident was true. If I wanted to keep up my business, I did need another child. I didn’t want anyone else’s. It was generous of Andrew to agree to donate even though he would have preferred to support me rather than have me keep up my breeding business.”
“And me?” Rodney demanded.
“You were slightly less planned. But let me go back to the beginning. As I said, I don’t know why Andrew put up with me in the lab. I was not his peer. Andrew was working with Hawking and Penrose and Carter. The only reason I was even allowed in the Sciama lab was because Andrew would basically throw a tantrum otherwise. They called me ‘Hirsch’s pet nobleman.’”
“That’s right,” Jeannie added. “They were all plebs.” In the 20th century it hadn’t been unusual for scientists to be plebs. Nobody had ever thought that plebs weren’t equally capable of being smart and it was widely acknowledged that in previous times nobles had only outnumbered plebs in higher education because they tended to have more money to pay for it. But the 60s and 70s had been a time of social upheaval, particularly about the dominance of the Guilds in what Marx called the superstructure of society. Cambridge in particular had been leading the charge for a Technocratic Revolution - to have those with the intelligence to manage be the ones to manage. John remembered seeing an interview with Hawking saying that as intelligent as he and his friends were, they’d rather be left alone by management than, god forbid, have to do it themselves. But they had supported Hirsch. When Hirsch was up for the job at NASA they had all used their influence to get most of the astrophysics community to sign a petition promising that they would refuse to collaborate with NASA unless the Senate approved Hirsch’s appointment.
Cesan laughed. “It made me so angry at the time, but in retrospect, they weren’t wrong. I was only at Cambridge because the Highland Guild of Scotland had two reserved seats, which the protestors had gotten removed by the time I got my PhD. And I highly doubt that Andrew kept me around for my skills as a physicist.”
“Why did he keep you around, then?” Rodney blurted.
John thought it was fairly obvious, but Rodney could be dense sometimes.
“He kept me around because we were in love. I defended my thesis a year before Andrew, but instead of looking for professorships or fellowships, I spent the year teaching at a Guild high school in Cambridge. Andrew wouldn’t have any trouble getting offers once he finished and the plan was for me to follow him. I wanted nothing more than to marry him and have his children. We could work at the same University. He’d research and I would be one of the professors whose purpose was to actually teach.”
“You wanted to teach?” Jeannie sounded incredulous.
“Oh, yes. I was actually quite good at it. At Cambridge all the students wanted to be in my section. But then I got the idea for conducted Lorentzian wormholes. I got it from Andrew’s materials studies, actually, because it wouldn’t be possible without the elements he identified. The other guys were full of these kinds of theories, but this was the first thing I’d thought up on my own.”
“Let me guess,” Jeannie growled. “Andrew didn’t want to share the spotlight.”
“Oh, no. Andrew was very encouraging. He’s always been. Why do you think that as Director of NASA he authorized missions to actually go look for those elements and bring them back to Earth?”
John squirmed, thinking about how when they were back on Earth, Lorne had been reassigned to the Naquadah mining operation on Pluto. By the time the Penelope Probe reached Pluto, there would be nothing there. John thought back to the launch of the probe. He remembered it because he was fairly sure that that temporary leave in Dubai had been when John and Leo had conceived. Leo had gotten a bullet graze on a mission and was on medical leave and John had decided to use his Guild connection to get himself some kind of special family planning leave and the Guild concierge had booked them into some ridiculous underwater hotel. John should have known not to stay there when Dave told him he liked it. Leo had teased John mercilessly about wanting to watch a probe they were sending to Uranus (“And Pluto!” John had reminded him) and also about being a giant Chair Force nerd.
John remembered wondering why it was called the Penelope, when Penelope waited at home for Odysseus to return and the probe was going on the long journey to return to Earth in many years. Hirsch had said something about how space travel mirrored life in many ways, especially how long one often had to wait for revelation, or even for love. He said he dedicated the voyage to all the wonderful people in the lives of his employees at NASA who waited patiently as their spouses dedicated themselves to exploration. It all made sense now.
“Penelope, that’s you!” he exclaimed.
“Seriously, Rodney, you really picked a good one,” Cesan chuckled. “You’re right, John. Andrew and I never really did break up. We were just waiting.”
“That’s strange, because I don’t remember having a Deedee. Do you, Jeannie?”
“Look, even though Andrew believed in me and the whole lab considered my theory, they couldn’t prove it. Most everybody assumed that if the greatest minds of our generation couldn’t make it work then it probably wasn’t right. They tried to gently suggest that I just stick to teaching and pumping out children like I was meant to.”
“And Hirsch didn’t bother to defend you? That bastard,” Jeannie growled.
“Andrew did defend me, but they were right, in a way. We hadn’t discussed children, so we were completely unprepared when Rodney came along. Andrew was one of the heads of the Technocratic Movement at the time and though he wasn’t ashamed of me, he didn’t exactly advertise his noble boyfriend.”
“It sure sounds like he was ashamed to me,” Jeannie snapped.
“I don’t really expect you kids to understand, but sometimes there are causes bigger than one’s own self. Andrew was committed to a world in which reproductive fitness had nothing to do with social and political status. He never wanted children.”
“Then why the hell did you stay with that asshole?”
“I could either bind or we could go our separate ways. I wanted Andrew’s child, even if it meant I’d have to leave him. So I left. We still see each other. We were never unfaithful.”
“So all those ‘business trips,’” Jeannie said, eyes widening in wonder.
“They were Andrew’s business trips, really. I just went along.”
“And he never wanted to come to our home? To see us?” Jeannie demanded.
“Andrew was afraid that if he did, he’d never want to leave.”
“He should have come,” Jeannie had finally given in and the tears were flowing. “He should have stayed.”
“Maybe. But Andrew was the first non-military presidential appointee to not come from a Guild family and I got to raise our two beautiful children.”
“And your theory?” John asked quietly. “It doesn’t bother you that it was never proven.”
“Come now, John,” Cesan replied. “We both know that’s not true.”
“Rodney!” Jeannie snapped, reaching over to pinch her brother even through the quiet sobs that she couldn’t seem to shake. “You told him! You were the one who lectured me about classified material.”
Cesan laughed. “Andrew told me, actually. Someone has to falsify the data when an alien armada almost takes out the Hirsch Telescope. He got me clearance a few years ago. It was touching to find out that you and Samantha Carter always cite me in your papers queued for publication, Rodney. Why do you think I wasn’t more upset with you not coming to visit often enough?”
“Your work might not be published for years,” Jeannie pointed out. “You might not be vindicated in this lifetime.”
Cesan shrugged. “It was never about fame, Jeannie-bean. It was always about scientific progress.”
“So, now that we know,” Jeannie pointed out, “Do you think Hirsch would want to see us?”
Cesan laughs. “Maybe if you promise not to call him an old coot this time.” Even though her eyes were red and puffy, Jeannie laughed. “Andrew cherishes his time with you, honey, but he talked my ear off about that one. Something about failing to raise a proper lady.”
“And me?” Rodney asked.
“Andrew has been trying to get scheduled for a conference with you for years, but he complains that military-industrial complex has swallowed you up better than a black hole.”
“Were you ever planning to tell us?” Jeannie asked, the tears getting their second wind.
“Yes. Andrew is retiring this fall. We bought a house in Santa Barbara. That way we’ll be close enough to see Jeannie and the grandkids, but still far enough away from JPL and Edwards AFB that Andrew won’t be tempted to work.”
“I can’t believe you, Dad!” Jeannie outright sobbed. “How could you keep something like this from us? How could you make us think that you were lonely and unhappy and that we were unwanted?! And you have your ever after planned. But what about us?”
“You and Rodney already made your own ever afters, sweetheart.”
John thought it was a nice sentiment. If this were a movie, it would make a good ending. But Jeannie jumped up then, looking murderous. “I can’t look at you right now, Dad. John, Rodney, let’s go.”
After the loud clack of Jeannie’s high heels had faded, Rodney just sat there and stared.
“Don’t worry, son,” Ceran said. “She’ll get over it. Now, I’ll get Andrew to email you his pedigree and we’ll get everything sorted. When’s the Registration?”
“Next week,” Rodney snapped. “But John and I aren’t going to get married and it’s not my kid. Some ever after.”
Rodney yanked John up off the couch and followed his sister out.
“I’m sorry, Dr. McKay,” John managed as Rodney pulled him out the door. The thing was, John could understand Cesan. He could understand loving someone so much that you were willing to let them go. And as much as Rodney called him a martyr, John knew that it wasn’t about that. It was about choices. Sometimes you couldn’t have everything you wanted. Sometimes you had to choose and sometimes those choices were hard. Sometimes they hurt people. Sometimes, no matter how much you wanted them to, people couldn’t compromise. Hirsch could have compromised his political goals and his personal freedom in order to be with Cesan, but Cesan had recognized that he couldn’t force Hirsch to compromise. He needed to give Hirsch the ability to make the choice.
John himself had given Rodney a choice and now he had to see if Rodney would agree.
Part 2