So, here we are at the 9th challenge of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
stargate_las and, though I've known the results since the weekend, I've held off posting, because I wanted to see the comments first. Yes, I was voted off the island. No, it's okay. I can always learn to swim, lol. The comments weren't mean and focused mostly on little things (such as Rodney thinking of Jack as "Jack" i/o General O'Neil or just O'Neil) or that the story might have been better laid out had I had more words with which to work (ain't that the truth). But at least I did have one person vote for my fic as best-written and I adored the comments there (can you guess why?), so that makes me feel better. TBH (and, no, it's not sour grapes), I was getting tired of the inconsistency of the voting from one week to the next (which is to be expected when there's no idea of who will vote). But at least nobody's had a negative vote for me based on grammar, spelling or typos. ::is so twelve::
Show/Movie: Stargate Atlantis
Story Title: Family Matters
Characters/Relationships: Team, SGA plus SG-1 canon characters, Madison Miller/Gen (strong Rodney-John friendship, with potential for future McShep, though irrelevant for the purpose of this story)
Rating: PG-13 for adult situations
Warnings: Mention of an accident causing loss of life and destruction of property; one profanity/blasphemy; future fic, post EatG
Rodney lingered at the top of the stairs overlooking the spacious living area, drawn by the bright laughter in the kitchen. John was
helping Madison bake Periodic Table cookies. Sounded more like
eating, since she informed him he'd just swallowed
Nitrogen. Oh, she was a genuine McKay.
For a moment, Rodney was pierced with the grief that had overwhelmed him only three months earlier. Because there was something intrinsically disordered with a universe that contained only two McKays.
Madison still experienced the occasional nightmare. It helped that he and John had shared a room with her from the first night, pushing beds together, comforting her between them as she whimpered in her troubled sleep.
Protesting that she was a big girl now, she'd moved into an adjoining bedroom one month later. Rodney had capitulated only after installing a baby-monitor.
John hadn't moved from the bedroom, however, and Rodney hadn't objected. With Teyla's family and Ronon across the atrium, their home was vibrant with life.
::~::~::
He recalled the day with frozen clarity, the call from the SGC, his team in the conference room. Then Jack's and Sam's grave faces on screen. Jack was there, instead of DC, so he feared really bad news.
He remembered moaning, “No, no, nooooo. None of this is really happening.”
But it had.
The placid suburban street Jeannie and Kaleb lived on. Obliterated by a gas explosion. Madison had survived only because her class had been visiting Stanley Park that Saturday morning.
No Jeannie.
She wasn't supposed to die. From being diagnosed with epilepsy through to surviving nanites. He expected her, as the younger sibling, to outlive him. She was
supposed to live. To be there for her family.
::~::~::
By the time the casually-clothed team walked through to the Mountain, everything was in readiness. Madison was already at Foreign Affairs in Vancouver, waiting for them to pick her up. Without a home or belongings, there was nothing to pack, not even a family picture.
They beamed to a secure location and drove to the government building. Madison walked out gripping the female RCMP escort's hand but, when she spotted them, wailed, “Uncle Mer, Uncle John,” and ran into the shelter of their arms.
After they'd beamed back to the Mountain, Rodney insisted he was taking her to Atlantis with them.
Jack derailed his ranting. “Ahht, it's my turn to talk. Let me guess. If you can't take her with you, you'll quit the program altogether. Got that. If I'm right and I usually am, because they didn't make me General for my pretty face, Sheppard'll retire, too, with his twenty. So, I'll just cut to the chase and tell you to get out of my hair. Don't worry, McKay. We'll see she's added to your passport. Just take her home.”
Jack then turned to an equally surprised Sam. “Carter, why don't you take the kid shopping. I'm sure there's lots of stuff she won't be able to get in Pegasus.”
Hours later, when the weary group walked through to Atlantis loaded down with parcels, Madison was silent, awestruck by yet another
alien experience until she squirmed out of John's arms, frantic to get down so she could pat the Gateroom floor. Clutching “Sam”, her new purple teddy bear, she whispered, “Lan'is says hi.”
Rodney's laptop clattered to the floor, followed by the thump of a heavy duffel bag containing some of Maddy's new possessions. “Oh, Jesus, fuck me.”
The team turned to stare at him in shock. Despite his notorious bluntness, he wasn't one for blasphemy.
Rodney stammered an explanation. “She – she – Kaleb must have had it, and passed on
his ATA gene to her.”
Madison turned to them impatiently. “Lan'is says to follow me. We got to live together.”
Richard Woolsey, waiting to greet her officially, joined the team at the transporter where she pressed a panel they knew had never lit up before, not even for John.
What none of them had expected was Madison's
interpretation of living together. But, as they all wanted to ease her loss, they agreed to give it a try.
::~::~::
Ignoring their en-suite transporter, Rodney jogged down the staircase to the main level. There was something about being a parent and wanting to remain alive and healthy as best he could, for her sake. She'd already lost two parents. She couldn't afford to lose him, too. Or John, who'd stunned him by offering to jointly adopt Madison. It was a relief to not have to do it alone. Rodney had more than enough proof of how ruthless John could be when protecting those dearest to him. And Madison was the reason he and John no longer travelled off-world. He didn't miss it.
His life had already veered so many times from his originally charted path. Adding another unconventional twist shouldn't faze him. There was no hot blond wife and there wouldn't be. No Nobel.
Yet. But there was family. People other than Jeannie whom he really loved for the first time in his life, and who loved Madison and him.
They would face unique challenges. Currently he was recruiting expedition members to teach Madison subjects he couldn't, such as languages and history. He knew they'd return to Earth eventually, as it wasn't fair to deprive his niece of her Milky Way heritage. Though he was certain, considering her powerful ATA gene, she'd return to Atlantis again.
Rodney fervently hoped Jeannie still existed somewhere in an alternate time-line, one where she and Kaleb had chaperoned Maddy's class and were alive and happy. He didn't want to think of the possibility that he, on the other hand, was alone there. So, each time Maddy called him “Uncle Mer”, he whispered a heartfelt “thank you” in remembrance of his sister.
And then he was in the kitchen, devouring
Oxygen. John whined he'd just sucked all the air out of the room. Rodney merely rolled his eyes and handed John a cookie. Pure
Gold.
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helenkacan / Helena K.
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