Juice for Rodney

Or "The Mantle"

By: Kaydon

Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis and all related characters, places, ideas and terms are the property of MGM Worldwide Television Productions, Gekko Film, Stargate SG-1 Productions, Sony Pictures Television, Double Secret Productions and other applicable persons. This story was written for entertainment purposes only, not for financial gain, the author intended no copyright infringement.

Summary: While awaiting the birth of his son, Sheppard contemplates the way life used to be, and the friend he lost.

Linda Sheppard walked through the kitchen in the small house, up the hallway and into the living room, sweeping little Amelia Elizabeth off her bum and swinging her around in a circle. Aimee shrieked and giggled, but when the doorbell rang after a few moments Linda had to set her precious daughter back on the ground. She walked past the mantle and the shining fireplace beneath. Despite the Christmas time decorations that adorned the house and nearly every surface within, the mantle remained in the same condition it had been all year.

It wasn't because Linda was lazy, but rather that John had claimed the mantle the night they had moved in together, and he had never relinquished it. Linda had tried to redecorate the mantle their first Christmas together, but John hadn't let her. In fact, he hadn't let her touch the mantle at all. It had stayed exactly the same as it had been for the last five years, the only person who ever touched it was John, and it killed her to watch him do it. She had watched him dust the mantle once, three years ago. He had carefully removed each frame from its home and gently wiped it, with more care than he handled a lot of things, until it was dust free. Tears had been streaming down his face when he had placed the last frame carefully back where it belonged.

The doorbell rang again and Linda pulled herself back to the present, reminding herself that their guest was freezing outside. She pulled open the door and quickly stepped aside as Richard Stackhouse entered the house and shook the snow from his shoes and coat, running his right and only hand through his short and spiky hair. He took off his coat and hung it on the coat rack, greeting Linda with a large smile as he did. "Excited?"

Linda nodded, barely able to keep herself like babbling on like a school child. Rick struggled with the glove, and Linda pulled it off without asking, and he didn't thank her, because she would have been offended if he had. He walked into the living room loudly proclaiming, "Where's my little girl?"

Aimee ran over, but stopped short of launching herself upward as she would have if it had been her father who walked through the door. Instead, she waited until Rick was seated before eagerly climbing into his lap and launching into an account of her day at school, his arm encircling her young body.

She waited until her daughter paused for breath before addressing her long-time friend. "John and I are planning on dinner and a movie afterwards; we'll probably be home around eleven, which means little girls will already be in bed." Linda directed the last part to her daughter. She gave the girl two hugs and two kisses ("One from me and from daddy."), instructed Rick to make himself at home in the guest room if he got tired and turned to leave, catching sight of the mantle once more.

As her daughter and her daughter's godfather talked excitedly, Linda's eyes roamed the mantle, until they settled on the picture placed at the far right. Six people were seated around a table playing poker. The man closest to the camera on the left side of the table looked positively irked; the arm that showed off a maple leaf patch for all the world to see was paused in mid-snap. The man on his right was sleeping, head resting on the arm that declared him Scottish. One down from him was her husband, looking faintly annoyed with his cards folded on the table in front of him. Across from him a woman who looked as if she was capable of both singing a baby to sleep and killing you with her bare hands was observing both the scene and her cards calmly, next to her was a man who was the physical embodiment of the mad scientist stereotype, long messy hair, large glasses, a white lab coat and a slightly crazy look about him, although that could have just been frustration with the game, which was not going his way, if the if the small pile of chips in front of him were anything to judge by.

But what really got Linda when she looked at the picture was the hand on top of mad scientist-guy's head. It was a just like any other left hand that belonged to a white Caucasian male Marine, large, callused, and attached to a muscular arm. The part that had made her stare when she had stumbled down the staircase to make breakfast for her new husband that first morning was that the arm belonged to one Richard Stackhouse, and it was an arm that he was no longer in possession of.

"All teams be advised, the natives are unfriendly and have requested that we leave the planet immediately or be forcibly removed. We need to complete this mission, but it would probably be best if they didn't know we were sticking around." Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard was crouched behind a tree, watching the retreating backs of very angry natives.

"Acknowledged."

"McKay, copy, and could your timing be any worse?"

"Understood sir. We found another energy signature sir, and Zelenka thinks it may be another Ancient lab. It's coming from inside a cave-looks stable, no signs that anything large lives in it either."

"Copy that Lorne. Rothwell, have you found anything?"

"A lot of stuff that Daniel Jackson would probably kill to see, but nothing that glows, sir."

"Alright, then, Rothwell, I want you and Teyla to assist Major Lorne and Zelenka."

"Yes sir." Captain Rothwell turned to his companion. "Let's go Teyla. Maybe we'll actually find something interesting."

"Lorne, I'm sending Teyla and Rothwell to assist you."

"Yes sir." Lorne nodded and peered inside the cave, turning on the flashlight on his P90 on as he went. "Oh, this is just great," he muttered, glancing darkly to Zelenka. "You had to find the power signature in the dark, wet and freezing cave, didn't you?"

Zelenka threw his hands in the air. "Do not blame me, Major. I was not among the Ancients when they decided upon the location of labs such as these. I am in complete agreement with Rodney." At Lorne's question look he amended, "The Ancients often did things for no purpose other than to annoy us humans."

Lorne laughed once. "Well that's just wonderful of them."

Ronon turned to Sheppard as he ended his conversation with Major Lorne. "What now?"

"Now we get to the gate and let Weir know what's going on." He keyed his radio. "Rodney, Stackhouse? How much time are we looking at here?"

"For the last time John, I am not naming my son Rodney."

"Why not Linda? What's wrong with the name Rodney?" John asked, limping into the kitchen. The limp was from an injury he'd sustained during his time in the Air Force. John's time in the military was something that was never discussed, although Linda knew that Rick was a Sergeant in the Marines and had served under him before.

Linda sighed, lowering herself into a chair, glancing at the mantle as she did. A lot of time had passed since Linda last thought about the mantle, the Christmas decorations had been removed in favor of Easter ones and flowers, but still the mantle remained the same. On the far right, the picture of the poker game, next to it, a young African-American Lieutenant in his dress uniform. A woman in a red shirt with shoulder length brown hair, carrying a laptop. The Scot from the poker game, running down the hallway in a blood stained lab coat, a worried look on his face and a syringe in his gloved hands. An English male, staring down at a data tablet with a look of confusion on his face, the mad scientist who wasn't good at poker peering over his shoulder. An Air Force officer, dressed in BDUs and a bullet proof vest that had a large gun hanging from it, paint brush in hand working on a small piece of paper stuck to a tree with a stick, several others, including John, had guns held high, guarding both him and the snapping man from the game, whose hands were waving wildly in the air, and his mouth was open, probably very loudly telling the painter to hurry.

In the middle, between the woman with the laptop and the Scottish doctor was a picture slightly larger than the rest. Its sole occupant was the Canadian from the poker game, standing in a shooting range. His blue eyes were set and determined, his posture that of one who had experience in this sort of work. The gun is his hands was identical to the P90 machine gun John kept locked in a safe inside another safe in the back of the top shelf of their closet. It was probably the exact same gun she mused, as John placed a plate of food in front of her, resuming the discussion, or rather, the argument about what to name their unborn son.

"Seriously, what's wrong with Rodney?"

Colonel Sheppard was in shock. Less than seven hours ago, the day had blown up in his face, quite literally. He only remembered very vaguely what happened, and that was limited to grunts from Ronon, sounds of distant gunfire and the feeling of being roughly carried, but now that he was awake, Carson Beckett had agreed to allow Major Lorne to speak with him.

"Major."

"Sir."

Lorne quickly and quietly filled the Colonel in on the events of the last seven hours. A native had spotted Teyla and Rothwell, and everything had gone downhill from there. The natives were in possession of crude explosives, and, as the Colonel quickly found out, they didn't like the report that groups of strangers were being seen moving away from the gate. McKay and Stackhouse had a run in with the explosives as well, and were not answering their hails. Lorne and Zelenka had met Ronon and Sheppard at the gate. Sheppard was down for the count, and Zelenka took him through. A few moments later Teyla's voice had interrupted their wild and frantic search for their friends.

"This is Teyla. Is anyone still on the planet?"

Lorne brought his hand up the radio. "Teyla? Thank God! Where are, are you okay?"

"Captain Rothwell and I were attacked. I am uninjured, but he did not survive. I am headed for the last position of Sergeant Stackhouse and Dr. McKay."

Lorne and Ronon met up with Teyla on the way, and they made quick work, scanning the trees along the path between the first Ancient lab and the Stargate. Lorne was the first one to spot them, and for a moment his heart stopped beating. McKay was spread out across Stackhouse's chest, held tightly into place with one arm. Because Stackhouse only had one arm. Bright red, coppery blood was oozing out of the place where the other had been this morning.

"Now is not the time for this conversation John!" The "John" jumping an octave higher as another contraction seized Linda.

John gripped her hand back. "Then when Linda? He needs a name!"

After a long night and several pain filled hours, Linda won, on account of the fact that John had turned Amelia Elizabeth into Aimee, effectively naming their daughter. Linda knew that the name meant something to John, or he wouldn't have fought her this hard, but she didn't know what. To her Rodney was just a ridiculous sounding name. She did relent though, and allowed their oldest son became Robert Rodney Sheppard.

Rick came by with Aimee later in the day, and left the room quickly when Linda told him his godson's name. He came back a few minutes later eyes puffy and slightly red in the face, sat in the chair, and allowed John to lower his godson into his arm, and for the first time in a long time, Richard Stackhouse held Rodney.

"Hit the deck!"

A scream of pain followed his order, and Lorne knew one of his two companions hadn't made it in time. He army crawled to Stackhouse and McKay, bullets flying over his head, but for the most part a fallen tree provided cover.

"Ronon is dead." Teyla's quiet voice came over the radio, filled with despair.

"Stackhouse and McKay are alive, but we need to get them out of here. I'll lay cover fire; you need to get to this side of the tree."

"On your mark."

"Mark!" Lorne raised the P90 over the tree and shot several rounds into the surrounding forest. Two grunts and a scream told him that three bullets hit a target. Teyla dropped to the ground next to him, but there was no return fire. "They're going to tend to the wounded, but that probably only bought us a few seconds. We need to move, now."

Teyla nodded a slightly desperate look in her eyes as she surveyed the bloody team. "How can they still be living?"

"Most of its Stackhouse's. McKay got shot twice and got hit with a dart of some kind." Lorne held up the feathered dart for her to see before stuffing it in his pocket, looking over the tree and slinging McKay over his shoulder.

Teyla stumbled once under the weight of the injured Marine, and the four took off for the gate, two running, and two out cold.

Rick was the first one to call the baby just Rodney. The blue-eyed boy was only three days old when it had slipped off his tongue. John quickly followed suit. Little Rodney Sheppard was only twenty-seven days old when Linda finally asked the question that had been on her mind for the last seven years. "Who are those people John?"

John Sheppard didn't have to ask who she meant. He'd been avoiding the topic for seven years, but it finally came up. He turned to stare at the seven pictures on the mantle for a long time before he walked over to the mantle and gathered all seven pictures in his arms. He sat down beside her on the couch, and started with the poker game. "That's Rick." He pointed to the children's godfather. "He was Sergeant Stackhouse then. He served under me all five years I was in command."

"That's Radek Zelenka." He indicated mad-scientist guy. "He used to get so irritated because nobody could remember his name. We called him Zelunka and Zelumpta for years, just to annoy him." John's finger traced his face and landed on the woman. "That's Teyla. She was a member of my team, she was a real diplomat, she could always talk us out of a jam. She was a native of the place we were stationed, and she knew her way around pretty well." His finger moved across the table to the sleeping Scot. "That's Carson Beckett. He was our Chief Medical Officer, but he died three years in." He paused, and moved his finger up and down over the face of the Canadian, before he finally managed to mumble, "That's McKay."

John didn't say anything more about McKay, and Linda didn't feel it was her time to ask questions, so when John moved on to the next picture, she let him. He looked at the young Lieutenant for a moment. "This is Aiden Ford. He was my second in command, and a damn fine officer, up until he went AWOL a year in. Just took off, and we never got him back."

He chose a different picture. "This is Elizabeth Weir. She was the expedition leader, but we lost her near the end of the third year. She's still MIA. She stood up for me when some higher officers wanted me out of the expedition, got me a promotion actually."

The next picture was of McKay, and it went to the bottom of the pile, revealing the picture of Carson. "Sergeant Cole had an allergic reaction. He went running straight from surgery up to the mess, he was so desperate to get there in time." John shook his head. "He cared about us so much. Anytime we lost someone it killed him."

He moved to the next frame. "That's Peter Grodin. He was out weapon's specialist. He died trying to get our main defense weapon back online when we were besieged in the first year." John laughed a little and pointed to Zelenka. "He was showing him that the computer was going to beat him at chess in another two moves."

John laughed out loud at the next picture. "We were on a mission, exploring a temple we found, but the natives of the area didn't like us too much. We tried to tell them we'd been sent by the gods-we had reason to believe that an enemy was stashing weapons in the temple. They told us we had to replicate the picture in the innermost sanctuary without getting caught as proof." He indicated the artist. "That's General Evan Lorne. He was just Major Lorne then, though. He was my second in command after I lost Ford." He went around, pointing out the different guards. "That's Captain Rothwell, Sergeant Cole, Major Leonard, and Lieutenant Mark is taking the picture."

He didn't say anything about the panicked McKay, instead choosing to switch frames, to the final picture, which McKay occupied alone. "He was a member of my team. A real asshole, if you know what I mean, but the smartest man I ever met. We liked to say he was the smartest man in two galaxies, if you know what I mean." Linda didn't get it, nor did she know what he meant. "His name was name was Rodney McKay. Dr. Meredith Rodney McKay."

Sheppard was in his quarters for the first time in two weeks, carefully maneuvering with crutches and boxing up his stuff, preparing to leave Atlantis for good when Beckett's voice called over the radio. "Colonel, he's awake if you'd like to see him." He didn't have to ask who the "he" was. Teyla, Lorne and Zelenka were all fine. Rothwell and Ronon hadn't made it home. Stackhouse had been released from the infirmary yesterday, and was currently occupying his bed.

"Copy that Carson. Stackhouse and I are headed down." He turned toward the door. "Will you grab that?" He pointed to a bottle on his bedside table. "It's just some of Teyla's berry juice for Rodney. He was asking for some last time."

"Yeah sure." Stackhouse grabbed the bottle, and the two made their slow way to the infirmary.

They took too long, as it turned out. The sound hit them first when they opened the door to the infirmary. Nurses were scrambling, Lorne was bent over Zelenka, who was sprawled out on the floor with a bleeding forehead, screaming for a doctor. Teyla and Elizabeth were holding onto each other, sobbing, a monitor was whining, Carson was shouting, a defibrillator was discharging. Rodney's body was arching off the bed and falling back on it with a thump. A bottle hit the floor and shattered at the same time as John's head.

On the eighth anniversary of the death of Rodney McKay, Linda opened the door to find a two-star general waiting outside, called John down from upstairs, and watched quietly from the kitchen. "General Lorne." John saluted the man, whose laughter was heard for a moment the door closed. She peeked out the window, and saw John embrace the ethnic woman from the photographs. The mad scientist guy was there, though he hadn't aged as well as the others, and most of his hair was gone. Rick was sitting in the backseat of the car. He stuck his head out of the open window, yelled something, and everyone crowded into the car.

John didn't come home until late that night, a photo album in one hand and a bottle in the other. Linda took his hat and set it on the rack. "What's that?"

John set the album on the counter. "This is my team." John opened the fridge door and held up the bottle, studying it. "Well, my Rodney liked it, so I figured ours might as well." At Linda's confused look, he elaborated.

"It's juice for Rodney."

Fin

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