Title: It's that time again
By: Belisse
Genre: Humor, One - Shot
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: set in season 2
Pairings: None
Warnings: Possibly some silliness.
Disclaimer: I wish I owned Shep and all of Atlantis so I could be the queen and watch my Atlantis minions all day. But alas, I am only a normal person that will never set foot on the Atlantis set, much less own it.
A/N: I wrote this because I wanted to do something and only this came to mind. Some of this was inspired by true events. Thanks to everyone at the SGAHC for your help on the Christmas question. But especially I want to thank Rox for your helpful comments and Chrystalline for your comments and all the grammar tips.
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It's that time again"Hold it!"
"Wait, I need to put it in place."
"No, you're doing it wrong."
"Rodney, it's a fake Christmas tree, how can I be doing it wrong?" John was starting to sweat as he held up one of the heaviest parts of the plastic Christmas tree. Tired of holding on, he stuck it on the tree base and scowled at the scratches the damned thing left all along his arms. The whole thing was annoying him, and that made him wonder why he let McKay convince him to set up a Christmas tree in the gate room in the first place. The tree was currently at the right side of the stairs. Now that he thought of it, Rodney didn't look like the kind of guy who would get into the holiday spirit. He certainly wasn't last year. But no one had time last year. Between settling into in the city and the shadow of the Wraith looming above them, Christmas celebrations were pushed to the background and everyone dealt with it on their own.
With the renewed contact with Earth, things could be more normal this year. That meant celebrating Christmas. Rodney had taken a keen interest in having at least a good Christmas tree in the gate room. Elizabeth had agreed to the decoration with the condition that he had to put it up and decorate it. He could have help, but he couldn't order any of his subordinates to do all the work.
He stared intently at the tree for the tenth time and then said, "No, that's not working, why don't you move it over there?" He pointed at the other side of the room.
John glanced briefly at the new target before turning to glare at him. "Why don't you move it? If I keep moving that tree, I might die today!"
The astrophysicist stood on the other side of the room doing his best impression of an inspector. He rolled his eyes. "Don't be so melodramatic."
"Melodramatic? We've moved this thing twice, and when you thought you found the best place, you changed your mind and want it moved again. I'm not doing it any more, especially not after that thing almost hit me in the head!"
Rodney made a face. "It's a fake Christmas tree, for God's sake."
"Boys!"
Dr. Weir frowned down at them from the doorway of her office. "I know you're trying to get into the holiday spirit, but could you keep it down a bit?"
Sheppard sighed and massaged his forehead. "Sorry Elizabeth, we're just having some technical problems."
She raised an eyebrow. "Technical problems?"
Rodney snapped, "Hardly!"
John gave him his best glare and turned to Elizabeth, "Apparently McKay had to pick the Evil Tree of Doom for the gate room."
She smirked. "It's just a tree…"
"I'm sorry, Elizabeth. I think Colonel Sheppard is being over-sensitive today."
John shoved his bleeding right arm in the scientist's face. Unimpressed, Rodney scoffed, "That's nothing."
"The base fell on my foot."
"Another little thing."
"When you made me move it to the control center, the thing fell on my head!"
"I don't think you'll miss any brain cells on account of that."
Weir chuckled and repeated, "John… it's just a tree."
He frowned and shook his head. "Not just any tree; that thing is possessed."
"Then exorcise it for all I care, just keep it down. Some of us are trying to work." With those words, Elizabeth turned and walked into her office.
Rodney muttered, "Did someone say PMS?"
"I heard that!"
With an incredulous look, Sheppard whapped him in the face with a particularly large stocking, making Rodney stagger away from him.
He tossed the stocking back on the box and started looking through the decorations. A strange clinking, tinkling sound attracted his attention, and he turned to find the chief scientist hopelessly tangled in a web of lights. "What are you doing?"
Rodney fought a bit with the cords. "We need to put some lights on it."
John grabbed the instructions from the tree box and handed them over. "It's already lighted. You know, for a genius, you're not that bright."
"Hmph." He snatched the paper and looked at the tree for confirmation. Ignoring the smug grin, he peeled the knot of wires and tiny lightbulbs off and shoved the whole bundle, including the instruction sheet, against his antagonist's chest. Reflexively, Sheppard caught it, scowled, and dumped the whole thing on the floor while McKay tugged a couple of branches out of the way to search for the electrical plug. Stinging from the insult, he decided to feed the fire of sarcasm. "Evil Tree of Doom, Colonel? How much time did it take you to cook that up?"
John crossed his arms. "Shut up, Rodney!"
He stopped examining the branches and backed up. "Move the tree."
"No."
"Move the tree, please."
"Move it yourself."
The man could out-stubborn a cat…bad choice of words. He still missed his fuzzy friend. Leaving pets behind had been a necessary evil, but maybe they could change a few things soon. Pets have proven psychotherapeutic value, after all. Resigned, he grabbed the half-made tree by the center and pulled. The base of the tree screeched loudly, drawing muted cries of pained protest from the control room.
Elizabeth shouted, "Rodney, I think the tree is perfect right there!" She glared at him from her office doorway until she was convinced he'd gotten the message.
He pushed the tree back where it had been and turned to notice John staring at him with obvious amusement. "What are you smiling about? Put on the last piece!"
Sheppard frowned, but decided to keep quiet for now and retaliate later. After all, he'd gotten his way; the tree wasn't going to move again. He was just fitting the last piece at the top when Teyla and Ronon entered the gate room and stared in utter confusion.
Ronon's eyes shifted from the men to the tree and back. "What are you doing?"
John turned around to face him. "We're trying to put up a Christmas tree."
Hoping for explanation, Ronon glanced at Teyla with a wary, "Okay…" She met his gaze evenly, but with no more understanding than he had. Together, they raised their eyebrows at their team leader.
"It's a celebration some of us have on Earth. For some it's the birth of baby Jesus on the 25th of December; for others it's the arrival of Santa Claus, who goes down your chimney and leaves presents. And in other countries and cultures they celebrate it in their own different way. There are some who don't celebrate Christmas but have their own traditions for the season."
Ronon blinked and Teyla gave John a bewildered smile. He sighed and waved his hand dismissively. "Anyway, it involves decorated trees, brightly wrapped gifts and a whole lot of food."
Ronon looked more interested at the mention of food, while Teyla nodded and started looking through the decorations.
Frenetic rustling in the tree drew Sheppard's attention. "Rodney, what are you doing?"
"This thing has some electrical plugs that go along the center, but we need to connect them if we want to turn it on."
He pulled the instructions out of the jumble McKay had shoved at him earlier and peered into the branches. "What do you need?"
Rodney emerged, disheveled, from the branches of the tree and replied, "Nothing, I think it's set." He grabbed a plug and connected it. The lights on the bottom branches lit up, but the others didn't even flicker. "Huh! There must be something wrong with the plugs; let me check it out."
When John started searching the tree for what might be wrong or damaged, Rodney shouted from the second level, "Get away from the tree; you'll only make it worse."
He made a face, but he let go of the branches and joined Ronon and Teyla in waiting for the genius solution to the tree malfunction. Teyla's exploration through the boxes of decorations stopped for a moment when Ronon snatched a Santa Claus figure from her hands.
"That's Santa."
Ronon eyed John and replied, "This is the one who brings you gifts?"
"Yeah."
"It's just an old man… fat old man."
John took the little Santa away from Ronon and threw it back in the box. "He's the one with the gifts. Anyway, we're not using him, Elizabeth asked to keep it simple, so just bring out any bows, flowers and those ball ornaments. We have to be careful with those; they break easily."
After 15 minutes, the tree still wasn't working properly, and Sheppard was getting impatient. He didn't want to spend his whole day off waiting for Rodney to figure out how to turn the lights on. "McKay!"
The scientist lowered his datapad and stared at the tree in befuddlement. John asked, "May I?"
Rodney crossed his arms, sharp chin rising in challenge. "Go ahead. I doubt you'll find anything."
John shot him a cocky grin and started looking through the branches, the upper half of his body disappearing completely inside the tree. Suddenly he began laughing. It started low, but then it turned into a fit.
Rodney's eyes widened. "What?"
The pilot backed out of the tree and lay on the floor under it, where he was lost for a minute, still laughing.
A minute later the tree came to life, all the colored lights shining brightly. McKay's face fell as John came out from under the tree with a smug smile. "What did you do?"
"Did you even read the instructions?"
"Actually… no."
He patted Rodney on the back and said, "Come with me."
John pulled the branches apart to show the electrical outlets on the center of the tree, and pointed to the one on top which had a label on the side. "What does it say there?"
Reluctantly, Rodney answered, "A."
"Right, now, what does it say," – He searched deeper into the tree and indicated the lower outlet – "Here?"
Blue eyes narrowed in irritation. "Your point?"
"You see all these little plugs - they're labeled A or B - you take them and connect them to the central outlets and the main plug is the one you connect to the electrical current. You had all the little plugs gathered in one place, the main plug was on the central outlets and what you connected was the little plug of the lower branches."
Rodney turned to look at John's smiling face and said, "You're really enjoying this, aren't you?"
"Well… actually… yeah, a lot! Can we continue? I want to finish before the evening is through."
Quietly Rodney nodded and took a box of ornament balls from Teyla, who helped him hang them on the tree. She seemed to like the tradition of decorating a lighted tree.
John recruited Ronon to help him wrap lights and garlands around the second level rails. It didn't take long, and the runner stayed silently watching the whole event as John went back down to help finish the tree.
He was taking out some gift shaped decorations when Zelenka walked down the stairs holding a bunch of papers. When the scientist saw the tree, he stopped short.
Sheppard gave him an acknowledging nod and asked, "What are you up to? Wanna help?"
Zelenka looked at the tree. "No, thank you, Colonel, I'm not too fond of Christmas. Besides, I have things to do."
"Shouldn't you be in the lab?" Rodney put in. "What are you doing here anyway?"
Zelenka's face was serious, which told John the man was up to something. The Czech looked them both in the eye and said, "Something you two should've done for quite some time."
Rodney folded his arms and tilted his head arrogantly. "What? Work?"
"Make out with Dr. Weir."
John, Rodney, Ronon and Teyla all dropped what they were doing to stare at Zelenka's deadpan expression, which abruptly transformed into a smirk. "Of course work. But I got you."
"Ha, ha, ha. You should be a comedian now, Radek."
Zelenka shrugged. "I try."
John smiled and passed a box to the scientist. "Help us; take a break. I know your boss won't mind."
Rodney ignored them and went back to working on the tree.
They were halfway done when the first ornament ball fell, sending tiny pieces of glass all over the floor. Rodney turned to look at the one who had dropped the ornament and saw John cleaning the glass off the floor. "Can you be careful?"
Sheppard ignored him in favor of sweeping up the mess and resumed putting ornaments on the tree. When he grabbed another ball, he stumbled into Zelenka and they both dropped their ornaments, at which point McKay had finally had enough. "Hey! Stop breaking my balls!"
The moment the words left his mouth, John and Zelenka exchanged amused looks. The colonel had to clamp his mouth shut to avoid laughing out loud; the scientist had a bit more control and managed to keep a straight face.
He politely turned to the irate physicist. "I'm sorry, I didn't get that… what did you say?"
"You're breaking my…." Suddenly it dawned on Rodney what he was saying, and then he noticed John's shaking shoulders and the light dancing in Zelenka's eyes. "Oh, why don't you two grow up?"
"Maybe next time he'll tell us to respect his authority." Sheppard said, trying to control his laughter. Zelenka lost it and burst out laughing.
"Yes, right… take amusement at the genius' expense."
Still smiling, John shook his head reprovingly. "Calm down, Rodney. You were the one who got the idea for this in the first place. Why can't you have some fun?"
It looked as if he wanted to say a million things, but couldn't. His mouth opened and closed a couple of times before he shut it with a snap and put the box he had with the other decorations. "You know what… forget it. I give up."
Then he turned around and walked away from the group. John stopped smiling and shouted, "Hey, come on, Rodney!"
He didn't even stop. "Forget it, Colonel."
At that moment, Elizabeth walked down the stairs. "What's going on?"
John turned around and replied, "The genius just had a crisis."
She looked around at everyone on the group. "Rodney?"
"He will join us later. I think we just need to finish this up." John handed Ronon a big colorful star. "Put it on top." He turned to Elizabeth. "Wanna help?"
She gave him a small smile and a nod. "Yes… and I have an idea."
"Good." John replied.
The group worked in silence for a while, McKay's abrupt departure having ruined the mood. It went quickly, but they weren't finished when Ronon declared that he still didn't understand the reason for all the decorations and left to do some training. Elizabeth headed out a few moments later to take care of some details, leaving Zelenka, Teyla and Sheppard to put the finishing touches on Atlantis' first Christmas tree.
Once they had cleared the boxes and unused decorations out of the gate room, he set out in search of Rodney, whom he found in the first place he looked: the lab. The scientist was sitting with his back to the door and resting his head in his hand while hitting at a small Christmas tree with a pen.
It seemed that he didn't hear John come in, because he jumped when John called his name.
"Oh my God! Colonel, do you want to give me a heart attack?"
"Sorry… what happened? Back in the gate room…"
Rodney turned around and folded his arms. "Nothing. Everyone decided to act very immature, so I decided to leave."
John raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure that's the only reason? Because if I remember correctly you were having fun letting the possessed tree maim me."
"I wasn't having fun!" He stood up, indignant.
Sheppard gave him a skeptical look, and he added, "Well… maybe a little."
"Come on, Rodney, you know you can tell me what's really bothering you."
He seemed to be doing some quick thinking. "You know? I just wanted to put up a Christmas tree, but you guys turned it into a disaster."
"The tree is done." John folded his arms.
"Really?" Rodney said quickly with a bit of amazement in his voice.
"Rodney…" John said with a warning tone, "Either you tell me or you'll miss what we're doing later."
"What are you doing later?"
"No, you tell me and I'll tell you."
Both men stared at each other with arms folded, waiting for the other to break. Rodney relaxed first; he gave John a doubtful look. "It's just that…"
John wasn't about to let him back out now. "Yes, Rodney?"
Seeing no way around it, he sat back down. "It's been a while since I had a decent Christmas."
There the problem was out in the open. Sheppard sat down on a nearby chair. "And?"
He could see that Rodney was getting really uncomfortable, but he knew that the scientist needed to get it out of his system in order to prevent any massacre due to defective Christmas decorations.
"And I wanted to have one here. This is the place I've felt more like home in all my adult life. Because half of it I was studying and the other half was spent on military bases, and here I…" He stopped for a moment to gather himself before continuing, "I… look, the last time I had a good Christmas holiday was when my grandmother was alive. Because my parents seemed to be able to behave in front of her. But after she died, nothing was ever the same and I just want to know if I can have that now. That's all."
John relaxed his arms and stood up. "Was that so hard?"
"Yes." Rodney answered quickly.
Green eyes twinkled with a smile at that. "Do you feel better now?"
He didn't answer right away, but he slowly stood up and stared at his friend. "Yes, actually, I do."
"Good!" John clapped him on the shoulder and turned towards the door. "Now, come on because we're late."
"Late for what?"
"Come on, you'll see when we get there."
He was about to ask again when John walked out of the lab. Having no other option Rodney followed him. Every time he started a question, the colonel shushed him, so their walk was mostly silent, but it headed straight to the mess hall.
He stopped right in the entrance. Almost everyone in Atlantis was gathered there; some were already eating, while others were getting ready to eat. The tables had been organized into long lines, and one of the tables on the back had all the food Rodney hadn't seen in a while.
John watched his reaction and smiled. "We don't have turkey but we do have some smoked ham and Athosian meat, some other Athosian dishes and we have some mashed potatoes... the powdery kind, but we have it anyways. I think there's some gravy and I really don't know why but we have cranberry sauce. I think someone had some recent contraband, because we also have banana cream pie, pecan pie, some sort of rice pudding and so many cookies that I will probably die of overdose. There aren't any traditional holiday drinks, but we might hit Zelenka's stash later. Oh, and something Sgt. Gomez did. No matter what he says, that's not eggnog. It's not that bad, though, and it tastes a bit like coconuts."
He headed for the food table, while Rodney remained speechless, rooted to the spot. Elizabeth walked in and stood beside him. "Merry Christmas, Dr. McKay. This was a last minute thing, but like everyone here, I hope you enjoy it." She smiled at him and went to get a tray of her own, and Rodney seemed to finally unfreeze and followed.
Once he had his plate filled he sat down in front of John, beside Teyla and Ronon. Shortly thereafter, Elizabeth, Carson and Zelenka joined them.
Rodney looked at Carson and frowned. "Where have you been all day?"
The doctor gave him a tired look. "With you and Zelenka gone from the lab, Kavanaugh managed to almost kill himself. It wasn't that bad, but he did give me a hard time."
"Is my lab okay?"
Zelenka snorted. "Oh, it's fine, Rodney. Kavanaugh only managed to destroy his table, nothing else."
He nodded. Everybody was digging into their improvised Christmas meal. Rodney looked up to John and Elizabeth and said, "Thanks!"
"You're welcome." John said. They ate until there wasn't any more meat or gravy. Rodney tried the faux eggnog and liked it, only to find out the thing had rum; he started to feel a bit buzzed. Ronon and John had a small match for the last cookie, and Rodney was amazed when John emerged victorious.
They were all so full that there was no strength for anything else, and Rodney was no exception. One by one everyone in the mess hall disappeared. He was ready to head to his room and take a nice long nap, but as he was on his way out of the mess hall, John called to him. Rodney turned to face him. "What?"
"Look what I have!" John held up a dark bottle and grinned. "Zelenka gave it to me. Come on, we're meeting him and Carson on the balcony near the gate room."
Rodney followed without complaint. From his seat on the balcony, he could see most of the gate room and the finished tree in the distance. Carson and Zelenka joined them with another bottle and more shot glasses just before Ronon arrived.
Sheppard pulled two shot glasses from his jacket pockets and poured the liquor. He handed one to Rodney while he served his own and placed the bottle on the floor. Before John could say anything, Rodney raised his glass and said, "For days like this."
"For humorless bosses!" Zelenka said with a smirk on his face.
"For days without injuries." Carson added.
He was followed by Ronon's deep rumble. "For new friends."
John smiled and raised his glass while glancing at Rodney. "For stubborn, annoying friends."
"Cheers!" They clinked their glasses and took a swig of the liquor. Immediately there was a loud crash. Everyone turned around, and without standing up, Rodney knew what it was: the tree had fallen down.
John looked at him impishly. "Told you it was possessed." He picked up the bottle to refill his glass.
Rodney had given up; maybe Sheppard was right in saying that the tree was possessed. But somehow, he didn't care now. He just held his glass out for another shot. After another round of drink, he raised his glass once again and said, "For possessed trees."
"May they never manage to kill anyone!" John finished with a smirk.
Rodney smiled, too, and knew that from that moment on, his Christmas holidays were going to improve tenfold, and maybe more. The group started to grow as soldiers and scientists trickled into the room.
An hour later they had a full party going on in the balcony and the gate room. Elizabeth and Teyla joined in after they managed to salvage the tree, which was standing a bit askew in its corner with half the lights off and half the decorations on. Life couldn't be better.
Fin.
A/N: There's a real Evil Tree of Doom, and it's standing on the entrance of my house. It cut me, hit me, broke, was fixed and two weeks after is finally done, the lights started to go off without reason. Possessed trees are real! But I hope you liked this.