Rodney sat behind his desk, glaring at the stack of papers littered across its top. It was actually quite a pretty little desk of some sort of dark polished wood, but he could never see it because of these damned papers.
And they were all in Russian. They were always in Russian. Even after four years he still could barely read a lick of Russian, nor could he speak it very well. But speaking it didn't do a damn bit of good anyway when no one talked to you. No one ever talked to him. All they did was send in their shy, pretty little blond secretaries to silently dump more papers on his desk so that he could read whatever the hell they wanted him to fix or build or to perform any number of other insane projects that one man alone could not be expected to do in whatever time limit they gave him.
He hated Russia. The food was… well, he had gotten used to the food, though he still preferred military rations. The pretty little blonds he had really gotten used to, though they rarely talked to him. Even the grumpy old generals he had gotten used to, though they rarely talked to him either.
And that was right back to his problem. No one ever talked to him. He had more human contact from two days at the SGC then he had from four years in Russia.
Ah, the SGC.
As was his want his mind tended to wander whenever a stray thought led him back to the SGC and the prettiest little blond that he had ever had the pleasure to meet. So she probably hated him, so did most people in his life. But, boy, she had been worth any discomfort. Not that she caused him much discomfort but he was pretty sure that she had been none too happy to have him around and none too sorry to see him leave—both times. Though she had kissed him that one time. Just a quick little peck on the cheek, but it was still there, warming his skin and reminding him that there was more to his life than just Russia. Well… at least he could fool himself into thinking that, at any rate.
Rodney felt a stupid little grin slid across his face and he let his eyes slide back down to the stack of papers on his desk.
The grin disappeared pretty fast after that. Sighing, Rodney pulled out his much-used Russian/English dictionary and got to work finding out what he needed to do now.
"Anyone you can recommend."
"But don't you already have a thousand people down there?" General O'Neill asked, looking up from his own pretty desk of dark polished wood.
Elizabeth felt a small smile tug at her lips. She had recently been reassigned to run the Antarctic base and had been, for some time, collecting men and women from around the world to not only help her run it and collect data on the Ancients, but to prepare them for the possibility that they might even be able to find the Ancient city that SG-1 had already spent some fair amount of time looking for. The base had been up and running under her control for barely a week and already she knew she was missing something—or rather a someone. She had no idea who this someone was. All she knew was that they were missing and she needed them… for something.
But she wasn't going to tell O'Neill that. For him she fell back on the excuse that she had spent some time trying to plan out.
"While I do have a decently sized staff for the outpost and any expedition that we might need… it's not enough, General." Elizabeth said slowly, but forcefully enough to let him know that she had been thinking about this for some time.
"Like what, exactly? Not enough hockey sticks to go around?"
The corners of Elizabeth's eyes crinkled in the familiar motion of trying to hide a smile.
"Not quite, General. What we need—what I need—is someone who can deal with all this new technology that we are digging up."
O'Neill paused.
"Don't you already have a thousand geeks down there doing just that right now?"
Again the hidden smile.
"General, I need an expert. I trust my team, but even with all their expertise combined we are still coming up short. Only a handful of them even knew about the Stargate in any great detail and of those only one or two ever got to study ancient technology for more than a year. And though Peter and Radek are doing a wonderful job… General, it's not enough. I need someone who can help them. Someone… more experienced. I need someone…"
"Smarter?" O'Neill supplied bluntly.
"I wasn't going to put it that way, but…"
"Well, Doc, the only person I can think of for the job is Carter and you can't have her."
Elizabeth felt her heart sink. Colonel Carter had also been on her mind, but without her she began to fear that she would never find the person she was looking for. She managed to hold back a sigh of defeat, but her heart leapt again when O'Neill continued to speak.
"You can't have her," he repeated, "but maybe she can give you someone. You know those eggheads—birds of a feather and all that."
Elizabeth allowed a real smile to stretch across her lips.
"Thank you, General." She breathed, and quickly left to go find the blond astrophysicist.
"Well… I can think of someone…" Carter began cautiously, but then she stopped. Elizabeth, who had been standing on the other side of her lap desk, frowned.
"But?" she pushed. Carter looked up at the woman.
"But I don't think you could stand him."
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow.
"Excuse me?"
Carter sighed.
"Rodney McKay's the man you want. He's the only person I've ever met who knows as much as I do about the Stargate and he's pretty good with Ancient technology, I've heard. But…"
"But what?" Elizabeth asked slowly. Carter sighed.
"Well, frankly he's a pain in the ass. Actually, he's an egotistical, petty, arrogant pain in the ass who doesn't get along with people at all for the very reason that he lets the world know on every spare occasion that he is the smartest man on Earth." Carter told her bluntly. Elizabeth blinked and forced herself to hold back a smile.
"That bad, huh?"
"Oh, yeah." Carter sighed. "But if you can get passed that, then he's the man you want."
"Where can I find this egotistical pain in the ass?" Elizabeth asked, always up to a challenge. Carter looked up at her and smiled slightly; two women sharing in on a familiar test.
"Last I heard he was in Moscow."
The little plate on the door read "Dr. Rodney McKay" in Russian and the door was shut firmly. Elizabeth sighed, wondering if she was ready for this. After her discussion with Samantha Carter she had talked briefly to Daniel Jackson, Teal'c and a few other men and women from around the base and no one had had a kind word to say about Rodney McKay except for the fact that he was brilliant—and even then they managed to say it as if it were a bad thing. Only Daniel wasn't out and out rude talking about the man, but Daniel couldn't be rude about anything. Not unless he was really pushed to rudeness.
Deciding she had no choice—that this was what she wanted—Elizabeth knocked confidently on the wooden door.
"What?" a muffled voice snapped back from the other side. Again Elizabeth hesitated, but only for a second. Taking a breath she spoke loudly through the door.
"Dr. Rodney McKay?" she asked.
"It's what the door says." He snapped again in English. "What do you want? I'm busy."
"I need to talk to you." She said, wondering if their entire conversation would take place through a two inch slab of polished wood.
She heard a heavy sigh and a low grumbling. Finally, though, she heard a disgruntled, "Fine. Come in."
Elizabeth pushed the door open and stepped inside, closing herself inside the little room. The first thing she saw was the man hunched over the desk in the middle of the room, his back to the window overlooking the courtyard outside. He didn't stand to shake her hand and greet her. He didn't even look up to see who it was. He simply stayed seated, fingering through a beat-up Russian/English and flipping through a pile of papers on his desk.
"My name is Dr. Elizabeth Weir," she introduced herself.
"Dr. Rodney McKay." The man grunted in greeting. "But I suppose you already knew that."
Elizabeth stood for a moment longer, waiting to be offered a seat. Finally, realizing that no offer was going to be made, she grabbed a nearby chair and pulled it up to Rodney's desk and sat down.
McKay looked up briefly and Elizabeth saw a flash of ocean-blue before he looked down again. He seemed to make a decision in that brief glimpse and though he continued to work, she saw him relax very slightly. Taking this as a silent sign to continue, Elizabeth did just that.
"I'm sure, Dr. McKay, that you've heard of the recent events in Antarctica?" she asked slowly, hoping the man would look up. The doctor merely grunted.
"I'm surprised no one else did." He mumbled. "Meteor shower—if they had asked for my help they would have gotten a better cover story. But, of course, no one ever asks for my help. Instead my invaluable talents are wasted behind a desk building useless toys for idiots who can barely make decent food."
Elizabeth continued as if she hadn't heard him. McKay looked up sharply at her disregard of his petty complaints, but she ignored that, too. She was not going to let herself be pushed around by some snarky, immature scientist too absorbed in himself to listen to anyone else.
"As you probably know, Doctor, an Ancient weapons outpost was discovered beneath the ice of that continent and it was that outpost that was used to defeat Anubis' fleet. Well, about a week ago I was given command of that outpost and since then have been collecting men and women from around the world to man it. Not only have we been exploring the outpost and learning about the Ancient technology, but we have also been preparing to man an expedition in the hopes that we find the location of the Ancient city. Now… I have a lot of reliable people working with me and all of them are intelligent men and women, but I only have a handful of people who know anything about Ancient technology. I was told that… you would be a good man to have around if we wanted to get anything done."
So that last bit was stretching the truth, but Elizabeth knew that a little ego-rubbing was never a bad thing when one wanted to get their way.
She saw the shadow flicker of interest in his ocean blue eyes when McKay looked up again and Elizabeth had to restrain a smile.
"Who said that?" he demanded shortly. Hoping she was doing the right thing, Elizabeth told him.
"Colonel Samantha Carter. She told me that you two worked together briefly and—"
"Yes, yes, yes." McKay waved his hand impatiently. "But, uh, Carter mentioned me? Really? What, uh, what'd she say about me?" McKay grinned like an ass and Elizabeth, once again, found herself trying to smother another smile. She didn't know why she found this man amusing. She was supposed to find him grating and annoying and selfish and egotistical, but instead she found him amusing. She was pretty good at reading people—her entire career was based on it—and she realized from looking at Rodney McKay that he was not exactly what people pawned him off as. He was brilliant and harsh, yes, but she could almost see the solid brick wall surrounding him. She had met people like this before. She had actually dated a man like him before—or had tried. He had been a man who had been pushed around and now, as a way to keep from being hurt again, he had acted first and pushed others away before they could get too close. She had been unable to crack that man and a friendship had nearly ended because of it. She wondered now if she would be able to crack Rodney or if she was doing the wrong thing in asking him to work with her.
"Actually, she said that you were an egotistical, petty, arrogant pain in the ass who didn't get along well with people and was too smart for his own good." Elizabeth told him. So she had added the last bit—it also didn't hurt to put the said ego-rubbed individuals back in their place when all was said and done.
McKay blinked, and then a lopsided smile stretched across his thin lips.
"Huh." He grinned. "She wants me."
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow and McKay cleared his throat.
"Um… Antarctica, huh?"
"And Atlantis, if we could be so lucky." She said, nodding slowly.
McKay looked at her with his ocean-blue eyes, and then at the pile of papers on his desk. A moment later he grunted and shoved his Russian/English dictionary back into his desk drawer.
"When do I leave?"