My Best Friend's Girl
The first day Rodney saw her he knew he had feelings for her. That was when it had started. It wasn't anything he could have prevented. Those big, expressive hazel-green eyes had looked into his with such acceptance and she had trusted him, whether he deserved it or not. From that day on he had seen her nearly every day for the last five years and with time, those first inklings of the emotion she drew form within his heart had grown.
Of course they didn't always see things along the same lines, how could they? His brain worked in different ways to hers - his intelligence had scared even him at times, so when he was tasked with explaining the simplest of things to her and she still looked back at him with confusion and doubt in her eyes, it went beyond infuriating. They had their moments when they would argue about the most ridiculous things and she could make him feel so infantile at times it shamed him. But then, she had taught him things too. Things like compassion, generosity and letting him be able to trust someone other than himself. She had taught him how to laugh too.
They came from such different walks of life and only had the occasion to meet by sheer chance. He had never expected to have someone like her come into his life, nor for him to realise how much he had come to love her. And it was at that point when the guilt had come crashing in on him.
She was someone else's. No, not just someone. She was his best friend's girl.
He had watched how her relationships with the other people in the city had developed over the years and while he had always held a firm seat within her circle of close friends, he still felt those unreasonable pangs of jealousy whenever she had looked at John. He believed he had harboured a secret fear that she would change John's priorities and come between the two of them. After all, he and John had been team mates first. Along with Teyla and Ronon, they had created this unique bond that glued them all together.
He remembered scoffing at Colonel Carter when Teal'C had been trapped in the memory buffer of the Earth stargate so many years ago. Sam had tried to enlighten him then, about how a small group of people from such contrasting backgrounds could come together and form a collective where they each belonged, no matter what. He had disregarded her words as female mush and a trick to get him to change the recommendation he had made to the Pentagon. He had been wrong on both counts back then and now he felt he should take the appropriate action to tell her so. He understood it now. He had found his own collective.
So now, despite his constant complaining and their sometime joking at his expense, they did the most stupid, dangerous things to save each other's lives. And in a heartbeat, he do it all again and then some, just to make sure they all came home to Atlantis in one piece.
But her affections for John and his in return hadn't changed the team, not really and for a while they all went about their business like they had done before. She had been a new element thrown into the existing equation, but the balance had adjusted so everything worked as it always had. Nothing had been destroyed. If anything, her presence in the mix had only served to strengthened them. He had stopped berating himself long ago for those brief moments of insanity when he felt threatened by the green eyed monster. It was only natural that she and John loved each other.
It wasn't until that heart stopping moment when she had told him she loved him that the jealousy had come back.
He had always thought his life was lacking in some respects. He had made assumptions in college that he would one day have a family of his own, someone to come home to after a hard day at work. Or in his case run away from the baddy of the week as fast as he could and have his team get back without being shot. His perilous line of work had given him a good excuse not to have settled down for a long time, but the more time that went by the more he noticed the people around him who had thought the same in the beginning, were now enjoying the kind of relationship he pined for. That was why, when she had looked back to him as she had walked out the room, given him one of her beautiful smiles, lifted her hand to wave goodbye and said she loved him, he had wished for just a second that she was his. How could he not? He could still see the way her soft brown curls had bounced around her shoulders as she hurried through the door.
Rodney heaved a sigh, standing in the doorway of her room. The morning was not long away now and soon she would wake up to find him there. He didn't have the courage to disturb her sleep so he quietly moved further into the room and lowered himself into the chair next to her bed and just watched her while she dreamed. What he had to tell her could wait. He just hoped that she would forgive him for being the one who was charged with breaking her heart.
He hadn't realised until a single salty tear ran down his face and fell onto his hand that he was crying. He quickly rubbed the offending drop away, telling himself this was not something he could let himself do now. He had to be stronger than he ever had before, strong enough for the both of them to get through this.
She was starting to stir now, in a few minutes she would raise her sleepy head and look at him with those eyes of hers and he would see her trust in him as he took away some of the innocence that still remained there. John Sheppard, among other things had proved to be a giant pain in the butt and had irked him to no end over the years, but at this moment Rodney hated him. How could he do this to him? To her? He couldn't stay mad at John for long though and the anger soon passed, only to be replaced by the overwhelming guilt tearing at him from the inside again. Maybe there was something he could have done to prevent what had happened, maybe someone had heard him wish that she was his and had granted it to him through some kind of cruel twist of fate. He had confessed this to Teyla, but she had assured him, this was something that none of them could have changed. Still, the truth of it hurt. He had wanted her and now she was. For all his teams' bravery and death defying antics, there really was no idea, no matter how stupid or dangerous, that could have made a difference in the tragic accident that had claimed John and Elizabeth's lives.
But there was no time for all that now. They were gone and their daughter was awake, looking up at him. He knew he could never make up for the loss of her parents but hoped his love would be enough to see them through this, for both their sakes.
She pulled the covers back and moved from the bed onto his knee. Hugging him her greeting she asked with a yawn,"Uncle Rodney, what are you doing here?"