Hey! This is my first foray into Atlantis, although I've done a few SG-1 stories. Tell me how you like it!
"Hey, Carson?" The too-familiar voice echoed suddenly, jarringly, through the infirmary—and it was so nice and quiet too. "Carson, you there? I wanted to talk—to—oh." McKay had found his quarry.
"Hello, Rodney." I looked up from my microscope, resigned. "What is it you're wanting today?"
"Well, actually I wanted to talk to you." He gave me a brief, insincere-looking grin. "By the way, there's always this really strong smell in here. Have you ever noticed it? It's weird, kind of—"
"It's disinfectant," I interrupted him. "Now what was it you were wanting to talk about?"
McKay frowned, and said rapidly, "Funny, doesn't smell like the hospitals I've been to. Must be alien disinfectant…"
"Rodney, just get to the point or get out of my infirmary."
"Oh, your infirmary, is it? Since when did you own the infirmary?" I knew Rodney wasn't being deliberately rude: he just had a natural gift for tactlessness. Still, I was short on patience.
"Yes, my infirmary," I replied, almost savagely. "Because I am the chief medical officer on this—"
"Except you're not really an officer—"
"base and I therefore have the power to order around anyone I want while they are in my infirmary!"
"No need to get huffy," McKay said, affronted, but quickly continued. "Anyway, you can't tell us to do anything. You can't tell us to jump into the ocean." He smiled at this loophole.
"Yes," I ground out, "but I can tell you to get out of my infirmary if you're being a nuisance!"
McKay shrugged. "Well, that's only if someone needs quiet or something—"
"I need quiet!" I finally yelled, and McKay backed up a step, hands up in submission.
"Just…lemme tell you something. Okay?"
I sighed, looked at him, but said nothing.
"I was thinking about a musical I saw once. It was called My Fair Lady, I think. Anyway, in it there was this girl who had an accent nobody could understand, one of those impossible English ones, and she took lessons from a guy and then her speech was much better—although then it was one of those posh British ones. And when I was thinking about it, I thought of you!" He made a little flourish with his hands. "See?"
I sighed again. Poor Rodney: no sense of tact whatsoever. I should take pity on him, I thought. "Rodney, lad," I said gently, "my accent is Scottish, not cockney. And it's not even a very strong one."
He blinked. "Um, it's not?"
I shake my head.
"Are you sure?" he asked, "because sometimes I can hardly—"
"Rodney," I said gently, "get out of my infirmary."
He blinked, then turned to go.
I groaned in relief—but just when I thought I was in the clear, Rodney's voice called out once more. "Hey, Carson, when we get back to Earth maybe we can watch it together, huh?"
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