Title: It shouldn't end that way

Rating: G

Spoilers: Tao of McKay, Sunday and First Strike.

Category: Dr. Keller POV, McWeir

Summary: Everything Carson Beckett ever said about Rodney McKay was true.

A/N: I wrote this before there was any kind of real character development for Dr. Keller e.g. between seasons 3 and 4. I apologize if you are reading this after there has been some and it is thus completely OOC, because I just wrote her how I wanted to. Also will probably not fit in with the events of Adrift whatsoever but hey who cares? Artist license I say!

This fic was inspired by the following piece of fan art by Nebulan: http://img. the relatively short time I knew Carson Beckett I also learnt a lot about Rodney McKay. I never treated him much despite his frequent appearances in the infirmary; Carson said something about sparing me especially since I was blonde. This meant what knowledge I gained was mostly second hand and from Carson himself. I was always surprised that despite professing to be a close friend of his, Carson also spent a lot of time moaning. I'd practically memorized the list of McKay's faults to heart, not voluntarily, but because I'd heard them so many times. I think my lack of contact with him made me somebody Carson could come to let off steam to. And I listened to his ranting happily; after all he was very pretty to look at...

In just 5 days, I have learnt that many of the things Carson told me about Dr. McKay were 100 true. I mean I never thought he was lying or anything but I had assumed there was at least a little inflation. But with him in my (and how I wish it wasn't) infirmary for as much time as he possibly could over the past 3 days I discovered I was wrong.

He really does eat an awful lot. I mean definitely more than his excuse of hypoglycemia allows for. I've had to employ a mini vacuum cleaner to get rid of the crumbs on Dr. Weir's bed because there simply aren't enough sheets on Atlantis to change them every time he's done visiting her. It wouldn't be so bad if he just sat back but no, he's always leaning right over the bed talking to her between mouthfuls of cookie, carefully analyzing her face for some kind of response. I told him yesterday (in the hopes it might stop him eating for five seconds) that maybe if he held her hand she'd be able to squeeze it if she could hear him, as patients often do so. He turned a bit pink and mumbled something about that being inappropriate and unprofessional but now, on midnight rounds, I've found him asleep and gripping her hand despite his earlier protests.

Ah yes, sleeping. Carson had often mentioned how McKay seemed very fond of it but only when he didn't really need it, basically at extremely inappropriate times for everyone else. He'd also mentioned how Dr. McKay seemed to have the ability to sleep just about anywhere and on anything. Considering he had spent the last three nights half slumped on the desk next to the computer, half slumped on Dr. Weir's bed I was able to confirm this fact to also be true.

Oh and then there was the complaining and the constant questions. This normally, according to Carson, was concerned with his own health. But I had been spared a severe dose of McKay's hypochondriac nature by Dr. Weir's sad condition. In a compliment to his personality I was told then when any of his friends were injured he'd spend his time bugging you about them anyway. Even if you'd told him five times there was nothing more you could tell him. Though it was annoying, this was something I could hardly get angry with him about. I mean the man was clearly worried, the entire city was!

Finally there was the obsession with his work, and his tendency to overwork. He was a man who, apparently, could need saving from himself. With the city in the state it was, McKay's skills were called upon often and after one day I already had the impression the only breaks he got were when he came in to check on Dr. Weir. And then on the third night he spent sleeping here the laptop had appeared. He would literally be working at something until he dropped.

The laptop was on at this very moment, as he slept holding her hand. If her condition medically wasn't so serious, I might have thought the scene rather sweet and worthy of a photograph for later blackmail purposes. Unfortunately, I still wasn't able to tell Rodney if Dr. Weir was even going to wake up again. Walking over to the laptop, with the intention of turning it off, I couldn't help but have a little nose to see what he'd been working on. Looked like some kind of report, rather then the simulations he normally fell asleep running.

However further investigation proved this to be no technical report, no debriefing for the SGC. He was writing about Dr. Weir. Ok, I was definitely snooping but I really couldn't help it. I gently nudged the laptop to face me and scrolled up a bit, discovering that it appeared to be a (very long) book on Dr. Weir herself.

Now, I'm not going to tell you exactly what it said. After all, someday it might be published and I wouldn't want to spoil it for you. Who wouldn't want to read "How awesome is Dr. Elizabeth Weir?" (it wasn't called that but it might as well have been). But what I can tell you is that I learnt about one of Rodney's better traits from the page or so I read. The fact that if you're lucky enough to gain his respect (and I can be pretty certain Dr. Weir was) then you have also gained his absolute unwavering loyalty.

At the moment he was typing up the latest goings on in the city, including Dr. Weir's current condition. He didn't seem to be pessimistic about it, though being a typical scientist he hadn't written that he was desperately hoping she was ok, he was just recording events as they happened. But reading those pages, those words, for the first time I began to seriously pray that she would live. Obviously I hadn't wanted her to die before, but I had the medical training to know that she might not make it. It is not always a doctor's place to hope, because that hope can transform into false hope for patients' friends and families, and false hope is a cruel thing. But I could not read the words Dr. McKay had written without being desperate for this book not to end now. Not to end with her death due to some accident, some miscalculation. The way he wrote, the words he used, all I could think was that it couldn't end this way.

I turned off the laptop and looked at the pair of them. They both deserved a happy ending.