Dear Readers,

Knowing me and what I tend to write in the SGA domain, you had to have been expecting something like this. I'm sorry that I might make the character I used here (you'll see who) sound a bit evil, but I think it's entirely plausible, what happens. Oh, and just for the record, what I mention about Freud here is just about the ONLY thing I SORT OF agree with him on. Other than that, I kinda think he's a wackjob. So...Just r & r, okay? Thanks!

Best Regards from a Bookworm (and SGA fan),

Miss Pookamonga ;-P

PS: Are YOU working to save SGA?! Send those lemons, people!! The last day of shooting is Friday, September 12th!! Visit and sign the petition if you haven't already!

A Seed Among Thorns

She should've showed it to him.

But she didn't want to.

"Let's start with your name again," her voice on the tape said in that same gentle tone she had used with him throughout the entire duration of that...incident.

"I...I...okay. My name...my...name...is Dr. Rodney M-McKay," Rodney struggled to say as he furrowed his brow in deep concentration.

"That's a good start," she urged softly in the background. "Keep going. Say anything."

"Umm...I...I'm a scientist. An a-a-ast-r-rophysss—"

"Astrophysicist," she finished sympathetically for him.

"Yeah, yeah, that. I'm, um, part of this expedition. To Atlantis. Atlantis...Atlantis...our leader, Woolsey."

"That's right," she nearly whispered, the sound of tears clearly penetrating the thin wall of her shaking voice.

"We didn't always have him, though," Rodney suddenly said. "We had Elizabeth. I liked her. A lot. But she...is in space...we don't know..."

She coughed. Not to stop him, but because she wanted to prevent herself from bursting into tears at the fresh wave of emotion Rodney was spontaneously unleashing.

"I think...we will see her again...someday... And then—" he waggled his index finger enthusiastically in the air—a clear sign that part of him was still...himself."—and then there was Sam."

The lilt in his voice changed when he said the name. She thought she was maybe being hypersensitive, but he said it again, and that time she was sure she had heard it.

"Sam..." he nearly whispered, his eyes suddenly wandering to stare at something beyond the camera, beyond the confines of the grey walls of the room.

She bit her lip, forcing herself to concentrate on his performance, not necessarily his words.

"I remember her. A long time ago. She's beautiful. Very beautiful."

She squeezed her hands into tight fists.

"I met her...on earth...a project or something...she hated me." He was still staring wistfully at that unreachable point in space. "I was a jerk," he chuckled, shaking his head. "She was smart. Nice. Really smart. I was jealous."

Something in his words suddenly caught her interest, and she let her hands relax as she moved forward to listen more closely.

"I think...think I told her once. That I was, um, jealous...yeah. She still kind of hated me then. I nearly killed her. Well, kind of. I thought I did. I dunno...she got shocked or something. I was trying to um, trying to...uhh..." He crossed the room in confused circles, waving his hands helplessly around in the air.

She had become a bit too absorbed in the all-too fascinating story, a story she had only heard bits and pieces of, so it took her a few moments for her to realize that he needed help. "Trying to do what, Rodney?" she urged, mentally hoping he would remember so she could hear more.

"Apologize," he recalled immediately, jabbing his forefinger up in the air in that characteristic way of his. That was a good sign. "I was trying to apologize. I told her...told her..." He paused again.

She opened her mouth.

"Told her how I, um, really felt."

Her mouth shut abruptly.

"An artist. That's what I called her. An artist. Science is an art you know," for the first time since the beginning of the tape, he turned to the camera with a sad smile on his face.

She gulped.

"An art," he continued, resuming his eye-wandering. "And she...Sam...is the best artist out there." Pause. "She changed my life."

She bit her lip to keep back the tears. She had known for years how he'd felt...or supposedly had felt. This, however, was different. She knew that if he was fully aware of himself, he wouldn't be saying all this. It meant too much to him; she could tell by the almost remorseful expression on his face and how he was keeping his eyes downcast.

And yet, part of her felt like clamping a hand over his mouth.

"I'd never, um, be here...um...in...Atlantis, that's it. Yes, Atlantis. I'd never be in Atlantis if it weren't for her. I'd have never had friends if it weren't for her. Damn, I'd be a nobody if it weren't for her. She was too good at that...at...um...making me think...think...think about myself. That's it. Every time I see her I feel different. Like...better, maybe. Yeah, that's it." He chuckled and shook his head again. "She's way too good at bringing all that out of me. I don't know...how...um..." He waved his hand in the air again. "Ah! Yeah. I dunno how she does it. But she does it well."

Pause. She gulped again.

"I love her."

Her breath caught in her throat.

"I've always loved her. She...she...made me a better man. I can't, um, repay? Yes...repay...I can't repay her for that." For the last time that day, he turned to stare straight at the camera, his eyes burning so intently with emotion that for one moment, she couldn't bear to look at him. "I can't, I can't...I never will...but I love her...it's the only way I can thank her...the only way I know how. I need her. She keeps me in line."

The tears were pouring down her face, salty little streams trickling over her lips.

"But she's gone...but I need her...I need her..."

She shut the screen off.

He had said a few nights before this tape that he loved her.

But then that night there had been this. He had forgotten what he'd said before. Or maybe this was just more prevalent...only, just more repressed than he would ever consciously admit. Freud had said that the subconscious was what truly ruled the human mind.

Damn Freud.

She opened the CD tray to her computer and pulled out the disc, placing it carefully back into its case. Then, she opened her desk drawer, lifted up a chaotic mass of papers she knew she would never get around to sorting, and placed the disc deliberately in the empty space beneath them.

It was wrong. But she couldn't show it to him. Not now. Not while the past week's events were nothing but a blur to him save for the small stretch of time when he had still been, for the most part, "normal".

"You know...I never stopped loving your mother," her father's distant voice echoed through her head. "Even when I didn't realize it, even when it all seemed hopeless and I myself had believed I'd given up on her, I kept on loving her until she eventually ended up loving me back and married me. You know, sometimes I think the greatest love is the one that stays buried long enough in the ground for it to blossom into something beautiful. You remember that, Jen."

She had always remembered.

But she wanted him to forget.