A/N: Alex is Reefgirl's. Lydia is BiteMeTechie's. So is the When Plot Bunnies Attack forum, and the "100 starting lines" prompts. Line #064, "Checkers or chess?"
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"Checkers or chess?"
The man sitting on the cot reading looked up at the comment. He goggled at the sight that met his eyes. A young woman in a faded Marx Brothers t-shirt and ripped jeans was standing in the doorway of the infirmary holding two boxes.
"Doc-Doctor Winter? What are you doing here?" the man stammered. He felt painfully conscious of the fact that all he was wearing was a hospital gown, even though from the waist down he was covered by the cot's blanket.
"I got bored, McKay. Nobody's been mis-analyzing my theorems for a while. Now. Checkers or chess?" she said acerbically. She moved closer to the bed, grabbing a rolling tray to put the boxes on. He now saw that one of them was a checkers box and the other a collapsible chessboard.
"Erm." He said to buy time. His mind was still trying to grasp the fact that Lydia Winter, his nemesis and worst enemy, seemed to be visiting him in the hospital, with good intentions no less.
"Checkers." She said finally, noticing his dilemma and sitting down on his cot. "And no, McKay, this isn't some intricate plan for me to murder you. Look, I'll even open the box myself so that you can see it's not booby-trapped."
As she spoke, she took the lid off the checkers box, and he could see that all that was inside was a board and some harmless red and black discs. His mood considerably lightened, he sat up straighter, put his book aside, and reached for the box to help her set up.
"Of course, I did happen to spill that bottle of Lemon Extract that Alex gave me, and I think some of it got on the pieces," Lydia continued, then at the sight of Rodney's stricken face she hastened to add, "Jeez McKay, lighten up, it was just a joke."
He relaxed again, although not as much. Sensing her amusement, he quickly defended himself as he began to think about the game. "I knew that! I'm just . . . stressed."
Her eyes softened at the mention of his injury. "Yeah, about that Rodney," she started, and he was confounded to see a look of guilt on her face. She muttered something, her gaze downcast, but he saw the remorse in her manner and could tell that something was wrong.
"What did you say?" he inquired. She muttered again, slightly louder but still incomprehensible. He sighed in annoyance.
"If you're trying to say something you'll have to speak up, I can't hear a word you're saying," he quipped.
"I'm sorry, alright!" she burst out. He sat back in amazement, watching her run her hand through her already chaotic hair, then he shook his head slightly and said, "Excuse me, I must have misheard you, I thought you just apologized to me?"
Lydia glowered at him. Leave it to the most annoying man on Atlantis to make this as difficult as possible for her.
"I said, McKay, that I'm sorry that you got hurt," she retorted angrily, then sighed and continued more quietly, "It was sort of, um, it was partly . . . ah hell, it was my fault and I apologize for that."
He frowned at the checkerboard, where the pieces were now neatly set up in their places, then moved one of his front pieces forward. He could see that it had taken a lot of resolve on her part to come to him with this, normally she would have just ignored him while he was in the infirmary, and probably enjoyed the quiet his absence caused.
"What do you mean, it was your fault?" he asked, still confused.
"You're really going to make me say the whole thing aren't you?" she sighed. "Alright. It was my fault because..." she seemed about to go on but choked on her words. She took a breath, steeling herself, and tried again. "It was my fault because I sc-" Again she stopped.
He heard her muttering to herself, "This is stupid, Lydia, you can do this, just say it!"
She clenched her fists and blurted it out in a rush of words, "I screwed up, dammit!"
Rodney was shocked. Dr. Winter had not only apologized to him, she had admitted to a mistake! Something was wrong here.
"Are you okay?" he asked in concern. She glanced at him strangely, replied, "Now that's a funny question to ask," then moved her piece to jump one of his.
He growled at the turn of events the game was taking, then tried bluffing out of his concern by waving his comment aside. "It's just strange for you to be . . . uh . . . upset about my well-being, and as for admitting to one of your faults," he gestured weakly with his right hand to describe the wackyness of the situation.
Lydia's gaze grew cold.
"Are you saying that I have more faults that I should admit to McKay?" she inquired icily. He realized his mistake and backtracked. Hey, she had made the first move towards reconciliation, and he was too tired to get into a full-blown argument.
"I didn't mean it like that, uh . . . Lydia," he hazarded carefully, wondering if the use of her given name would set her even further off.
She sniffed, and he could almost see the ruffled feathers beginning to settle down. She relaxed even further when she looked at the board and noticed that she could just jump four of his pieces if she stayed quiet and he . . . yes . . . moved that piece there . . . and . . .
"Hah!" she crowed triumphantly as she successfully kinged her piece. Rodney relaxed, and the game resumed its air of quiet acceptance, if not downright camraderie.
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Three games and many laughs later, Lydia was in the middle of recounting the exploits of her childhood pet, a tabby cat named Schmendrick, when Doctor Weir came into the infirmary. She stayed near the door, partly because she was loath to disturb the room's occupants, and partly because she was shocked to see who these occupants were.
Elizabeth had come to see how Doctor McKay was doing after his injury, but apparently she was not the first visitor. This puzzled her, and she left the room, trying to figure out why Lydia Winter, of all people, was talking, no, laughing with McKay when a week before they had been at each other's throats over the slightest argument.
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The two scientists had spent hours talking, and Rodney thought it might be safe to bring the subject of his injury up again.
"So . . . Lydia . . ." he started, and then realized he had no idea how to bring it up.
She looked at him expectantly, then her smile dropped and she nodded as she understood what he was trying to say.
She sighed and spoke, "You know how you were supposed to be testing the new version of the Replicator disassembler?"
He nodded, not wanting to interrupt. He could tell it was very hard for her to admit she had been wrong.
"Well when we were figuring inputting the new algorithms into the machine," she continued, then paused. "I . . . uh . . . sort of . . . maybe . . . kinda . . . may have . . . accidentally of course . . . erased one of the lines of code . . . without knowing it . . ." she trailed off.
Rodney stared. He had never seen her so . . . small before. She was always boisterous, blaring her awful music through the halls at odd hours of the night, quick to annoy, even quicker to anger, she was never quiet. He felt the urge to comfort her.
"Uh, hey, you know it's not that bad," he said, reaching over and patting her shoulder awkwardly. "Could have been a lot worse actually, Carson said."
She looked up and sniffled. "Are you sure?" she said.
He smiled at her, glad that she appeared to be lightening up. "Yes I'm sure, he said it was just a flesh wound and I'll be fine in a day or two."
She smiled back, albeit hesitatingly. "That's good. I was worried . . . that is I thought . . . oh for Pete's sake," she growled in annoyance.
Rodney chuckled. "I get it, Winter."
She looked surprised and yet gratified at the switch back to her last name, and replied, "Yes, well, I don't suppose it was entirely my fault, seeing as how you couldn't aim a gun at the side of a barn without shooting yourself in the foot . . . McKay."
He smirked happily. "So shouldn't you be doing something important, like organizing that pigsty you call a lab?"
She bristled. "It's not a pigsty, McKay, that's your lab."
Stung, he cast around for a retort. "Well it's not my lab, you could actually find a Wraith in my lab, in yours you wouldn't know it was there until it was sucking the life out of you!"
They glared daggers at each other for a few minutes, then Lydia got up, collected her games, and left the infirmary in a huff.
Rodney smiled after her fondly.
Things were back to normal.
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A/N: Yay! Normal is good. Well. Unless you're me, in which case normality is based on the weirdness of everything being random, and when things are normal they're weird. Capiche?