A/N: So I had this idea about if Jeannie didn't get married then she would probably get into the Stargate program because she's obviously smart enough. I don't know if anyone's done this before? But I'm gonna give it a try to see where it goes. I didn't want to make it too long, but I think it turned out too short instead, sorry. This is just the introduction anyway. Hope you enjoy!
Jeannie
Rodney can see the differences as though they're big red blinking lights, never out of his sight. Like the mistakes Kavanagh (or somebody else as stupid, though Rodney doubts such a person could exist) makes, they're something he just can't ignore no matter how much he may have wanted to. And oh, how he wants to ignore this. Couldn't this be one of those things he's pitifully ignorant about?
Couldn't this be one of those things other people thinks is obvious and he doesn't get because he just isn't made to be sensitive about other people's emotions? It would certainly be easier that way.
He'd have thought that Jeannie is trying to punish him for something, maybe the way they had parted the last time they met or something he had said that had hit a particular nerve, but that theory goes out the metaphorical window the second he sees her eyes. Oh, he knows that he's mostly oblivious to everything around him besides his precious physics and maths, but he just knows that something is wrong the second he sees the fear in her eyes. It's the fear of rejection, of abandonment.
They were never really close when they were young, only sticking together to fight against a common enemy. Or protect against a common enemy as it were. They were even less close after the incidents, during which they had silent, cold stare off's that were so unlike the loud, break-anything-within-reach arguments their parents used to have. They'd agreed a long time ago that they would never be anything like their parents in any way if at all possible.
Despite that, Rodney still feels like he could just storm into the house of the person that made her like this and rip their heads off. Literary and metaphorically, if he has anything to say about it, because reducing people to tears is kind of his speciality.
Because now Jeannie, his little sister, is acting like he's the genius older brother he has always secretly dreamed of being. The one he thought he would be until she grew up and turned out to be just as smart as he was. It doesn't feel good like he'd thought it would. It feels like all of his dreams are being slapped back in his face with condescending comments to boot. It feels awful and he doesn't like it one bit.
She even calls him Rodney now. Of course, that's what he wants to be called, but something about the way she says it sounds so strange, so awfully professional, as if she doesn't want to offend him, that he has to keep from flinching every time she calls his name. Now he kind of misses being called Meredith, or even Mer, which is absolutely absurd. He'd used to hate it when she called him that. The whole things just goes to show how wrong the whole thing is.
This isn't what they should be like. They argue and snarl and make fun of each offer. They deliberately humiliate each other and bring up painful memories. They tell each other secrets nobody else would ever hear and had sleepovers where they silently (or not so silently in Rodney's case) cry into each others shoulders when something they can't deal with happens. And they never ever talk about their emotions or their parents, even if Jeannie compared Rodney to their father that one time they got into a particularly vicious fight. They never throw stuff and they never ever bang doors.
In Antarctica, it's different. Jeannie is different, and Rodney doesn't know what to do about it.
Rodney always knows what to do, and now that he doesn't... now that he doesn't, he's terrified.
Rodney
He's loud, and brash, and doesn't care about other people's emotions. (well, at least that's what most people think, but Jeannie knows that he just doesn't get it. He's never understood what other people feel and he doesn't make an effort to try after his spectacular failure in teenage hood that they had agreed not to talk about expect for when they were both drunk and crying about all the things that gone wrong in their lives.)
He had tried to be a good brother and he's always done what he thinks is best for her. The only problem is that what he thinks is best doesn't always match what she thinks is best, so they argue and don't talk to each other for long lengths of time and sometimes they even manage to do both at the same time by sending messages to each other via e-mail or by making other people say the things they wouldn't (because of course Rodney wouldn't be the one to speak first and lose, and of course Jeannie couldn't speak first because it's all Rodney's fault to begin with. But even then the fight ended and they spoke again. Only to repeat the cycle over and over. It's their thing.)
And through all that, though they don't say it to each other or even show it most of the time, they love each other. It's the kind if reluctant love most siblings have for each other. Jeannie knows that's how it is because he's her older brother and she's his younger sister and they protect each other, no matter how they choose to define the word.
That's why she trusts him to keep her safe when the man she had thought was the love of her life decided to run off after she had given up all her dreams and even Rodney (It was really Rodney who had given up on her, but she doesn't want to think about that now because he had been right all along) to be with him and he broke her heart so thoroughly that she didn't think she'd ever be okay again even though she knew she would be. Because Rodney is going to help her.
Because they'll go to Atlantis together and leave all the bad things that had happened to them behind. So what if that was a pretty naive way of thinking about things, because okay, maybe bad things are going to happen there too (there isn't any doubt in her mind that that's true) but they'll be together there, just like they used to be.
And maybe she'll try to make their relationship stronger than it was before, they're practically strangers by now, after so many years apart. But that's okay too.
They're siblings after all.
