Note: This is not related, in any ways, to my other SGA fic Precious Times. It's a completely different story that also involves mpreg and Mcshep. Thank you for reading and enjoy!


Forgetting him

It had been almost a year since they had been captured by the Wraiths. Rodney was starting to panic, as Sheppard was pregnant and his "due" date was approaching... If his calculations were correct. It was hard to do all this without anything to jot down notes on. And Wraith cells weren't the best to write on, unlike cement walls like on Earth; the walls would regenerate by themselves after a while.

Rodney was worried about John; he tried not to let it on, but the other man was always picking up his anxiety and would try to comfort him the best he could.

Sure, in the beginning, it was Rodney who would try to comfort John. The Wraith would make him go through many experiments before throwing him back into the cell. It had all started with the strange illness; vomiting and headaches. Then came a larger appetite and strange cravings.

At some point, it was Rodney who came up with a guess, rather wild, but quite fitting.

They both had been very afraid, from there. The possible outcomes were too numerous for them to predict what would happen next.

The next months were rather painful, stuck in that cell, waiting for help to come. However, it never came.

John's belly swelled with time. They were worried; was the baby human or wraith? McKay, ever the pessimist, insisted that those 'alien vampires' were trying to make an hybrid to eradicate their feeding needs through crossing more human DNA with theirs.

Sheppard's suggestion wasn't brighter: the wraiths were trying to find a way for the humans to breed in greater numbers by allowing males to bear the young as well. More humans equaled more food.

Brought back to reality by a cry of pain, McKay jumped at his friend's side who was lying on the ground.

"Rodney! Cut it open, dammit." John gasped as another pain came to be, as if splitting his body in two.

The other man was frozen on the spot, a tiny piece of metal in his hand. He was about to cut open his best friend and secret crush. He didn't noticed that he was breathing harder as the seconds were passing by.

"MCKAY! Stop hyperventilating and do it!" And just to make sure the message would reach the scientist's brain, a slap on the cheek quickly followed.

The scientist breathed in sharply: "But- but John! If I cut you with this, we won't be able to sew you back... we're not equipped to operate like that! And it'll hurt like hell!"

John had enough. Pulling himself up on his elbows, he shot a hand at McKay's shirt, pulled the other's face close to his and said through clenched teeth: "Rodney, there's no other way for it to leave my body. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't push this baby out of my ass, I'm pretty sure of it. Now if you won't do it -give me this-" he snatched the metal piece from the scientist's hand, "I'll do it myself! And it can't hurt more than this right now."

Rodney took it back from John's hands: "No! You'll probably end up cutting too much."

Letting himself fall back, the colonel sighed: "Then go. Do it now."

The other was about to bring the metal piece to the tautened skin when he froze in mid-air. "Don't we need something to cover the baby with? It's cold on the ship."

John didn't think for long and took off his shirt, which had been unbuttoned for a few months as it had become too small in the belly area, and only kept the too-small t-shirt underneath it. "Here, take this. Now, Rodney, no more interruption."

The said man nodded once and got back to his assigned task. With precision, he cut between the navel and the pubic hair, thinking that he would probably reach the baby more easily this way.

John bit his fist, not wanting to yell and bring the guards' attention on them.

"Urgh, this is disgusting..." the Canadian said. He cut through layers of muscles slowly, searching for the baby. The lighting was bad, so he had to go by feeling his way around. He let go of a "Oh! I think I got it!" when he felt what seemed to be the head through a balloon-like textured skin. Pulling on the sack, he felt blood gush through the opening he had made.

He silently tried to convince himself not to throw up as he gently pulled the baby with one hand and supporting its head with the other. As the baby was finally out, McKay stopped to stare and panic after a few seconds. The baby wasn't breathing. What to do next?

Sheppard felt that his friend pertubed about something, so he looked up. "What?"

Rodney looked at him with wide eyes: "It's not breathing! Maybe it's dead?"

Somehow, John could feel relief in Rodney's voice when he had said that last sentence: "Isn't there something like an umbilical cord that you would need to cut?"

The scientist quickly eyed and saw what John had meant; but he couldn't do this with his hands full, so he quickly shipped it to his friend after wrapping it in the military shirt.

Sheppard took this time to observe the newest occupant of this cell. Looking at the baby's hands and feet, he counted all ten fingers and ten toes, making sure that nothing was missing... at least on the exterior. Who knew? Maybe the kid was a wraith in disguise. "Hey, McKay, it's a boy" he said, with some kind of pride.

As Rodney finished, he shot a glance: "Yeah..." but didn't pay much attention. The baby wasn't his preoccupation at the moment; instead, he tried to twist his brain into searching to close up John with.

Sheppard, feeling his strength being drained away, could only grab gently Rodney's arm and plead: "McKay, swear to me that you will take care of the baby. Tell me you'll love it and that he'll grow up to be a great man..." He gave the young boy to his friend, his arms getting tired from holding it.

Tears in his eyes, Rodney could only stare as John's eyes slowly closed and a pained sigh, released: "NO! John! Don't leave me like that! Help's coming. I'm sure! We- You- Just don't die on me."

"I'm feeling so tired, Rodney. I won't last until the rescue team arrives." He then opened his eyes with difficulty and looked at the scientist straight in the eyes: "No one must know of this, but... now that I'm leaving, I can say it freely to you: I loved you, Meredith Rodney McKay. Goodbye."

"JOHN!" Rodney said, as he one-handedly shook the man lying on the floor.

No response.

Rodney started to hyperventilate again, but this time, there was no one to bring him back to reality.

A Wraith guard approached, hearing yelling in the cell. A grunt, then it hit the floor with its weapon to signal to Rodney to shut up, and then pointed it to the poor man's face.

Rodney's eyes darted to the guard and he immediately bent over to protect the few minutes old baby. "Please! No! Don't shoot" he pleaded, with silent tears.

The gun retreated, but the guard left quickly.

The scientist knew that the wraith had gone to alert the others. He looked down at the boy in his arms: "This is all your fault..." Then he realized that the baby didn't have a name. "errr... you. If you had died when you had the chance, John would still be there." Rodney then scoffed at himself; he was putting all the blame on a poor child who didn't ask for all this. But Rodney never asked for this as well; they were only trying to find Teyla. Who knew where she was at that moment, maybe she was dead as well.

(-)

A few hours later, Rodney's eyes were drooping. He tried to fight the sleep, bringing the baby closer to him, trying to give it his body heat.

However, his eyes shot open when he heard gunshots and yelling. The sound of a P-90; he was sure of it.

His heart beating fast in his chest, the shouts woke up the baby; but he didn't care, because they would finally get out of there... even John would get out of there. Then it dawned on him, Sheppard was dead. For good. There would be no 'I'm fine' comments as they would get back to Atlantis. No smile of relief that they, once again, got out of that shit alive. No more.

Lorne was the one to find Rodney on the floor, with what seemed to be a wailing bundle of clothes in his arms. He was stopped by the cell door and tried to find a switch or something to open it. As the man scanned the whole room with his eyes, he noticed a body on the floor of the cell, bathing in blood. His breath hitched when he recognized his superior. "Dr McKay! What happened?"

But Rodney's eyes were empty of presence as the marines tried to opened the cell door; he only clung to the precious package in his arms.

(-)

Sheppard's body was brought back on Atlantis and was to be autopsied as soon as Rodney and the baby would be taken care of.

"Rodney! You have to give me the infant if you want us to check your health" Jennifer had said.

But the Canadian would not answer.

Dr Keller groaned as she was getting impatient. She gently tried to take the baby from Rodney and he gave in, without any effort. Checking the infant quickly, she gave it to a nurse: "Ask another doctorto check it out. And send someone to get a nursing mother from the mainland to feed it; I don't think we have any baby formula on Atlantis."

She would take care of Rodney herself; coaxing the man in a bed, she checked his pupils with her pocket light, noting that they reacted to light. She continued the routine examination and stopped when she checked him all over, finding nothing out of the ordinary.

"Oh Rodney, what did happen back there?" she asked him softly, not really surprised when he didn't answer. He was thin and very pale; he looked like someone who went through hell. She turned around to collect her things, lost in her thoughts.

After a minute, the scientist answered with a small voice: "John died."

A sad smile appeared on Jennifer's face: "I know. That's what major Lorne told us." She stroked his cheek and sighed, feeling that it was going to take her secret crush a lot of time to mentally recover from that one.

(-)

For the next few days, Atlantis was trying to get back on its feet as best as they could, with John dead.

A nursing Athosian mother was brought from the mainland to feed the poor baby, at least until they found a solution to that problem.

Colonel Carter was worried of Atlantis' future; her head of military was dead and her head of the science and technology department was recovering slowly from his catatonic state. Thankfully, they had found Teyla during their numerous searches; she was now back on Atlantis. Though it had taken them a longer time to find Dr. McKay and colonel Sheppard, they also found Carson -or more like a copy of him- before Teyla.

The medical team had decided to keep Rodney under observation until he got better, and also in case something would show itself that hadn't been detected when he first arrived a few days back. When they first brought him back, he would simply stare straight ahead and would barely talk. People would visit often, wishing they would help him get out of that stupor. Teyla would even bring her own son at times and at others, Rodney and John's. After five whole days, he finally answered back to the Athosian woman when she asked him how he was, at the moment of her daily visit. Carson had been called; everyone was glad.

(-)

Lying on the infirmary bed, he stared at the little boy in his arms. "Such a tiny little baby" he said with remorse. With his finger, he traced the small, but pointed, ears of the baby; it made him remember of the numerous times he had teased Sheppard about his. The baby wasn't very big and his lungs seemed a bit underdeveloped, with future examinations they always could monitor this.

Carson could only stare, without words. He put a comforting hand on Rodney's foot, showing his sympathy to the scientist's situation.

Teyla sat on the bed, hugging gently Rodney. "Yes, he's tiny, but he survived all this. He's a fighter, just like his parents." She smiled soothingly at him.

With a lump in his throat, Rodney exhaled loudly and said with a trembling voice: "Carson... He told me that he loved me. All this time..." He stopped, feeling tears blurring his vision. "They took him away from me."

"Aye, Rodney. I know. He didn't leave you alone, though" Carson said, motioning the sleeping baby. His smile widened as the baby snug further into Rodney in its sleep.

"Yeah, but he doesn't even have a name yet. John... He died before we could think about something. And we didn't think about that beforehand, we were constantly struggling to survive with the small amounts of food they would give us and fighting against insanity."

Carson nodded and suggested: "Why not call him John? It would be in his memory, for all those times he saved us from danger."

Rodney smiled: "Yeah. John McKay-Sheppard. That's your name, Johnny. You'll become a great man, like your... like John Sheppard was."

Teyla frowned, but with a hint of a smile: "Dr. McKay, aren't you putting too much pressure on such a young boy?"

Rodney looked at the Athosian, his smile widening: "Nah, he'll be the best of the best!"

John McKay-Sheppard turned out to be one hell of a brat with a short attention span and a short temper... which brought many headaches to Rodney who had left Atlantis to raise the boy in a 'more normal environment that isn't surrounded by life-sucking aliens'.

They had what could be called a normal life, with a dog and a white picketed fenced house. But, what was missing the most, was John. Rodney thought about the dead man almost everyday.

Now at 20, the baby that Rodney had raised had become a man and was looking more and more like Sheppard. He was often acting like him with his major laziness, which had caused him a lot of problems in school. Rodney would always try to convince it was because little Johnny was too brilliant, thus bored, but it wasn't the case. Many tests showed that his son was like every normal kid out there. Oh well, his genius genes hadn't passed on; at least the kid had many friends, unlike Rodney in his younger years.

The scientist was currently sitting in front of his laptop, trying to solve a problem that had been sent to him by Area 51, which concerned the Ancient chair. He was surprised by the sound of a door thrown open.

"DAD! I've been accepted!" John entered his father's office in a hurry.

"Oh great" Rodney whispered sarcastically to himself; the young man had applied in the Canadian army and was now accepted. He would become a grunt. How Sheppard of him to do this.

Then brought back to reality with a short "Dad?", he faked a smile and gave his son a pat on the shoulder. He could see all kind of scenarios in which the military would announce to him his son's death, but when he saw John's eyes shining with excitement, he couldn't bring himself to burst the young man's bubble.

The End


YES I KNOW I WAS MEAN TO SHEPPARD :( please forgive me!

Nothing much to say about this one, simply that I felt to torture those poor guys... I was kinda in a depressing mood when I wrote it D:

Don't forget to review/comment! I like to read what you think about the stuff I write :)