This One Time, At Math Camp
by Liss Webster
"This is a total waste of my time," says Rodney, glaring sulkily out of the window.
"Are we there yet?" asks Jeannie.
"Do we look like we're there?" snaps back Rodney. Jeannie turns big blue eyes towards him, her face haloed with blonde curls. He scowls. She sticks out her tongue. Rodney returns to staring out of the window. His life is UNBELIEVABLY awful and, fine, it'll make good copy for the person tasked with writing his biography when, at the age of twenty-five or so, he wins a Nobel prize, but, up until that point, having to actually live through it is unbearable.
"I'm at MIT now," he says, in a desperate bid to change his parents' minds about the whole Math Camp thing. "Don't you think this is a little ridiculous?" He goes for a mature, carefree laugh. "I mean, seriously! You want me to spend my time with kids who still think differentiating curves is a challenge? I could be at home making serious headway into…"
"We've discussed this, Meredith," says his father, ignoring the defiant mutterings of "It's Rodney!". "You know it's important for you to socialise with your peers."
"I couldn't agree more!" says Rodney, enthusiastically leaping on the lifeline offered, "but Dad, you know these aren't my peers! I mean, take Radek, for example. He is only…"
"Meredith!" says his mother sharply, and Rodney descends into a sullen silence, punctuated by Jeannie's increasingly irritating whines about needing the toilet, something to drink, something to read, and the toilet again, which only end when Rodney announces that what she really needs is a lobotomy, a comment which in turn provokes a massive in-car row (a specialty of the McKay family), ending only when their Volvo drives through the rustic wooden gates of Camp Evergreen.
oOo
"Ronon is wanting us to climb up rocks," says Radek Zelenka depressingly, light brown hair orbiting his head even more crazily than last year.
"I hate Math Camp," says Rodney. "I'm at MIT now. I shouldn't have to go through this."
Radek just shrugs philosophically.
"Hey guys!" says Ronon, clapping them both on their respective backs with his unfeasibly giant hands. He's tanned and dreadlocked and muscled and about three feet taller than anyone else. Rodney hates him with the burning passion of a thousand suns. "Elizabeth got us some more equipment an' stuff. This summer's gonna be awesome." He slaps their backs again and walks off. Rodney glares death beams at him.
"Why don't the death beams work?" he whimpers as Ronon finds another bunch of wannabe mathematicians to assault.
"You do not think the energy required to destroy other human would overload neural transmitters?" asks Radek conversationally, and they argue the matter until dinnertime.
oOo
"Oh. My. God," announces Laura Cadman, as Rodney and Radek join her at their usual table. "Have you seen the new guy?"
"Camp is full of new guys," says Rodney dismissively. He's still unclear on how Laura ended up in their merry band of future Nobel prize winners. She does admittedly have a passion for creatively blowing things up which he can only laud, but that usually seemed to be outweighed for her passion for the kind of outdoor pursuits beloved by the evil Ronon. However, useless to ponder further: she'd been sitting with them for years now; too late for a regime change. Sadly.
"Whatever, Rodney," she says, pulling a face. "If you'd seen him, you'd see what I mean. Ooh! There!" She clutches at Radek's arm, who just looks bemused.
"Ah, Rodney," come the crisp tones of Elizabeth Weir, the woman in charge of the Camp Evergreen experience. She's standing with someone who Rodney, using his considerable powers of deduction, supposes to be Laura's 'new guy'. "This is John Sheppard. This is his first year here, so I thought it would be nice if you could show him the ropes."
They all stare at her. "Huh?" says Rodney eventually. Elizabeth raises an eyebrow.
"The ropes, Rodney," she says patiently.
"Yes, yes, I understand the metaphor," he says hurriedly, in case this John Sheppard thinks he's a moron. "But why are you asking me? You never ask me."
"Which is good decision," puts in Radek, almost – though not quite – managing not to blush as Elizabeth glances at him.
"Yeah," says Laura, "Rodney really sucks at, y'know, being nice. Or like a normal person in any way."
"Oh, yes, thank you for that," says Rodney, glaring. "That means so much coming from you, Little Miss I-like-to-make-things-explode."
Laura just sneers. "I'm incredibly likeable."
"I hate you."
"Oh, whatever."
"Gee," said the new guy, who had apparently been left to their tender mercies, "guess Math Camp is gonna be fun than I expected."
They stare at him. He's tall and skinny and has hair so artistically tousled that Rodney is willing to bet it takes half an hour in the morning to achieve the look. He's wearing jeans and a t-shirt and looks suspiciously like he might actually be cool.
"Well," says Rodney. "I suppose you should sit down." There's a space between Rodney and Miko (who's terrified of him for some reason that Rodney's never been able to fathom), and the new guy sits there.
"So," he says, picking up a limp French fry and looking at it quizzically, "what do you guys do for fun round here?"
"Y'know," says Rodney, waving a nonchalant hand, "stuff."
"Last year," offers Larry Simmons, "we built a nuclear bomb behind the boat house."
"Huh," says John. "Cool."
"Well, it would've been cooller if someone had been able to get the weapons-grade plutonium they promised," says Rodney bitterly, the memory still rankling. Laura glares at him.
"Shut up, McKay! It wasn't that easy!"
"Some guy called Ronon," interrupts John, "said something about paragliding? That sounds pretty good."
They stare at him.
"Are you for real?" asks Rodney eventually. "Do you know the risks associated with that sort of activity?"
John shrugs, and grins. "Well, Rodney, that's what makes it exciting."
oOo
John's a disreputable mess, with holes in his jeans and a t-shirt that looks like it saw better days about a decade ago. His scrawlings on the blackboard are also a disreputable mess, but, to Rodney's surprise, are both elegant and correct.
"Hm," he says. "Not bad. You might make a decent mathematician after all."
John shrugs. "I'm going to the Air Force Academy," he says.
"Oh great. Another brain wasted in the pursuit of violence."
Of flying," corrects John, and Rodney rolls his eyes, because like it matters.
oOo
So, Rodney discovered that John wanted to fly and not be a Nobel prize-winning mathematician/physicist, which lowered his opinion of the guy somewhat. Then there was the rock climbing thing (Ronon was officially a sadist, there was no other explanation) and the karate-with-sticks thing (Elizabeth had hired a new assistant called Teyla who was gorgeous and possibly actually lethal) and the kayaking thing and the paragliding thing, all of which were activities that Rodney was keen to avoid (though invariably unsuccessful, because the ENTIRE UNIVERSE was against him) and which John embraced with an enthusiasm better spent on solving some crucial scientific problem such as, for example, whether death glares were feasible without the required energy burning out the neural transmitters, a debate that still occupied Rodney and Radek.
"I don't understand how the concept of Math Camp became bastardised to the extent of encouraging this kind of reckless activity," Rodney says one day.
"Get in the damn kayak," says Ronon.
oOo
Decades down the line and a continent away, Dr Rodney McKay (PhD, PhD) rushes towards the alcove housing the command chair, to see some COMPLETELY UNAUTHORISED military type in the Ancient chair who, after a while of shouting and explanations and random light displays of the solar system, suddenly seems quite familiar.
"I know you," he says abruptly.
"Hey, Rodney," says the man, grinning wonkily at him, and there, with the grin and the hair and the drawl and, well, OK, the uniform with 'SHEPPARD' printed neatly on the chest, it all falls into place and Rodney's eyes narrow.
"You!" he exclaims.
"Me," agrees Sheppard.
"And there you both are," says O'Neill. "I'm gonna take a giant leap and say you two've met before."
"Well," says Sheppard, his grin growing, "this one time, at Math Camp…"
THE END