Just going through some old emails looking for something and found this short story that I'd forgotten all about. Was writing a fic a day based on the old childs poem for a friend, but turns out I never actually posted this one so enjoy (I should probably point out that I have no idea what day Rodney was born on, he was just an apt subject for the topic)
Wednesdays Child is full of Woe...
At least that's how the poem went. Personally, John thought the saying should be 'Wednesday's Child is sneaky' because Rodney was a Wednesday Child, (easy to work out if you do Math's like John does Maths), but yeah, woe worked too. The word pessimistic described Rodney on a good day. On a normal day he was... well if there was a word for it, John had never heard it. Everything else was too soft, kind of like describing Dead as not feeling too good.
Everything had potential death attached to it as far as Rodney was concerned. The jumpers could crash and burn, anybody could be waiting to kidnap the greatest mind in two galaxies, he could get shot, he could get zapped with a deadly ray, he could get crushed, imbeciles could kill him by accident. The most annoying thing was that most of these things had actually happened which just went to prove that Rodney was right, which was always annoying. Not because John wanted him to be wrong, just that it was much more fun when he was because an angry insulting Rodney was funny as hell. He always had the best comebacks.
The good thing about this... extreme pessimism, was that Rodney had generally already thought of an initial exit plan if such and such happened and so could generally find their way out of danger in a mind numbingly quick time. John should be taking it for granted by now but each time, his brain just stopped and went; Wow!
While John waited for Ronon and Teyla to bring Carson he looked down at Rodney lying in his arms, could feel the blood soaking into his own uniform as Rodney lay against his chest. He couldn't figure out why Rodney thought this was such a good exit plan. The bullet was meant for him, Rodney had just pushed him aside and by the time John realised what he was doing, Rodney was already flying back with the force of the bullet. It was only one gunman, and he went down quickly in a hail of angry bullets from Ronnon, Teyla and John, the bullets made quite a mess of him because none of them seemed quite willing to stop shooting.
So yes, although Wednesday's child was full of woe, Wednesdays child was also smart and incredibly brave and sneaky, definitely sneaky, because Rodney had sneaked right under John's defences. Most of the people who knew John would probably think he was just friends with Rodney to be contrary, because he could be by god, and if everyone said stay away, if everyone said you can't be friends with him, then John would make a point of it to be fair. But that wasn't it, hell it wasn't even Johns choice. He was leading a team and Rodney was on his team and that was that, except here and now, when it came down to it, he realised he couldn't do this without Rodney.
He was alone and Rodney hadn't responded for a while now. He gripped his arms around him, effectively holding him like he'd never let go and whispered, "You can't go, I can't do this without you. Why the hell did you have to do that."
The last thing he was expecting was Rodney's response. A feeble pat to his hand. "Same reason."
Before he could even react, a jumper materialised out of nowhere, lowered quickly to the ground. Before the ramp was even fully down, Ronon, Teyla and Carson burst out and came running towards him. Carson dropped to his knees beside Rodney. He gave him a quick examination. "He'll be fine if we get him back now."
John thought there was a good chance he might cry with relief so Rodney saying feebly, "Well, I vote we get me back pretty damn quickly then," came as a chance to laugh, a hiccupping sob of relief hidden in it.
Yeah, Wednesday's child was full of Woe, Wednesday's child was amazing.