Reconstructing Rome

By Indygodusk


Chapter 29


"Yes, I have finally arrived to this Capital of the World! I now see all the dreams of my youth coming to life."

GOETHE


Six days later, Meredith went into labor. The scab had flaked off her ear and her bruises had faded to a sickly shade of green that perfectly matched her mood. Despite being surrounded by people, she felt terribly alone.

Julian took her to the hospital as soon as the contractions started and got her into a private room while they waited for Ava and Dr. Gallus. "Don't worry, Meredith, I'm here for you." He patted her leg under the blanket.

Meredith scoffed and pushed a strand of sweat-soaked hair off her face. "I don't want you here, Julian." Looking at him just made her feel angry. Julian pretended not to hear as he stepped to the door to talk to the guards stationed outside to keep her from escaping, as if she was going to run away in the middle of labor.

Another contraction gripped her painfully. She tried to breathe through it but it was getting more difficult. She didn't do well with pain. Why did she have to do this without drugs? Not that the Manudian's didn't have drugs but Meredith didn't trust them because the list of side-effects seemed rather long considering their middling rate of efficacy. She could risk brain damage. Then again, a few hours of this might change her mind.

She didn't want this. She didn't want to be pregnant or giving birth or stuck with a kid who relied on her for survival. She hadn't asked for this. Why did she have to do it all alone? It wasn't fair!

However, the universe didn't care because she was being forced to do it on her own anyway. Meredith wasn't ready to be a mother. She had no good role models and was horrible with people, especially kids. What if she did her best to be a good mother and still failed? What if she repeated the mistakes of her own mother and was so emotionally stunted and selfish that she couldn't connect to the baby at all and made her feel unwanted, unloved, and useless? What if her daughter grew up to become a drug addict or pop singer or dedicated her life to selling essential oils? What if her daughter hated math? What if her daughter hated her?

Meredith's heart fluttered and flailed like a bird trapped inside a window trying to get out. It hurt to breathe. The contractions just made it all worse. Everything hurt then, even her eyelashes.

It was all Troy's fault—and Julian's! Men were the worst. They were the reason she was stuck here in backwater Manudia instead of home with the people and advanced medical care she so desperately needed.

While she was distracted by the nurse attaching monitors to her bulging belly, Julian reappeared and tried to take her hand. She angrily fisted her fingers to refuse him access.

Julian huffed. "Meredith, come on, stop being so stubborn and let me help you. I know it has to hurt. I care about you and the baby both. We're going to be a family." He smiled and dropped a kiss on her head. "I can't wait to see if she has rare golden hair like her mother. I'll be the envy of everyone."

Meredith jerked away and batted at his hands. "Just stop it, Julian! Stop! I'm not yours and never will be." Julian said something back but she couldn't bring herself to pay attention as another contraction started and she had to count her breathing to get through it. When she could focus again, she wiped the sweat off her forehead and whimpered in self-pity. How was she supposed to survive when the contractions kept getting worse?

Julian stood there like a lump, not a hair out of place and his tunic looking like he'd just pulled it on minutes instead of hours ago. When she swore at him breathlessly he sighed patiently and smiled with indulgence, patting her belly. Meredith lost her temper completely. "It's your fault I'm trapped here, Julian! You're a pathetic failure who had to kidnap a pregnant woman to solve your problems! You'd already have a family if there wasn't something wrong with you! I don't want you anywhere near me! You're only President of the College because everyone better qualified is dead. This baby is never going to be yours and neither am I! Leave me alone and get out!"

Panting breathlessly, Meredith ignored Julian's gutted expression and turned away to glare at the wall. Another contraction gripped her and she started to cry. She hated this. Hated it!

Ava bustled into the room, taking in the scene at a glance. She sighed and rolled up her sleeves. Stepping forward, she put a hand on her brother's back. "Hey, Julian." She sounded loving but firm. "Maybe you should go home and keep Lucas company instead of the babysitter." Ava turned her eyes to the bed. "I'll stay if that's alright with Meredith?"

Mouth trembling, Meredith put one hand over her eyes to hide the tears still leaking out and held out her other hand towards Ava. She didn't have to wait long for Ava to take her hand in a warm clasp. The feeling of not being alone made the vice around Meredith's chest ease just a little. She decided to let Ava deal with Julian. "I don't want him here," she told her.

"But I—" Julian started to argue.

"Julian," Ava said firmly.

"Ava, I deserve—"

"Please, Julian. Go home."

Meredith could feel Julian's eyes boring into the side of her head but she ignored him and examined the pattern of the wallpaper.

At last, Julian finally gave a clipped nod. "Fine." Turning on his heel, he strode out, the door clicking shut behind him.

"I know he's made some mistakes, but my brother does care about you very much," Ava told her gently.

Meredith pressed her lips flat to keep from saying anything that might drive Ava away. Ava was the only person Meredith could bear to have hold her hand right now. She really needed someone to hold her hand during this.

Ava sighed and thankfully let it go. "Well, let's try to get you a little more comfortable, shall we?" She adjusted the blankets and the pillows behind Meredith's head and got her some water.

As the hours passed, Meredith clung to Ava, taking what comfort she could from her only friend here. For her own sanity she decided to ignore how Ava was also an accomplice in Meredith being trapped so far away from Earth and epidurals and everything safe and familiar. She also ignored the possibility that Ava might not really like her and was just faking. Meredith didn't care about the truth right now, she just cared that someone was holding her hand and wiping her brow.

"It hurts," Meredith sobbed too many hours later, drained from another hard contraction and an unexpected bout of vomiting. "It's not fair." No one warned her that giving birth included vomiting. She was miserable. She didn't even have the energy to hate Troy or resent Julian anymore. All she could focus on was getting through the next few minutes and then the minutes after that.

Ava gently wiped a wet washcloth over Meredith's face. "You're doing so well. Just a little longer, dear heart. She's almost here."

The nurse said something over Meredith's head and Ava stood up and went to the corner to speak to her privately. Meredith should probably care but she didn't have the energy. She was too miserable. Pressing a hand over her puffy eyes to stop the by-now-painful release of more tears, Meredith whimpered. "I want Jeannie. I want John. Why does this happen to me? Why am I always so a-a-alone."

A strange vertigo shook her, making the room haze out and the pain disappear. She saw an empty white space illuminated by the bright light shining from her body. Six smaller lights waited in her glow but overhead a shadow formed like a violet bruise. As it separated from the white she somehow knew it was male. Familiar. The shadow reached out for her, forming into an outstretched hand.

Would he pull her close so she didn't have to be so alone and stay if (when) it got hard?

She slowly lifted her hand to meet the shadow. Her body resisted as if she was trying to push up against acceleration, becoming more difficult with each centimeter gained. The room's white glow intensified and the shadow lightened to pale violet even as it strained to reach her.

Something tickled her feet. She looked down and saw an iridescent pearl. Her arm dropped back to her side.

There was no guarantee that the shadowy hand reaching for her wouldn't just open up and drop her again. No way to know if it merely wanted to use her before tossing her aside or keep her locked helpless in a fist. No way to trust that the hand would hold on to her the way she needed to be held. The violet shadow fought to get closer, tempting her to trust, but shadows hid the truth and lies had never kept her happy or safe.

Sinking to her knees, she curled over the pearly glow and closed her eyes so she couldn't see the violet shadow anymore. She was so tired and heartsore, but at least this was familiar and safe. Being alone with her pain was normal. She knew how to survive and pretend to be fine. She didn't have to risk breaking apart.

(Not alone, not alone, white light breaks into red orange yellow green blue indigo violet—)

It hurt to breathe, everything hurt, but she had to breathe because another contraction was ripping through her body and the baby needed to get out. Opening her eyes, she saw Dr. Gallus standing between her legs. Ava held Meredith's hand and didn't complain at the tightness of the grip. "I just want this to be o-over," Meredith sobbed, tears and sweat trickling down her face.

"I'm sorry, but you're so close. God willing, the baby will be here soon." Ava helped Meredith pattern her breathing until the pain of the contraction subsided. "Just a few more."

On the next contraction the baby finally crowned. "Push!" Dr. Gallus called. "Keep pushing as long as you can!" Meredith was exhausted and couldn't push for long. The baby sucked back inside her body.

"Again," the doctor urged. "I'll count to ten and I want you to push for the full count." Easy for her to say but almost impossible to put into practice. Meredith pushed over and over and over again. She pushed so hard that she later discovered that she'd burst the capillaries in her eyes and cheeks, making the whites of her eyes blood red and her cheeks spidered with web-like bruises. Still the baby wouldn't come out.

Dr. Gallus called for a numbing paste and pair of scissors and snipped Meredith open wider. Meredith didn't care what they cut as long as it got the baby out ASAP. They made her push again. Finally, at last, the baby's head and shoulders slipped out of her body and into the hands of the doctor. She felt so relieved! It was over!

They cleaned the baby up while Meredith delivered the afterbirth and then placed the baby's fragile body on her bare chest. The baby had wet blond hair and a reddish cast to her skin with wrinkled white hands and feet. The nurse said it was normal. The baby nuzzled closer and kneaded her fingers on Meredith's chest. With a little help from Ava, Meredith shifted the baby so her mouth could latch onto a nipple and begin to suck. The baby closed her eyes with supreme contentment and unthinking trust that her mother would take care of everything.

At that moment, Meredith's entire frame of reference shifted. Meredith was a mother now. She wanted to take care of everything. Laying skin to skin with her baby, the bitterness of the previous hours of labor and months of pregnancy transformed into sweetness. Meredith had a daughter and she was perfect (the weird alien look was sure to fade into natural beauty given a few days). It might just be the flood of hormones talking, but Meredith didn't care. She embraced the euphoria. Meredith had never loved anyone as much as the little girl who'd just entered the world, never known she could feel this much emotion. Meredith would never have to be alone again. There were two of them now and they would always have each other. Tears dripped down her temples and pooled in her hair as she cradled the small warm weight on her chest. She felt happy, so happy to have the opportunity to spend the rest of her life loving and being loved by the little girl on her chest.

Pressing a kiss to her daughter's silky skin, she whispered, "It doesn't matter why or how you got here, I'm going to love you forever, no matter what. I'll protect you and make your dreams come true. You're going to grow up to be an amazing woman and I'll be there cheering you on for all of it." She cupped her hands around her daughter's tiny body. Her child would never know what if felt like to be used and discarded. She would never doubt her worth or have no one to turn to in need. She would be loved and supported.

A nurse with a clipboard came over to stand next to the bed. "What name do you want us to put on the birth certificate for the father?" She tapped the paper. "You left it blank."

Lips twisting down, Meredith curled her toes to keep from clenching her fists and accidentally hurting her baby. "I did that on purpose."

"Even if he's not part of her life, it might be nice for her to at least have a name for him," Ava said carefully. "Secrets have more weight than unpleasant truths openly acknowledged. A blank space could cause more pain than its really worth."

"I doubt that, but fine, I suppose Troy does make up slightly less than fifty percent of her genome. My ex-husband was a manipulative liar and a narcissist, but he was also brilliant and moderately attractive, so at least she'll get that from both sides. The nurse can write down Dr. Troy Forrester." Glancing at the nurse, Meredith spelled the name and made sure they hadn't erased the string of degrees after her name. If her daughter ever decided to look her birth certificate up on Manudia, she'd at least see that her mother had a more prestigious academic pedigree than her father.

"And have you decided on a name for your daughter?"

Opening her mouth, Meredith went to say the name she'd been telling everyone about and found her tongue sticking to the back of her teeth. Until that moment, she'd been set on naming her daughter Madison after her award-winning great-grandmother—even if Jeannie had been the woman's favorite. Madison Meredith Mckay had a nice alliterative ring to it and gave the kid two brilliant namesakes to look up to.

But in that moment of truth, surrounded by strangers in a strange world, she looked down at the baby on her chest and thought of the two—perhaps only—living people she loved back on Earth: Jeannie and John. She hoped they got a chance to meet her daughter someday. She desperately hoped to see them again. Meredith was going to track John down as soon as she got back to Earth and fix their friendship. And she was going to start really listening to Jeannie and learn about the woman her sister was now instead of getting distracted or disappointed by what Meredith thought her sister should and could be instead. If Meredith got the chance, she was going to be better about putting her most important people above her work and pride, even if she had to schedule it and set up calendar alerts.

"If you don't think Madison fits anymore, you could always name her Ava." Breaking loose of her thoughts, Meredith looked over to see Ava winking. "I certainly think Ava's a great name for a girl, but you don't have to decide now. You can let the hospital know later if you need to think about it more."

"No, it's alright," Meredith said softly. Her thumb smoothed down the baby's small back. "I think… I think I'm going to name her after my sister and my best friend. She'll be Joan Jean Mckay, JJ to friends and family. The sexist pricks can be fooled into thinking JJ's brilliant and award-winning scientific papers and grant requests are written by a man until they see her gorgeous face in person and have to pick their jaws up off the floor and grovel, right JJ?"

Following the impulse to press a kiss to JJ's crown, she ran a finger over small, wrinkled knuckles and up impossibly soft skin to the golden strands drying on top of JJ's head. Meredith felt so strange, her heart so open it hurt, but a good hurt. "One day I'll take you to meet your Aunt and Uncle and they'll love you too. I bet your Uncle John will even volunteer to take you to all of those awkward daddy-daughter things at school so you don't feel left out."

Meredith's smile twisted into a frown. John's evil hot yoga wife would have to stay away from JJ to keep from infecting her with the crazy. He would just have to suck it up and find a way to balance his marriage with spending time with his best friend and her awesome kid. Even though he was almost as bad at relationships as she was, she knew John could do it if he put his mind to it. He just needed to get his head out of his butt. Finding out Meredith had a kid should give him the shock he needed to stop being so pussy-whipped. Even though their last conversation had been more of an argument, she knew John would help her if she asked. She knew she could count on him. She wanted JJ to know him too. JJ needed at least one good male role model in her life who was great at math and Jeannie's English Professor husband wasn't going to cut it.

Though John did have a lot of bad habits beyond his taste in wives. "I'll have to watch out or John will teach you crazy things like skateboarding down railings and hang gliding off mountains before you even finish your first degree. And Aunt Jeannie will encourage silly sleepovers with your cousin Madison—because she'll probably take the name now that we've let it go—and encourage you to write poetry and tell you to follow your heart over your head, which is ridiculous advice but I suppose you'll love Aunt Jeannie because she's great at math too and disagrees with your mom, eh? You'll love them both and they'll love you. You'll have people sitting in the front row for every graduation and never have to be alone unless you want to be." Closing her eyes, she kept mumbling promises until her tongue got too thick and she drifted off into a light doze.


For two weeks Meredith holed up in the Aquila residence recovering from the birth. She refused to worry about Councilor Santoro or the glitching Ancient machine. There was nothing she could do about either. Later she'd be anxious and return to work. For now, she had to focus on adjusting to a small person depending on her for everything.

Meredith may have never wanted to be a mother, but now that she was one she was determined to be the best mother ever. Unfortunately, patience and maturity were difficult to find when it was three AM and the baby was crying for no good reason and refusing to respond to logical arguments for why she should stop. Meredith missed sleep. She'd sort of thought she'd be fine because of late nights in grad school and all the times she'd worked through the night on a project. She'd been fooling herself. Being woken up constantly because a small person depended on you for food and cleaning was a whole lot harder. Kids were supposed to be soothed by singing but Meredith didn't know any kid songs, so she gave lectures on basic scientific facts instead, like the laws of thermodynamics and states of matter and major mathematical constants and equations. She wasn't sure how much knowledge baby JJ actually absorbed, but it did seem to help put her to sleep.

When not an exhausted mess, Meredith worked her way through the science textbooks in the Aquila family library, scribbling scathing comments and corrections in the margins. Reading between the lines, it looked like Manudia might have some small deposits of naquadah hidden in the mountains that had been abandoned when the second city formed and distracted everyone with the constant warring. The naquadah was probably what had first brought the Ancients to this world. If the mines hadn't been tapped out, the naquadah would give Manudia something to trade with Earth when—she had to believe it was when and not if—she got the shield down and finally went home.

During her recovery, a few more time distortion fields popped up. Some slowed time down, starving people and spoiling supplies, while others sped time up, making the people inside think only a few seconds had passed instead of hours or days. Ava tried to hide the problems from Meredith, but she wasn't a very good liar and the hours that Ava spent attending church and praying on her knees tripled.

In retrospect, Meredith realized that she'd been a little cruel to Julian during the birth by bringing up his dead family. The rest of it she didn't feel sorry for at all. However, he did still have a lot of power over her fate so she decided that it would be smart to apologize. The first time she saw him after giving birth she was luckily in a mellow mood after taking a nap and feeding JJ. "Julian, I wanted to say sorry for being mean in the hospital."

Julian smiled at her and for a second she thought everything was going to be okay. Then he tried to hug her.

"No, Julian." She swatted him away.

He took a deep breath. "Alright, you're tired. Here, let me take the baby." His forced smile turned natural as he looked down at JJ and held out his hands. "We're going to be great friends, sweetheart, and JJ is pretty close to your papa Julian's name, isn't it?"

Meredith only kept herself from screaming because she didn't want to wake JJ up. "No, Julian. No. We're not your readymade family. You don't get that from us."

Smile dropping from his face, Julian's nostrils flared. "Meredith, stop being so stubborn."

The conversation degenerated from there until Meredith jumped to her feet in outrage, Ava rushed in to try and play peacemaker, and JJ started to cry. At his wit's end, Julian threw up his hands and stormed out.

Since then, Julian had avoided her. He spent more time out of the house working. When he was home and they were forced to sit together at the dinner table, he treated Meredith coldly.

Ava made excuses and hinted at some past heartbreak, but that wasn't Meredith's problem. It just made her angrier about his unfair and moronic attitude. She didn't owe him intimate access to herself or her baby. She didn't owe him anything.

Which made it totally unfair how much Meredith missed talking to him. Ava was more a master of social politics and running a home than of science and engineering. She knew more than most because of her family's scientific legacy, but when Meredith started theorizing she quickly became lost. Their friendship stemmed mostly from proximity and Ava's patience, quick wit, and sense of humor, along with how her religious faith required her to repeatedly forgive Meredith's sharp tongue and feel guilty for Meredith being trapped here. Ava also had to know in the back of her mind that her son Lucas would be the one to suffer if Meredith didn't succeed in fixing things. In the end, though, it didn't really matter why Ava helped and befriended her, just that she had. Ava was the only thing keeping Meredith sane right now.


When Julian was summoned to an emergency council session in the middle of dinner and left without finishing his food, Meredith didn't think anything of it. Rationing meant the food didn't taste that great anyway. Meals were also full of either tense silence or awkward conversation. If she wasn't eating for two she'd also seize the opportunity to avoid sitting across from Julian and eating this stuff.

However, that night something changed. While groggily breastfeeding JJ at one in the morning, Meredith pulled back the blackout curtains and looked out the window at the ever-present cloudy grey afternoon sky. It never went dark even in the middle of the night. Dully watching the sky, she blinked and saw the shield flicker.

When she jerked upright to see better, it flickered again. JJ got upset at the motion and clamped down with her gums at the threat of milk being removed. Wincing, Meredith slid her finger into the corner of JJ's mouth, forcing her to pop off and be repositioned.

Meredith hadn't expected to like breastfeeding, but she mostly did. She'd always liked feeling indispensable and there was no one more important to JJ then her mommy. Breastfeeding made JJ happy and soothed her when she was upset. It also soothed Meredith, the hormonal cascade doing great things for her mood. Snuggling was also amazing, making her think she might've been touch-starved. Half the time JJ fell asleep in her arms it made Meredith want to follow her into a nap. Admittedly, the clamping down of little gums hurt. She also disliked JJ's need to feed so often and wake her mom up from a dead sleep, but regular feedings did keep her boobs from becoming painfully over-swollen with milk and leaking through her shirt, so there was that.

Meredith strained her eyes out the window, watching for more flickers. Nothing happened with the cloudy sky for over a minute, making her wonder if exhaustion was making her imagine things. Then the shield flickered again and the dome of the sky seemed to bend, turning an opaque brassy gold. A sound like grating thunder boomed through the air. The house faintly trembled. Heart in her throat, she watched as the shield's glow slowly drained back to a translucent field.

However, the sky looked different. The cloud cover was whiter and a brighter patch looked like it was hiding the sun. There were even stips of blue along the horizon.

Hope tingling across her skin, Meredith shoved her finger in the corner of JJ's mouth to pop her off again and ran to wake up Ava.

Julian wasn't in his room when they checked, still not back from his Council meeting. Excited, they tried calling around and even sent out a guard to try and get ahold of the absent Julian. Meredith wanted to go to the lab, but the streetcars were down for the night and the guards outside wouldn't let her leave. After several hours with no sign of Julian or any other answers, Ava finally sent the exhausted Meredith back to bed.

Frustrated, Meredith lay down with JJ and fell asleep.