Chapter Two: This…Complicates Things
Doctor Rodney McKay grumbled to himself as he pored over the alien texts, trying to find something—anything—to shed light on the recent shock he and Elizabeth had received earlier. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to make sense. It was almost as if it were some kind of medical scanning device—like an MRI—but there were other things that just didn't fit. Like, what the heck did "And the two shall contribute to make one" mean? Maybe he was reading it wrong, not getting the context.
With a sigh he stepped away from the console, his earlier excitement at finding this strange new device severely dampened. Elizabeth was still unconscious and he had barely made it with his life intact. He knew this was a dangerous endeavor, but did anyone believe him? No. They just went on with their petty little lives never knowing the consequences….
Whoa, boy! the annoying little voice in the back of his head scolded, Don't even go there. You were the one who activated the damn thing, not anybody else. He sighed, knowing the voice was right. For some reason it sounded a lot like Elizabeth but…no. He definitely wasn't going to go there.
"Hey," Sheppard called from the doorway, "Any progress."
Rodney snorted at the nonchalant question. "Oh yes, I've been able to determine what a possibly several million year old device is able to do and why it shocked the crap out of us in under ten minutes."
"I was just asking," Sheppard replied, still just as nonchalant.
Rodney looked over at the major, about to retort, when he caught the expression on the man's face. "What is it?"
Sheppard sighed and scuffed his feet on the ground, studiously avoiding his gaze. Rodney felt a fear he had never known before, not even for his own life. Oh please don't be what I think it is…please, please don't let her have died. Suddenly, he didn't want to hear the rest, and he turned back to the Ancient's technology, letting out a soft curse. Why? Why had they come to this…
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of five syllables he hadn't expected to hear. He frowned and glanced at Sheppard. "I'm sorry, my hearing must be going because I thought you just said 'Doctor Weir is pregnant'."
Sheppard sighed and gazed up at the ceiling, then looked back at Rodney. "Oh no, Doctor McKay. Your hearing is one-hundred percent 'a-okay'. I did, in fact, say 'Doctor Weir is pregnant'."
Rodney felt light-headed all of a sudden, even more so than when he hadn't got anything to eat during the time he'd had that personal shield on. It was almost impossible with his brain threatening to freeze up, but he did a mental calculation. They had been on Atlantis for more than nine months—so that ruled out someone from home. Then…somebody on Atlantis must…
Rodney suddenly had the urge to grind someone's head into dust. Since he had never had any such inclination before, he assumed it had something to do with his recent maladies. Either that or he was jealous.
"McKay?"
Rodney blinked at Sheppard and frowned. Was it him? He had thought the major and the lovely Athosian woman had a thing going, but maybe the guy liked playing the field. He seemed like that type of guy. No, actually he didn't. He might flirt but he would never get an innocent woman pregnant and leave her to…
"McKay," Sheppard said more insistently, "Doctor Beckett says he doesn't know how it happened, because one minute there was nothing and then suddenly she was two weeks along. He thought that maybe…are you listening to me?"
"Two weeks?" Rodney repeated absently. Two weeks ago then, he mused to himself. Now all he had to do was look in the files and find out who had gone into Elizabeth's quarters and…wait. "You said it suddenly appeared…as in it shouldn't have been there?" At Sheppard's nod, Rodney turned quickly back to the text.
"'And the two shall contribute to make one'," he read aloud. He laughed shortly. Suddenly the whole thing began to make sense. "It's a breeding facility. It takes the DNA of two beings and uses it to create a third. Then it places it in the womb of the 'female' to be cared for. The electricity was a side-effect of the energy transference. Oh my god…I'm going to be a father." And with that, he promptly fainted.
"Pregnant? With Doctor McKay's child?" Ignoring the imp within her cheering loudly at this pronouncement, Elizabeth continued to stare in bewilderment at Dr. Beckett. Poor man. It was the eighth…no tenth…time she'd asked that same question—always with the same answer: Definitely Yes.
She sighed and sat back down on the bed, after having got up again to pace with the thoughts racing through her head. Damn it. This was one complication she could very definitely do without. Especially when she was feeling such elation at the prospect of having Rodney McKay's child.
"Does anyone else know?" This was a new question, one she hadn't been able to ask yet because of her incredulity—and possibly because of the electric jolt—and she could see the relief in Carson's dark eyes.
"Major Sheppard and of course Doctor Mckay," Beckett began, "Lieutenant Ford and Teyla as well, they were concerned for your safety," he added when it looked like she was going to yell at him.
Instead she sighed again and lay back on the bed, other questions forming in her mind. The foremost of which was "How?" however, since it contained many questions within that one, she wasn't certain how to ask it. For example, how did this happen, how do you know what it is, how do…how did…how, how, how. Finally she just settled for doing as the doctor had suggested. She could get her answers in the morning…when she wasn't so out of it. And maybe, just maybe this would all turn out to be just a bad dream.
You mean, like the dream with chocolate and edible boxers? the imp asked slyly.
"Shut up," she told it, not realizing she'd said it aloud and not noticing the confused, concerned look on doctor Beckett's face, "Chocolate and edible boxers are no longer the important issue here."