So How Did I Meet Your Mom Again?5
Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate: Atlantis or any of its characters or story lines. No infringement is intended upon anyone or any subsidiary connected to Stargate: Atlantis or its parent series, Stargate: SG-1 or Stargate The Movie. I'm poor, you'll get nothing out of me!
Summary: When the team discovers McKay's future daughter living with their trading partners, the search is on for the mother because his daughter will have to be conceived in 16 months or cease to exist. No pressure, right?
Rating: PG for language.
Warnings: Possibly some adult situations or at least ideas.
Category: Friendship/Romance/Humor
Author note: Okay, so Taylor is going to back off for a while as a character, but I will be developing her (as well as giving her a first name and some friends) on a tangent line with the main story and eventually the two storylines will be united again.
Canace lead the way to his home, which turned out to be about a mile's walk from the town. John was glad he had refused a ride and insisted on walking. Already he could see that McKay was faring better than he had been. He no longer had that pasty look about him and his confident swagger had returned to his step. He was confident that Isabel was not his daughter or in any way related to him. Sheppard thought otherwise. Teyla and Ronan just looked confused as they tagged along. John had refused to tell them why they were going to see Isabel before they left. If anyone was going to tell them, it was going to have to be McKay and he for once, was being tight lipped.
John could finally see the front door of the large cabin. It had a quaint, lived in feel to it. He could see a middle-aged woman rocking back and forth in a rocker and humming along with a song from some sort of radio as she watched them approach. Canace turned to John slightly and said, "my wife." John nodded and nothing further was said until they reached the house.
"Have you seen Isabel, dear?" He asked the woman.
She smiled and said, "out back."
They walked around the large house, and sure enough, there was Isabel, standing in a shallow stream, splashing water at the children who surrounded her and were splashing back. They seemed to be having great fun, as there was much laughing and giggling. The children ranged from 6 to about 14 and three were nearly as big as Isabel even at their young ages.
Again, Canace smiled and turned to John, "My children." He said with pride. John counted 5 not including Isabel. Busy man.
Canace cleared his voice loudly and the children immediately stopped what they were doing and grinned mischievously at their father. He smiled at them and then called, "Isabel, could we talk to you for a moment?"
Realizing her state and what she must look like, Isabel blushed, wringing water out of her summery blue dress and walking over, nodding to their guests politely. John noticed she no longer had a weapon. Maybe cause she feels safe at home.
Canace lead the way inside and pulled out a chair for his daughter. "Isabel, I will not insult your intelligence by working around the issue but will get straight to the heart of this. We have reason to believe these people may be the people you came from all those years ago. They have a way of testing it, but need a few strands of hair and saliva."
John gave the girl credit. She didn't show the slightest sense of shock or confusion, instead looking towards the table top for a moment, then looking John in the face and saying, "Go ahead." with a shrug of her shoulders.
Sheppard could see Ronan and Teyla looking very confused and slightly worried after Canace's statement. It left little room for interpretation and they were wondering if they had missed the signs that were so obvious to the room's other occupants.
McKay was supposed to get the samples, but John could tell he was unnerved again by her reaction, almost as if she suspected it, so he reached over for the swab and did it himself.
He looked both Canace and Isabel in the face before telling them, "We won't know for a few days, maybe even a week, but we will return to tell you what we've learned, if that's alright?"
Canace nodded slowly and Isabel ignored him so he prepared to leave until a voice stopped him. "Wait." It was Isabel and she was looking right at McKay. Very quietly, but firmly she said,
"I thought you looked familiar to me, but after so many years, I doubted myself. Then for you to have come to the same conclusion…I don't want to know. I understand that you do, but please don't come back. I have lived here almost my entire life. These people are my family and I'd never leave them. It took me a long time to get over what I went through, and learning the results of that test, would be putting me through it all over again. No matter what that test reveals, I don't want to know." She immediately turned and walked out the back door without another sound.
John turned to Rodney to see his reaction and almost wished he hadn't. Rodney looked crushed. Even thoughRodney had serious doubts about her relationship to him, it still hurt to be turned down so completely at just the thought of being related to him. John knew Isabel hadn't meant to hurt him, just make her wishes clear, but he knew it was a harsh blow to Rodney all the same.
"Let's go home." Sheppard said quietly.
Teyla and Ronan wisely kept quiet the whole way back to the gate, allowing McKay to work through his hurt feelings before returning to Atlantis. As they stepped through the gate, Elizabeth walked down to greet them and noticed how tense they all were.
"Things didn't go well, I take it?" She asked gently.
"I'll take these to the infirmary." Rodney said suddenly and walked off with the samples.
Weir stared after him, worried. "Col. Sheppard? What say we debrief now?" she asked, already walking towards the conference room.
Oh this will be fun! He thought sarcastically.
"So…" Started Weir. "I mean chances are, this is all just coincidence, right? There's no reason to panic until we get those results, and even then, there's not a whole lot we can do about it. Isabel is an adult and has made her feelings perfectly clear. I mean, should we even run the test? What is to be gained from it?" She asked, still trying to wrap her mind around this latest mystery.
Sheppard cleared his voice before saying carefully, "Well, the thing is, she said her birthday was in February of 2008, which isn't for, you know, two years, so if I'm doing my math right, that means she's conceived around May of 2007." He said, hoping they'd draw the right conclusions from it.
"So she hasn't been conceived yet, that's all the test would tell us." Ronan said.
"It's not just that," Sheppard tried again, "if the test is positive for paternity then we know that McKay has a year and 4 months to meet her mother, court her and…" John cleared his voice suggestively. "If we get a DNA profile on her, it'll also tell us who the mother is. Hopefully it'll be someone already on record so McKay can get started on not being such an ass to the future mother of his child."
The room became so quiet that a pin being dropped would have been deafening. Weir quietly interjected.
"What if we haven't met her yet? What if she's one of the Athosians? I mean, aren't we almost ensuring Rodney will never get with this woman by telling him who it is? He'll never be able to get over the stress and have we thought of what her reaction will be? No offense meant to Rodney, but he doesn't exactly make the best first impression and he sure as hell isn't easy to live with. Why are we all so sure that he has to have this child in the first place? Why can't we forget all about her?"
"Elizabeth-" John started.
"I'm not trying to be heartless, John, but this would be asking a lot of Rodney of a personal nature, don't you think?"
"Elizabeth, not having that child would mess up our timeline because it's something that's supposed to happen, and who knows, maybe this was how she was conceived in the first place, with Rodney meeting her before her mother. And if he had a child with a woman, that means they got along all right in the future timeline doesn't it? Maybe knowing that will give him the courage to date this woman or at least get to know her. Whose to say they don't just hit it off again? Even if Rodney doesn't know his daughter, would he be willing to effectively end her life by not even trying to make it work with her mother?"
Elizabeth sighed. "You're right, John. I agree with you, but Rodney may not. This is going to have to be his choice. And it's not like he doesn't have time to think about it. I'll run all this by Rodney, but you have to let him make his own choice." She said this last part looking straight at john like she knew he was going to try to convince Rodney.
John just couldn't help it though. He knew that making a commitment to a woman and having a kid would change Rodney for the better, and after meeting his potential child, now John could really see him as a Dad with John as the doting Uncle or godfather. He didn't want Rodney to screw up his one chance at a normal family life and now that they knew that 4 years in the future the Wraith were going to attack, they could prepare and make sure that Rodney survived to see his daughter grow up. I hope that test comes out positive. And if it does, I'll make sure Rodney makes the right choice.
Author's Note: How's it going so far? Is anyone not acting in character or did I mess up anywhere (like I did with the original birthdate?).