TITLE: Postnatal
SUMMARY: Rodney treats each child differently after they are born.
RATING: PG-13
WORD COUNT: 2,000
WARNINGS: MPreg. Post-Mpreg.
CATEGORIES: Established Relationship. Fluff.
PAIRING: Sheppard/McKay
DISCLAIMER: Don't own any of this. This doesn't belong to me. The characters aren't mine, Atlantis isn't mine. : This is all fake.
When Jaimie was born, Rodney had a hard time adjusting. He was accustomed to the weight of the baby inside of his body, the way she moved around or pressed against his belly with her tiny feet. Once Carson delivered her, it was like as if Rodney didn't know what to do with her. It wasn't the case.
Rodney hated children as a general rule, but his sister Jeannie was a regular breeder. She had just gotten pregnant with her fourth child right before he last saw her, on their return to Earth. Her youngest, Annie, was constantly being thrust into his arms to hold or feed her while Jeannie kept her hands full with her two little demons. Needless to say, he quickly learned how to properly look over the four-month-old while Andy and Vinnie raised hell and Jeannie tried to stop them. Those were three long days of pure torture.
But with his own child, it had nothing and everything to do with not liking children. Rodney didn't think he was up to being a father. Didn't think he could do it. It didn't help that they had never planned on having a baby. It was just never an option to think about, let alone discuss. Rodney didn't want any child to grow up the way he did, and that was his biggest fear. He didn't understand how he could possibly be a decent father when he never had a decent role model in that area. Rodney was scared of hurting her.
While Rodney's cesarian incision healed, John took care of Jaimie without a second thought to it. He wasn't exactly an expert on child-rearing, but with a few tips from the nursing staff and a few of the marines with younger siblings or nieces and nephews, he was able to do as good a job as any new parent.
Jaimie was a pink-faced, chubby little baby with dark eyes and a wild tuft of hair on the top of her head. John tried to use this point as something to interest Rodney in the baby, but his joke about his hair fell flat when Rodney shot the two of them a withering glare and hobbled off to bed. John was worried for a while about Rodney's lack of interest in their daughter, and the way he seemed to withdraw from everyone and everything, including John.
Jaimie was nearly three months old, the first time Rodney voluntarily held her in his arms for no reason other than to hold her. John was lying in a hospital bed with tubes and wires all over his body and a heart monitor beside him, beeping lazily. He flat-lined sometime in the night, but Carson had managed to stabilize him by morning. Cursing the people on the last planet SGA-1 had visited, the people who had done this to him, Rodney left the infirmary to relieve Lt. Cadman of babysitting duty, to the woman's shock.
Rodney was rarely seen in the weeks that followed Lieutenant Colonal Sheppard's recovery without Jaimie in his arms, clutched to his chest. He didn't want to let her go, so afraid that if something could happen to John, that anything could conceivably happen to Jaimie as well, with or without him there to fuck things up. He had been so afraid of being too important to her, of letting her down, that he had barely been able to look at her. But after John's hospital scare, Jaimie began garnering a lot more attention from her other father, much to everyone's relief.
When John was finally released back to their quarters, he was completely shocked, seeing their baby sleeping across his partner's chest, who was snoring away in their most comfortable chair. He thought he was seeing things at first, until Rodney cracked an eye open and started snapping at him in his usual manner, sounding tired as hell from spending all of his time between Jaimie and the lab and infirmary visits.
In the next few days after that, John was pleasantly surprised to see Rodney taking up the brunt of caring for Jaimie, while John spent his time split between resting and the few duties he had to take care of. He made sure there was time for the baby, but he wasn't needed for every little thing and Rodney didn't put up a fuss. John hadn't been entirely sure he was actually awake and out of the infirmary. He was certain he was dreaming during a few moments in which Rodney stole Jaimie out of his arms to feed her, rather than just stick him with the bottle, or when he caught Rodney singing her to sleep when she was having a fit one night.
Neither one of them ever mentioned the change or the way Rodney had behaved around Jaimie before.
Things were different with Brian. Rodney had begun having problems at the end of his second trimester, and Carson demanded he spend the rest of his pregnancy on bed rest. John wasn't the slightest bit surprised that Rodney complied without any heartfelt complaints. That's how everyone else realized just how serious this was. Everyone else assumed that Rodney would have put up a fight to stay and work, or that John would have to somehow convince him that this was the best move.
Rodney didn't need any convincing. In the first few days after finding out that he was pregnant again, Rodney was cross and overly irritated with everything and everyone. Then he and John saw Doctor Beckett for a full prenatal exam and Carson laid it out for them. The pregnancy would be difficult enough as it was due to Rodney's gender. But Rodney was forty and his system had gone through a bit of trauma with Jaimie's birth. They both knew right off the bat that they were going to have a difficult time with their second child.
Rodney took great lengths to ensure he did absolutely everything he could to ease things for the baby's stress levels. He ate only what was on the recommended list that Carson had given him and only spent the most necessary time working in the labs while he was still up and about. John was a great help as well, taking care of anything that he could do on his own so as not to disturb Rodney's rest. He worked hard not to fight with his partner, or do anything to agitate him during the pregnancy as well.
Despite all of that, Brian Anthony Sheppard was born much too early for anyone's liking. Born premature, at only 29 weeks instead of the usual nine months, he was a very sickly baby. There were moments in which Doctor Beckett had feared they were going to lose him. It was actually fortunate, in some ways, that Rodney had complications early on while carrying his and John's son. Carson had foreseen the possibility of a premature birth, or problems with the baby once he was born, and managed to requisition some more suitable equipment and personnel for the infirmary, stating that they needed to be prepared for anything out there. It also didn't hurt that Dr. McKay was on the senior staff of the expedition and vital to keeping the city afloat.
Their only problem was that the Daedalus hadn't returned with the needed equipment by the time Brian decided that he wanted out and he wanted out now. There were ten very frightening days proceeding his birth in which no-one was truly sure if he was even going to make it.
When John and Rodney were finally allowed to take their baby home, Rodney refused to let him go unless absolutely necessary. He fed him, changed him, rocked him, and took over taking care of him entirely. He even pushed and pushed with John, until his partner conceded to move Brian's crib into their own bedroom until he was old enough to sleep through the night.
John rarely got a chance to hold his tiny, tiny son. Yet, while he wasn't happy about that, he was relieved that Rodney wasn't going through another bout of depression over their child's birth. He tried to be as understanding as he could, but Rodney made things difficult. It also didn't help that with all of Rodney's time being monopolized by Brian, Jaimie was feeling left out and not understanding why Papa wasn't spending time with her like he used to. It was bad enough that he had just spent a month on bed rest, unable to do most of the things with his daughter that they enjoyed doing together.
Jaimie, fortunately enough, didn't seem to resent Brian for taking up all of Rodney's time. Instead, she seemed only worried. She was a perceptive child enough to the point that she knew that it wasn't normal for a baby to need to be seen down in the infirmary as often as her brother was. She also received a very patient speech from her Papa about how Brian was very small and very fragile and that they almost lost him a few times. Jaimie wasn't too sure how someone could lose a baby, but she nodded in understanding and crawled up onto the couch next to Rodney and gently petted her brother's blond tuft of hair with a smile from her Papa.
Rodney didn't try to ignore Jaimie, in fact, when ever she came to him in pursuit of some sort of attention, he would do what he could without needing to stop watching over, or even holding, Brian closely. But it wasn't the same. Her Daddy brushed her hair and made sure she washed up and brushed her teeth and put on matching socks instead of her Papa. For all of the attention she was losing out by Rodney caring for their newborn son, John more than made up for with spending more time with Jaimie. Sometimes it was hard with his schedule, but he always, always tried to make sure that she wasn't feeling too left out over the baby.
The first time Rodney ever let anyone other than John or the staff in the infirmary hold Brian, was just after Brian learned to crawl around. He was a determined little baby and wanted to, needed to, explore every little thing. He grabbed at anything and everything, trying to see it, touch it, taste it, smell it, and hear it. Rodney was overwhelmed by the fact that he could no longer set Brian down without having to worry for his safety. Elizabeth was shocked when one day, Rodney thrust his son into her arms and told her to pull back her hair unless she was urging for a 'bald chic' look and he immediately began pulling at some sort of display, fingers running across the tiny keys with an experienced ease.
Rodney still continued to absolutely smother Brian with attention, but gradually learned to allow more people to spend more time with him away. John had a hard time not showing his relief at this, especially since it meant that not only was Rodney loosening up the reigns a bit and that even he was going to get to spend more time with his son, but also that he was finally going to be allowed to leave Brian with a babysitter for a few hours. And with Jaimie off on the mainland, playing with the other children, he was able to drag Rodney off to bed to do something other than sleep.