"Dad! Keith said he was going to throw my doll over a balcony!"
"Keith, don't threaten to throw things over balconies. And be nice to your sister."
"Dad! I need help with my homework!"
"I'm working, can it wait a bit?"
"You said that an hour ago!"
Rodney sighed. "What do you need help with?"
Keith smiled. "Uncle John's assignment. I don't understand what he wants us to do."
"I never understand either, but I'll take a look."
When Carson came home an hour later, he found Rodney, Keith, and Kristin all huddled around the table playing with a set of cards.
"I sure hope your homework is done," he commented.
"This is homework," Keith replied without raising his head.
"John assigned it," Rodney added, also enthralled in the game.
"Daddy, come see what I made with my molecules today!"
Carson followed their middle child, Michelle, into her room. Where upon entering, he found a near perfect model of DNA sitting on the floor. "Did Dad help you with this?" he asked, not believing that his eight year old could do this on her own.
"No, I did it without any help," she beamed. "It's a model of what you work with all day in your lab!"
"That it is. Rodney, could you come in here for a minute?" Carson yelled out the door.
"I'm helping Keith and Kristin with their homework. Can it wait?"
"You really should see this, luv."
Rodney sighed and went over to his husband. "Now, what was this thing I needed to see? Hey, it's a model of DNA. When did you have time to make that?" asked Rodney as he entered the room.
"Daddy didn't make it, I did!" a very proud Michelle said as she bounced on the balls of her feet. "Do you like it?"
Rodney was stunned. "It's very good. When did you make it?"
"Today."
"Where did you get the idea?"
"When we were in Daddy's office last week."
Rodney looked over at Carson who was now avoiding his gaze. "What were you doing in Daddy's office?"
"Ethan stuck something up his nose," Michelle innocently replied.
"Really? And when were you going to tell me this?" Rodney asked Carson.
"I was going to tell you when it happened, but you came home and distracted me," answered Carson.
Upon remembering the day in question, Rodney blushed and turned back to the matter at hand. "How do you know what DNA looks like?"
"From the model on Daddy's desk," was the answer. Michelle then grabbed Rodney's hand and pulled him towards the model on the floor. "I used blue for guanine, green for cytosine, orange for adenine, and white for thymine."
Carson and Rodney were stunned silent.
Michelle, not noticing her silent parents continued on. "I didn't have enough molecules to make an actual structure of DNA, but this is alright, isn't it?"
"Its grand," Carson faintly said.
"Can we take it to go show Aunt 'Lizabeth?"
"Aye, you can show her tomorrow."
"But Ethan or Keith might wreck it tonight! Can we go now?"
"Why don't we wait until Ethan and Emma get back, then we can all go," Rodney said. "I have to talk to your Uncle John about something anyways."
"Dad!" Keith yelled from the living room.
"I'll be right there!" Rodney gave Michelle a kiss on the top of her head and then headed out to his eldest children.
"What about Daddy's kiss?" asked Michelle.
"Oh, right." Rodney then turned back around and gave Carson a proper welcome home kiss that left them both a little breathless.
"Dad!"
"Rodney, what are you doing here?" asked John. He then saw the rest of the Beckett-McKay clan. "And you brought the family. What's the occasion?"
"I wanna show Aunt 'Lizabeth what I made today," Michelle stated.
"What did you make?"
She showed her uncle her DNA model.
"Wow, that's really good. I'm sure Liz will love it. Why don't you go show her, she's just inside."
Michelle smiled and hurried inside with the rest of her family following behind. "Aunt 'Lizabeth! Look what I made!"
"Wow, did you make that all by your self?"
Michelle nodded.
"Michelle! Come play with me!" Forrest, Elizabeth and John's eldest son yelled when he spotted his best friend. Michelle, after leaving her model in the care of her parents, went bounding over to play with the various toys strewn over the floor.
"Did she really make this all by herself?" Elizabeth asked when all the kids were off playing.
"Aye. I was just as shocked when I saw it as well," Carson answered.
"Did she have a guide?"
"Not as far as we know."
"Are you going to have her tested?"
Rodney and Carson exchanged a glance. They had both Keith and Kristin tested, but that had mainly been because Kate had insisted upon it. When she learned that Michelle was making models of DNA from seeing one model at the age of eight, they knew she would insist on getting her IQ checked as well.
"We may have to," Rodney finally answered.
"You know I am sorry that I refused to get involved," Elizabeth quietly said. There was no need to ask about what since everyone knew what she was talking about.
"We understand why you didn't want to. Kate was coming to you as leader of Atlantis, not as their aunt. And as leader, you really shouldn't have to get involved in the way that people raise their children," answered Carson.
"Besides, we've told the kids never to talk to Kate unless we've made an appointment for them," Rodney added. "She really has no right in telling us how to raise them."
"I really should talk to her about telling couples how to raise their kids. She was talking to John yesterday about how to tell Aurora about sex," Elizabeth said with a slight annoyed tone.
"Are you serious? That's, well, that just makes me glad that Keith and Kristin already know enough about that and will spout it off to anyone," said Rodney with a slightly sarcastic tone.
"I've noticed that," drawled John. "It sure makes any time with them interesting."
"We've talked to them about it, but we figure that at least they are coming to us with questions about this sort of thing," explained Carson.
"No, Aiden, that won't fly! Its too heavy for how much force we give it!" they heard Ethan say.
The adults all looked at each other. "He's how old again?" asked John.
"Six," Rodney answered, still shocked.
John clasped his shoulder. "I think you have a little brood of geniuses."
"I've had several requests from people to have Keith and Kristin work with them to learn certain aspects of their job," Elizabeth explained.
"Are you serious? Sort of like an apprentice?" Rodney asked.
Elizabeth nodded. "I didn't want to say anything to you, but I think that since we don't have any higher education, and unless you want them to go to earth for years, a place where they've never been, this would probably be the best system. I've been talking to the other parents and it really all depends on you two since your children would be taking advantage of this system first."
"What about Aurora?"
"She seems content with the Athosians for right now. She's learning about the native plants and the best ways to get the most out of them. We think she's going to study botany when she comes back."
"We'll think about it and talk with Keith and Kristin," Carson said.
"Daddy! Look, I made a model of the phospholipid bilayer!" Michelle shouted as she ran up to Carson.
"Wow, you sure did."
"I blame you," Rodney told Carson.
"What for this time?" he asked.
"Phospholipid bilayer? What is that?" he asked.
"Its the type of membrane that surround the cells in your body," explained Michelle.
Everyone stared at her. "How do you know that?" asked Elizabeth.
"Daddy," she simply said before going back to play.
"Okay, that's it. She's coming to my lab tomorrow and I'm teaching her some real science," Rodney stated.
"I really don't think she'll be interested," John said. "Whenever I'm trying to teach her something, she always brings it back to something biology related."
"I was trying to get them all interested in science!" Rodney whined.
"Biology is science and be careful what you say," Carson said with a look to his husband.
"I don't see what the big deal is. You already have one kid who's interested in what you do," John supplied.
"Yeah," said Rodney with a look of pride in his face. "I'm still his hero."
"At one point you were superheroes," Elizabeth said with a smirk.
Rodney glared at his friend. He was about to issue a retort when he saw that Emma was asleep over the toys she was playing with. "We'd better get back and put our little devils to bed."
After dragging their children away and saying their goodbyes, the Beckett-McKay's went back to their rooms with Emma in Carson's arms and Ethan in Rodney's.
"We really need to put you on a diet," Rodney told his youngest son. "You're getting heavy."
"I'm a big boy," was the half asleep reply.
"That you are," Rodney replied as he placed a kiss on the top of Ethan's head.
After making sure everyone was in their bed, Carson and Rodney collapsed on the couch.
"What are we going to do about the kids?" asked Carson after a few moments of rare silence.
Rodney was quiet while he thought of the answer. "I do like this apprentice idea. I'm not sure how I could handle it if they went to earth for college let alone how they would handle it. Maybe there is some advanced tutorial in the computers. They one they have now is advancing with them and there really doesn't seem to be a limit to the amount that it will teach them."
Carson nodded. It was by pure luck that they discovered that Atlantis had a teaching program in its computers. There was no need for instructors since they could learn it all from the computer. They did have some additional lessons with various people around the city, but that was more to learn knowledge from earth than anything. "Maybe we can program the lessons to be more specific to the area that they want to study."
"I'll get someone to look at that tomorrow," said Rodney as he stood up. "Right now we're going to bed."
A few hours later Rodney was almost asleep when he felt a small hand shaking him. "Dad!"
"What?" he asked as he opened his eyes to see a worried Michelle standing there.
"Are you mad at me?" she asked.
"What? Why would I be mad at you?"
"Because I like learning what Daddy does all day," she answered.
"Come here," Rodney said as he pulled up the comforter to let her in. Michelle quickly climbed in and snuggled up to her dad. "I could never be mad at you for wanting to learn. Never."
"So I can learn more about cells?" asked an eager Michelle.
"Of course. But you might want to ask daddy, not me."
Michelle nodded and snuggled deeper into her dad's embrace.
"You're staying here tonight I take it then?" he asked and received a small head nod in response. "Well then," Rodney said before snuggling right back. "Goodnight."
"Goodnight."