A Friend
A/N: Written for the 2006. ficathon. Request 21: McKay/Cadman with jealous!Elizabeth. Issued by GrooveKittie. Wow, I have nothing crazy to write in the Author's Note! Oh, this is a "Dear Diary" moment!
Disclaimer: I own this muffin that I am eating. But of all the things I do not own, I do not own SGA. Which sucks. A lot. (bursts into tears)
"You know, just because I'm smarter than you doesn't mean you have to blatantly deny it." Rodney's voice said though the hallway.
"DENY it?" Laura's voice yelled in return. "I'm flat out TELLING you, McKay."
"You know, of all the blondes I've ever met, I find you the least attractive."
"Thanks, McKay. Coming from you, that's a compliment."
Elizabeth smiled a little as she heard Laura and Rodney argue through the hallway on their way to the briefing room. Even after the whole ZPM and Caldwell incident, Rodney and Laura seemed to be stuck around each other somehow, even though the way they acted made it seem as though they would do anything to stay away from each other. She didn't mind it too much, after all, they were just colleagues. (Although she did get a warning from John that Rodney was still feeling weird about being around her. But at the moment, Rodney was treating her with as much respect as he could muster. Or the completely opposite. That worked too.)
She gave a nonchalant smile to the two of them as they made their way to the room as well, which Rodney noticed and returned. Walking into the large room with the shifting doors, they were greeted with the sight of John and Allison talking with their feet up and Teyla smiling serenely next to John, watching them quarrel.
Allison widened her eyes at Elizabeth and quickly lowered her feet. "It was his idea." She said defensively. Upon realizing that John wasn't going to put his feet down anytime soon, she rudely pushed him over on his chair, causing him to fall over on the floor, and then stand up again, grumbling as he sat down properly.
Elizabeth held back a laugh and sat down. What would people say if she started laughing like that? Rodney just gave them a look and sat down in a chair across from Elizabeth and was followed shortly by Laura, who was tagging along on their meeting due to the past weeks events. The only person missing now was Carson, who was probably coming from the infirmary after spending the last few days helping Colonel Caldwell.
The sudden silence in the room was broken by Rodney. "So, are we starting soon?"
"Just waiting on Carson." She answered calmly. Ronan had excused himself from the meeting, telling them that he would prefer to spar instead.
Carson walked into the room, still wearing his lab coat.
"Carson." She said, smiling at the doctor who took the empty seat next to Allison.
"Elizabeth." He replied, acknowledging her as he nodded to the rest of the room.
"So, let's get this meeting underway. Rodney, have you made sure the failsafe is back in place?"
"Of course. I've also gone though the pain of making sure that no one can get close to the ZPM fail safes again, so that we don't have to deal with this kind of thing in the near future." Rodney said, with a bored look on his face, as if saying it was like kid's play for him and was expecting some praise.
"With my help." Cadman said, proudly.
"I hardly call 'watching over my shoulder and annoying me' helping."
"I did PLENTY while I was with you!"
"Oh please."
Elizabeth cleared her throat loudly, bringing the two back to the briefing room to continue with the meeting. "Carson, how is Colonel Caldwell feeling?" she asked, inwardly wincing at the fact that it still felt extremely weird calling the Colonel by his first name. Maybe she'd never get used to it.
"Fine, after the removal of the Goa'uld, we've done a check to make sure there were no, erm, missing parts of his body and so far we've found nothing out of place." He said, looking at Rodney as he said it. "He should be ready to head off by tonight." He said, looking at Rodney as he said it.
Rodney rolled his eyes.
"I've also haven't found any other personnel on Atlantis or the Daedalus to have any traces of Goa'uld."
"I've been meaning to ask." John said, speaking up. "Why didn't we do that in the first place?"
A long silence gripped the room.
"Maybe we can forget I asked."
"Teyla, are the Athosians doing alright rebuilding the camp site?" asked Elizabeth in an attempt to steer the conversation away.
"Yes, they are quite used to rebuilding now." Teyla said, smiling.
The meeting went on as usual. Like every other meeting they'd simply talked and shared what had gone that week. Before anyone had noticed it, Time had escaped out the back door and they were all filing out, happily chatting to each other as they made their way to the mess hall.
Smiling, she looked to her left, expecting to see Rodney standing there, smiling at her, expecting to follow her to the mess hall and suddenly realized he was missing from his usual spot after meetings and was bickering with Cadman as they went out the door. She suddenly got struck by a feeling of loneliness as she watched everyone file out the doors, leaving her standing alone in the room. As leader of Atlantis, she usually didn't hang out as much as everyone else did, but usually Rodney had been left behind too, due to his lack of socializing with anyone in the first place.
She supposed it was that reason alone that Rodney and herself had become so close. Always being left out of the usual group, they'd started talking with each other. About anything. Even if it was something unimportant. She had never realized how dependent she had become of him.
Sighing, she walked out the doors and headed for her office.
Lunch had been particularly unsatisfying today, Elizabeth thought to herself as she walked through the halls. The food had seemed rather stale in her mouth and she couldn't bring herself to eat it all. Especially when Rodney and Cadman were sitting right in front of her, chatting like they were the only people in the world. Watching them made her feel sick to the stomach for some reason.
And she really didn't know WHAT reason… Maybe she was still just a little bit upset from having no company at the lunch table.
A little bit? You're jealous. Her consciousness teased at her.
No… that was impossible and at the very most very improbable. She laughed at herself. How funny is that? The Leader of Atlantis feeling jealous? That was bound to get a joke or two if it was even plausible.
Still laughing to herself, she walked by a lab that had several scientists working in it, obviously lacking more colleagues due to it being lunch time…
The Atlantean door clearly stood half open, a problem which Rodney had been complaining about for weeks, but never finding the time to fix. Several words drifted into the hallway, calling Elizabeth in as she heard her name in the fray. She stopped halfway through passing the door idly by and against her better judgment, walked closer to the door, avoiding the crack, lest she be seen.
"Oh come on. Dr. Weir is a perfectly normal human being, of course she probably has a boyfriend."
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. Smartest people in the world, yet the only thing they seemed to talk about was gossip. Disappointing would be the appropriate word here…
"What about Dr. McKay?"
"Isn't he dating that Cadman girl? Sure seemed like it. I mean I have not seen him without her for the past week."
Elizabeth ground her teeth in what she hoped was defense for her friend rather than jealousy.
"Even in the lab?"
"Even in the lab."
Oi, wait for it… yep, it was definitely turning into jealousy now.
"I always thought he fancied Dr. Weir."
The change in conversation drew Elizabeth in more.
A small laugh came from inside the lab. "Yeah, wasn't it kinda obvious at first? 'Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Elizabeth.' All he ever talked about really. Everything had to go right for her royal highness." (Elizabeth bit her tongue at that jab. Those scientists were about 2 minutes away from being fired.) "Suppose he got over her. Her being leader and all."
Enraptured with the talking inside the lab, Elizabeth didn't notice the shuffling of footsteps heading in her direction.
"'Lizbeth?"
"Rodney!" she yelped as she turned around to face the scientist. Her back thudded against the cold metal of the Atlantean wall as she tried to lower her blood pressure back to normal.
"Sorry, didn't mean to erm…" He trailed off as he peeked into the lab whose personnel had suddenly mysteriously vanished out of the other door. "What were you doing?"
"Oh I was just uhm… Well… I was just…"
"Yeah?"
"I was just.. checking the doors you've been complaining about for some time now."
"Ah."
Elizabeth cringed. With that small syllable, she could tell he was not at all convinced but willing to let it slide. The fact that he was letting it slide just meant he was going to ask later. "Where's Cadman?"
"Cadman? Oh, she's in her room, packing her bags for the trip back home. She uh.. she also went to see Carson." Rodney said, rolling his eyes.
Weir ground her teeth at the little resentment Rodney was throwing at Carson for getting Laura. If this wasn't jealousy, she didn't exactly know what was.
"Well, I'll… I'll see you around." Elizabeth said awkwardly, inching away from the scene.
And so ended the last conversation they would have for the next 4 or so days.
It was pretty late when Elizabeth was sitting on her bed in the vast room that was hers reading a book when that odd blip indicating someone was "knocking" on her door sounded off.
Walking up to the doorway, she slid her hand over the console, not bothering to check who it was before.
"Elizabeth."
Elizabeth stepped back a little, acknowledging the scientist. "Rodney, what are you doing here?"
"Oh, just, erm, passing by." Rodney shifted awkwardly in his standing position. "Look, Elizabeth, have you been avoiding me?"
Elizabeth emitted a noise that sounded like a strange combination of a laugh and a nervous cough. "Avoiding you? What makes you think that?"
"… Other than the face that the last time I've talked to you was half a week ago?"
She let out an exasperated sigh. "I've just been… busy." She cringed inwardly at the lameness of the excuse.
"Elizabeth, we haven't had a crisis for almost a week now. Not that I'm complaining or anything." His shoulders slumped a little. "I was just wondering what I did wrong."
"You didn't do anything wrong."
"Right, that's why you've been avoiding me for the past couple of days."
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. It was as if no matter which direction she wanted to go, she still ended up at the starting point. But what was she supposed to say? I'm completely and obviously jealous at the amount of time you've been using up with Cadman, so I've been camping out in my room? That didn't sound too appealing to tell him. Or anyone for that matter. "It's fine Rodney, really." She heard herself saying, in a reassuring but not completely honest tone.
"I think I have a right to be concerned if one of my friends is avoiding me."
Curse Rodney and his stubbornness, she thought furiously to herself. Even John would have gotten the hint and walked off by now. "I… I don't really want to talk about it." She said, honestly.
"Is it because of Laura?"
Her breath hitched as he hit the nail right on the head. According to the look on Rodney's face, he knew he had done so.
"Elizabeth…" Oh great, an entrance into a long lecture. "I don't know what you think I've been doing with her, but I assure you, It's probably not what you think."
"Shouldn't you be telling her this?"
Rodney gave a half-laugh. "She isn't the one who's been avoiding me." His hand reached up to scratch the back of his neck. "Well to be honest, I do like her, but she's already with Carson so she's already out of my range." He sighed and stared at the floor.
Elizabeth suddenly felt extremely guilty for being such a bad friend when Rodney had been depressed. Forcing a smile, she said "Want to get a coffee?" She stepped across the threshold of the door and let it slide shut.
"Hm? Oh yeah, sure." He smiled at her and they walked off together towards the nearest coffee machine.
So yeah, she was jealous. But being jealous doesn't mean you stop being a friend. Maybe, in the future, she might get her own chance, but for now, she was fine being the person he came for to get comfort.
A/N: A forced ending. Yep. Yeah, the deadline is tomorrow and I didn't have a good ending in my head anyway. So I just put my fingers on the keyboard and they wrote the end. So all blame for crappy writing goes to my fingers. Not me. I actually was planning more of a McWeir-ish ending with fluffy kissing and all, but its SUPPOSED to be a McKay/Cadman with a Jealous!Weir so… yeah. Well now I can focus more on A Promise for a Week. Which I haven't been working on. (whimpers) don't hurt me..