Chapter 17. Architect of My Own Sunset.
"I mean it, Rodney. I'm done."
"Done?" Rodney motioned at Pippin to get back to folding the laundry, and hoped that Pippin would understand he meant he'd be back to helping any minute. "Wait, what do you mean, Radek? Done?"
"Do you still have a position for me at Area 51? Anna will be eighteen in a few years—I'll try again then."
So that explained the sudden desire to work for Rodney again. It had nothing to do with his sister, with whom Rodney knew he'd been staying for at least two of the last five. Rodney didn't press for any further details why he had to wait that long. Rodney considered himself fortunate he didn't have to know what that would have been like. He wondered, knowing Pippin had written a letter to him five years ago, what Stephanie's reaction would have been had Rodney come knocking on her door to meet the kid back when he was younger.
"I don't know," Rodney said, even though he knew exactly which of those obsequious toads was getting rid of first. "I mean, yeah, yeah. There's space. Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure."
And Rodney thought he was depressed. Actually, he obviously was. They were both on the same level of out-of-his-mind, because they hated each other. And, yet, working together again was probably among the better things that could happen at the moment.
"When?" Radek asked.
Rodney sighed and leaned back in his chair, casting a glance toward Pippin sloppily folding a t-shirt in half. Usually, Rodney would fold his own clothes, and Pippin would fold his. Talking on the phone and folding laundry was a more difficult proposition than his practice allowed.
"Well, we're going to be in Colorado Springs next week." Dinner with John and Carson was included. Rodney was winning on all counts right now—though, winning what wasn't as easy to articulate anymore. And it didn't feel as good as he thought it would.
"Colorado Springs?" Radek suddenly sounded much more interested. "You're going to be in Colorado?"
"Not for work, no. Just for vacation for a few days. "
"Oh. Well, can I meet you there?"
Radek Zelenka… wanted to meet Rodney outside of regular work hours? "How terrible is it over there?"
"It's three in the morning, Rodney, and I'm talking to you. What do you think, it's good?"
"I thought the time zones just happened to work out." Never mind that he'd talked to Zelenka way more in the last five or six weeks than reasonable. Granted, it was only three times, but it was three times more than he thought might happen otherwise. And it was twice more than he'd talked to Sheppard, and three times more than Elizabeth. Nobody really picked up when he called.
Radek sighed, and Rodney heard him say some more words that he decided a few seconds later weren't English. Then, he continued. "I love it here, really. It's home; of course, I love it. But… but what's the point, you know? If I could be working on the things we work on? Why am I here if there's nothing but work?"
That was, probably, one of the downsides about almost everyone on Atlantis. Nobody seemed to have anyone. Well, Carson had his family, a mother he was quite close with. Most everyone else seemed orphaned or estranged. Not a lot of letters going to someone who actually cared. Rodney was surprised to find out he wasn't the only one who recorded a message to anyone, or to someone they weren't actually talking to.
Turned out, he had someone who might have been devastated to find out a few years later he was gone.
That someone was currently flinging Rodney's boxers across the room—apparently shocked that underwear were in the laundry basket at all.
Ignoring Radek for the moment, Rodney held out an arm in a question. "What the hell, Pippin? You never seen laundry before?"
"Sorry." Pippin went to gather the apparently offensive piece of clothing.
"What was I saying, Radek?" Rodney sighed into the phone speaker.
"I don't know…" Radek mumbled. "What was I saying? Do you know how expensive flights are to Denver from here?"
Rodney had no idea. He'd never purchased a trans-Atlantic flight for himself. He was usually just given a ticket, and no one bothered to even acknowledge that he didn't want to go in the first place. "Well, we'll be in Colorado on Friday. I'm sure Carson would put you up at his place."
"Can you believe it's been five weeks?"
"Not really."
"Me, either." Radek sighed, and then said something else. Probably something obscene. "Well, okay, I will call Carson, then. See if he has space on a couch for me. Rodney?"
"Hm?"
"Thank you. You know, for the job."
"You must be drinking."
Radek chuckled. "I think I've been drinking since I got here."
"You think?"
The pause was not cheering. "Well. I had some catching up to do, you know."
"Okay, well… okay. You're welcome, I guess? Call Carson, then get some sleep."
They managed to say goodbye and hung up. Rodney wondered if Radek would remember having that conversation in the morning, and then remembered one of the things Radek had told him when they first came back was that he had always been an extremely-high-functioning alcoholic. It sounded like a joke at the time—but now Rodney wasn't convinced.
"Is he okay?" Pippin asked, fishing around in the basket for more of his own laundry.
Rodney didn't say a word about the mess of a t-shirt Pippin had tried to fold for him. Not that Rodney was all that much better—folding t-shirts apparently required intense training and a sort of coordination Rodney didn't have, at least t-shirts of his size. Pippin's were easier. "Uh, yeah. I think so. He wants to come work at Area 51."
Pippin smiled. "He can help me make a Czech club at school probably, next year?"
Rodney didn't know what to say to that, except that seemed like a supreme waste of everyone's time. "Sure," he said, instead. "I mean, you'll have to ask him about that. But I don't see why not." He paused, matching two socks together that he wasn't sure were strictly from the same pair. "You mean he'd be teaching?"
"Kind of. Not really."
"I'm sure that will go well…" Rodney's sarcasm was probably misplaced. He was working at a university—at least, until he wasn't. Never really got to ask how that went, but he was willing to bet it was going terribly. Rodney wasn't a good teacher, either. "He's apparently going to meet us in Colorado Springs when we go see John, Carson, and Elizabeth this weekend."
"Yeah. That's cool."
Pippin had already asked if they could maybe stay a little bit longer, and Rodney had already said no. He was already taking off Monday for the plane ride back. He'd taken off three or four days in the last five weeks, and that was probably more than he'd ever elected to take in his life. Having a kid wasn't doing very much for his work ethic, that was for sure.
And having an upcoming three-day weekend was somehow not helping at all, either. Whenever he planned to take an extra day off in the week, it was like the rest of the days were completely lost to him.
It didn't help that he hated work these days.
#
"What a small airport."
"It's regional." Rodney didn't know why he'd said that. He was sure there were some large regional airports. Either way, he was not complaining about the direct flight from Las Vegas to a sleepy airport in Colorado Springs. "Why did I think black luggage was a good idea? Everything is black."
Pippin grinned, his gaze glued to the baggage carousel. "Should've got something floral."
That wouldn't have worked, either. For other reasons.
Predictably, Rodney got distracted, and Pippin saw their suitcase first. Since they were only here for a weekend, they shared a suitcase. In fact, even one suitcase was probably too much. There was hardly anything in it, so anything that had been folded was probably in a pile in whichever direction gravity dictated. Pippin had wondered earlier in the day if artificial gravity and power generation would ever reach a point when it would be a feasible luxury to have the "bottom" of one's suitcase always on the back.
Rodney didn't think so, but he remembered thinking that storing a terabyte of data would be ludicrous.
Pippin pulled their suitcase up before dropping it onto its rollers. It wouldn't last a few trips with treatment like that. But, hey, as long as Pippin was carrying it, Rodney didn't care.
"Will we be going to, um… the base?" Pippin kept his pace close to Rodney's even though it was clear he could hardly wait to get outside.
"Probably not. This is a vacation, not a work trip." Even though they were all on weekends, it was still weird how he was getting used to them. "Just having dinner, going to a few parks, whatever it is someone wanted to do."
"Oh. Cool."
Colorado Springs' airport was nothing like Denver. It was hardly a few minutes before they were out in the sunlight looking for John's car. He'd said it was a black Blazer—Rodney had no idea what that looked like except that it was big, probably.
He didn't have long to wait.
It was stupid how happy he was to see Sheppard get out of his car, wave to them. He walked around to the back and pop the hatch for them. Pippin's smile and steps toward the old black car were obviously restrained, but he shouted a greeting that gave away just how excited he was to see him. The hug gave a lot of it away, too.
"Hey, Pip—whoa. Hey. Good to see you, too, kid." Sheppard chuckled and returned the hug a bit awkwardly, a pat on the back and it was over as quick as it started. He glanced at Rodney, looking a bit confused. Apparently decided to just accept it, as he gripped Rodney's arm for a fraction of a second in what might have passed for a hug between them. "Hey, Rodney. How was the flight?"
"Oh, you know. Terrible." Rodney tossed his and Pippin's suitcase into the back. "Thanks for picking us up and everything."
"Oh, please." Sheppard slammed the hatch. "Happy to."
"Nice car." Pippin patted the car's shining black side, walking around to the passenger door. He crawled into the back, settling on the bench.
Everyone loaded into the car quick enough to hear Rodney's incredulous response. "Really? Nice?" It might have been nice, but it was old.
"It's an '85 Blazer, Rodney; it's a great car. Classic, actually, not that you'd know anything about it. And." Sheppard grinned, shifting the car out of park. "It beats the hell out of walking."
For some reason, Rodney was sure Sheppard would have something more sportsy. He couldn't argue about the power in this vehicle, though, pressed back against the vintage fuzzy seats as Sheppard gunned it down the street towards the mountains in the near distance. Even though Colorado wasn't his first choice, either, it was definitely in his top five. Raising Pippin here would be way better than Las Vegas.
"How are you liking Las Vegas, Pip?" Sheppard asked, glancing in the mirror once for eye contact.
"It's okay." Pippin shrugged, and watched out the window. A small herd of antelope seemed to make themselves at home in the Colorado Springs airport's front lawn. "It's already hot, and it's only barely summer. But, I think if we get pool passes, it won't be so bad. Are we still going to do that, Dad?"
Sheppard shot Rodney a grin. He seemed to enjoy the address, even if it was hardly new, much more than it deserved. Maybe he'd just forgotten. For Rodney, he'd almost forgotten the days Pippin would call him Mere. He was Dad now, so much so that it was almost odd to think of Pippin calling him anything else.
"Yeah, that's the plan." Rodney held onto the handle in the vehicle's door as Sheppard took a left onto the road away from Colorado Springs. Technically, Sheppard lived in Fountain. Not on base, which made Rodney wonder if Sheppard sometimes thought about quitting, doing something else. Maybe there was some way to be a helicopter pilot for a living… They had tours at the Grand Canyon like that.
"Sounds pretty nice," Sheppard said. "Hey, you guys will never believe what Carson's doing right now."
"Right now?" Rodney asked, but didn't get to guess. It wouldn't have been guessing.
Pippin beat him to it. "Is he picking up Radek from the airport?"
Sheppard frowned at the mirror. "How'd you know?"
"He's my newest assistant," Rodney said.
Sheppard looked deflated at his surprise being ruined. "Yeah. In Denver. Looks like we're both gonna have house guests for the weekend—and company to Red Rocks tomorrow if you still want to go hiking a little bit."
"Yeah. Can we?" Pippin looked at Rodney in the mirror as Sheppard took a left.
"I don't think it'll kill me."
John laughed, drumming his fingers on the wheel. "That's the spirit. Hey, I bet I could get my hands on a couple of kayaks if we wanted to go up to the reservoir. It's great; you've gotta see it."
"Kayaks?" Pippin looked like his eyes were about to pop out of his head from the excitement. "Can you? I've never been kayaking."
"Yeah, sure."
Pippin hissed a celebratory affirmative in the backseat, while Rodney tried to remember if he'd ever been kayaking before. Probably not. How hard could it be?
Sheppard took them to his favorite pizza place near his house. Rodney was surprised just how little work came up. It was summer, after all, and Pippin was decidedly trying to take a summer vacation even though history kept getting in the way. Rodney would have liked a summer vacation—in fact, he didn't know why he hadn't just taken a three- or four-month sabbatical when this whole thing started. Maybe he should look into doing that now.
How did that possibly sound like a good idea?
Pippin gushed about the second book in the series about god-children he loved, and Sheppard talked about a novel he just finished by some author Rodney wouldn't have known even if reading was something that interested him.
"You might like it, Pip. You can borrow it, if you want. A little heavy on the fantasy politics, but it's no War and Peace." Sheppard paused to eye Pippin as he took a bite of pizza. "I assume you haven't read that."
Pippin smiled and shook his head, but otherwise said nothing.
"Okay." Sheppard leaned back in the booth across from them, looking from Pippin to Rodney as if trying to put some puzzle pieces together. "I'm just trying to guess what someone as smart as your dad would do if, you know, he liked to have fun."
"Excuse me?" Rodney sputtered. "I have fun."
"Occasionally watching Jeopardy does not count, McKay."
Rodney might have been inclined to defend himself and his ability to be a normal human being, but Pippin seemed to have that area covered. "We've been watching Star Trek."
Sheppard turned his head to look at Pippin from the corner of his eye. "I don't know if that qualifies…"
"Well." Pippin eyed the last piece of pizza between them for a long moment until Sheppard gave the pan a flick in his direction. Pippin took the last piece. "I like to have fun, and I think it's fun."
"Fair enough." Sheppard spread out on the bench and looked toward the door and the falling night outside. "So, what do you say to an early night tonight, and then a full day tomorrow?"
Somehow… well, in comparison with a lot of other things, it sounded great to Rodney. Pippin did his best to sell everyone on a late-night movie, but Sheppard shot him down with the promise they could watch a movie tomorrow, too. Made Rodney wonder just how early they were going to be getting up.
Five. They got up at five the next morning. Rodney was pretty sure it didn't matter how early a night was—that was never an acceptable time to get up in the morning. Sheppard dragged both of them out of bed—well, Rodney out of bed, and Pippin off the couch—and to the table where they all muscled down some overcooked scrambled eggs. He'd apparently bummed a few kayaks off of Carter they had to pick up, and they were on their way before the second cup of coffee was finished.
It was too early for Sam, too. She'd put the kayaks outside and was supposedly still asleep when they arrived to get them.
Rampart Reservoir was over an hour away from Sheppard's house, and Pippin spent the whole car ride reading a thick book. Rodney was surprised just how much time could be filled with inane chatting that had nothing to do with work on the way. They stopped for another cup of coffee at the bottom of the mountain before heading up, and spent most of the time talking about what passed for hobbies. Rodney had become just short of a professional walker (the Las Vegas strip was just fun to look at), and didn't know whether to be insulted or not when John suggested he looked a bit… lighter.
The morning air was still and the reservoir in the mountains was glass when they arrived just after seven. Everyone strapped themselves into life vests—Sheppard told a horrifying story about the freezing mountain water shocking unintentional swimmers into paralysis—and shoved out into the lake. They spent almost four hours exploring the various corners of the reservoir, stopping for snacks on the shore once. It didn't take ten minutes for Pippin to declare kayaking his new favorite activity.
They met with Carson and Radek for lunch at a local favorite, Rudy's Barbeque, back in town. Most of the conversation was spent regaling Carson and Radek with their water-sporting adventures, and Radek insisting in some good-natured ribbing that he was proud of Rodney for even trying. Because, of course, he wasn't sure Rodney knew how to swim.
Rodney wasn't sure he knew how to swim, either. The conversation otherwise steered toward less insulting matters.
Carson and Radek were going to go pick up Elizabeth in Denver for dinner tonight. Everyone was a bit worried about her—even Radek said she seemed to be having a worse time than even he was. Of course, a statement like that led to a vague explanation of what had happened while he was in the Czech Republic. That led to a long story-swap about exes. Most of the conversation remained PG probably for Pippin's benefit—and no one pressed Rodney to talk about any of his for, likely, the same reason.
The five of them took a stroll in a park called Red Rock Canyon, and Rodney was disappointed to find that all his trekking around through the 'gate the past few years really had done nothing for his constitution. All the same, he was gratified to be dying from the exertion and altitude no more gracefully than Radek was.
Carson and Radek left for Denver, and hearing stories of the Las Vegas strip apparently inspired Sheppard to take them to their very own eccentric mountain town version in Manitou Springs. Minus the gambling.
They hadn't gotten back to Sheppard's house before Pippin decided that this Brandon Sanderson was his new favorite author. Sheppard agreed he was great, but he was going to give him a few more books before making any "rash decisions." They lounged around at John's house until Radek called that they should be on their way now. The three of them still beat them to the restaurant, anyway.
"I hope you like Italian," Sheppard said as he got out of the car.
Rodney didn't get a chance to answer for himself, but it didn't matter. He smiled when Pippin assured Sheppard that he, in fact, loved Italian.
Sheppard chuckled and headed toward the door. Rodney could see that as he looked at him and Pippin, he had somehow mentally lost track of exactly how many of them—six—there would be. "I'll go get our table."
"Oh, I see Carson's car!" Pippin pointed to the silver sedan pulling into the parking lot. Radek waved at Pippin as they drove by.
The rest of them walked in together to find that Sheppard had gotten them a round table in the middle of the restaurant. Rodney was surprised to see Elizabeth was in surprisingly good spirits, dressed fashionably and wearing lip and eye makeup. As a hello, she pressed her cheek to John's in one of those faux-kiss-things. Thank god she didn't do the same to Rodney.
"Good to see you again, too, Pippin." Elizabeth said Pippin's name, but she was looking at Rodney, however briefly, when she said it. "How's Nevada?"
"Kind of nice…" Pippin sank into his chair next to Rodney, looking to him.
Apparently, for support. "The school is literally just down the street, and there's a community sort-of rec-center-thing a few blocks away." Rodney bristled under the looks everyone was giving him, but he tried to ignore them. They were surprised, he was surprised—everyone should just get over it and accept Rodney had become pedestrian.
"I was going to take the summer off, but I want to see how much of tenth grade I can finish before school starts. Maybe…" Pippin shrugged and looked, again, to Rodney. "Maybe see if I can skip another grade?"
Rodney didn't get the chance to offer an encouragement before John jumped in with his own. "Ah, hell, I bet you can, easy." John squeezed Pippin's shoulder as he sat down beside him. "Look at your dad: ten types of genius."
Carson selected the chair next to Rodney. "And more than a few types of moron," he said with a wink.
"Hey!" Rodney yelped like he'd been hit, even though it was clear Carson meant it only in the friendliest way. "I'm—look, Radek's sitting at the table. Pick on him."
"Why would he need to point out I'm an idiot, Rodney? It's right there in my name. What was it? Fumbles McStupid?" Radek unfurled his napkin, almost hitting Carson with it, and slid it under the table.
"Oh, no, no, no, you do not bring that up," Rodney snarled past Carson.
Radek pointedly didn't look at him, but he seemed quite smug.
"My point was," Carson said, putting one hand on Rodney's shoulder and the other on Radek's, as though they might spring on each other at any moment. "My point, lads, was that even if you don't quite make the marks, it doesn't mean you aren't still smart."
Well, yeah, that was probably a good object lesson for a child.
"It sounds like you're looking forward to that?" Elizabeth asked, and Rodney was absolutely relieved that the conversation drifted every further from… well, one of his more mortifying moments, anyway. Many of them.
"Yeah," Pippin said, and it sounded like he meant it. "I mean. I like school. And… I mean, I'm nervous to go to a new school, but I think… I don't know, I think it might be cool to start over? I've been going to the same school my whole life. Everyone always knew me and my… hm. Well, it'll be nice to have something new."
"The chance to be someone different…" Carson mused quietly.
Pippin nodded. "Yeah…"
Rodney didn't like the sound of that… Pippin was fine just the way he was, wasn't he? Though, he couldn't imagine what it might have been like for Pippin at his last school. Rodney only went to college early—and, by then, his intellectual peers were capable of getting in their cars and driving away. From infrequent conversations about Pippin's life before, school had been something of a haven. His teachers liked him—he thought, because he was smart. If he got good grades, they'd treat him well.
But he didn't have any friends—his classmates were all older, and, at that age, gaps were hard to bridge. All the other guys' voices would have been changing while Pippin was still a little kid. As Pippin approached those early developmental milestones, the others would have felt like they were lightyears ahead.
And a mother at home who sometimes wished aloud he wasn't there must have only increased the feeling of isolation.
The conversation moved on, and Rodney found himself watching Pippin even though Pippin wasn't watching him. The urge to ask him if that was how he really felt was near irresistible. What else did he want to be, if not who he was now?
Rodney was so far from being a teenager, he couldn't remember.
Somehow, without his notice, Rodney ordered chicken parmesan. He didn't hear, but he bet Pippin wanted spaghetti. The conversation had shifted to favorite school subjects, with the usual suspects present and accounted for.
"I always liked history best," Elizabeth said with an almost-secret smile at Pippin. "But I understand you don't like history very much?"
Pippin shrugged. "It's boring. I like art best. I can't wait to have an actual art class with an actual art teacher." Hopefully, Rodney thought, an art teacher that would never tell him he had no sense for it. He would personally make it his mission to terminally humiliate that teacher, if not get them fired.
"I loved math." John's announcement sent some shock around the table. "All through school."
Radek chuckled. "I was the same."
Rodney let the conversation go on without sharing his childhood interest in music.
"And you're all keeping busy, I trust?" Elizabeth continued, looking between John, Carson, and Rodney. "Saving the day and the future and whatnot?"
"Oh, of course." Sheppard looked at Carson and forced an obvious laugh. "Only the best of the best at the SGC, huh, Carson?"
"It's not his fault, you know. Twisted ankles happen." Carson still smirked, giving Rodney a quick glance that gave Rodney enough pause to wonder what he meant by it. "More frequently than you think, actually; and you seem to have impossibly high standards."
"I just thought I would never see the day I had someone on my team that makes McKay look competent by comparison," Sheppard said, and smiled at Rodney.
Everyone shared a chuckle at his expense, but they moved on too quickly for Rodney to insist that he couldn't possibly be that bad. In fact, dinner ended up being rather pleasant. They couldn't talk about Atlantis in public, so they simply avoided work altogether. The topics ranged all over from favored hobbies (Rodney would always be surprised that pigeon husbandry existed) to sharing everyone's most interesting stories. Predictably, John and Carson were not only fonts of variable experiences, but were excellent storytellers. Rodney just knew Pippin was imagining Sheppard as one of his space marines for all the war stories, but his rapt attention on tales of blood, guts, and surgery were… distressing.
Maybe Pippin would be a doctor? Wouldn't that be something…?
Somehow it turned out that Radek had more what he might call "field experience" in Communist Czechoslovakia than Rodney gave credit for, too. He didn't tell any stories, but he made comments that made Rodney wonder. They made him wonder a lot. Like about how good a shot he was. And if he'd killed anybody.
Probably not. Probably almost certainly not that last one.
But he wasn't sure, and that was the concerning part.
Rodney had no idea that Carson and Radek were both animal people—different types of animals, to be sure, but still. They liked animals. Elizabeth was writing a book. Rodney already knew about the two cars Sheppard owned—the Blazer and a three-year-old Mazda Miata he apparently got for a steal. Rodney's only regret about the conversation was Pippin's enthusiastic invitation for Radek to join all of their weekend excursions.
Somehow, without Rodney's notice, the conversation moved on to romantic interests. Rodney realized with blank horror that Pippin was closer to that stage of life than Rodney was to forty.
At this point, Pippin hadn't been around any girls his age since he'd been with Rodney. Good grief. Was he gonna have to talk to Pippin about that? What the hell was he going to say? Don't do what I did? Please, for the love of god, use protection?
"I," Radek said with a solemn air, "have sworn off romance for all time."
Do not become a so-called highly-functioning alcoholic?
Elizabeth's eyebrows raised in interest, but Radek wasn't looking.
John shrugged. "Nobody interesting for me, either."
"What?" Radek looked to almost jump out of his seat. "Nobody?" That was when he noticed Elizabeth was looking at him. But that may have been more because everyone was now looking at him. "I mean, there's more advantage on Earth, you know? Like, a, uh… wider command structure, for example."
Rodney wondered if exactly no one missed his quick glance to Elizabeth when he said it.
John did not miss it. He glanced at Elizabeth, then squinted. "I've been a little preoccupied with work and all the free time."
"That's the point," Carson said. "You have a lot of free time. What else do you expect to do with it?"
"History homework…" Pippin mumbled, and a few people chuckled. Pippin smiled and spun spaghetti on his fork.
"And what's that supposed to mean, anyway?" Sheppard glared straight past Elizabeth at Radek, and then he smiled with a knowing nod. "Oh. You mean Vala. Yeah, don't think I haven't thought about it."
Carson sighed and shook his head. Radek almost spat his beer into his salad.
Rodney frowned, almost flinging one of his pieces of chicken to the floor. "What the hell is going on here?"
"What going on is that Carson should call Cadman." Nobody probably missed the dare in John's eyes. The look that was probably flying right over Pippin's head, if he'd even been bothering to keep up with the conversation. The look that said I will if you will.
The look in Radek's eyes that said, oh my god, I will pay you.
"You guys did make a cute couple." Elizabeth smiled at Carson.
"It didn't work out. It may have something to do with our first kiss being through Rodney." Carson gave Rodney a glance before Rodney could even drop his spoon.
Pippin giggled. "What?"
Yeah, figured he wasn't actually ignoring what was happening. "I thought we made a solemn vow to never speak of that again," Rodney snapped. He gave Pippin a sideways glance, and he was between Carson and John for an explanation. Probably because it was pretty obvious Rodney wanted no part in that explanation.
"I remember no such thing." Even though Carson was obviously enjoying the torment, his smile was warm. "It was really nothing, Pippin; just your father gave me quite the passionate kiss about a year ago. And I'm sure it's seared indelibly in the minds of all who were there."
"Oh, it is." Radek chuckled, apparently trying to keep the amusement within the bounds of a fine dining establishment. No one else respected those lines. "It's, um… What is it? Karma."
"That's not how karma works," Elizabeth said.
"Who cares?" Rodney groaned. "It was traumatizing, and I never want to talk about it again."
"Oh, come on. It was shocking, yes, but I'm sure it wasn't the worst kiss you've ever had." The light in Carson's eyes was positively… dark. Enjoying the torment as much as Radek.
"That—that's beside the point."
John was laughing, and Elizabeth was trying to hide her smile behind a forkful of lettuce.
"Come on, can we drop it? Please? Not the least of which reason is because I'm gonna have to explain this another time, Pippin." He gave Pippin what turned out to be a glare, but Pippin knew it wasn't for him.
"I get it." Pippin went back to his spaghetti. Rodney was grateful at least someone was willing to take this conversation to a better venue, the brightening effect of Pippin's restrained laughter notwithstanding.
"That's fair—it's kind of a weird situation to explain," John said, and then his phone rang. He gave the table an apologetic look as he flipped his cell phone open against his head. "Sheppard."
Rodney noticed his own phone ringing, and pulled it up. "McKay?"
"This is Weir," Elizabeth said into hers.
Carson patted his pockets in distress for a moment. "I haven't got my bloody cell phone with me. What's happened?"
With a shrug, Radek slid his silent cell phone to Carson. Carson glared at the phone for a moment in confusion before Radek said with a grin, "Be careful of the international minutes." He had really taken to his "second fiddle" thing really well.
Rodney shook his attention from the table, from Pippin staring at him in unmitigated concern, and tried to listen. It was one of the 'gate techs from Cheyenne Mountain, telling him there was a situation on Atlantis that required his attention. Rodney had three questions.
"I'm sorry, there's a problem where?" Sheppard asked. So, there was one question answered.
"What's the situation?" Elizabeth asked. And the second question, though Rodney had the foresight to realize he didn't actually need that answer.
Rodney sputtered for a second, trying to find the words. "And what do you want me to do about it?"
He listened for a few more seconds before realizing no one really knew what they wanted or what they expected anyone to do about it, but it was apparently an all hands on deck sort of condition given the foothold situation in another galaxy connected with theirs by a bridge that he helped build. So, yeah, it probably required their attention. The Pegasus replicators having open access to the Milky Way was one of those residents in a rather large neighborhood called "Rodney's Worst Nightmares."
"Alright, alright," he said, cutting off the tech before he could get too far. "You realize I have my kid with me, right? Is he still cleared to be, you know…?"
"One moment, Doctor McKay. I'll check." The silence didn't last very long. "Pippin M. McKay, birthdate December 2, 1992. Yes, he's current."
Well, that solved one tiny, infinitesimal problem. "Okay, well. Let me see if I can catch a ride." Rodney gave Sheppard a sidelong glance.
Sheppard shrugged.
"Looks like dinner is over," Radek mumbled.
#
The six of them stood in the NORAD parking lot in silence, until Sheppard broke it with a sigh. Planting his fists on his hips, he looked up at the sky above them, now approaching midnight. "Well, this sucks."
"Tell me about it." Rodney looked for something to do with his hands, but nothing was forthcoming. He avoided everyone's eyes, even Pippin's—he'd been trying to get Rodney's attention for the last ten minutes as they left the base. Rodney was technically not allowed to tell him what had happened in the briefing he hadn't been present for. Though, in Rodney's estimation, there wasn't anything Pippin's knowing about Atlantis's destruction could do that knowing about its very existence hadn't.
The details were unimportant. The Asurans had rewritten their own base code and taken over the city. Even though O'Neill and Woolsey were still on the city, General Landry had orders to destroy it.
"I still say there's gotta be a way to fix it," Sheppard said. He tapped his fist on the side of his car, softly, maybe because he didn't want to damage it. Rodney had to admit that it was in great shape for being twenty years old. "Hypothetically, Teyla and Ronon would be more than willing to help, if we asked."
"That may be so," Carson said, "but those replicator thingamajigies you're talking about…"
"ARGs, for anti-replicator gun," Radek said. "They disrupt the link between the nanite cells. But getting our hands on the guns is less of a problem than actually getting past the 'gate shield on Atlantis."
"Well, I did write a backdoor to the shield program…" Rodney said, quietly. A realization had dawned on him somewhere he couldn't quite see. Maybe because he didn't want to. "A couple of years ago when Kolya stormed the city? So, I mean, it could hypothetically get you into the 'gate room."
Radek glanced at Rodney, then at Pippin. Perhaps he'd realized the same thing Rodney did. "I could modify the macro. Take us somewhere else in Pegasus."
John smiled. "Somewhere like—and, uh, just talking here—but somewhere like the Athosian settlement?"
"We'd need a jumper, obviously." Radek and John nodded at one another, like they'd done this before.
They weren't even going to ask him whether he was coming, because, of course, Rodney wasn't. He was glad they didn't, anyway—because even Rodney wasn't sure what he'd say.
"And some ARGs," John added.
"And," Elizabeth slid in with a slight smile, "someone to make sure Landry doesn't close the iris on us."
Carson shrugged. "Hypothetically."
"Oh." Sheppard chuckled, and looked at everyone in their small circle, even Pippin, in turn. "Of course."
Heaving a sigh not quite large enough to expel all the unpleasant feeling rattling in his ribcage, Rodney put his hands in his jacket pockets. "The jumper is in its storage area above the Stargate under guard. Doctor Lee's heading up the jumper research project here." They wouldn't send it to him in Area 51. Retrospectively, probably for the best. "I should be able to add one of your key cards to the authorized personnel list from his office. And, uh… me."
"You?" Elizabeth gave him a sideways glare.
"Me. It makes sense, right? You guys are all going back to the Pegasus galaxy, hypothetically, and I'm—" It took everything in him to not look at Pippin and let those words remain unspoken. "I'm not," he finished finally. "I'll hold the door open for you, so to speak."
John looked at Pippin for a fraction of a second before turning his attention back on Rodney. "Yeah, I guess, uh… that makes sense." He then looked at Radek, Carson, and Elizabeth. "Are we doing this?"
"Hypothetically." Radek shrugged and smiled. Looked actually excited.
"Uh, Dad?" Pippin whispered.
Rodney brushed his fingers over Pippin's arm, and Pippin took that as a request to wait, be quiet.
Carson patted his jacket innocently, and then looked at Radek. "I think I left my, uh… my keys inside." He started back toward the tunnel into the mountain.
Rodney pushed Pippin off ahead of him to walk beside Radek back inside, and John stepped up next to him. "Hey, Rodney, uh…" He fished in his jacket pocket and withdrew a ring of keys. "I think this is a bad idea. You can't be anywhere near here when we go."
That, too, was a good point. Rodney couldn't be court-martialed, but he could be arrested. That was just as good to Pippin as if he went running off to the Pegasus on a suicide mission.
"Let me get you the jumper codes at the very least," Rodney said.
"Then you get us the jumper codes, and get out of here." The keys to the Blazer, the Miata, the three-bedroom in Fountain just a few blocks away from the grocery store. John wouldn't be there; Carson wouldn't be here. Radek was where Rodney should have been. "My cars, my house. Stay as long as you want."
Might as well be Las Vegas. "What's the point of that, hm?"
"I don't know," John said, and folded the keys back into his pocket.
"Don't I need those?"
"Just trust me, Rodney. Get us access to the jumper and wait for me."
The ruse was that Carson remembered a few things he needed to get done, so they all waited around for him to do that. In reality, Carson was prepping some drugs to knock out their friendly night-shift 'gate tech with Radek. Sheppard and Elizabeth collected the ARGs, and Rodney finished up with the key codes about five minutes ago.
He brought Pippin to Doctor Lee's office where the kid did a good job of distracting Doctor Lee talking about Halo. Pippin listened with interest about the video game that Doctor Lee liked to play, World of Warcraft. Pippin had never played it, but had heard of it given its launch was only a year ago to apparently great fanfare.
"You know, it doesn't surprise me you have such a good kill-to-death ratio," Doctor Lee chuckled, and then stepped in a bit conspiratorially. "You need to give World of Warcraft a try. You might like it."
"Maybe… I guess now that we're back on Earth, multiplayer games work better. Obviously, on Atlantis, I was only playing the single-player games…"
"Yeah, hm, that's true, isn't it?" Doctor Lee tapped his chin with two fingers. "The point of massively multiplayer online roleplaying games being, largely, the massively multiplayer part."
Pippin looked at Rodney. He kept doing that; Rodney couldn't figure out why. It was midnight, and even Rodney was tired… Or maybe it was that Rodney wasn't talking. It wasn't just that he didn't have anything to add to the conversation.
It was going to be a long night. Sheppard, Carson, Elizabeth, and Radek were doing this insane thing—going off to another galaxy to save a city that was already far gone. If O'Neill and Woolsey were alive, it was a fluke and probably not for long. The Ancients were already dead, anyway.
And, yet, Rodney knew that under any other circumstances, he'd be going with them.
They were his best friends, and no one was really as capable of doing everything that needed to be done as he was. Radek was probably going to do alright. To Sheppard, Radek had proven his capability the first time Rodney went back to Earth for Pippin. Even Rodney had to admit that it was largely Radek who'd saved their lives during the incident with Rod.
Sheppard suddenly leaned into the door next to him. "Hey, Rodney?"
Pippin whipped around to look at Sheppard just as Rodney did. If the kid wasn't careful, he'd give away the game without saying a word…
"Yeah?"
"I'm just going to be a few more minutes. You can go wait in the car for me." Sheppard took the keys out of his pocket again, ringing like chimes until he dropped them into Rodney's hand. The look Sheppard gave him told him that he meant what he said literally. Wait in the car. Probably, though, not for Sheppard. Because Sheppard would be in another galaxy within the hour.
John had done everything he could. Rodney would be outside by the time anything actually illegal occurred, and Doctor Lee was a witness to Rodney's apparent lack of knowledge anything was even happening. As if Rodney wanted a witness for that.
"Sure. Pip?" Rodney put a hand on Pippin's shoulder and then smiled at Doctor Lee. "Thanks for chatting."
"Oh, sure." Lee grinned, and waved to Pippin. "It was nice talking to you, Pippin."
"Thanks for everything, Doc," Sheppard said with a slack salute to Lee, and left down the hallway.
Doctor Lee looked confused, but called after Sheppard, "My pleasure!"
"Dad?" Pippin whispered as they went in the opposite direction toward the elevators.
"Wait." Rodney hadn't meant to snap. He couldn't imagine a way this trip could have gone worse.
As they worked their way back out of the base at the pace of normal walking speed, Sheppard and company were loading into the puddle jumper, remote-dialing the gate, and getting out faster than General Landry could get to the control room. Or else they were all in huge trouble. He dedicated almost a minute to wondering if Radek and Carson would be tried here or deported or what.
They finally made it out into the parking lot, and the moon was bright overhead. They were sitting in the Blazer when Rodney finally turned to Pippin. "Okay, what is it?"
Pippin was quiet for a while, running his fingers along the edge of the passenger seat. He shook his head and whispered, "I'm sorry."
For several seconds, Rodney didn't respond. What was he supposed to say? He couldn't forgive Pippin, though, because that was an admission that it was his fault and there was something to be forgiven. And yet, if he tried to assure Pippin that it wasn't his fault, then that assumed there was something going wrong.
Rodney watched the tunnel for any motion. Turned his cell phone in his hand, because that was most likely how he was going to play his final part in keeping himself out of prison… and all that for Pippin.
Not that Rodney wanted to go to prison. Of course not.
He wanted to go to Pegasus, but he couldn't do that. So not going to prison was the next-best option. "There's nothing to apologize for."
"But if I wasn't here…" Pippin shook his head as his voice trailed away. He leaned heavily against the car door, his forehead in his hands. "I know you wanted to go, and you can't, because of me."
And all of that was true. Rodney couldn't even deny it.
Before Rodney could figure out what to do with that, his cell phone played that familiar chime. With a sigh, he flipped it open and pressed it to his ear. "McKay."
"Where the hell are you, Doctor?" General Landry's booming voice might have been a physical force pushing the phone away from his ear.
"In the parking lot?" Rodney tried to sound baffled, even though he figured it was child's play to know he knew exactly what had happened, probably only minutes ago. Rodney looked out the window at the stars on the horizon, and wondered just past which pinprick in the sky his friends were. He'd probably dedicate a little time to figuring that out tonight. "Waiting for Sheppard," he added, because the quicker he could finish playing this part, the quicker he could go back to Sheppard's house.
"Don't give me that, McKay."
"Look, if you have something to say, then just say it."
"You know exactly what I have to say."
"Let's assume, for the moment, I don't."
"Sheppard, Weir, Beckett, and Zelenka just stole a puddle jumper and went through the 'gate. You want to explain to me how that was able to happen?"
"Well." To be perfectly fair, Rodney was surprised Sheppard hadn't already been one of the approved personnel with a key to the jumper. "I assume that, as one of the top-three rated ATA gene carriers, Sheppard had access to the jumper, so—"
"He didn't."
"He didn't?"
"You know that, McKay," General Landry growled.
"Look, what do you expect me to do about this? I'm stuck on Earth with you, unless you've got another puddle jumper stashed somewhere." Maybe they did. Rodney would almost not be surprised. There certainly wasn't one at Area 51. He'd looked. "And even if we did, I don't think you're gonna lend me forty or fifty marines and a bunch of ARGs, are you?
The silence on the phone was so thick that Rodney could hardly see until Landry came crashing through again. "Don't leave town."
"For how long?"
"Until I can figure out how to criminally prosecute you."
Rodney scoffed, even though both of them had to know that General Landry didn't really mean that. SG teams had gotten away with so much worse before. Assuming it went well, the repercussions would be practically nil.
SG teams didn't usually have Radek Zelenka with them. That was bound to have some side effects…
"There's some incentive for you. Look, if I'd known, don't you think I would have been on the way to Pegasus with them?"
"Of course, you wouldn't, Doctor." Rodney could practically feel the spittle flecking the receiver on the other side. "You have a son you're raising on your own. You may be a raging narcissist, but I think even you wouldn't ignore that."
Rodney smirked, even though that was more painful than it should have been. "Thanks for noticing."
"Do not leave the state, Doctor. Definitely don't leave the country. Extradition's a pain in the ass, but it's not impossible."
Perhaps, both of them knew when they were beaten. "Alright. I guess I'll be at Sheppard's place, then. Hey, would you give Kevin Darving at Area 51 a—"
General Landry hung up the phone without another word.
"Call…" Rodney sighed, looked at the phone for a moment, and flipped it closed. "Ah. Yeah."
Landry was probably just angry—and rightfully so. General Landry could have been the smartest man in the US military, and he couldn't have done anything about what just happened. Sheppard was, if not the smartest, one of them. Nothing compared to Rodney, of course, but he at least tested well. Radek obviously wasn't stupid, no matter what Rodney liked to say. Carson knew his way around the SGC, and Weir was… well, something. Rodney tended to give her a pass when it came to practical scientific intelligence. She was a good leader, and that was something Rodney knew he'd never be.
Rodney set the phone aside, and looked at Pippin. "I guess we're gonna be in Colorado Springs a while."
"I'm sorry," Pippin whispered again. "If I wasn't here…"
"Pippin." If Rodney hadn't managed to communicate that this was exactly what he'd signed up for, then he wondered what he'd been doing for the past five months. "I don't think I can do this right now."
Pippin raised his eyes as Rodney turned the key.
The engine rumbled to life. It was a bigger car than any he'd driven before. He could see why Sheppard liked it. The vehicle practically pulled itself forward when Rodney let go of the brake. This thing was so different from the little Buick he bought in Las Vegas…
Pippin's eyes went back down to his hands in his lap.
Rodney didn't know what else he could say. Because, yes, he really wanted to be in Pegasus right now. No saving the world at the eleventh hour for him—at least not tonight. He couldn't have hidden that from Pippin; he couldn't have hidden it from anyone.
"But, I guess, we're going to, anyway. Look, just because I want to be in Pegasus right now doesn't mean I don't want to be here."
"How?" Pippin said, glaring at Rodney for a moment before looking back out the window in front of him. "Look, maybe we should call Jeannie or maybe Margaret—"
"Hang on just a second." It seemed like a perfectly reasonable reaction to Rodney, but Pippin shied away like his words had somehow been violent. "The only way you go live with my mother is if I'm literally dead." He worked for a few seconds to loosen his oppressive grip on the steering wheel. It was impacting him ability to drive. "Give me a break, here, Pippin; my best friends have just ridden off into the sunset on a suicide mission. And, yes, I'd like to be with them. But I don't know what else you expect me to do."
"You're the smartest guy on Earth!" Pippin's shout was surprising. Almost shrill and definitely painful. "This is stupid, Dad! You shouldn't be here with me—you should be in another galaxy right now. So, why not just call your—"
"You suggest I call my mother one more time—"
"Why not? You could go back to being what you're supposed to be, and I'll—I'll—"
"Okay, hold on just a second. What does that even mean?" Rodney knew Pippin wasn't finished with his sentence, but he'd been so wrong in the first half that it probably didn't matter. "What I'm supposed to be?"
"You know."
"If I knew, I wouldn't be asking."
Pippin shook his head, gulped back the anger and regret welling to a point even Rodney could almost feel it. "I know that… you're not like Mom. You know? You don't hate me at all, and… but you don't have to take care of me."
"What are you talking about? Yes, I do." Rodney didn't even have the time to think how that was likely to not come across the way he intended, because Pippin charged ahead.
"That's what I mean!" he said, turning, again, toward Rodney. "You have to; but you're supposed to save the world and do all this cool stuff, not go to the Grand Canyon or check my stupid history homework!"
"What's all this supposed to? I'm supposed to be here."
"But you don't want to!"
Rodney caught himself before he asked, Who cares what I want? It was too flippant, and Pippin wouldn't like that response, anyway. He had to deny it somehow in a way Pippin would believe him. It came to him after a few seconds. "Atlantis has been there for ten-thousand years. Given everything we've gone through, it'll probably be there another ten-thousand years. Same for the Stargates and, hell, even the world. It's gonna be there longer than I am—and it's gonna need to be saved more times than I'll be able to. But I've only got five years to do this."
"Five years? To do what?" Pippin hadn't stopped shaking his head, even as he rubbed his eye with the heel of his palm.
Rodney sighed and looked beyond the dark that seemed to stretch forever eastward over the empty foothills of Colorado, away from the mountains. Five years ago, Rodney had only barely been read in on the Stargate Program. Atlantis was still just a legend. He hadn't met Sheppard, had barely met Carter, and had no idea there was a kid in Toronto who would change his life one day. Looking back, it didn't seem like much. Looking back, it seemed like nothing.
Rodney didn't know if he really believed what he was about to say, but it was almost nice to think about. "Yeah. Five years. How old are you gonna be in five years?"
"Eighteen?" Pippin frowned at the window ahead of him. "Oh."
"I don't know if I can fix in only five years what—your mom so very thoroughly screwed up. Because if you think the best thing we can do here is just not hating you…" Rodney felt more than heard his voice trail away, and redirected. "I don't want you to go off to college thinking… or, you know, whatever, it doesn't have to… What I mean is, I don't want you to get out there on your own thinking you were only an inconvenience. A mistake."
"But I am."
Rodney slammed on the breaks, jerking over to the side of the road. It was too late for there to be any traffic. In fact, they were one of seven other cars he'd seen on the road. Both of Pippin's hands were on the dashboard, but he was staring at Rodney.
"Dad—what the hell? Are you trying to kill us?"
"There's—no—you're not."
After a short pause to untangle that, Pippin frowned. "Sure, I am. You can't tell me you meant for me to happen when you met Mom. I know you didn't."
Tearing his gaze away from Pippin in the dim dash lights, he took a breath. "Okay." Rodney sighed, wringing his hands on the steering wheel. "Okay, sure. I had no intention of you—I mean, a kid. I had no intentions whatsoever. What does that have to do with anything?"
"You don't want—"
"Oh, like you have any clue what I want, Pippin!"
"I do!"
"Okay, go ahead, tell me what I want." Kid couldn't even spell definitely right half the time. As if…
"You want to save the world. And that, I mean, you want to do important things." Damn. Okay, maybe the kid was a little more perceptive than Rodney gave him credit for. "You want to make important things and write important papers. You want to win the Nobel Prize for physics."
"Well, I can't do that on Atlantis…" Rodney mumbled.
"That's okay. Atlantis is more important than a Nobel." Pippin sighed and shrugged his shoulders. "Margaret was right."
"No, she wasn't." She wasn't ever right, actually. Rodney would put money on that, even though he was sure he was wrong.
"You're missing out on doing important stuff because of me. That's pretty much exactly what she said."
"The most prolific mathematician in the world had five kids and wrote proofs with a baby on his lap." Not that Rodney thought he could hold a candle to Euler on his best day… or maybe he did. It was hard to tell where his ego was at the moment. Either way, babies were worse than thirteen-year-olds. And if Euler could do it, so could Rodney.
Pippin was quiet for a while, leaning to look out the window while Rodney wondered how they hadn't seen any cars driving into Fountain while they'd been sitting here. At least, when he wasn't wondering how Pippin could have pegged him so perfectly. Because, yeah, he wanted to be important. He wanted to be indispensable. Being remembered like Euler would be amazing, but he'd be dead by then. He wouldn't care.
He cared about now, and being remembered now was more important than some hypothetical students in the future giving a damn about what some random physicist did in another galaxy decades ago. They'd have their own worlds to save, and their own prizes to win.
"You're perceptive for being thirteen," Rodney said, and cast a glance at Pippin.
He kept his gaze out the window and shrugged. "Not really. It's pretty obvious."
Was it? Well, Rodney had never really put any effort into subterfuge. Was he that obvious to everyone? "Well, anyway, it doesn't matter, because you're not wrong… but, you're not entirely right, either." Because he also wanted this. He wasn't sure how they were related, because Pippin was just about as insignificant as any other single human being on the planet.
But he was also much more important than any other single human being on the planet. It was a fact Rodney knew in his gut regardless of evidence. Kind of like his own little Nobel prize.
"It's possible to want two things that are at odds with each other, like wanting to be on Atlantis and wanting a Nobel. I'm your dad. Atlantis has four people out there right now smart enough to fix the problem or die trying—just like I would. But, unless I'm wildly mistaken about some facet of human biology, I'm the only one you have."
Pippin's smirk was clearly not amused. Rodney had learned that pretty quickly. Pippen enjoyed being condescended to just about as much as anyone else. He didn't notice until right now he'd largely stopped doing that. "I don't know what that has to do with anything."
"It's because you're important."
That, somehow, got Pippin attention, even though he must have figured that out by now. If he knew Rodney only did the things he thought were important, then, surely… A equals B equals C. Then he sighed heavily, shook his head a little, and leaned back on the window. "You'd still probably be in Pegasus right now without me."
"Obviously. I'd be a lot of things without you." And not all of them good.
One of them? Pretty damn miserable. Rodney couldn't say for sure what these past weeks would have been like without Pippin waiting for him at home every day. Someone to talk with about… well, usually video games and what was for dinner, but he wasn't as lonely as he could have been. People didn't usually answer his calls.
It was late. It was really late. Rodney could feel Pippin's exhaustion almost as much as his own. He sighed, and put the car back into drive. Didn't pull back into the street, though. "Look, I think we both know I don't know anything about being a parent. The best thing I have going for me is that I'm good at thinking on my feet, and…" And Pippin just deserved a good parent? It was an incentive. "Anyways, in theory, I'm happy to hear what you think I need to do to stop screwing up… but suggesting I stop being your dad? Seems kind of counterintuitive."
"That's not… exactly what I meant."
"I know."
"I just don't want to mess stuff up for you, or anything."
"Well…" For lack of knowing what else to do, Rodney reached across the car to pat Pippin's shoulder. Pippin looked at him when he did, but didn't say anything. "Nothing's messed up." No more than usual, anyway. But that had been true since long before Rodney knew about Pippin. Long before Pippin existed, probably. And less now that he did, maybe.
Pippin's half-smile and nearly imperceptible nod were likely as good as it was going to get. Rodney put the Blazer back in drive and crawled back onto the road. They drove the remaining ten minutes to Sheppard's house. Sheppard's was a quiet neighborhood, the streetlights only showing a cat crossing the street at five after one.
Rodney pulled into the driveway and wondered what, exactly, Sheppard had in mind when he told Rodney to stay as long as he wanted. If Sheppard died or was MIA in another galaxy, someone probably would come calling to close up the house and get rid of everything. Sheppard's next of kin. Did he have any of those? Should Rodney know something like that?
Rodney turned off the engine and looked at him. "Love you, Pip."
Pippin looked at him, halfway between an eye-roll and a sarcastic smirk. "Yeah. Yeah, I know." He sighed and pushed the door open to get out. Just before he closed the door, he said, "I love you, too."
#
The next day, Rodney called Darving at Area 51 to let him know General Landry was working on arresting him and he probably wouldn't be back as originally agreed. Darving had sputtered and asked questions. Rodney told Darving to take it up with the general for two reasons. First, it would tick off General Landry in the most harmless and least incriminating way possible. And, second, he knew Darving would certainly not take it up with the general.
Without a distraction, Rodney would be waiting all day, every day for a phone call that would never come, so he looked around the map of Colorado Springs for things to do. Pikes Peak, the Airforce Academy, maybe the zoo, except this time in better weather. Pippin seemed to have gotten past Rodney's disappointment, and Rodney must have hidden it well enough that it didn't come up again.
Two days later, Rodney got a call from General Landry. Not only did nobody die, but they'd somehow saved the day again. Without Rodney.
General Landry was still angry at everyone involved, but they were going back to Atlantis if that was what Rodney wanted. Out the window, Rodney watched Pippin skateboarding with a random neighborhood kid before answering. He seemed to be having fun.
Of course, they were going back to Atlantis.
