Baby Blues 1: Teething

A dissonant chorus of "Doc!"s reached Carson Beckett's ears just as he was settling down to his morning cup of tea.

With a heavy sigh, he replaced the teacup on the saucer and went out to see what new catastrophe had hit Atlantis, or more likely, McKay and Sheppard.

"Wha's tha matter noo?" he asked long-sufferingly as he pulled on a pair of gloves and stepped into the examination area where his most accident-prone team had gathered, but instead of hearing Rodney's whining or Sheppard's protestations he heard the pitiful whimpers of a baby.

Surrounded by his teammates stood Ronon Dex, Mairghread sitting in his arms, her face damp with tears and looking wholly miserable. Her adoptive parents and uncles looked petrified with worry.

"Something's wrong with her, Carson!" Mckay nearly shrieked before adding sarcastically. "What do you think is the matter?!"

"She won't stop crying. She's acting like she's hurt, but we can't find out where," Sheppard clarified.

Carson allowed himself a small smile. At last, something simple and normal. He took off his gloves and washed his hands before offering the pouting little girl his finger, which she promptly grasped and began to gnaw on.

The Scot nodded. "She's aboot six months noow," he stated and seeing the still blank looks on the others' faces, explained further. "She's gettin' her milk teeth." Still receiving blank looks. "Teething." ah, that got a reaction.

"Well, do something!" cried Rodney. Carson sighed, exasperated with the ignorance of the physics genius.

"Thair's nothin' to do, Rodney. It's a natural process. Ah cahn only ease the pain," he told them as he fetched from the medicine cabinet some infant acetaminophen which he had had one of the chemists make up for him. He handed the bottle to Teyla along with the instructions. "One dropper full every four hours."

"That's it?" asked Ronon, clearly not pleased. Ever since Teyla had "worked her magic" with him, as Sheppard had put it, he had clearly adopted the wraith child, and hardly let her out of his sight. He had claimed her, and intended to protect her.

"You cahn give her something to chew," Beckett said. "A finger, a cold chew toy…"

"Frozen mini-bagels!" Rodney interjected, everyone turned to look at him. "What? Jeannie said that's what she used when um, whatshername, the kid, was teething."

Sheppard raised an eyebrow. "And you remember this why?"

"Bagels? There aren't any bagels on Atlantis," one of the nurses scoffed from across the room.

"Yes there are—" Rodney began before Sheppard cut him off.

"She's from New York," he muttered. "She's convinced that real bagels don't exist anywhere else."

"My mum always used a drop o' whiskey on tha gums," Carson mused, before quickly adding, "But Ah doon't know how her body would react tae that, so better not."

"When our children are cutting their teeth, my people give them a hard sweet biscuit," Teyla offered, and Beckett snapped his fingers and disappeared into the backroom to return with a box labeled "teething biscuits".

"Whoa whoa whoa, how old are those things?!" demanded Mckay.

Beckett grinned, pulled one out of the package and banged it against the metal bedside table, where it made a resounding "clunk".

"These last forever, Rodney."

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Armed with teething biscuits, Tylenol, and to-be-frozen teething rings, the team returned to the nursery to help their baby (as she was now called) through what Beckett assured them was going to be a very bad week.

Having been given the cherry-flavored Tylenol, and Ronon's finger to chew on while they waited for the rings to freeze, Mairghread seemed, if not comfortable, at least content. Granted, she refused to be put down, and did not even want to practice her newfound skill of crawling, but on the whole, it was better than that morning.

"How's our little girl doing?" asked Dr. Weir as she walked in for her daily visit. "Someone said you rushed her to Dr. Beckett this morning in a panic."

"Teething," stated John simply. "And she's not a happy camper."

Elizabeth walked over to Ronon, who was still holding the baby on the couch. Maighread had gotten a hold of his thumb and was steadily making it very soggy. The others (excluding Rodney, who had returned to his lab) had tried to give the Satedan a break, but neither he nor his darling was willing to separate. Ronon was a very protective father, and Mairghread seemed to share a special bond with him. Either that, or she thought his fingers were the best for teething.

"Poor baby," she crooned softly and ruffled the wraithling's hair. "Teething's no fun is it?"

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"John, I want you to remind Ronon he promised to go with Zelenka to the mainland tomorrow," Elizabeth informed the colonel in her best no-nonsense voice over lunch.

"C'mon, Elizabeth, he volunteered for that 2 months ago," Sheppard protested. "Why don't you remind him if you're so dead set on it?"

Dr. Weir only had to give her friend a smile to make him understand—she didn't want to have to face the wrath of the Satedan.

"Why?" John whined, sounding remarkably like Rodney.

"Because other people here want to spend time with her, and that's not going to happen with Ronon around. Now, go make sure he's on that jumper in the morning."

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As John watched Ronon humming gently to a wailing Mairghread that evening, he though Elizabeth might be making a mistake.

He could understand the other members of the expedition, particularly the linguists and doctors, were absolutely fascinated by the wraithling and would give their right arms to spend time with her.

However, he could not minimize either the effect that the love of the child had had on the former Runner, or the way that now only he and Teyla seemed to be able to comfort her.

"Argh! Stop her! Can't you shut her up?!" shouted Rodney from his position on the couch where he was busily typing mission reports. Ronon turned from the freezer where he was fetching a new teething ring to glare fiercely at the physicist.

"You may leave if you find her cries troubling, Rodney," Teyla reminded him before the Satedan could come up with an appropriately ferocious response.

Her sore gums soothed by the soft and freezing cold ring, Mairghread stopped screaming and merely pouted and hiccupped. Her first tooth had broken through earlier in the afternoon, due to her accelerated growth, and Beckett predicted that at the rate she was going, she would have four teeth cut by the following afternoon.

The upshot of which was, she was tired, cranky, sore, and miserable, and only wanted to be held by Teyla or Ronon, but preferably Ronon, who had taken to humming what, in everyone's best guess, were old Satedan lullabies in his basso profondo, which rumbled and quieted the fussing child in a way that no one could match.

He was not going to like being told to leave his baby, even if it was just for one night, John thought unhappily.

TBC

Next: Baby Blues 2: Mommy's Missing