Baby Blues 2: Mommy's Missing

Cainwen: Hello everyone! Thank you to whoever nominated my stories for the Stargate Fan Awards. I am very flattered.

This chapter is a little weird, because it includes the perspective of Mairghread. Let me know if you like it!

Minor spoilers for "Echos"

Mairghread was absolutely despondent for the day and a half her 'daddy' (ie Ronon) was gone to the mainland. Even 'Mommy' (ie Teyla) and "Uncle" Carson, with whom she seemed to like to be because he spoke to her in Scots-Gaelic, could do little to comfort the little one.

Her teeth were coming in quickly and with a vengeance, as though annoyed they had been held back for 18000 years. Fortunately, it turned out that wraith "milk teeth", as Carson called them, were indistinguishable from human baby teeth—round and blunt, which was a relief for all concerned.

While Elizabeth may have hoped that Ronon's absence (quite unwilling absence) would allow the scientists time to interact with her, most did not want to contend with the screaming baby. Information as to the development of the wraith may be important, but so were their eardrums and their sanity.

Mairghread was slowly becoming more aware of her surroundings and the people that inhabited them. She had realized the certain people were nice to be around, while others weren't. There was noisy Uncle Rodney, who could be fun, but also yelled and whined a lot and hurt her sensitive wraith ears. Auntie Elizabeth was nice, but she didn't play much. There was Uncle John, who fubballowed her and chased her on the floor and had introduced her to the joys of mashed banana. There was Mommy, who sang softly and exuded a calm that Mairghread, extremely sensitive like her mother to the thoughts and feelings of others, appreciated. Strýček Radek spoke a funny, nice language to her, and let her play with his glasses. Uncle Carson spoke to her in her heart's tongue, the language of her athair and gave her hard cookies to gnaw on. Daddy held her in his strong arms and sang in his rumbly voice and fed her.

But he hadn't been there for a while and she was mad. She wanted her daddy, and no matter how much she tried this to tell her mommy and uncles and aunts, they wouldn't bring him.

And so Mairghread's cup ran-eth over when her daddy came back in time for lunch.

From between the bars of her crib, where she had been, she hoped, temporarily deposited so Mommy and Auntie Elizabeth could mash her banana and make her some hot cereal and a bottle, she caught a glimpse of her daddy's brown, tree-ish form.

Her initial smile turned to a frown. Her daddy was angry. Maybe he wouldn't play. Maybe he'd go away again.

But Mairghread soon realized that her fears were unfounded. As soon as Ronon picked her up, he smiled, not his customary feral grin, but a warm, fatherly smile.

"Hey baby," he rumbled, and Mairghread gave him a wet baby kiss. While Daddy had been gone, she had learned to really sit up and to crawl terrifyingly fast. She was also beginning to vocalize and was beginning to try and sing, in her own way.

"Hello Ronon," said Auntie Elizabeth, a bowl of mashed banana in hand. "How was the trip?"

Ronon grunted and, shifting his baby to one arm, took the bowl and spoon held out by the expedition's leader before settling himself on the sofa, armed with banana, damp rag, baby and spoon.

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A few days later, Ronon was taking a long run through the city's catwalks. Teyla had seen a babbling Ancestor, but Beckett said nothing was wrong, and the "shrink", as Sheppard called her, thought it was all in her head.

Ronon didn't believe either. There was something wrong. Teyla had headaches for one thing. And seeing babbling Ancestors wasn't normal. But every time Teyla saw something, there was always a very good reason. And she was the only one who hadn't been affected by the damaged wraith device.

All of this left the Satedan rather upset. Of course, "rather upset" for him was like a normal person about to go on a murderous rampage.

He couldn't do anything to help her. No mad scientists to track down. No enemies to kill.

Ronon didn't like feeling helpless.

So he did the only thing he could. He went to take care of his Mairghread, his…daughter.

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Now everybody was worried. Mairghread could feel it. Something was wrong. More unfamiliar faces came to take care of her when her mommy and daddy or aunts and uncles should have. Mommy looked tired and worried.

Then Uncle John and Uncle Rodney didn't come by at all one day, and Mommy had a bad headache—when she came near, Mairghread could feel the ghost of it.

But these new people were teaching her how to…what did they call it? Sign. That was it. They want her to use her hands to tell them what she needed. It seemed a bit strange to the older part of her, but soon she was able to demand Mommy, Daddy, food, and other things.

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Elizabeth Weir was wondering whether or not to tell the already more-annoyed-than-usual Col. Caldwell that a baby wraith was now residing in Atlantis. After all, she was supposed to keep Stargate Command aware of everything that was going on.

Nah, she decided after a moment's thought. The jealous colonel was willing to eliminate an entire whale species—he would not react kindly to the news.

No, she would just wait for their scheduled contact with General Landry—he was, at least, several million light years away and it would take at least three weeks before anything he threatened to do could be put into effect.

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Teyla fell back on the floor, her nose bleeding freely, before the image of the burned man.

Ronon quickened his pace to reach her, afraid for her. He had overheard Beckett talking about the dangers that the nosebleeds could forebode.

"Come on. Gotta get you to the Infirmary," he said as he helped her up.

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Mommy was missing. Something was wrong. Daddy knew it, and she could feel it from him, but her powers were still infantile and she could not get anything more than the vague feelings, flashes of her mommy in a white bed with wires attached to her.

Then her head started to hurt like Mommy's had. And her ears hurt.

And Mommy was missing.

Everyone was worried, and Mairghread didn't like it. Their fears made her uncomfortable. Although she had figured out in the first weeks of her life before being placed in stasis how to keep her thoughts to herself, her heightened sensitivity, inherited from her mother, made it very difficult for her to keep the thoughts of others from floating into her consciousness. She always knew when they were someone else's—the older Mairghread, the part of her that knew everything there was to know about the wraith and had the maturity of a young adult—let her baby half know.

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As suddenly as it had started, the worry was gone. Everyone was happy. Daddy came in and picked her up and swung her around. She crowed and jabbered and gave him sloppy kisses before demanding to be fed (by noise and sign)—preferably not the green bean mush, she thought, but the people hadn't taught her to say that.

Ronon glanced over at the entomologists who had volunteered to take the last shift with Mairghread, his raised eyebrow eloquently demanding why his little girl was putting her fingers to her mouth like that.

The squirrely little man and woman quickly explained that while Ronon had been busy with Teyla, Mairghread had been taught some basic sign language. They pointed out that she had learned incredibly quickly, and that she was asking for food.

Ronon quirked his eyebrow again before looking back to the growing, but still tiny baby in his arms.

"Hungry?" he asked with a smile, and Mairghread shook her tiny blue fist up and down at him.

"Oh, uh, that means 'yes'!" quipped the scientists in unison. It was rumored that they were dating, and further reasoned that if they weren't, they should be.

"How about we go see Teyla first?" he asked the child, who put her thumb to her chin and wiggled her fingers with a confused look.

"She's been calling Ms. Emagen 'mommy' and, uh, you 'daddy', Mr. Dex," said the bug-lovers quietly, interpreting the wraithling's signs for the Satedan.

"Oh," he replied, somewhat surprised and touched. "Yeah, uh, mommy," he repeated, and received a huge smile in return.

TBC

Next: Baby Blues 3: Colds

A/N: Not my best chapter to date, but please review!