First Steps

Cainwen: In the words of Capt. Jack Sparrow, "Complications arose, ensued, were overcome." Enjoy!

Plans were underway for a small birthday party for the expedition's latest member.

Beckett estimated that she was approaching 1 year old, developmentally, so it seemed a good time to celebrate, despite the fact that they had no clue when her actual birthday was.

The mess hall was being covered in pink crepe paper (or what passed for it in the Pegasus galaxy), balloons of whatever color they had, and anything else decorative that could be found, including, but not limited to, Christmas lights.

News of her first word had spread through the city like wild fire, igniting hearts as it went. Somehow, the phenomenal joy that is associated with a baby's first words broke through many of the lingering barriers to her acceptance by the majority.

There was still a faction of the city that had not yet fallen for the adorable wraithling, but most had now come to, if not love Mairghread, at least accept her and recognize that she was not dangerous, and therefore could get into the spirit of throwing her a birthday party.

In her room, Mairghread was playful once more, having successfully conquered her cold. At the moment, she was giggling, holding on the bars of her crib and bouncing while Mommy, Daddy and Auntie Elizabeth talked. It was Mairghread's considered opinion that Auntie Elizabeth talked too much and played too little.

Mairghread was tired of bouncing in one place. She wanted to practice walking with her daddy before lunch and naptime.

"Dada!" she squealed to attract the attention of the adults. In the past few days, she had learned how to say mama, dada, no (which usually turned out nonononono!) and 'ef', which seemed to mean 'yes'. However, her main means of communication was still sign language, at which she was becoming increasingly fluent, due to the fact, they hypothesized, that there was a mature mind lurking somewhere in the infant form.

Ronon came over and picked his daughter up. He wasn't terribly interested in what Dr. Weir was saying, something about what not to say when Woolsey eventually showed up. Ronon didn't usually talk to him, so he figured he could Teyla handle that.

"What, baby?" he asked as he picked her up. She made the sign for walking, and he grinned. "Sure, let's walk."

"She wants to walk," he told the women. "I'm gonna take her down to the gym."

Teyla nodded her head in agreement, and Dr. Weir wisely said nothing.

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All of the gyms, as it turned out, were occupied by marines training new scientists in hand-to-hand combat.

It was raining, so the balconies were out of the question.

So, Ronon and Mairghread roamed the halls, Ronon bent double so the tiny girl could hold his fingers for support as she practiced walking.

A subtle change seemed to have come over Ronon, and just about everyone was noticing. He smiled more; not the terrifying, feral grin that they had come to associate with him, but an actual smile, used generally among humanoid species to indicate that an individual was experiencing the emotion of happiness. He talked in full sentences occasionally, and was beginning to converse. He seemed more at ease, as though having a "family" composed of "wife" and child, was helping to heal some of his more difficult and painful wounds.

Ronon had stopped wearing his wraith bone necklace 24/7. He had first moved it inside his shirt, until Mairghread figured out there was something there, then looped on his belt, till she figured that out too. Now it stayed with his blaster in his room until he went off world. People figured that Teyla had convinced him that it wouldn't be nice for Mairghread to find it. They underestimated the Satedan.

The halls were more crowded than usual. Nearly everyone had been grounded by Beckett for at least another week. Most of Atlantis had suffered from perforated eardrums during the whales visit, and, as the Scotsman had shouted at a whining Sheppard, "Ye've got ta heal! Gude God man, this isn't a bloody tele show! Gi'e it another week!"

It had, however, taken an enumeration of the nasty possibilities that could arise from inner ear infections, should Sheppard go off world with still perforated ear drums and run into trouble and get dirty water in their ears, etc, to convince the colonel of the doctor's wisdom.

As much as Ronon wanted to go off world, liked exploring, killing wraith of the kind that had tortured him, killed his people and made Mairghread an orphan, in his heart of hearts, he had to admit he liked spending time with his daughter, as he had come to think of her, even as she grew and her skin grew paler, less pronouncedly blue, her facial slits less hidden by dimples. Here was an innocence he had never hoped to find again, and he would do anything to protect it. Melena had been his innocence once—her goodness bordering on the absolute. But Melena was gone. Teyla was beginning to fill a part of the gaping void Melena had left when she died, but Teyla had not Melena's innocence. Teyla was a warrior, a leader, wise, and gentle and good, but not innocent.

Mairghread was. Sheppard said she had all knowledge of the wraith locked up in her head. Ronon couldn't change that. But he could see to it that she never witnessed atrocities herself, with her own eyes, make sure she never suffered as her biological parents did, never as he did, or Teyla did. Ronon would protect his daughter, his innocence with his dying breath and beyond, if he could.

"Ronon! Hey, hold up!"

Ronon looked up to see Sheppard jogging towards him from the mess hall.

"Hey, um you don't want to go that way right now. They're, um, etting-gay eady-ray the arty-pay," he muttered in pig latin.

The most disconcerting thing about Mairghread they had realized, once you got past her unnatural skin color, was the fact that she seemed to learn any language spoken to her for more than a few minutes. She clearly understood nearly every language spoken by the expedition, including English, German, French, three dialects of Spanish, Swedish, Icelandic, Czech, Mandarin, Polish, Russian and others, with the exceptions of Cretan (the sole Cretan among them never seemed to emerge from her anthropology lab), Afrikaans (the marine from that country was the strong, silent type), and an Indian dialect (the good biologist was on a survey of several planets, and had only come back to wash and sleep).

This, however, left the adults with a difficulty—what language to use when discussing something in her presence that they didn't want her to understand? They had tried spelling, only to realize that this only worked with about half of her caretakers. Esperanto was proposed, and rejected. If she could learn Czech, said Rodney, Esperanto would be a piece of cake. However, pig-latin for the time being seemed to puzzle her.

"Oh yeah," Ronon remembered now—the party was going to be after Mairghread's afternoon nap, when she was most boisterous. Accordingly, he swung the baby, who had been trying to tug her father along to the mess hall, where she could watch the wiggly food, and maybe find a banana, into his arms and held the squirming child firmly. "It's her lunch time anyway," he said as he tickled her tummy. "Isn't it, little girl?"

They were hiding something. Mairghread knew they were hiding something from her, but none of them were scared, like when Mommy disappeared. She hadn't quite figured out that strange garbled language they spoke when they were hiding whatever it was, but it couldn't be something bad. And right now, satiated with noodles and carrots and applesauce, sleep pulling heavily at her eyes, she couldn't be troubled to figure it out.

It didn't take long after she woke up to find out just what it was they had been concealing from her for these past days. Having been suitably dressed in a pretty pink hand-smocked dress (compliments of Dr. Mary, the British linguist) and matching booties, she was carried, wiggling and trying to get down and walk the entire way, by Ronon to the mess hall.

"Surprise!"

Mairghread screamed as friends, adopted family and semi-strangers jumped out of nowhere and shouted at her.

"Oh, darling, hush," Teyla soothed the upset babe, who was admittedly slightly above her head in the arms of Ronon.

"Perhaps that was a bit too much of a surprise for the babe," Dr. Mary whispered to the entomologists where they stood by the present table, which, considering the birthday girl's still controversial nature, was pleasingly over flowing.

When at last her tears of fright were over, Mairghread realized that it was a phenomena called a "birthday party", and that it was a wholly agreeable one, since it generally included ice cream, cake, and other normally forbidden food and presents, in this case, all for her. Mairghread was by no means a selfish child, but it is always nice to be given things.

Uncle Rodney had given her a pretty rag doll; she had a suspicion that her gruff physicist had dyed the doll to match her own azure skin tone. Uncle Carson gave her a soft teddy bear he had commissioned from one of the Athosians. Uncle John gave her a bouncy red ball. Auntie Elizabeth gave her a book of poems with pictures. Daddy gave her a noise maker, and Mommy gave her a nice sweater.

Other presents were waiting to be opened, but someone pointed out that it might be a good idea to space them out a bit—too many could overwhelm her.

So Mairghread was sitting on the floor with her dolly by Uncle John's leg. Mommy had gone off to talk to people. Daddy had gone to get food, but now he was a few feet away, listening to Uncle Carson.

She wanted Daddy. She used Uncle John's leg to pull herself up; Sheppard felt the tug on his leg, but didn't bother to look down. Mairghread had been using legs to practice standing for a few days—when she wanted to walk, she would let him know.

So he thought. But Mairghread was in no mood to wait for someone's hand. Letting go of the rough blue denim, she held out her arms for balance and took one wobbly step.

Noticing the sudden lack of pull on his leg, Sheppard looked down to see the wraithling take another tottering step towards Ronon.

"Ronon, look!" he said in a stage whisper.

Everyone in the vicinity turned at the tone in his voice. Ronon crouched down on the floor, arms held wide open, a smile as broad as the galaxy itself plastered across his face, as Mairghread toddled forward and wrapped her arms around his neck.

TBC

Next: Telling Gen. Landry