Why Mommy and Daddy Should Stay Home

This chapter is dedicated to Kyrie, who had to suffer through finals today, yet found time to review. Tapabh leigh!

In the weeks while Atlantis waited for Woolsey to darken its doorstep, Mairghread progressed rapidly. Toilet training was achieved with few tears, and the terribly two's were skimmed through with minimal temper tantrums. Mairghread was increasingly verbal and curious about her world, while becoming more and more attached to people, even as they became more attached to her.

Up until now, SGA-1 had been on light, non-off-world duties—they had taken on the responsibility of the infant wraith. However, as she was now "three-ish", Weir felt comfortable sending them to a simple, minimal risk, one day check-in mission. Carson and Radek had offered to watch the little girl for the morning, while Dr. Mary had offered to take the afternoon shift.

Mairghread knew they were up to something she wasn't going to like. They had given her apple pie and ice cream for breakfast. The last time they did that, she had been given a whole bunch of injections.

Ronon and Teyla were already dressed for off-world travel when Carson and Radek arrived to babysit.

Ronon knelt down and held his arms wide to his daughter. "Come say bye to Daddy," he told her as she ran to him and wrapped her arms around his neck.

"Daddy stay," she begged piteously as Ronon returned her hug. With a soft smile, the Satedan kissed the top of her head and said reassuringly, "I'll be back to tuck you in tonight. Maybe even for bath. Be a good girl, okay?"

"Okay," she pouted as Daddy ruffled her hair and then ran to latch herself onto Mommy, who had also crouched down to say goodbye.

"Farewell, sweetheart," Teyla murmured into her daughter's dark hair. "We will return shortly."

Carson gently pried the wraithling from her mother and held her.

"Wee'll be fine, luv," he reassured Ronon and Teyla, who looked almost as reluctant to leave Mairghread as she was for them go.

Teyla smiled and they left quickly, before they changed their minds.

Mairghread promptly burst into tears.

Fortunately for all concerned, Ronon and Teyla (and the rest of the team, surprisingly) returned not only safely, but early. Mairghread ran to greet them, covering them with kisses and nearly crushing them with her hugs.

This was repeated for several days, each time Ronon and Teyla returning without incident. Which, Rodney pointed out sarcastically, was something of a record for Team Sheppard. Sheppard offered that Mairghread was a good luck charm, or had swung their karma to the positive side of things.

A "good luck charm" is, according to earthen superstitious belief, a person or object which is supposed to attract luck of a fortuitous nature to the bearer. Luck is an uncontrollable, finicky power which has done more harm than good to humanoid species who believe in it. It demands complex and absurd rituals to be placated and charmed into behaving in a way that people would like, and then usually turns against them, so what they want turns out to be worse than what they had before.

Karma is an equally unpredictable force by which the universe is said to maintain the necessary balance of things. However, since things often intended to do good often end up doing ill, and ill things usually end up doing ill (shockingly!) karma is usually bad to its humans. If karma were cash, nearly everyone would be not only bankrupt, but in such debt that they turn to loan sharks and end up in the nearest river with stones tied to them. Hence, turning to luck (see previous paragraph).

Having said this, it is hardly surprising that on the fifth day that Team Sheppard left for a standard meet and greet, they were late reporting in, missed two check-ins and ended up having to be extracted from a very nasty stand-off situation.

That morning, although she had seemed to have been getting used to Mommy and Daddy leaving in the morning and being home by bed time with the promise of spending the weekend with her, Mairghread was very clingy.

"No!" she had whined and begged as she clung, leech-like, to Ronon's neck. "Don't go!"

It had taken both Carson and Major Lorne working with Ronon to release the Satedan from the hysterical girl's grasp.

As Ronon and Teyla made a hasty escape, Carson held Mairghread on his lap, rocking gently and trying to sooth away her tears.

"Hush, luv, what is it? Ye know they'll cume back."

She looked up at him, eyes brimming with tears, her face serious.

"Something's going to go wrong," she had replied in Gaelic. "Bad men."

Her fears were fully justified when late that night Team Sheppard was brought in on gurneys and rushed to the infirmary.

Mairghread woke with a start in her bed. Several weeks ago the crib had been converted for her, so it was child's play for her to crawl out of bed and slip past the sleeping entomologists.

Mommy and Daddy had come home and they needed her. The bad men had hurt them.

The two marines who were stationed in the room next door as a security measure followed the little girl from a short distance. They had orders to follow her, to never leave her completely alone for a moment, but unless she was doing something that posed a threat to herself, others or Atlantis, they were not to interfere. It was important she not feel as though she were a prisoner.

The three-and-a-half-year-old hurried down the hallways with the wobbly run of the young. She seemed to know exactly where she was going. Through corridors, around corners she went, until she came to a transporter, which of course would not open for her.

Unobtrusively, the marines came forward and, kneeling down next to her, Lt. Crawford asked gently, "Where are you trying to get to?"

"Mommy and Daddy, in the 'firmary," she told him seriously. "But it wont open for me," she said petulantly.

Sergeant Chekov whispered in Lt. Crawford's ear, "Their mission went badly."

Crawford nodded, even as he opened the transporter for Mairghread.

"She'll walk to the infirmary anyway if we don't use this thing," he said. "Might as well save us all a long walk."

The infirmary was hopping as medical personnel ran back and forth with blood samples, ekg's, ultrasounds, ivs and other medical paraphernalia. Team Sheppard had been found, everyone unconscious except for Ronon, who had collapsed as soon as they were rescued. Now Beckett was trying to find out how badly everyone was hurt.

Mairghread walked through it all, her miniature stature allowing her to walk between and underneath people, tables and gurneys as she walked as directly as she could to where her parents were lying.

She dove under the curtain that separated the already looked after Teyla and Ronon from the chaotic infirmary. Silently, she dragged a chair closer to Ronon's bed and clambered up so she was sitting on his legs.

"Daddy!" she whispered loudly. Getting no response from the Satedan, she bounced lightly and repeated, much louder, "DADDY WAKE UP!!!"

Ronon woke with a snarl and a jolt. However, seeing his daughter sitting on his legs, he leaned back into his pillows and removed the nasal cannula from his nose.

"What are you doing here?" he asked his daughter tiredly, holding out his right arm to her. She crawled up and settled by his side in the crook of his arm.

"You were hurt," she pointed out. "You are hurt," she added, accusingly, sitting straight up and pointing at his left shoulder. "Bad men!"

"Hmph, yeah, bad men," he replied, gently pulling her back down. "But I'm okay. I'll be fine."

This time Mairghread snorted. Sometimes, she seemed a lot older than she looked, Ronon mused. Sometimes, the adult in her peeped out and surprised them.

"Mommy? Uncle John? Uncle Rodney?"

"They're okay too," Ronon reassured her. "Just a little bruised."

"Mommy and Daddy stay home," Mairghread told him sleepily, her eyes drifting shut. "Stay away from bad men."

Ronon didn't answer. He simply stroked his daughter's dark hair until she fell asleep again.

They had escaped this time with relatively minor complications. A bumps and bruises. They had lost consciousness because of some kind of knock-out-gas-bomb the natives had thrown into their hiding cave. It had been rather effective on everyone. He had been able to hold out until the 'cavalry' arrived to clear a path through the angry nomads.

But now, as he lay in the infirmary (overnight for observation, as usual), his shoulder aching where a well-aimed stone had hit right on his old wounds, his daughter asleep by his side, Teyla in the next bed over, Ronon realized how much the adoption of Mairghread had done to change him. Suddenly, there was someone who depended on him again. Who waited for him to come home. Who would be utterly destroyed if he didn't come back safely.

He smiled. If the wraith lord who had made him a Runner could have seen him, he would have known that he had lost completely, and that Ronon had come out the winner. Ronon hadn't been broken. He hadn't been destroyed by hatred. He was nearly whole again, with Mairghread as his daughter and innocence, Teyla as his partner and comforter, all of Atlantis as his extended family.

Take that, he thought smugly, hoping, wherever that wraith was, he was writhing in agony alongside the queens who had orphaned his daughter.

TBC

Next: The Woolsey Cometh