Growing Pains

Cainwen: It was mentioned by a reviewer that in Gift, it was said that wraith can't read human minds. I say Mairghread can because 1) She's of the older generations of wraith—their powers were greater(lack of inbreeding maybe?) 2) She has heightened powers from her mother (see "A Mother's Love") Enjoy, And pretty please REVIEW!!!

For simplicity's sake, when entire conversations are in Gaelic and everyone involved understands, I'll put it like this /talk talk talk/.

Mairghread sat suddenly on the floor next to her bed. Fortunately, she mused, all the nice, thick area rugs found for her as an infant worked equally well for her as a seven/eight-year-old.

Unfortunately, growing up at a vastly accelerated pace had its draw backs, one of which was really bad growing pains.

Really bad growing pains, she thought ruefully as she rubbed her knees, hoping they would stop spasming and aching long enough for her to get dressed and go to breakfast.

Her older and younger halves had come to a truce of sorts—the older half could speak and control some actions, so long as the younger half remained largely in control of emotions and actions.

In this they were in agreement—go see Uncle Carson after breakfast and ask if he had something stronger than Tylenol.

With a heavy sigh, she hauled herself off the floor using her bed as leverage and began rifling through the small-yet-growing pile of clothes at the foot of her bed for something to wear.

Settling on a pair of brown pants of the same material as her father's and a pretty pink tunic top, Mairghread ran a hairbrush through her fine, raven locks and frowned at her facial slits before walking gingerly to the kitchen in their apartment.

"Good morning," Mommy greeted her daughter sweetly as she helped Ronon lay out a breakfast of oatmeal and fruit salad. They had reached a compromise on this point—breakfast alternated between grain and fruit and meat. Dinner was easier, while lunch was still somewhat contentious.

"Madainn mhath," she replied distractedly as she clambered up onto a chair that was still a little too tall for her. For all her growing pains, she remained frustratingly petite.

"English, please Mairghread," Teyla reminded her gently.

"Sorry." When she was distracted or in a bad mood, she often slipped into her heart's tongue—the language of her father and mother, which had a startling resemblance to Scots Gaelic.

Ronon studied his daughter for a moment. "What's up?"

"Nothin'."

Ronon and Teyla shared a look. Both knew that their daughter's answer had as much truth as the statement "Rodney McKay has the IQ of a grape seed and the body of a purple Adonis". They also knew that prying would do no good.

"Daddy and I are going off-world today, you remember," said Teyla conversationally as she sat down to eat. "You will go and do your lessons in Uncle Carson's office this morning, and play in Dr. Mary's office in the afternoon."

"'kay," she replied, half-heartedly spooning oatmeal into her mouth. After working so hard to cut her teeth, now they were loose. She had lost her two bottom front incisors, and her top two were about to fall out as well, and it made eating rather difficult.

When breakfast was over, Mairghread gathered up the workbooks she had been given to help her learn about the earth alphabets, numbers systems, histories and religions.

"Come back safe, okay?" she half-begged Teyla and Ronon as they dropped her off in the infirmary with Carson.

"We shall," Teyla reassured her as she and Ronon kissed and hugged their daughter goodbye for the day.

When they were gone, Mairghread curled up in her corner of Uncle Carson's office to do her two pages of mathematics. One advantage of being small, she realized, was that she needed only about six square feet to work comfortably, and she preferred not to sit at a desk, but to curl up in a cozy corner on the floor, which meant she fit almost anywhere.

She had only gotten ten problems done when a painful spasm wrapped itself around her chest and she was forced to drop her pencil and paper to curl up into herself and pray to the Spirits for it to pass quickly. She hated growing pains.

"/Mairghread? What's wrong love?/" asked Beckett, looking up from his mountain of paperwork from their last encounter with Lucius and peering over the edge of his desk to see his young charge.

Bother, she thought. I didn't think I made a sound.

Carson got up and moved to kneel down in front of the little girl, still curled protectively around her ribs.

"/Growing pains again?/" he asked sympathetically, and she nodded morosely. "/Well, let's have a look at you anyway./" he said, holding out his arms for her.

He set her on one of the exam tables and pulled out his stethoscope while Nurse Rodgers stood by to take notes. It had all become a familiar routine—every week or two she had a full physical to make sure she was healthy.

Mairghread pulled off her shirt and sat shivering until Uncle Carson draped a blanket over her shoulders.

Beckett clicked his tongue when he noticed large, dry, chapped patches of skin all over the little girl's body.

"/You've been forgetting to cream yourself at night, aren't you?/" he asked admonishingly. She ducked her head. It wasn't so much that she had forgotten as much as she had been too tired the past few nights. She knew she should have—the air in Atlantis was so dry, and since the city keyed into human biological preferences and especially to those with the ATA gene, she was climatically left out in the cold…er, heat. The city was both a lot too dry, and a little too warm for her. Humans liked their rooms to be about 70⁰ Fahrenheit and less than 40 humidity—she would have preferred 60⁰ and 80 humidity, like it would be in a hive.

"Kathy, be a luv and fetch the Lotil," Beckett asked as he listened to Mairghread's heart. It was fortunate, he mused, that he had heard a wraith heart before she came, or he would have been worried. Wraith hearts were rather different from human hearts structurally, and they sounded markedly different when working properly.

Her lungs sounded a bit congested, but it was probably nothing more than that Athosian chest cold that was going around.

Her ribs were tender, as were her knees and every other part of her—probably just growing pains.

She had grown another 3 inches in the past day, bringing her to a full 4 feet tall, so it wouldn't be too surprising. She was, however, still only about 40 pounds. Beckett made a note to increase her caloric intake—growing fast had definite drawbacks.

But her sore joints did give Beckett pause the more he thought about it. A whole list formed itself in his mind of things that could cause it—lupus, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, infection, cancers…

"/Mairghread, love, I want to take some blood and run a few scans, alright?/"

She drew her knees to her chest and whimpered. Something in his voice made her even scareder than she was at the thought of blood work and noisy scans. She wanted her daddy.

Uncle Carson cupped her face in his hand and stroked her cheek with his thumb in a comforting gesture. She grabbed onto his hand and held it to her face, breathing deep his scent, finding security and reassurance in the earthy, clean, rainy smell.

"It'll be all right, luv."

But there was no surety in his words.

TBC

Hehe! Evil cliffie! Review! Or I'll leave you hanging for…a long time!

Next: Solace on Sunday