- Week 4 -
Carson was near at his wits end. It was an hour into their first rehearsal and the group had yet to sing a single song through. The rise and fall of Dr. Kavanagh and Zelenka's voices as they bickered almost counted, but could hardly be considered festive.
Alas, he had so wanted to put together something special for Dr. Weir. She was hoping for something intercultural to show to the guests at the party on Christmas Day. Unfortunately it didn't seem to be going that way.
"What about, I'll Be Home for Christmas?" Abrams suggested.
There was a rumble of discontent through the room, and Carson found he had to agree, "I think that might be in poor taste."
"It's a nice song!" Abrams defended, but whatever else he was going to say was interrupted by the distinct swish of the door opening.
They all turned to the door, and found Dr. Rodney McKay trying to slip in unnoticed. When he realized he was caught he cast a look at the room that somewhere between forlorn and annoyed.
Carson stood and gaped before moving to greet the new arrival, "Rodney! What are ye doing here? Not that I'm nae thrilled to see you! I just didn't expect ye would be interested…"
"Elizabeth made me." Rodney confessed honestly.
Carson frowned and sighed. He should have known, "Oh. Well then… come on in and let's see if we can make the best of it. We were just deciding what we should sing."
"You haven't chosen the songs yet?" Rodney looked at his watch and then cast his eyes around the room. A small table near the door held a pile of neatly printed out lyrics. He picked up a sheet and looked between it and Carson quizzically, "Then what's this?"
"Ah, well," Carson grimaced, "I had asked everyone to bring copies of their favourite carols from home."
"But Dr. Beckett didn't realize that, being from very different countries, we would very likely not be familiar with each others songs." Kavanagh groused.
Zelenka growled at Kavanagh and shook is violin expressively, "Is not Dr. Beckett's fault that many of us cannot play by ear."
"Now now, let's not argue again." Carson cut in with forced cheer.
Grodin frowned at Kavanagh's usual accusational demeanour, but respected Carson's desire to keep the peace. "Now we're deciding what common, familiar, songs we can do."
Gaul grinned excitedly and held up a list, "So far we have Jingle Bells, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, and Santa Claus is Coming to Town."
Rodney grimaced and barely suppressed a groan, "And how many of those did you suggest, Brendan?"
The young scientist shrugged sheepishly, "Most of them. But I can't help it if they're the most well known."
Rodney picked up the pile of lyrics and began to flip slowly through them while Carson added another chair to the circle, an unsurprising number of them were Scottish, some were Czech, Russian, and so on. He seemed to settle on one, and his hand moved to play nervously at his side as it so often did.
"Yer lookin' at those awfully carefully, Rodney. Are ye familiar with any of them?" Carson looked at his friend still hovering near the door and wondered if Elizabeth knew what she was doing. He seemed terribly out of sorts.
"Hmm?" Rodney looked up from the papers distractedly, "I've heard them once or twice… So you need sheet music so you can provide accompaniment?"
"Only for the songs we don't already know," Kavanagh answered with a belaboured huff.
Rodney strode towards the circle but, rather than sitting in the offered chair, snatched Gaul's pen and went to a table, "Hold that thought."
The group exchanged a look of confusion before surrounding Rodney's table and peering over his shoulder. Annoyance radiated off of him and he snapped, "Claustrophobic." The group backed off and waited while he carefully, but quickly, wrote something out on the back of one of the music sheets. A few minutes later he held a freshly written sheet of music out to Carson. "It's a medley of the three shortest songs on your list. It should get you started for this tonight."
Carson took it and looked at it in surprise. He couldn't actually read music, so he passed it to Peter.
Peter's eyebrow's shot up, "You composed this from memory?"
Rodney lifted his chin arrogantly, "Geniuses have good memories."
Peter rolled his eyes but didn't comment as the music was passed around to the other musicians. Instead he turned to Carson, "This will work."
Carson turned and clapped Rodney on the back, "Thank ye Rodney!"
Kavanagh folded his arms and regarded McKay, the only thing he found more annoying than the Chief Scientist's arrogance was when that arrogance was justified. Still, in the Spirit of Christmas, he put his competitive instinct aside this time, "So, what do you play?"
"Play?" Rodney repeated, glancing up from the rest of the lyric sheets.
"Yes, what instruments do you play?" Radek nodded at Kavanagh in a rare show of agreement, "Clearly you must play something."
A strange, conflicted, look passed through the physicist's eyes, "I don't. Not anymore."
Beckett was about to question the peculiar proclamation when McKay suddenly gathered up the sheets, snatched away Gaul's list, and headed for the door, "I'll have the rest of these ready for you by tomorrow night."
And Dr. Rodney McKay was gone as suddenly as he had appeared.
Katie Brown took a couple of steps towards the door and sighed dreamily, "He's so…"
"Arrogant?" One of the other women finished for her.
"Layered." Katie smiled.
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The next morning, Aiden and John were teaching Teyla Christmas songs over breakfast. They had just finished leading the room in a round of 'All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth' when Rodney entered. He seemed oblivious to the looks of disappointment as the room resigned itself to not starting another song. He had been seen outside of the labs so rarely lately that nobody wanted to risk driving him away.
His attention, as always, was completely absorbed in whatever work he'd brought along on the laptop.
Ford sing songed under his breath, "He's a mean one, Mr Grinch." He didn't see why they had to put up with McKay's usual attitude at this time of year. Someone really ought to put the jerk in his place and tell him exactly how he was being.
He stopped when Sheppard kicked him under the table, just in time for McKay to set his tray down and slide into a seat beside Teyla.
"Dr. McKay," Teyla greeted warmly, "We were just discussing the entertainment for the Christmas party next week." That was what had lead to the singing.
Ford snickered, "He probably doesn't even know about the party, or the entertainment, because he's been so grumpy. Everyone's been afraid to mention it to him."
Rodney frowned, but before he could answer Sheppard quickly cut in, "It's no big deal. I'm telling a story or two. I was going to play my guitar but I sprained my wrist." He held up his bandaged wrist as proof, hoping to distract McKay from taking the bait.
No such luck. The scientist stabbed his fork into his meal and narrowed his eyes at Ford, "I know about it! And I have not been grumpy! I've just been busy. I understand that life must get dull for you when there's nothing to shoot at. But I, for one, have work to concentrate on. The scientific discoveries we can make here are without end. We haven't even examined a fraction of the database yet."
McKay's flippant statement about shooting things only served to deepen Ford's own glower. It really got under his skin the way the scientists, especially McKay, treated the military like they were just dumb grunts. They were specialists, and the best Earth had to offer!
So he never would have made it into university. So his High School Grade's sucked. So what?! Book smarts weren't anything. Only people who had it seemed to think so. He was good at what he did, and he was proud of it. Who did McKay think he was?
McKay opened his laptop and began typing between mouthfuls, oblivious to deepening anger radiating from Ford.
Sheppard looked between his two team mates and decided he should try to bring them to some sort of resolution, "You know, McKay, maybe you could loosen up a little. Have a little fun?"
"What are you talking about?" McKay answered with a brief glance away from the lap top, "I have lots of fun."
"Do you ever do anything but work?" Ford challenged.
Rodney didn't even look up as he answered facetiously, "That's a stupid question. Obviously, I'm eating."
Ford felt his temper spiralling out of control, and he let it. McKay said whatever he wanted, so why shouldn't he? "You ever do anything but eat, sleep, and work."
"I have a few personal projects." Rodney looked fully up from his laptop, resigned to giving his full attention to the unpleasant conversation.
"That doesn't count." Ford proclaimed angrily.
"Oh? Why not?" Rodney demanded.
"Because it's science." Ford answered like it was obvious.
Rodney snarked defensively, "In case my multiple qualifications and chosen profession didn't make it obvious, I LIKE science."
"You just don't get it!" Ford snapped derisively, "You were probably one of those kids that joined science clubs and went to science camps. Pure geek."
"Aiden!" Teyla scolded, acutely aware that this was getting out of hand, and that the volume of their conversation had been steadily increasing.
"What?" Ford asked and held up his hands in a gesture of innocence, "Just ask him." And he turned back to McKay, "Name one thing you can do well that you learned just for the fun of it! Baseball? You're Canadian, how about Hockey? Or Snowboarding? So you probably didn't like sports. How about art? The first thing you drew was probably a diagram for a rocket engine or something brainy like that. You look down on everyone else because you're so smart, but your smarts is all you've got."
"Ford! That's enough!" Sheppard commanded sharply.
The military tone snapped Ford back to his senses, and having vented his frustration Ford now sorely regretted the outburst. Sure, he thought all of that some of the time. But that he had said it out loud shocked him.
Rodney glared at Ford before pushing away from the table with purpose.
Sheppard stood with him, "McKay, wait."
The chatter in the surrounding commissary quieted down as the rooms attention was drawn to the quarrel that had apparently gotten out of hand.
"Aiden," Teyla spoke quietly and with propriety but looked stern, "I believe you should apologize."
Ford found his voice, "I was out of line, McKay. You don't have to go."
But Rodney had already stalked to the head of the food line and snatched an entire bowl of fruit. He felt a small measure of satisfaction at the bewildered looks it drew from his team as he slammed the bowl down on the table.
They jumped and stared at the bowl, momentarily speechless with confusion.
Rodney picked out three oranges, relatively the same size, and tested their weight before proceeding to juggle them. He was uncertain at first, but it was like riding a bike. All three oranges shifted so that he was juggling them one handed and picked up two more. He shifted the pattern again and was soon juggling five oranges between two hands. He dropped one ball out of the loop and bounced it back up with his knee.
Rodney was vaguely aware of more people gathering around. But it was Ford that held his attention. The young soldier seemed to struggle between looking impressed by the display and looking guilty at his outburst.
McKay spread his arms to widen the circle and swiftly added another orange, and then another, as he addressed Ford, "It's called intelligence, not 'smarts'. The first thing I drew was our neighbour's cat. Science camp is a joke. The so called 'science' is so simplistic it's insulting to call it science. I went to drama camp for half the Summer, and later worked as a consultant in projects for various companies and organizations that are none of your business. I also had a brief interest in music, also none of your business."
As he spoke he shifted the pattern of the balls so that they criss-crossed each other, then hooped in an arch, repeatedly until it looked like the outer strands of a revolving double helix.
"Does this satisfy the academic question of whether I'm capable of having a life beyond science, Lieutenant?" Hands normally waving around expressively effortlessly balanced the oranges in the air, but his glare remained on the Lieutenant who was now shrinking self-consciously into his seat. "Is it alright with you now if I choose to find my enjoyment in science? Hmm? Or the next time you need an ancient device deactivated on a life or death deadline would you rather I toss an orange at it and hope for the best?"
"Rodney?!" Dr. Weir's stunned voice came from the head of the gathered crowd and broke through Rodney's concentration.
The 'balls' tumbled or flew in all directions, "Elizabeth! I was just… I mean I was."
"Juggling." Elizabeth finished for him in a tone of disbelief.
"No!" Rodney answered quickly. "Well yes. But I was going to say proving a point."
"You can juggle!" Elizabeth said, with a plotting glint in her eye.
"No I can't!" Rodney denied, his voice raising a pitch in nervous alarm, "Well, obviously I can. But I don't. Well, I did. But that was to prove a point to Ford. Which was really rather pointless and silly and I have no idea why I let him get a rise out of me just then." He edged away from the cunning diplomat as he spoke, "But the point is that I am a scientist, not a juggler. So I'm going to go do sciencey things."
Rodney disappeared into the crowd and was followed by the distinct swish of the automated doors.
As soon as he was gone, Elizabeth rounded a narrow glare on the two men still sitting at the table. "I thought I told you two to stop tormenting him."
"Me?!" Sheppard held his hands up in surrender, "Why do people always shoot the referee?"
Ford lifted a finger to point responsibility at himself, "Sorry ma'am. I lost my temper. It won't happen again."
"Damn straight it won't." Sheppard confirmed angrily.
Teyla sighed and looked at where Rodney had been sitting, "He has left his laptop behind." As always, it was filled with symbols she did not recognize.
"So he did," Elizabeth observed, and slowly turned the laptop around until it faced the two men.
Fords eyes widened, while Sheppard groaned and covered his, at the score of Christmas music displayed on the screen.
Ford took the lap top and scrolled down the screen, finding more and more songs before pushing it away and proclaiming, "I am a complete jerk."
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Elizabeth woke slowly at first to the ringing at her door. She wasn't even sure how long it had been ringing, but a short and hesitant knock confirmed that she hadn't woken on the first ring.
"Just a minute," she called, and flicked the light on. Rodney had designed light switches that interfaced with the ancient systems, and fitted them in all the quarters.
A brief glance at her alarm told her that it was 4am. Who on earth would be knocking at her door at this hour? She pulled her house robe on over her P.J's.
The door slid open to reveal a sincerely apologetic looking Peter Grodin. She couldn't help but smile when he 'oh so politely' averted his eyes from her house robe.
She had been to London often enough to know that most Brits did not fit the stereo-type of prim propriety that people in the west so liked to have of them. But Peter certainly did. Perhaps he felt he had a national reputation to uphold. If so, she privately wished that Dr. McKay felt the same way.
"How can I help you, Peter?" Elizabeth was more than a little curious, and a bit concerned, about why she hadn't been called on her radio. Was it malfunctioning?
He shifted uncomfortably and looked over his shoulder before answering quietly. "I though you would want to know right away. The Isillian's just called. It's mid-morning on their planet. They want to thank us for the wonderful new technology we traded to them, through Teyla." Grodin's brows were furrowed with concern.
And Elizabeth's expression now matched, "But I didn't… The Isillian's? I've never heard of them, I'm sure."
Peter nodded, "I know. They're not a people we've traded with before."
Something like this so soon after the disaster with Teyla's homing beacon necklace could destroy what good will was now being rebuilt with the Athosian people. Elizabeth still felt terrible about the manner in which they had come to the decision to move the main land. She couldn't help but feel responsible for driving them out of the city. That fiasco had taught a hard lesson about jumping to conclusions, and about trust. Elizabeth refused to repeat that mistake.
Elizabeth nodded at Peter, knowing he had been thinking the same thing. "There must be a reasonable explanation. You were right to bring this to me privately." She stepped into her slippers and stepped out past Peter, "Let's go talk to Teyla."
Peter's eyes widened in surprise, "Now?"
"Before this gets out of hand."
Teyla's quarters were only two corridors away. Elizabeth had only needed to ring once, and Teyla's door opened to show her fully dressed and looking serene.
"Teyla," Elizabeth opened her mouth in surprise. She had been preparing an apology for waking the Athosian leader at such an hour, "We… didn't wake you?"
"I was just beginning my morning meditations, " Teyla explained, and regarded Dr. Weir's unusual attire with curiosity.
Elizabeth pulled her robe tighter, "Can we talk to you about something?"
"Certainly," Teyla stepped back to allow the two to enter.
A very British stammer replied, "Oh, um… well."
Teyla's brows furrowed curiously at Dr. Grodin's unusual behaviour. He was normally so confident and well spoken.
Elizabeth took the arm of the poor stuttering man and guided him into the room with a promise, "We won't stay long."
"Teyla," Elizabeth began carefully once the door was closed, "I want you to understand that I, we, trust you. And we are not accusing you of anything. We just…need to clarify something."
The normally serene look of the Athosian was replaced with worry, "Has something else happened that would cast doubt on me?"
"No!" Elizabeth answered too quickly, then was forced to amend, "Well… potentially. But that's what we're here to avoid. Appearances can be deceiving."
Teyla looked at the worried faces of both of the Earth people and understood that they were making a great effort to protect her from further misunderstanding. "Thank you for coming to discuss this with me. But, deceiving in what way?"
It was Peter who blushed sheepishly and answered, "A people called the Isillians said you've been trading with them."
Teyla stared at Peter a moment. This did not seem a cause for concern. "Are we not permitted to trade with whomever we please?"
"Yes," Elizabeth agreed, "But they called to thank 'us' for the technology we've provided them…through you."
The last traces of meditative serenity was wiped away by a grimace, "That does not sound good at all. I can see why you would be concerned." Teyla turned to Dr. Grodin, who was still looking shamed and apologetic, "You were right to bring this to the attention of Dr. Weir. Do not feel badly. Though, I imagine Sergeant Bates wishes to question this…."
"Actually Teyla," Elizabeth interjected, "He came to my quarters to tell me discreetly."
Understanding dawned on Teyla's face, "Then these are sleep clothes?"
"Yes."
Peter averted his eyes again and changed the subject, "We came to talk to you right away, so things wouldn't get out of hand this time."
Teyla bowed her head in the Athosian manner, "Thank you. I appreciate you efforts on my part, and your trust. I will explain my actions, but first may I offer you some tea?"
Peter perked at the offer, "Tea would be lovely."
Teyla poured an already prepared hot pot of tea into three glasses and handed one each to Dr. Grodin and Dr. Weir. "It is traditional among my people to always prepare enough morning tea to share with friends in case we are unexpectedly blessed with their company."
Elizabeth bowed her head as she accepted the tea, and was pleased to see Peter mimic the gesture. "Thank you."
"It is I who should thank you," Teyla corrected politely as she took her own cup. "The trades I brokered with the Isillian's, and a small number of other villages, were on behalf of a member of your people. It is for a surprise in preparation for your holiday celebrations. I promised to keep as much of it a secret as I could. The… technology is in the form of small advancements that an agrarian society would find helpful and valuable. Such as recipe's, and instructions for better wood preparation methods."
Elizabeth felt herself smiling broadly. She should have known that Major Sheppard would do something like this. Who else could convince Teyla to do conduct secret trades? He sometimes had more thoughtfulness than sense. "That's wonderful Teyla. Thank you."
Teyla smiled but shook her head, "There is no need to thank me. I and those of my people who assisted me have been well payed with a percentage of the trade."
"There's more," Grodin grinned, "The Isillians said that they have had so much benefit from the trade that they feel they were unfair with us. They said they wanted to send us enough food for a feast, in time for our celebration. I told them that I would inform our leader and that they would be contacted later today."
It was almost too good to be true. Elizabeth would make certain to thank John come Christmas day. First, he had been instrumental in helping to convince Rodney to juggle for the children at the party (no small feat), and now this. What on earth could he be planning though? "Well, that mystery is mostly solved then. I think the rest can wait until Christmas. I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise."
Teyla nodded appreciatively and, not wanting her guests to feel unwelcome, introduced another topic to discuss, "I am curious. Are all of your people's evening wear so modest?"
Peter sputtered on his tea, "I should get back to the gate room. My shift isn't over yet. But thank you for the tea. Love what you've done with the place."
He retreated from the room and headed straight for the nearest transporter, very determinedly not thinking about the two women he'd left discussing lingerie.