I make it with two minutes to spare. I drop the messy pile of books and papers onto my desk and take off my backpack and drop it with a 'thump'. I open one of the 'Nutrigrain' bars and eat it. I then take a deep breath and psych myself for the start of class. I sit down and had just pulled out my lesson book when I hear the door open. Looking up I see that it's Elizabeth, the stocky guy I've seen her around with, and two kids. Hmm, I wonder what Elizabeth wants. Maybe she wants to see how things are going.
I smile, stand, and make my way towards them saying, "Hey."
"Are we on time?" Elizabeth asks.
I nod my head and say, "You're actually the first ones." I've reached them by this time and I kneel so I'm eye level with the two kids. "Hi, my name's Max. What's yours?" They don't answer and cling to the guy, hiding their faces. Aw, that's so cute. They're so adorable, but what kids aren't? I stand and hold out a hand to the guy. "Maxine Wainwright."
"Rodney McKay." He says. So this is the guy Lydia wants to kill. Hmmm, he doesn't seem to be the egotistical self-serving bastard that Lydia has led me to believe he was. "And these two," he says, looking down at the two kids who were still clinging to his legs "are Patrick and Kelly." Patrick and Kelly peek an eye out and I can't help but smile. Patrick, the older of the two, defiantly takes after Rodney; the short brown hair, slightly stocky build, and the nose are dead giveaways, but Kelly doesn't. Her eyes are a greenish tint, she's much trimmer than Rodney and Patrick, and her hair is more of a dirty blond. She must take after the mother, whoever she is. "Hi Kelly, Patrick." I say. They still don't say anything, and they're still clinging to Rodney but they're not hiding their eyes anymore. I'd say that's progress.
"Do you guys want to start playing while the grownups talk?" I ask. They nod their heads and look up at Rodney for permission. He smiles and nods his head. Kelly and Patrick then go running into the room and over to where the toys are. I can't help but smile; they can be so cute at that age. "I hope that I meet Mrs. McKay soon."
"You already have." Elizabeth says, moving closer to Rodney.
Did I just-Crap I did. I can feel my cheeks heat up. "I didn't-the name-oh boy." I stammer out.
Elizabeth just smiles and says, "That's ok, I kept my maiden name as well as taking Rodney's."
I feel slightly better, but not a whole lot. "Well it was nice meeting you, Dr. McKay." I say, smiling.
"Uh-huh. Can we go Elizabeth? Who knows what Winter and the others have managed to mess up without me there." Rodney says, ignoring me completely. Ah, so that's what Lydia was talking about.
Elizabeth just gives me a look and says, "Yes we can go." They turn to leave and as they do the door opens again and in come Carson with Laura and a boy. Dang it, Carson's married. There goes my dream of becoming 'Mrs. Dreamy Scottish Doctor'. Oh, well as they say there are plenty of fish in the sea.
"Carson." Rodney says in a strained voice. "Laura."
"McKay." Carson replies in the same tone. Laura doesn't reply; she just narrows her eyes at Rodney and glares. They all glare at each other for a few seconds until Elizabeth gently pushes Rodney out of the room. Huh, that was weird. I'm gonna have to ask Alex for the dish on what happened between them. I smile and say, "Hi, I'm Max. How are you?"
"Fine." He says in a small voice and stares at me with his big blue eyes. He clings to Laura and I can't help but melt a bit. He takes after Carson with those eyes of his and I can see a bit of Laura in him; the firm chin and blonde hair, there's also something about him that seems familiar to me but I can't put my finger on it.
"That's good. Why don't you go set you stuff down and we'll get started soon, ok?" I say.
He just clings tighter to Laura and looks like he's gonna cry. "I don't wanna." He says, already starting to sniffle a bit.
Carson kneels so he's eye level with Stuart while Laura detaches him from her leg and then does the same.
"It's gonna be alright, son. We'll pick you up at the end of the day like we talked about last night, alright?" Carson says.
"Daddy's right, Stuart." Laura says, smoothing down Stuart's ruffled hair. "You'll be fine with Max. And we'll do something fun on the weekend, ok?"
"Ok." Stuart says, the 'I'm-gonna-cry' look gone.
"That's my boy." Laura says, hugging him.
Carson hugs Stuart as well saying, "I want you to listen to Max and behave. Understood?" Stuart nods his head and Carson smiles. "Good. Now off wit' ye."
Stuart then walks farther into the room and I smile. The door opens again and John with a boy and girl and a women. "Hey Max." John says flashing me a smile. "This is Teyla," he says indicating to the women. "and this is Jason and Jamie." He says ruffling Jason's hair.
"Daaaaaaaaad stop. You're messing it up." Jason says, ducking away from John's hand and putting a protective hand over his already mussed hair.
I laugh. "Nice to meet you." I say to Teyla. She's around my height and has a 'Xena; Warrior Princess' look. In the 'I can kill you with my pinkie' way.
She smiles and says, "It is nice to meet you as well." She then turns to John and says, "Should we not leave now? We have that meeting with Elizabeth."
John sighs and says, "Yea, I guess we should." Kneeling, he looks Jason in the eye and says, "Alright kiddo, we're gonna leave now. I want to you to listen to Max and behave. Got it?"
"What about Jamie? Don't you have to tell her to behave?" Jason asks.
"She doesn't have to be told. You do." John says.
I just smile. Yup, definitely John's son. This should be interesting.
"Now go and play nice with your sister and the others." They then leave and it's just the three of us standing there. Jason smiles and joins Patrick who is by the blocks. But Jamie just stands there, tears welling in her eyes. Before she can get to full blown out crying, I kneel and say, "Do you like to play with dolls, Jamie?" She nods her head and I smile saying, "Well that's good because I happen to have some. You want to see them?"
"Yes." Jamie says in a teary voice.
"Can I show them to you?" I ask standing and hold out a hand. After a moment's hesitation she takes it and I lead her over to where the Barbie dolls are. She sees them and it doesn't take long until she's happily playing with them. I smile as I watch her play. Sweet, score one for me. I gaze across the room, mentally taking roll when I realize that we're one little person short. I move to activate my headset to contact Major Lorne when, as if on cue, the door opens and he comes in holding (who I guess to be) Maria. "Sorry we're late." He says out of breath. "We had a hard time getting up this morning."
I grin. I've babysat my cousins enough to know how hard it is to get them up during the school week. "That's alright." I say, noticing that he's by himself. "Didn't your wife want to come and meet me?" I ask.
"Don't have one. Just me and Maria." Lorne says.
Whoops. That's three strikes. "Sorry, Major I didn't know." I apologize. What's up with me today? Usually I'm so good at figuring out who is married and who isn't.
"That's ok. And please call me Marc." He says, setting Maria down. She instantly gravitates towards his leg and won't let go. Ooo, we have a daddy's girl. And a clingy one at that.
He gives me a look and says, "She has a hard time with people she doesn't know." Finally prying her off of his leg, he kneels down and says, "Sweetie, this is Max. She's gonna look after you while Daddy works ok?" Maria looks at me, then back at Marc, and moves towards him. He sighs and says, "It'll be alright, sweetheart. I'll be back at the end of the day to pick you up, alright?" She just shakes her head no.
"Maria, you know Jamie right?" I ask, hoping to get her attention onto something other than Marc leaving her with someone she's never met before. Maria just looks at me with those big brown eyes of hers and Marc smiles.
"Sure you do, right sweetie?" he says. She nods her head, still not letting go of him.
I move closer like I have some big secret and say, "You see her playing with the dolls?" Another nod and I continue, "Well, I think that she might like someone to play with. You want to play with the dolls and Jamie?" She slowly nods her head. I smile and hold out a hand. "Then why don't you take my hand and we'll go over to her?" Maria looks at Marc and hugs him tighter.
"It's alright honey." He says, smiling. "Remember how I said that I would keep you safe?" Maria nods her head and he continues. "Well, Max is going to make sure you're safe as well while I work." That seems to reassure her, but she still won't let go. "I'll pick you up as soon as I can. I promise." Maria seems to think it over, then slowly lets go of Marc and reaches out for my hand. I take it and we head over to where Jamie is. I cast glance over my shoulder as we do and see Marc's retreating figure. The man has a nice ass. Agh! Was I just checking out a single father? So not the time for checking out guys, no matter how cute and single they are. We reach Jamie and she looks up. "Jamie, you know Maria right?"
"Yes." Comes the answer.
"Would you be willing to play with her?"
"Ok."
I smile. This has been a piece of cake so far. "Good." I kneel and say to Maria, "I'm gonna leave you two to play for a bit alright?" She nods her head and I smile. Standing I make my way over to where Stuart is. He's sitting in one of the kid sized chairs by the table, coloring. I drag a chair over to him and sit down saying, "Hey Stuart."
He looks up and says, "Hey."
"Why don't we start now, ok?" He nods his head and I smile. I ask him what he knows already and it turns out that he knows how to count to five and some letters. Now I have a jumping off point. We keep busy for the morning; I start the alphabet with him, have him do a few lessons with the letter 'a' and start writing lessons. Nothing major, just how to hold a pencil and I have him trace letters. It's gonna be a while until he can write the next great American novel, but slow and steady wins the race. The other kids are well behaved, there are only a few times where I have to go settle a disagreement (Jason and Patrick both times) or stop a bout of tears (Maria twice and Kelly once). That doesn't surprise me though, it the first day and they don't know me so they're all behaving. But once they've been around me for a bit they'll loosen up. By 10:30am I can see that the natives are getting a bit restless so I suggest that we do something fun and they like the idea. "Ok, what'll it be?" I ask, pulling out two of the board games that I brought with me. "Candyland or Operation?"
"Candyland!" Kelly shouts a big smile appearing on her face.
"Is that ok with you guys?" I ask the rest of the kids. It's split; Jason and Patrick would rather play Operation while Jamie and Stuart want to play Candyland and Maria is just content to watch. "Well since three of you want to play Candyland, that's what we'll play." I say, taking off the cover. "And we'll play Operation some other time alright?" I add, forestalling the protest that I knew was coming and we start to play. Although Jason and Patrick roll their eyes and play grudgingly, I can see that they're having a fun time. Maria's content to sit on my lap and play using my piece. That's fine with me, I already adore the girl. We play two games; Kelly winning the first one and Maria the second one. Her face lit up so much when she reached the finish line that I couldn't help but smile as well. They want to start another game but a quick look at my watch tells me that there's a half-hour until lunch so I suggest that they color for a bit. The girls want to, the boys don't. So they end up playing with the trucks while the girls color unicorns. The half-hour flies by and soon it's lunch time. Which is good because I'm starving. Elizabeth has said that she could set it up where the kitchen staff could make the lunches and deliver them to the room so we could avoid the crush of people. I thanked her for the offer but turned it down because I'm sure that they would've gone stir crazy if they had to stay in the same room all day (as would I). Well, that and I'd like to get them used to going places around Atlantis without their parents. So when I mention that it's time to eat, they jump up and make a dash for the door. "Hold it!" I call out in my best 'teacher' voice. They freeze and I say, "We're not gonna run out of here like the room's on fire." They nod and I gather them in a group. "I want you to stay near me and don't go running off, ok?" Maria stands next to me and I can tell that she wants me to carry her. I'm about to say no when she looks at me with those eyes of her and I have moment of weakness and pick her up. We then head out towards the cafeteria.
A/N: And thus ends the morning part of the first day of class. I hope that I characterized McKay alright, I got burned last time I tried to do that so I spent a while with just his little part. And I still feel that I messed it up. After thinking on it, it seems to me that he's not really the paternal (hey look at that, I used a big word!) type and would mostly leave the child-rearing to the mother (and this is assuming that he even got married). But at the same time I can also see McKay still care about his kids. As stated before this is based on my story 'Dark Secret', so this is an off-shoot of that. If you haven't read the story, don't worry I explain everything in a much later chapter. Maria belongs to Reefgirl and is from her story (aptly titled) 'Maria', (as you know) Lydia belongs to BiteMeTechie from the story 'Retribution', and I own Max from this story. Everything else belongs to MGM/Wright-Cooper. Tell me what you think about this chapter, I live for reviews. Really I do -cross' heart-