Chapter Text
Jennifer smiled as she looked over Rodney’s chart, pleased to see that he was not only stable, but improving. It had been touch and go there for a couple of days, but Carson had been brilliant in surgery, handling it for her since—unbeknownst to her — she’d sprained her wrist and had a badly bruised back. The usual pang of her imposter syndrome raised its head briefly, mostly over her fighting skills, but she shook it off.
She walked to the head of his bed, looking down at his sweet face. When he was asleep, he looked so very young, with none of the fury, stress or brilliance that normally filled him.
She couldn’t help but admire him, though. He got to go out there all the time. Unlike Colonel Sheppard, Ronon and Teyla, Rodney had come here only as a scientist, kinda like her. And despite how terrifying it was out there—as Jennifer now well knew—he’d learned to fight with them, to be there when they needed them, to be so much more than just the smartest man in two galaxies.
She could almost hear his response to that. “Well,” he’d say if he were awake, “you know, I like to exceed expectations.”
She giggled.
His eyes fluttered open, partially open and looking up at her. He smiled.
“Are you laughing at me?” he croaked out softly. “Because I think people might frown upon that from my doctor.”
“No,” she said, unable to push the smile from her face. “Quite the opposite, actually.”
That earned a surprised lift of his eyebrows, and Jennifer suddenly blushed. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean…. I… I’ll get Carson. He’s actually the one taking care of you, ‘cause of…you know…” She lifted her bandaged wrist, blushed again because that was stupid, why would he care? “Not that, you know, right…going now!” And she bustled away, aiming for where Carson was chatting with Marie in the corner. When she reached him, she told him Rodney was awake, and he hurried back to check on his friend.
“You look flushed,” Marie asked, looking at her, gaze examining. “Are you alright? Is it your back? You really should be resting, you know.”
Jennifer blushed even more, waved her concern off, and walked over to check on the young man with the missing leg. Kivin was sitting by his side, holding the boy’s hand, his expression dour. When Jennifer approached, though, he perked up.
“Hi!” he quickly pulled his hand back as if embarrassed. “I know I’m supposed to be learning the city with Xander, but I wanted to check on Perrin.”
“Of course,” she said warmly. “You can be here as much as you like.” She checked the monitors around the boy’s bed, pleased to see everything looked normal. “We’ll be fitting him for a prosthetic tomorrow. You know,” she added kindly, “he’s going to need all the help and support he can get.”
“I can do that,” Kivin said, smiling at the other boy with something obviously more than just friendship.
“And you know,” Jennifer added, lowering her voice. “Holding his hand is probably helping him. It’ll keep his fingers warm, which he needs.”
Kivin blushed, then reached out and took the other boy’s hand again. Jennifer grinned as she turned away.
Teasing voices echoed from the hallway, and she turned her head in time to see Teyla, Ronon and Colonel Sheppard walk into the infirmary.
“Hey!” the Colonel called, waving to her. “There’s our hero!”
She grinned, hating that she could still feel the blush in her cheeks. She should get more makeup.
“How are you?” Teyla asked, walking up to her, inclining her head towards Jennifer’s wrapped wrist.
“About the same as you, I imagine,” Jennifer replied, noting that Teyla had a few wraps of her own, including one around her knee.
“You should come to the gym with us after this,” Teyla said, flexing her arms, her muscles rippling. “I have some tension release exercises I believe will help your healing. I’m teaching a class on them—Ronon is joining, even though both he and John managed to escape this whole affair basically unscathed.” She arched an eyebrow at that, and Jennifer laughed.
“They did get lucky, didn’t they,” she agreed cheekily. “Good thing they had us to save them.”
“Exactly,” Teyla said with a smirk, watching as Ronon and John beelined for Rodney’s bed.
“How goes it with the new Athosians?” Jennifer asked, knowing that more than half of Chinn’s men had taken her up on her offer. Most of the others had also found similar new lives, while Xander, Kivin and Kivin’s friend Perrin had all landed here in Atlantis.
“It is going well,” Teyla said, smiling softly. “So far, at least. Halling has Jinto and Wex putting them through the paces. It will take time, though.”
“I’m sure it will.”
Teyla took Jennifer’s hand then. “Want to join me as we check on Rodney?”
“I already—”
“Come,” Teyla insisted with a tug. Jennifer couldn’t deny her friend anything and let herself be pulled again to Rodney’s bedside.
Colonel Sheppard had already ensconced himself in a chair by Rodney’s side, looking like he was settling in for the long haul, which he probably was.
“I was thinking Scrabble,” the Colonel was saying.
“Scrabble?” Rodney croaked. “Are you crazy? I’d never stay awake long enough.”
“We could play where you can’t play words longer than four letters. Goes a lot faster that way.”
“But then you miss all my brilliance,” Rodney retorted.
“What brilliance? I still don’t think ‘quantumy’ is a word!”
“Sure it is! At least as much as ‘baddassery’!”
“Oh, no,” Teyla said, joining the conversation with a heavy sigh. “Are we back to this again?”
“They’re the worst,” Ronon agreed, arms crossed. “But at least McKay seems fine.”
“Well enough to argue about board games with the Colonel, aye,” Carson agreed, smiling. “He’s definitely on the mend.”
“We’re talking about what games to play when we visit after dinner tonight,” Colonel Sheppard told Jennifer.
“I gathered,” she said. “Why not a game like Fish, Fruit, Flower? You don’t even need a board and you can… What?”
They were all staring at her. Her heart stuttered. “Did I say something wrong?”
Then Rodney suddenly grinned. “You know Fish, Fruit, Flower? I thought only British…” He tried to sit up, only to groan and flop back on the pillows, Carson tutting at him as he got settled.
“What?” Jennifer asked as Rodney’s bright eyes met hers again. “And yes. I mean, it’s a car game, and when I was a kid, all our vacations involved long car rides, so…” Despite Rodney’s grin, everyone else was looking a little pained. “What’s wrong with Fish, Fruit, Flower?”
“He will not play that game with Ronon and me,” Teyla explained. “We have too many different names for things. He does not believe what we say.”
“You could be making things up!” Rodney said.
“As could you!” Teyla shook her head. “I honestly believe you made up the ‘platypus.’ Such an animal cannot possibly exist.”
“And I never know the name of anything,” John said with a shrug. “Except movies, comic books and rock stars.”
“Which are the categories he always chooses,” Rodney sneered. He looked at Jennifer. “But you! You and I could be a real match!”
Jennifer’s eyebrows lifted high.
Rodney suddenly blushed deeply. “Whoa, whoa, that’s not what I meant…not…I meant ‘have’ not ‘be,’ obviously…And John and Carson would be there, and… Um, what were we talking about?” He looked at the Colonel with obvious desperation, and the Colonel immediately exploded in a loud, braying laugh at his friend’s embarrassment, which quickly cascaded through the entire group, even Jennifer and finally Rodney, who gave a put-upon sigh as he chuckled.
“You all suck.” He tried to cross his arms, groaned in pain again, and Carson tutted once more and called him a “numptie.”
“You know, it’s good to see you’re well enough to be stupid again,” Ronon said, patting McKay’s arm.
“Stupid? I…oh. Sure, whatever.” Rodney gave Ronon a wry look, obviously hearing the affection behind the comment. “But the four of us are still playing something else later, right? So, I can remind everyone how not stupid I am. Anything but Scrabble.”
“How about Clue?” John suggested.
“Teyla always wins.”
“I do,” Teyla agreed without a hint of boastfulness.
“I like the game where I win all the chocolate you hoard,” Ronon said then.
“We are not playing poker! Your face is like a stone wall! It’s not fair!” Rodney’s face twisted into a grimace. “Fine. Bridge.”
“I call Teyla as my partner,” John said. Rodney’s eyes widened.
“That hurts my feelings,” he said.
“I like to win,” John said, shrugging.
“Hurts my feelings, too,” Ronon said. Then he smirked. “But me n’ McKay will still wipe the floor with you both.”
“Alright, I think that is enough,” Teyla said. “Ronon, we have our workout session.” She smiled at Rodney. “I too am very happy to see you well again, my friend. Ronon and I will be back in a couple of hours, with the cards. Perhaps by then you can think of a new game for all six of us. May I suggest, Hearts?”
“Hearts? I…actually, that’d work.”
“Except when you shoot the moon, and lose,” John noted.
“Pot, kettle,” Rodney retorted, and John laughed.
“Then it’s settled,” Teyla said. “We shall see you then.” She reached out and squeezed Jennifer’s hand once more at that, then took Ronon’s arm and left. Jennifer watched her go, stupidly happy that she had made such a good friend.
“Maybe I should also—” Carson began, but Rodney grasped his sleeve.
“Nope! Now that the non-Earthers are gone, we can play Fish, Fruit, Flower! We can even do teams, since you clearly need help. Me and John against you and Jennifer. Go get some paper so we can keep points!”
“I do have other patients,” Carson said weakly, “and I should—”
“Marie’s got them. Or get someone else to cover. Now go get paper and pencils.”
“I’ll get them,” Jennifer said.
“I’ve some in my desk, let me show you,” Carson said quickly, giving Rodney’s monitors one more scan before coming to her side and bumping her away from the bed. She flashed him a knowing grin as they walked off. She knew as well as anyone what Carson was doing, and when she glanced over her shoulder, she smiled deeply.
Alone at last, John was leaning forward, and she caught him telling Rodney something about them being “twins” with matching abdominal injuries. Rodney rolled his eyes and said something back which Jennifer didn’t hear, but John’s bright laugh carried through the infirmary.
“You know, lass…” Carson said, pitching his voice almost to a whisper as they reached his little desk where he pulled out some paper. “You told me last time I visited that you were worried you weren’t fitting in, and you were having a bit of a hard time finding friends…”
She nodded. It was true. She’d had a really hard time last year, feeling like a failure because of Elizabeth, then a failure for how long it took to find a cure for the Hoffan virus, then an idiot with the whole turning into a Wraith hive ship thing…. Other than Carson, the only other person she’d felt comfortable talking to was Rodney, who was a bit of a kindred spirit.
Ronon was…too much. Teyla had terrified her for a long time, being so competent and strong and having her own troubles that Jennifer couldn’t even begin to fathom, and Colonel Carter was just so…well, to say Jennifer had put her on a pedestal would be an understatement. Even after the whole stuck in an underground vault thing hadn’t really dispelled that for her. And Colonel Sheppard — who was still “Colonel Sheppard” despite him constantly telling her to call him John — felt too exceptional for her to really understand.
She’d chosen being a surgeon and not, say, a general practitioner or a therapist for that very reason—she’d always struggled connecting to others.
“All I’m saying,” Carson continued, smiling, “is that it looks like you’ve maybe found your place after all.”
She thought about Teyla’s hand squeezing hers, of Rodney’s blush, of the Colonel’s--of John’s laughter, and, despite the intensity, Ronon’s quick smiles in her direction, and she thought, maybe…
Maybe he was right.
And Hearts was a very good game.
“Also,” Carson said, handing her the paper and pencil and giving her a wink. “We’re going to destroy John and Rodney at Fish, Fruit, Flower.”
Jennifer laughed as they turned back to rejoin their friends.