Videos, by kuonji (G) [7ds challenge]

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TItle: Videos
Author: kuonji
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters: Elizabeth Weir, Rodney McKay
Rating: G
Challenge: Seven Deadly Sins (Pride)
Spoilers: post-Trinity
Summary: John had known.  John had understood -- and he hadn't told her.

Videos
by kuonji

The knocking is loud but stutters between strikes, tentatively arrogant. Weir knows only one man who would knock that way on her door. "Rodney, come in," she says, pushing back in her chair. She wonders what he could want now.

There's a pause before he opens the door, wearing a look of bafflement that he unsuccessfully attempts to hide by fiddling with his jacketsleeve. She doesn't bother to explain how she knew it was him, and she knows that he is too out of sorts to ask. "What is it?" she says. She makes her voice pleasant but not friendly. She is still upset at him for using their trust that way, and for putting her in a position where to disagree with him would have put her control over the expedition in peril.

McKay and Sheppard are unfortunately too alike in some ways.

"Elizabeth," he starts. He stands straight and stiff. He has his I-want-something face on, and Weir braces herself. The last time she'd seen that look, it had been just before he'd blown up five-sixths of a (thankfully no longer inhabited) solar system.

Nobel prize, indeed.

"I want to--" He clamps his mouth shut and his eyes slide away to the bottom left. He's trying to lie, Weir realizes, and she smiles behind her folded hands, exasperated humor replacing the low burn of exasperated anger she has been feeling lately. Rodney is petty and occasionally scheming, but everyone knows that he can barely lie to save his life.

My eye twitches, I laugh inappropriately... It's not pretty.

The smile fails.

"Rodney, what do you need?" she asks. This time, she lets her friendship for this man show. He responds to her tone, as people do, without even knowing why. He relaxes just enough that he is looking at her again when he speaks the truth.

"I want to add a video to the databurst tomorrow," he says. He doesn't even wait for her to arch a brow in question, before he is explaining -slash- excusing away. "It'll just be a tiny short thing. Won't even take up a hundredth of a second. I'll take care of it completely myself."

She considers all the possibilities, the questions she should probably ask, the suspicions she should have. But in reality it's only a second before she nods her assent.

Rodney has always been in charge of sending the databurst each week. Heads of departments check the contents, but McKay is the one who puts the data together, compresses it, and personally sends it through. Officially, he leaves her a report with technical statistics and collected staff comments on each transmission. However, Weir has never -- and will never -- question him on this. He could be tacking on credit card numbers, cookie recipes, and alien porn to the messages that go through the gate and she would never know unless the SGC called him on it.

Research, his work, is Rodney's life. He is the sort of man who normally sees no boundaries between the two and is not understanding of protocol in any form. She recognizes this nearly over-the-top deference to her authority as another part of the apology he fumbled through three days ago.

It's unnecessary, she wants to tell him, but refrains because she knows it would only be counterproductive. She's never wanted him to defer to her; she only wants him to listen, goddammit.

"Whatever you think is needed," she says. She means it.

"Right, good. You can review the contents," he says, shoving a small 6mm tape at her. "It's already editted. No imminent destruction on the horizon -- that we know of, of course -- to distract me."

"I don't need--" she starts, but he has already bulldozed on.

"I know it's normally your thing. But I thought-- maybe, this time."

Rodney being, albeit unintentionally, opaque is not a new thing to her, and she looks down at the tape for some clue as to what exactly is normally 'her thing'. She freezes when she reads the label.

Rodney's impatient cough jerks her attention back to him. He lifts his chin in a familiar manner, reacting, she realizes, to her lack of response. "We can still do it your way, of course," he says. "After all, it's none of my business. It was just a thought."

He lifts a hand and wiggles his fingers, apparently demonstrating precisely how little and fleeting a thought it was.

"Rodney, this..."

"Look, everyone in two galaxies knows by now that I couldn't get the energy generator to work, but, Elizabeth." His hauteur falters. "I thought I could-- at least this."

He really sold you.

She grips the tape and takes several deep breaths that don't quite take. John had known. John had understood -- and he hadn't told her. He probably hadn't thought he'd needed to. She herself had thought she knew Rodney McKay better than anyone.

She still wants to scream at him. Even now, she still wants to tell him what a fool he is and make him understand exactly how furious she is for all that he risked and all that he damaged with his abominable pride. But she senses that this nervous man standing before her is not someone she could browbeat.

"All right," she says, making it permission and approval together. "I have no problem with it."

He frowns, almost a pout. "You haven't even looked at it."

"I don't need to."

His mouth works a few times, and then he backs away.

"Right, good." He spins around and starts for the door before the words have finished leaving his mouth.

"Wait, Rodney," she calls, jumping to her feet in case she has to chase him.

He jerks, and he stops. But he does not quite turn around. She does know Rodney McKay, and she knows what to say to make him careful. As careful as he'll ever be.

"On one condition."

"Yes?" He does turn then. His shoulders are wary.

"I don't ever want to have to do the same for you. Do you understand?"

His lips decompress into the beginnings of a smile. "Of course." He ducks his head, and he is out the door.

She sits back slowly and relaxes her fingers around the tape, running her eyes over the word scrawled in black permanent over the tiny label: Collins

End.


A/N: Thanks to dracostella for forcing me to rewrite this until it had a point.

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