sga_flashfic | New Fic: Phone Call Home, by kuonji (G) [phone calls challenge]

Title: Phone Call Home
Author: kuonji
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters: Rodney McKay, Dark Stranger
Rating: G
Spoilers: minimum of spoilers for "Underground", "McKay and Mrs. Miller", and SG-1 "Redemption"
Summary: Young Rodney, sulking, meets a mysterious stranger who asks him for a dubious favor.

Phone Call Home
by kuonji

Rodney stomped down the sidewalk, red spiral notebook under his right arm, new Faber Castell pencil clutched in his left hand, just waiting for people to cross him so he could insult them with his prematurely scathing wit.

"I'M GOING OUT!" he'd yelled, and banged the door extra hard as he'd left, more for the chance to raise his voice and make some noise than to actually notify his parents. He doubted they'd heard anything, and Jeannie had been screaming her nasty little head off besides.

He was tired of listening to his parents yell back and forth -- had his quota for the day, thank you very much -- and lately he was simply apalled by their utter idiocy. Good old Dad always said a smart person never made the same mistake twice. Well, it looked like an actual genius was different, then? Rodney couldn't believe they'd had another baby after him.

He'd been planning his escape at eighteen since he was five, and now his parents had had to put his plans back eighteen more years. "Shoot!" he swore out loud, brandishing his No. 2 for the pleasure of it. Oh, Jeannie had better appreciate his self-sacrificing heroism for waiting for her. She was still a wailing brat now -- eveyone went through that phase -- but once she became more of a... well, a person, she had better be the utter picture of humble gratitude.

Gratitude! Utter picture of it!!

His favorite sulking place hove into view as he made the sharp right around their housing complex to the street. He passed an oddly placed telephone booth, a couple of dying hyacinth bushes, and a stray cat before flopping down on the edge of the busstop bench. He gave a general glare around the currently deserted area before opening his notebook and looking at the page. His expression softened into something akin to affection.

Notes marched across the lines. Music notes. Each one perfect and in its place.

Rodney scanned the page, humming along just under his breath, until the notes stopped in the middle of the fourth line, where he'd last been interrupted.

He began filling in the rest of the page, copying out from memory the chords and peppared accent marks of Bach's Cantata 140. He'd just been introduced to the piece yesterday and his teacher had commented at the end of the half hour, in a rather over-exaggerated voice of astonishment, on Rodney's powers of memorisation. "My dear boy, this isn't a race!" he'd exclaimed. Rodney had shrugged it off. The man obviously didn't know genius when he saw it.

The right-hand sheets of Rodney's notebook were filled with blank music staffs, traced carefully from a torn out sheet of music and pages and pages of carbon paper collected painstakingly from his mother's discarded check books and credit card receipts. The left side, Rodney had filled with his own scribblings. Relevant equations. Measurements. Everything that made music come alive for Rodney.

Just as he was coming to the last bar, he heard an angry voice and a somewhat muffled scratch of metal and rubber. Looking up, he saw a man kicking the bottom of the phone booth. From the looks of it, he had just come slamming out of it. Wife hung up on him, maybe.

As if sensing Rodney's smirk, the man turned to glare at him. His glare changed to the hey-there-nothing-to-see-here smile, though, once he saw Rodney was a kid. Rodney scowled, and the man's face blanked into a hard stare.

After a few seconds, when the stranger's gaze still hadn't moved from Rodney's face, Rodney looked back to his notebook, uncomfortable. Had the guy recognized him? Maybe he was a parent of one of the kids at his school. Or even one of his Dad's colleagues, or one of his many grad students.

Considering Rodney's superior talent and his intellectual skills far beyond anyone else his age (or most of the human population, really), he should be recognized, of course. The attention he usually got, though, was in the order of "Look at the freak!" It didn't bother him, of course. But.

He didn't like it.

"Hi." Rodney jumped. The man had dropped down on the bench right next to him. "You're Rodney McKay."

The voice was friendly and not at all condescending. Besides, nobody called him Rodney. He'd been trying to promote the usage of his middle name, but as soon as the teacher called roll, that crashed and burned into the usual endless teasing and laughing at his expense. Useless bags of hormones, all of them. Rodney would never become like them, obviously.

"Yeah, Rodney. That's me," he replied, pleased.

The man nodded, and his deepset eyes were still fixed on Rodney's face, as if studying him or cataloging him.

Sudden terror gripped Rodney. Now that he thought about it, no grown-up had ever called him 'Rodney' in his life.

A stalker. He had caught the attention of some stalker of genius children. And there was no one else around right now. He was going to wind up locked in a closet somewhere, like, like the twisted stalker's pet. His parents would never find him.

Rodney slapped his notebook close, ready to bolt, when he realized what he'd written on the cover, in large black letters: PROPERTY OF RODNEY MCKAY.

So, not a stalker then. Just some stupid guy trying to be funny. He felt relieved, and weirdly disappointed.

"Ha ha," Rodney said. "Very clever."

The man grinned like some scrawny pirate and slouched back some more, so that his ratty shirt rode up to show his hairy stomach. "I thought so," he said. He raised one hand as if to ruffle Rodney's hair, but snatched it back before it'd barely moved. Rodney noticed that the man's knee was two centimeters from brushing his own. He swallowed.

No, not a stalker. A child molester.

Aside from the evils of inflation, strong government, abortion, and professors 'knocking up' their grad students, his Mom liked to scare him with stories about 'child molestors'. They were a breed of extra-friendly grown-ups who wanted to touch you a lot. They took you to empty parks and public restrooms and, and, well, Rodney didn't know the details but he knew it was bad.

He stood quickly.

"Hey, you're leaving already?" the man said, sounding kind of let down. Rodney clutched his notebook tighter to his chest.

"Your powers of observation are astounding," he snapped.

To Rodney's surprise, the man burst out laughing. It wasn't a mocking laugh. At least, it didn't sound like it. It didn't really sound like... like a shifty sort of laugh either. It sounded... nice. And now that Rodney noticed, the man certainly wasn't dressed like he wanted to trick kids into trusting him. No uniform, no balloons, no animal print hat. No candy.

Rodney felt a little insulted. If he were going to be child-molest-ed, the least the man could do was offer him some candy.

The man trailed off into chuckles and his eyes squinched up, like he'd surprised himself, too.

"What do you want?" Rodney asked, testy but not... unhappy exactly. He didn't think the man was a child molester after all. Probably just a homeless hippy bum looking for someone to talk to. Rodney wrinkled his nose in automatic disgust, even though he didn't actually smell anything.

The man sobered and ran the tip of his tongue along his lips. "Uh. Look, this is going to sound weird, but, I need your help."

Rodney squinted at the man. He didn't trust grown-ups who asked for his help. Usually, it was an excuse to get him to do menial work like clean out the class hamster's cage. Besides, bum or not, the man could still be dangerous, right?

"What if I say no?"

The man's bushy eyebrows raised, scrunching wrinkles into his forehead. "Then, I guess I'd be pretty stuck."

Rodney frowned. The man seemed friendly. But not weird friendly. It was just that -- Rodney finally put his finger on it -- he talked to Rodney like Rodney was a grown-up too.

"What do you need help with, exactly?"

"I need to borrow your phone."

Rodney looked pointedly at the phone booth on the corner.

"Yeah, uh, I know. But that doesn't take-- it's not working."

Rodney looked pointedly at the old lady currently utilizing the phone booth on the corner.

"For me. It's not working for me. For where I want to go."

Rodney crossed arms over his notebook. It would have looked more stern had he not nearly stabbed himself with his pencil, but it was a clear gesture nonetheless, he was sure. "There's another phone five blocks that way," he said, pointing backwards with his thumb.

"Yeah, I know, I tried that one too. I think it needs to be a house phone. Actually, it'd probably work best of all if it were your phone."

"Are you saying you want to come to my house? Just to use my phone?"

The man rubbed one hand sheepishly through his unruly hair. "Yeah?"

Rodney stared. Either the man was a simpleton -- or else he was a desperate criminal looking to get into Rodney's house and kill everyone in it. He looked down at the man's feet. Boots. Comfortable, heavy, could probably bash in a door without feeling anything. "You know what--," Rodney started, about to tell the man that he was sure they could cut a deal or something, when a small, wavering voice said from the side:

"Excuse me...?" The old lady had left the phone and was now peering at the both of them over a thick pair of glasses.

"Oh, hey, sorry," the man said, hastily getting up to let her sit.

"Oh, no, no," she laughed. "I was just wondering if either of you know the time. My bus comes at exactly two-thirty today, I've been told."

Rodney rolled his eyes, as if he had time for this. What an idiot he had been. He'd probably just pissed off a serial murderer. The man hadn't been calling his wife; he'd been talking to a contact, or a relative, his doting blind mother maybe. He'd just found out that the police were after him, and now he needed a place to hide and Rodney was right there...! And if this lady didn't get with the program soon, they wouldn't be able to escape in time...

Besides, the buses here had never been on time. Ever. Whoever she'd been talking to must be on drugs.

The man, obviously not noticing Rodney's internal drama, glanced at his watch and informed the old lady that she was six minutes early, perfect timing.

The old lady nodded. "Thank you, young man."

"My pleasure, ma'am."

Rodney glared, suspicions confirmed. Serial murderers were always polite, calm, respectable men on the outside, he'd heard. No question about it, then. He needed to get out of here, but the stupid old biddy was in the way, unless he wanted to dive into the street. Not that it was a terribly busy street, of course, but accidents could happen. In the hands of a mass murderer but alive? or splatted across the road by a truck? It was a hard decision.

"You know," the old woman said, as she seated herself on the now-empty bench. "Both of my sons are in the navy. Such fine boys there are in the navy."

Rodney, pondering making a break for it -- would the man just shoot Rodney if he ran? would he use the old lady as a hostage? -- stared at the non-sequitor. Beautiful. The only person keeping a rampaging murderer's attention away from Rodney was senile. He'd better remember to look out for his own mental health. He didn't want to lose his mind before he got his first decently large contract.

The man just grinned. "I'm Air Force, actually," he said, adding a bit of a drawl. "But I much appreciate the sentiment, ma'am. How did you know?"

"Those dog tags. I can see them from a mile away." Rodney doubted she could see her own toenails with her glasses off, but grown-ups liked to tell lies like that. Social niceties or whatever. More importantly, though -- Air Force?

The man grinned wide, looking rueful. He ran his fingers around his neck and pulled a set of light metal chains up over his head. Rodney snatched them as soon as they were within reach. "Let me see those."

Sheppard, John
523-18-9724
Type B

Rodney flipped to the back side and frowned at the seal there. "You're American?" That explained some things, he supposed.

The man shrugged. "Yeah."

The tags looked real enough. And that would also explain the boots. And the weird baggy trousers cinched close at the bottoms. "And you're really in the Air Force?"

The man looked down at him, then bent to whisper in his ear, "Actually, Rodney, those are fake. I'm really an alien from another galaxy, and I've infiltrated your town and plan to capture you all so my friends and I can suck out your brains and eat them."

"What?!" Rodney stumbled backwards into the street, the idea of having his most precious commodity sucked out through his ears for alien consumption momentarily distracting him from the possibility of oncoming traffic.

The man abruptly sat down on the ground, curled over into himself. Was he sick? Was Sol's radiation poison to him? Had Rodney found an anti-alien ray without knowing? The man was shaking, wiping at his face with both hands. He was... He was... oh. He was laughing his butt off, silent chuckles wracking his frame as tears ran down his face.

"Yeah, okay. Very funny. Hilarious," Rodney groused, stuffing his hand into his pocket with a deep scowl.

The rush of air and a honking that filled the horizon was his only warning.

"Holy crap!" Rodney saw the man dive towards him, and then there were rough hands on him and the world tilted... A second later, he was standing shakily on the sidewalk, the man, the U.S. Air Force officer, on one knee in front of him, hands still on his waist, and the popping, hissing screech of a bus door opening behind him.

"What do you think you're doing?!" screamed a middle-aged man's voice from inside the bus. "Don't you know this is a bus lane?"

"Hey," the man said, standing up with a dark look in his eyes. "You nearly commited manslaughter here, of a kid. So I'd shut your yap if I were you."

That seemed to work.

Rodney stared in awe. Okay, definitely not a murderer, then. An alien, though, still possible.

One of his fondest memories was of his Dad staring in half-amused awe at his plans for a model atomic bomb. His Dad had had to really fight the board to allow Rodney to enter the Science Fair with that. Rodney had never felt more proud.

Except for his schoolwork, though, which not the pickiest human on Earth could find fault with, Rodney's parents never defended him against strangers like that. More likely were weak excuses, or mutual winks and nods, followed by a bawling out once they were out of embarassment range. Even his music was only ignored, maybe only tolerated. Rodney hugged his notebook to him.

"Thanks," he said, but low enough that the man, who was helping the old lady onto the bus, wouldn't hear him.

The old biddy waved a cheerful goodbye, and Rodney waved back, tentative. He looked down at the man's wristwatch and surprised himself with a giggle. It was two-thirty, exactly.

***

"Why you think I'm going to help you after that is beyond me. You almost got me killed!"

Rodney was stomping down the street again, notebook in hand, pencil gone. Dropped in the gutter when the maniac on wheels attacked him, probably. Sheppard, as the man told him to call him (no 'mister' or anything), swung his long legs easily alongside.

"I did save your life."

"That's hardly convincing."

"And the fact that you're taking me home now...?"

"Maybe I'm not. Maybe I'm taking you to the police office."

The man shrugged. "I'd get a phone call there, at least." Rodney looked up. Sheppard was grinning. Unbelievable.

"You're going to have to be quick. My parents don't like people in the house." He knew defeat when he saw it. So did Sheppard.

"In and out. Don't worry."

Rodney did, anyway, but he kept his mouth shut. It wasn't that he didn't usually let people around him know what he was thinking, but Sheppard grinned like a loon everytime Rodney started to whine-- complain about something. It was irritating, and Rodney didn't want to encourage him.

"What have you got in that notebook, anyway?" Sheppard asked. "Physics notes?"

Physics? Why in the world would he think that? From Rodney's age, grown-ups usually asked him about long division and Dick and Jane's swimming hole. Maybe Sheppard's alien people started teaching their kids advanced science in kindergarten.

"Sort of," he answered. He remembered reading somewhere that music and sound were pure physics. He liked that. Pure.

"Can I look?" The man raised a hand, as if to take the notebook, but Rodney yanked it out of reach, gripping it a little tighter. Grabby grown-ups were not on his A-list.

Sheppard didn't try to take it again, and he didn't reprimand Rodney either. He didn't even look surprised, just smiling easily. "Sorry. My bad." Rodney hesitated. He fingered the edge of his notebook, nearly two-thirds of it rough and slightly mis-aligned from the other pages from his writing on them. Finally, he shrugged.

"Okay."

He handed the notebook over, and he waited for it to be taken without looking up. He heard the cover being flipped open.

Sheppard let out a long whistle. Rodney waited for him to start asking all sorts of stupid questions, pretending to be all impressed when actually he wasn't understanding a word Rodney said.

But there was only silence for a long time, and the turning of pages. Finally, Sheppard said, "You play?"

"Sure." The rush of relief and genuine excitement was heady. Rodney deliberated for a moment before adding, "I'm going to be a pianist."

"A what?!"

"A pianist," he repeated. He waited for the inevitable laughter.

"Oh, I get it." Sheppard did laugh, but Rodney didn't think it was at him.

"It's not impossible. I-- I'm really good," Rodney insisted.

"I believe you. I'll make sure to listen to you play sometime."

"Oh, uh, we don't have a piano at home," Rodney had to admit. "I practice at my Dad's university."

"No problem." When Rodney frowned confusedly at him, he said, "You'll have time to figure something out," and winked.

***

"No pets?" Sheppard asked, looking around the yard as Rodney let him in the gate.

"No. But my parents promised me a dog this summer. Maybe." He could never be too sure about his parents.

"Hm. I thought you'd be a cat person."

Rodney glared. "Boys have dogs. Don't you know anything?" Honestly, Sheppard had been looking like a smart one, too.

"Well, see, one of my best friends, he has a cat."

"Is he a sissy?"

For some reason Sheppard barked out a laugh at that. "Does it help if his name is Butch?" he asked.

Rodney gazed at him levelly. "Is it?"

Sheppard grinned and didn't answer. Rodney was getting used to that. He rolled his eyes as he unlocked and opened the front door.

"The phone's in the kitchen," he said, as Sheppard followed him inside. "I'm back!" he yelled up the stairs, not expecting and not getting any answer.

Except for his sister starting to wail in the next room. Rodney sighed. "Just a minute, okay? Remember, don't let my parents hear you," he cautioned again. Sheppard shrugged and Rodney left him alone to take care of the little brat.

Rodney tugged down the side of the crib and pulled Jeannie out, rocking her with the 3/4 rhythm she liked. "You just never learn, do you?" he grumbled to her as she slowly hiccuped into silence. "If you would just figure out that loud noises are not going to hurt you..."

"Wow." Rodney noticed all of a sudden that Sheppard was crouched right next to him. "That's Jeannie?" he asked. Rodney hugged her close to his chest, feeling suddenly protective.

"How the heck do you know her name?" he hissed. God, had he made a mistake after all? Was Sheppard really a killer? Or a killer alien? He wasn't sure which was worse.

Sheppard, instead of making excuses, just tilted his head to one side and smiled. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Rodney studied the mysterious and possibly unbalanced man who somehow managed to make Rodney feel safe. He turned his back deliberately, settled Jeannie back in place, and headed for the kitchen. A glance showed that Sheppard had followed. "Just make your phone call," he muttered, gesturing to the counter.

And of course, of course, that's when his Mom decided to walk into the kitchen from the other side. "What--" She stared, her eyes flicking between him and Sheppard. "Meredith, who is that man?"

Sheppard's eyebrow quirked upwards. "Meredith...?"

"Mom, he just wants to borrow our phone--"

"How many times have I told you not to bring strangers in here?! Don't you ever learn anything at all? What if he's a murderer, a wanted felon. Would you just invite him in for a cup of coffee?"

"Mom--"

"Look, Mrs. McKay--"

"Don't call me that," Rodney's Mom snapped.

"Uh." Sheppard, receiver already in hand, stared between them. "Ma'am," he started again, "if I could just--"

"You are getting out of my house right now. Or so help me, I will call the police."

"Calm down, ma'am, I'm just going to--"

"Don't you tell me to calm down. You put down that phone right now and--"

But Rodney could see Sheppard's fingers moving on the dial, not seven, but eight, no, nine digits, and then there was an odd buzz in the air and--

--and Sheppard disappeared into thin air.

Rodney's Mom stared, her mouth still open in the middle of her sentence. Rodney had never seen her so dumbstruck before.

The phone receiver crashed to the counter. The cup of the microphone end popped off and spun noisily along the tiles until it bounced to the floor and rolled against Rodney's feet.

End.

A/N: This story was rolling around in my head before the challenge came up. At that time, I had yet to figure out a way for John to get home. When I saw the challenge, it struck me: Matrix!

A/N: I have no idea what dog tags are supposed to look like, aside from what Wikipedia tells me. If anyone could help with that, I'd really really appreciate it! :)

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that was fun. *g*

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