Aftermath by Tipper

[victoriaely.livejournal.com]

Rec Category: Rodney McKay
Pairing: none
Category: angst, friendship, episode tag
Warning: None
Author on LJ: not known
Author's Website: not known
Link: Aftermath
Spoilers: The Defiant One, Suspicion

Why This Must Be Read:
This fic deals with the aftermath of The Defiant One and the way Gall's suicide might be seen in Atlantis. One of the great things about this story is that each character is well defined, with its importance in the events. We see each member of Sheppard's team as they realise exactly how important Rodney is and what kind of person he is.



"Don't worry about a thing, sir. We're going home now. McKay's going to follow Markham back to Atlantis in the other jumper and, and then Dr. Beckett will…."

"What? No. I'm not leaving him," Sheppard announced, his voice already getting stronger. "If he's driving, I'm staying with him."

"Sir," Ford frowned, "I don't think that's—"

"You and Teyla come with us, if you like. But I'm not letting him fly alone."

Ford stared at him for a moment, then grimaced, "Yes, sir."

Sheppard looked past him to McKay again, "You fix my ship yet?"

"Yes," Rodney replied.

The major stared at him, waiting for more. Always there was an explanation, or a self-congratulation, or at least another Captain Kirk crack. When it didn't come, clangors went off in his mind. He pushed himself up on his right arm only this time, ignoring the tightness in his ribs, never taking his eyes off McKay. Ford frowned, but McKay's only response was a slight tightening around the edges of his eyes. Sheppard's eyes squinted, examining every inch of the scientist's face.

"All right, what's wrong with you," he hissed, glaring at McKay. "What's the matter?"

Rodney lowered his head then looked off to the right. Sheppard sat the rest of the way up, Ford helping him the last part of the way. Panting a little, he refused to blink as he glared at the scientist.

"McKay, I asked you a question."

"I am going to make sure the others have got the bodies properly stowed," Rodney said suddenly, still not in his normal voice, and still staring off to the side. "I'll be back in a few minutes." And he walked away, completely ignoring the look of bewilderment on the Major's face.

Comments

[liresius.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for this rec! I was just thinking about it a couple of days ago and wanted to find it again because I had really liked it. So timely! *g*

[victoriaely.livejournal.com]

:) Glad to help. I noticed how LJ people don't like ff.net so much, so I thought I might rec a few stories from that side of the net, too, 'cause there are some great stories there.

[liresius.livejournal.com]

I'm totally with you on there being some great stories on ff.net. I'm not sure - maybe it's just the fact that we can get live feeds - on lj the fic is delivered to your terminal - all in one place. Makes it so instant. But I loved finding all those LOOONG fics at ff.net *g*

[victoriaely.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Read a few today :) 17 chapters... *sighs*
The thing I like about some of the fics there is that they are more team-centered, while most fics on LJ are focused on a character or the interaction between two of them.

[liresius.livejournal.com]

17 chapters? Which fic? I love to find new ones. I hadn't realised that about the team centred aspect. I got into ff.net through McKay/Sheppard recs so I haven't really had a chance to pick up on that difference.

[victoriaely.livejournal.com]

Here are the links to a few writer profiles (basically gen fics, with some h/c):
http://www.fanfiction.net/u/579839/
http://www.fanfiction.net/u/525103/
http://www.fanfiction.net/u/679013/
http://www.fanfiction.net/u/229271/
Enjoy :)

[liresius.livejournal.com]

Whoohoo! Thank you :-)

[beatrice_otter]

I couldn't get past the first chapter because Ford seemed so out-of-character to me in the way he jumped to the conclusion that McKay had killed the guy. If it were, say, Kavanaugh who had been alone with the guy, or someone from outside Atlantis that Ford didn't trust I can see him jumping to that conclusion, but not with it being McKay, his teammate.

[victoriaely.livejournal.com]

Reading on, I found that he didn't blame McKay for killing Gall with his own gun (although I must agree that was the the first impression I had, after reading the first chapter), but he assumed McKay knew about Gall's intention and he let it happen. So, he blamed McKay for being passive and letting Gall kill himself.
I found some of Ford's reactions a bit strange in season 1, so this didn't feel like a big stretch to me.

[liresius.livejournal.com]

I initially wondered about that too - but you know, Ford isn't the brightest crayon in the box. I agree that some of Ford's S1 interactions with McKay were kind of challenging to McKay - e.g. in Hot Zone and McKay was streets ahead of him on that, so his youthful judgments (due to social conditioning) weren't so jarring for me. But really the whole premise of the story was so interesting and it was so well written, I continued to read on to discover a really good exploration of how Ford could be understood to act like that, in later parts - all good things come to those who persevere, I guess!!!

[victoriaely.livejournal.com]

Yeah, he had a few strange reactions to McKay and Beckett and I didn't like him very much because of that ^_^
In the end, the fic felt alright, and I didn't have any unanswered questions.

[liresius.livejournal.com]

Totally agree! Yeah I couldn't really connect with Ford in the show either and this fic really explored him well, giving him some depth and it was all quite plausibly done.