Entry tags:

fic, kidfic, mcshep, sga

Fic: The Tragic, Doomed, and Epic Life and Loves of Elizabeth Jean McKay (SGA)

Fic: The Tragic, Doomed, and Epic Life and Loves of Elizabeth Jean McKay, Plus Other Interesting Stuff
Author: Deastar
Pairing: McKay / Sheppard (SGA)
Disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue!
Rating: PG
Words: ~13,500
Summary: All of this drama about her tragic love for Lorne has been distracting Elizabeth from her real priority: The Top Secret, Super Awesome, Ass-Kicking, Name-Taking, Huzzah for the Genius Elizabeth, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, And He Shall Reign Forever and Ever Anniversary Present of Unparalleled Magnificence and Splendor.
A/N: For Christmas, the Captain asked for McShep+kidfic, Lorne/Parrish a plus. This is the result. Beta'd for posting by the Captain.

~*~

Elizabeth is sitting in the mess watching Daddy and J-Dad play chess when Lorne walks by and smiles at her. She can feel herself blushing and throws Daddy a look of hate – she knows where those genes come from. By the time she looks back to her one true love, he's walking away from her.

"Our love is so tragic," she moans.

"'Our love?' What is this 'our love?'" Daddy says sharply, looking at her with suspicion. "There better not be any 'our love' at your age. We're talking about your love and your love only, right?"

"Of course it's just me, Daddy." Elizabeth rolls her eyes. "That's why it's tragic. Duh."

J-Dad laughs a little – at Daddy, obviously – and Daddy rolls his eyes right back.

"This is why J-Dad calls you socially retarded," Elizabeth tells Daddy.

"Oh, he does, does he?" Daddy says, glaring at J-Dad.

"Only with love," J-Dad says. "Also, checkmate."

"What?!" Daddy splutters. "I was... I was distracted by the Zero Point Menace over here!"

~*~

When Favorite Uncle Jack first heard Daddy call her that, he didn't really understand. It turned out that no one had told him how Daddy and J-Dad made Elizabeth. Elizabeth explained it to him the way Daddy and J-Dad had explained it to her...sort of.

"We thought you were going to be a ZPM!" Daddy moaned, and J-Dad glared at him.

"But of course we're very happy that it turned out to be you," Daddy added quickly.

"Almost as happy as if you'd been- Ow!" J-Dad had stepped on Daddy's foot.

"That is, even happier than if you'd been a ZPM. I mean, who needs a stupid ZPM, anyway?"

J-Dad shot him another look.

"Too much?" Daddy asked.

"Daddy found a machine in the city that was for starting 'the most powerful process in the universe.' But you need two people to run it, and one of them has to have the gene."

Favorite Uncle Jack had nodded. Favorite Uncle Jack always understands everything.

"So it ended up being Sheppard for his gene and McKay because he's a control freak."

Elizabeth had frowned. "That's not what Daddy said. He said it was because he was the smartest, so he could fix the machine if it broke."

"You say tomayto, I say tomahto," Favorite Uncle Jack had said, which Elizabeth hadn't really understood at the time – but now it makes her giggle.

~*~

Daddy and J-Dad are still arguing over the chess game when Lorne walks back out of the mess after dinner. When he walks by their table, he stops, and smiles at Elizabeth.

"We still on for training tomorrow, Elizabeth?" He's smiling. Oh, he's still smiling. Oh no, he's not smiling anymore! Oh, wait...he's been waiting for her to answer.

"Oh...yes. I...ummm...yes. Please. Thank you."

Lorne is the best, nicest, most handsome man in the world, because he totally ignores the big pile of awkward that she just dumped on his feet, with the blushing and the stammering and the secret doomed love. He just gives her a thumbs up, and then winks. By the time Elizabeth has recovered from her second embarrassment-induced heart attack of the evening, Lorne is gone and Daddy and J-Dad are staring at her.

"What?" she says, crossing her arms and scowling.

"That's pathetic," Daddy says, then gets the special wince that means J-Dad kicked him under the table. He gets that look a lot.

"Thank you," Elizabeth tells J-Dad.

"Don't mention it," he says, modestly. J-Dad is very modest. So, obviously, that's where Elizabeth's modest genes come from. Elizabeth is probably the most modest person on Atlantis, except for, maybe, Lorne...Anyway, she definitely didn't get her awesome modest genes from Daddy.

"Daddy wouldn't know modest if it bit him in the butt, right?" Elizabeth asks J-Dad. Daddy splutters.

"When did this turn into the 'gang up on Rodney' hour?"

"I'm asking in the spirit of scientific inquiry," she informs him, nose in the air.

"In the spirit of scientific inquiry, Elizabeth," J-Dad tells her, "Daddy doesn't have to be as modest as everybody else, because he can do things they can't. So it's on a different scale, you see?"

Elizabeth watches as J-Dad and Daddy give each other sappy smiles. Ick. But it's kind of cute.

~*~

When Elizabeth was six, Daddy and J-Dad asked her if she wanted a nickname – if she wanted to be Lizzy or Beth or Betsy, although Daddy had vetoed Bessie.

"You are not a cow," he told her.

"Duh," she said.

But Elizabeth decided not to have a nickname. People looked at her in a special way when they met her and found out her name. When she was six, she didn't know what it was, but at twelve, Elizabeth knows that at least part of it is respect. Her name makes people take her more seriously – it makes them take Daddy and J-Dad more seriously. Especially the people who knew Aunt Elizabeth, like Favorite Uncle Jack. When they call her Elizabeth, it's important to them. She's important to them. Elizabeth likes that.
 

~*~

After dinner, Daddy goes back to the labs, and J-Dad says he's going "to battle the monster."

Elizabeth walks with Daddy, and asks him what the monster is. Daddy thinks for a minute.

"Well, the monster comes in many forms, but tonight I think it's the dread beast called 'requisitions.'"

"Huh."

When Daddy reaches the hard sciences lab, he asks her where she's going.

"To turn in my biology homework to Aunt Katie. She said she'd be in the lab tonight."

Daddy nods. "How's that going? You know, the soft sciences are totally optional for you – you can quit any time. They're hobbies...like knitting, or Dungeons and Dragons."

Elizabeth shrugs. Daddy probably wouldn't care if Elizabeth quit all her classes except physics and math. But Elizabeth likes learning new stuff, and it's getting harder and harder for anybody – well, anybody but Daddy and J-Dad – to teach her anything about physics and math that she doesn't already know. So biology is good. And dancing, and Ancient, and all the other stuff.

"I like it," she tells him.

"Menace," he mutters, but he hugs her and messes up her hair. "Tell Aunt Katie hi for me."

"I will," Elizabeth promises.

~*~

When Daddy had first asked Aunt Katie to be Elizabeth's biology teacher, it had made Daddy and J-Dad argue a lot. The arguments usually ended with J-Dad going to the gym to get beat up by Uncle Ronon, and Daddy sitting on their bed and looking tired.

"She's approachable, she's got good social skills for a geek, she's a good teacher, she loves kids..."

"Wow, Rodney, that's some spiel you've got there. I don't know exactly who you think is buying what you're selling, but it almost makes a guy wonder what you hang around here for -"

"Your insecurities are so very much not my goddamn problem. I am happy, we are happy! You're the one who seems grimly intent on sending it all to hell, fucking up every-"

"Jesus, Rodney, are we swearing in front of her now?"

"Oh, that's great. God forbid we swear in front of the kid, but we can fight until we rip each other to shreds – I've witnessed some pretty crappy parenting in my life, but that's got to win the prize..."

"Then why don't you trade in for a newer model, McKay? Sounds like you've got one in mind, anyway."

"For God's sake, John, I am not trying to replace you! You are...Listen. I-I'm sorry I called you a crappy parent. You're not. You're great, actually...a lot better than me. And I know that. I do. Forget about Katie. We'll get Parrish to do it, or...or..."

But in the end, Elizabeth went to her first biology lesson with Dr. Brown, and walked back home by herself, because J-Dad didn't want Daddy to pick her up, for some reason, but he didn't want to do it himself, either.

"What do you think, Jumper?" J-Dad had asked her that night, cuddled close on the couch after Daddy had gone to bed.

"I like her," Elizabeth said, truthfully. "She's nice."

"Then that's what matters," J-Dad said, to nobody in particular.

This was when she was seven. A little after her eighth birthday, J-Dad walked with her to her lesson and thanked Dr. Brown for being such a good teacher. Things were better, after that – as if the apartment had gotten just a little bigger, with more room to move.

When Elizabeth turned nine, she invited Dr. Brown to her birthday party, and asked if she could call her Aunt Katie – she said yes. When Daddy and J-Dad heard it, it made them smile, Daddy big and wide, J-Dad just a little – but it was a real smile.

~*~

Aunt Katie had told Elizabeth she would be in the lab tonight, but she's turning out to be pretty hard to find. The labs are totally empty, and Elizabeth's getting tired of running around the greenhouses, peeking around alien trees, homework disk scratching her hand. Finally she sees a light, in Greenhouse 11, which is where the botany team keeps the succulents.

Elizabeth frowns as she walks toward the greenhouse door. Aunt Katie still mostly works on ferns, and those are over in Greenhouse 4. She's probably watering somebody else's plants or taking care of somebody else's project. Aunt Katie does stuff like that. She's responsible, like Daddy.

Elizabeth pushes the door open, and peers between the leaves of the giant alien yucca plant that's wedged in the doorway. If she were anybody else, she might not recognize what she sees, at least not for a minute, but Elizabeth has seen enough of Daddy and J-Dad making out – gross! – to know that that's exactly what's going on in here.

Who makes out in a greenhouse, that's what Elizabeth wants to know. Honestly. If it's Aunt Katie, that's probably all right – sometimes plants make Aunt Katie look like the puddlejumpers make J-Dad look, which is, okay, kind of sick, but it's nerdy sick, and Elizabeth knows you have to cut nerds their nerdy slack. That's what Favorite Uncle Jack says all the time.

Elizabeth leans in a little further, pushing the yucca leaves out of the way. One of the people is Dr. Parrish – Elizabeth decides that's probably okay, because he's the same kind of weird as Aunt Katie, and plus, Elizabeth likes Dr. Parrish. The other person – other guy, Elizabeth can see – is shorter, but very...very handsome...

Elizabeth slaps her hand over her mouth and doesn't make a sound – unless Dr. Parrish and Lorne can hear the sound of her heart breaking. She bets that's pretty loud.

Lorne...! But they were soulmates! They were...

Elizabeth's common sense takes over and sneaks her out of the greenhouse before she ends up seeing something she really doesn't want to see. The common sense marches her through the halls, homework still in hand, and dumps her in front of J-Dad's office. Now that Elizabeth is back in charge of herself, she doesn't know what to do.

She stands in front of J-Dad's door for a minute, and then another, and pretty soon, she realizes she's crying, just a little, and the crying upsets her more than...more than the other stuff. It must push her up just enough on the upset-o-meter for the city to notice, because the office door slides open in front of her, and J-Dad calls "Come in."

Elizabeth walks in slowly, keeping her head down.

"Hey, Jumper," J-Dad says. He gets out of his chair and kneels on the floor, holding out his arms. He shouldn't do that – it's bad for his knees, Elizabeth remembers, and then she grabs onto him and doesn't let go. He makes shushing sounds while she cries quietly into the shoulder of his uniform.

"I thought it was just silly," she tells him, knowing she's choked up, knowing she's not making any sense. "It was just silly. It is. It always was. I didn't think...I mean, it was just a game! I didn't know I..." Elizabeth trails off, still crying a little.

"It's okay, Elizabeth. It's all going to be okay." Elizabeth believes J-Dad. She's seen him lie to other people – even Daddy sometimes. But he's never lied to her. It will be okay. J-Dad says so.

~*~

Elizabeth figures that in her twelve years, she's seen J-Dad lie to just about everybody. Sometimes it's little stuff.

"So, anyway, I'll be helping the K'Duvians with their annual fishing ceremony. For interplanetary cooperation, of course."

"Right. And so you won't be taking your surfboard with you."

"No! And I'm hurt that you even thought of that..." Sometimes, when it's little stuff, she even helps.

"Oh, God, you didn't let her eat ice cream for breakfast, did you?"

"Of course not. Elizabeth had a nice bowl of healthy oatmeal, right, Jumper?"

"Yes, J-Dad." Once, when it was big stuff, she helped, too.

"Hey, Jumper, we're going on a field trip to meet a lady who might be able to tell you some things about yourself – about your gene, okay? But you can't tell Daddy."

"Why not?"

"Because Daddy might get mad."

"Why would Daddy get mad at some lady helping me?"

"It's grown-up stuff, Jumper. But I want you to promise me, okay?"

Elizabeth had promised, and she went alone with Daddy to Proculus, and had met Chaya, and talked with her, and it was nice. But when she got home, she had to lie to Daddy, and it had made her feel like she was sick to her stomach. So she told J-Dad she didn't want to do it again.

"Why not, Jumper? I thought you liked her..."

Elizabeth squirmed. "I don't like lying to Daddy."

J-Dad stared at her for a long time. Then he hugged her very carefully and slowly.

"I'm sorry, Elizabeth. I'm sorry I made you do that. Tell you what..." He pulled back and looked her in the eye. "I promise I won't ever tell you to lie to Daddy again. Or anybody. Okay?"

"Will you still lie to Daddy?"

Daddy sat down and looked at the floor. When he looked back up, his eyes were sad, but happy-sad. "About the little stuff, yeah. Like ice cream for breakfast and playing tag with the marines. But not about the big things anymore, okay, Elizabeth? I promise."

He had called her Elizabeth, so she knew he was very serious. After that, Daddy and J-Dad argued more but fought less. So, of course, Elizabeth had fixed everything, yet again. She loves her fathers, but honestly. Their love is so tragic.

~*~

The next day, Elizabeth feels much better. She knows that J-Dad is still worried, because he doesn't know what made her so sad, and if J-Dad is worried, Daddy is probably having a nuclear spaz attack, but Elizabeth is almost thirteen – she totally doesn't want her parents butting in on her love life. Plus, she's kind of afraid they'll take bloody revenge on Lorne, and she still loves him. Tragically.

That morning, after breakfast, she goes down to the gym to meet Lorne for self-defense training. This early in the morning, the gyms and training rooms are totally empty – it feels a little weird to be the only person in this sector of the city, and Elizabeth wonders if this is what it was like for J-Dad and Daddy and all the other first-comers: the city empty, no sign that anybody else was even alive. It should be creepy, but Elizabeth can feel Atlantis all around her, singing in her joints and her veins and the places where her fingernails go under the skin. So she's never really alone here.

Lorne walks in, wearing sweatpants and an Air Force t-shirt, and, okay, it's the same thing he wears every time, but Elizabeth still swoons a little. Then she remembers that he's not hers to swoon over, and she feels a little sad again.

"Hey, Elizabeth...what's wrong?" "Nothing," Elizabeth says heroically. "Why would anything be wrong? Let's go. Yay, training."

Lorne gives her kind of a funny look, and Elizabeth thinks maybe she wasn't very convincing. Still, he sets down his stuff and starts stretching.

"Okay, Elizabeth. We'll do your training, but then we'll talk for a minute, okay?" "Okay," Elizabeth says glumly.

The actual training is not very exciting – how to punch, kick, fall down, take a hit, read somebody's body language. It's actually a lot like Tegan's stick training, or Aunt Laura's dance lessons. But Elizabeth still finds it at least a little exciting because first, it gives her a really good excuse to look at Lorne all the time without being creepy, and second, J-Dad said that when Lorne gives her the okay, Elizabeth can go off-world on a real mission for the first time! Of course, Daddy says that won't happen until she's twenty, but Daddy is a worrywart.

"Good lesson," Lorne says when they're done, sliding down the wall until he's sitting down with his knees almost to his chin.

Elizabeth asks every time.

"No, you're not ready to go on a mission yet," Lorne says. Elizabeth pouts. Lorne is unmoved.

"Sit down, Elizabeth," he says, and pats the floor next to him. Elizabeth sits. She doesn't say anything. Lorne doesn't say anything. They trade off not saying anything until Elizabeth finally blurts out, "Are you in love with Dr. Parrish?"

Lorne gives a loud sigh, and runs a hand through his hair. "David thought that yucca was looking a little depressed."

Elizabeth remembers the yucca plant she had leaned on when she was peeking into Greenhouse 11. "I made the yucca sad?" Elizabeth asks, horrified. If she'd known it was an alien yucca with feelings, she wouldn't have leaned on it so rudely!

Lorne laughs. "No, no. Depressed, as in, the leaves were lower to the ground. From some midget leaning on them, I guess," he teases.

Elizabeth doesn't say anything – she feels terrible. She didn't mean to spy. At least Lorne doesn't look mad.

"I was looking for Aunt Katie," Elizabeth tells him, miserably.

"Hey, hey, Elizabeth..." Lorne puts his arm around her shoulders and pulls her close, right up against his chest. "I'm not mad. Nobody's mad or upset, okay? I just want to know why you're so sad, Miss E."

Lorne hardly ever calls her Miss E anymore, because it's a little girl's nickname, and he knows that Elizabeth is practically a teenager now. Elizabeth didn't realize how much she missed it.

She can't tell Lorne why she's upset – he'll think she's silly. He'll laugh.

"Come on, Miss E, you know me. I wouldn't laugh at you."

Elizabeth realizes she must have said all that stuff out loud – unbelievable! This day is getting worse and worse!

"You don't like Dr. Parrish?" Lorne asks, sounding worried. Which is stupid, he shouldn't be worried, Elizabeth really likes Dr. Parrish – he is her second-favorite botanist!

"No, no," she says. "I like him. He's...I just..." Her nose is stuffed up, and if it's stuffed up, that means it's red and blotchy and gross. More of Daddy's stupid genes.

"Hey, Elizabeth." Lorne turns her around. He looks right into her eyes, and he talks to her like she's a grown-up. He tells her that he loves her and that they will be friends forever and that he promises not to laugh at anything she tells him, because if it's serious to her, it's serious to him.

Elizabeth can see that he means it – that he really cares, as much as Daddy or J-Dad would, as much as Favorite Uncle Jack or Aunt Laura, and suddenly it's all right. It's all right, and she doesn't know why, but that's okay. She just knows she can tell him.

"I like Dr. Parrish," she says. "I guess he loves you a lot, so that's good. I just...love you, too, you know?" She blushes. "It was silly."

"It's not silly at all," Lorne tells her, and he pulls her into his lap for a long hug. When he lets go, he tells her, "You know I love you too, right? Just not..."

"Epically and tragically?" Elizabeth says.

"Right," says Lorne. He seems happy. "So you like Dr. Parrish?"

She nods. "He is my honorary uncle," she tells him. "Because he is my second favorite botanist and gives me cookies. But I don't call him my uncle because I don't know him that well, and it would be rude," she finishes, primly.

Lorne chuckles. "Rude, huh? Where'd you learn about that? Not your dads, for sure."

Elizabeth looks at him sternly. "Aunt Teyla is my etiquette instructor," she informs him.

He pantomimes a bowing motion. "I take it back," he says. "I bet David would like it if you called him something other than Dr. Parrish, though. I don't think he'd mind."

"We'll see," Elizabeth says. She will ask Dr. Parrish what he thinks. And also apologize for depressing his yucca.

"I just..." she tries to explain. "I...who will I be tragically in love with now? I am an amazing genius with beautiful blue eyes who fixes everything that goes wrong, and you are a handsome and rakish Air Force officer with spiky hair and a devil-may-care glint in your eye! It was the perfect formula! How could it go so wrong?!" Elizabeth throws her hands up in despair and confusion.

Lorne is laughing a little.

"Remember how you promised not to laugh?" Elizabeth says dangerously.

He stops. "Sorry, just...'a devil-may-care glint,' really?"

Elizabeth huffs. "Sort of. That's what Aunt Laura says, anyway."

"Ah," says Lorne. "Have you ever thought of, say, being tragically in love with Tegan? He's rakish...and he likes you a lot."

Elizabeth thinks about it for a minute. Tegan is handsome, but she doesn't know about rakish. And he has dreadlocks. That's definitely not in the plan.

"No," she says. "Not that he's not very nice," she adds. Aunt Teyla hears all, and Elizabeth is pretty sure she would consider it rude for Elizabeth to insult her son.

"Well," Lorne says philosophically, "I guess you'll just have to keep being in tragic love with me."

"Yeah," Elizabeth says, feeling a little glum. She's seized with sudden worry. "You don't think Dr. Parrish will mind, do you?" she asks anxiously.

Lorne shakes his head, and gives her another hug.

"I've got to head out," he tells her. "If you want to come with me, I can drop you off in the barracks so you can give the Marines manicures."

Elizabeth can feel the biggest grin spreading across her face. She had planned to do some work on the present she's making for Daddy and J-Dad's anniversary, but this is a special occasion. Lorne only lets her give the Marines manicures when she's had a really bad day.

"Wicked," she says. "What do you think about purple glitter?"

~*~

Aunt Teyla told Elizabeth that when Tegan was born, everyone was very excited, but didn't really know what to do. They didn't want to interfere with Aunt Teyla and Uncle Ronon's cultural traditions, she said, and so they did what they could, with gifts and thoughtfulness, but from a little bit of a distance.

Elizabeth was different.

"The Marines kidnapped your daughter again! Aren't you going to do anything about it?!"

J-Dad smiled easily. "Relax, Rodney – she looks good as new to me."

Daddy sniffed. "A child's psychological development is a very intricate and fragile process. Playing truth-or-dare with a gaggle of grunting brainwashed puppies with room-temperature IQs can't help but scar her for life. I object, strenuously."

"But dragging her down to the labs and making her into your human calculator is going to give her that special feeling of emotional fulfillment..."

"You're just jealous that I don't need you to be my human calculator anymore. Face it, Colonel. You've been replaced."

Elizabeth has friends all over – the Marines still play truth-or-dare with her and let her paint their toenails. The botanists let her pick their flowers and give her the first ripe apples every year. The cooks make her the best birthday cake, and the marine biologists take her out to play with the dolphins. Uncle Radek teaches her chess, Aunt Laura teaches her tap dancing, Lorne teaches her self-defense and painting, Aunt Teyla teaches her etiquette and Athosian dancing, Aunt Sam teaches her about stars and storytelling, Dr. Keller teaches her first aid, and Favorite Uncle Jack teaches her about Earth and the Stargate.

"It takes a quasi-military Ancient flying village," says J-Dad.

"Technically, Atlantis is far too big to qualify as a village," says Daddy. "Also, I hate sharing credit – she's mine, mine, mine. And a little bit yours. Maybe half. On a bad day."

~*~

That night, curled up on the couch after a marathon of X-Men movies and Toffee Coffee Ben and Jerry's, Elizabeth tells Daddy that she's decided on a plan of action for her epic love for Lorne.

"I was so sure we were destined to be together! But now I don't think so..."

"Giving up already?" Daddy asks.

Elizabeth gives him the "welcome to a week of sewage treatment duty" glare that she picked up from him when she was still a baby. It is obviously still totally scary, because Daddy has to look away, and his shoulders are twitching.

"Okay, see, first, I don't know what you mean about 'already.' I've been tragically in love with Lorne for five whole months." Elizabeth sighs and flops down flat on the couch. "Plus, I mean, I could maybe challenge Dr. Parrish to a duel for the heart of his beloved – and I would totally emerge triumphant...like you taught me to," Elizabeth adds loyally. "But I like Dr. Parrish, and he and Lorne deserve to be happy...even if it costs me my own one true chance at happiness," she concludes, assuming a suitably tragic expression and looking up at Daddy with her most devastating wobbly eyes.

"I think you've been watching too many soap operas with Crazy Aunt Laura," Daddy says, which is totally beside the point.

"That has nothing to do with anything," Elizabeth tells him, whacking his knee irritably.

"Anyway, I'm going to set Lorne free to follow his heart – no dueling. Dr. Parrish is a totally nice guy, and I wouldn't want to break his heart like that, you know? Oh my God!" Elizabeth has a terrible thought. She flips over and props herself on her elbows to stare into Daddy's eyes. "Would that make me a homewrecker?"

"I know!" says Daddy, "Let's talk about physics! Some nice, normal physics that won't break Daddy's brain. Had any breakthroughs on that whole ZPM concept?"

"I think I'll fall in doomed love with Chuck," Elizabeth muses.

"What?! No!"

Elizabeth makes wobbly eyes again and sprawls over Daddy's lap. "But he's Canadian, Daddy! It says so on his sleeve! See, Daddy? It's perfect!"

Daddy makes a huffy sort of noise. "While it's true that Canadians are clearly and utterly superior to people of every other nationality, I still don't understand this fixation you have with doomed tragic love. Aren't little girls supposed to like hearts and flowers and ponies and...happy things?"

Elizabeth whaps him on the arm as just revenge for the "little girl" part. "I'm almost a teenager, you know," she tells him. "Or did you forget my age again?" Elizabeth smirks the smirk of the righteous.

"Oh, God, it's the John face," Daddy moans, holding his hand in front of his eyes.

"Hah." Elizabeth is satisfied.

"Seriously, what is it with you and horrible cheesy romance novel despair?" Daddy asks after a minute, looking at her the way he looks at the Ancient devices that live in the "Unknown/For A Rainy Day" box in his lab.

Elizabeth shrugs. It's all totally obvious to her. "I want to be in love like you and J-Dad."

Daddy sputters. When he recovers, he glares, but not very much, so Elizabeth knows he's a little happy. "First of all, the fact that you still hold up your father and me as some sort of romantic ideal after twelve years of our continuous company makes me want to lock you in the infirmary and not let you out until Dr. Keller locates the source of the brain damage." Daddy takes a deep breath, refueling for the next part. "Secondly..." Daddy looks embarrassed. "Secondly, that's kind of...it's really kind of..." He makes a little harrumphing noise. "I love you," he says, and scoops her up into a kind of mashed-up hug. "You're still crazy," he says into her hair.

"Blah, blah, blah," yawns Elizabeth. When she wakes up in the morning, she's been tucked into bed just like when she was a kid, and it makes her feel warmer, even though she knows that's probably just the blanket.

~*~

Daddy and J-Dad made Elizabeth feel lucky. Obviously, Tegan has the second-best parents in the world, but Elizabeth has it even better.

She knows it's hard for them. Twelve years of eavesdropping on their conversations made it hard not to know.

"Well, I'm sorry if my parenting technique isn't up to your exacting standards – I didn't exactly have the best role models."

"I know, I know. Me neither. Jesus, how do people do this shit all the time? Teyla makes it look easy."

"Hah. Look is the operative word there, my friend. Teyla saw her mother get culled by the Wraith when she was nine. Ronon was an orphan. My parents were vipers when they were alive, and corpse vipers when they were dead-"

"Rodney..."

"Shut up, you didn't know them. And you...actually, I'm not quite sure what your problem is, but you clearly aren't any less out of your depth here than me."

"So what you're saying is that we're all pretty much just winging it here."

"Essentially, yes."

"I feel better already."

"Are you being sarcastic?"

"Hell, no. I just figure, hey, at least we've got plenty of practice there, you know?"

"Hah. I know."

They're not perfect. Daddy's not good at noticing when something's wrong, and J-Dad's not good at talking. But when they fall down, they get right back up again and try to do better next time. Favorite Uncle Jack says that's the most important thing of all.

~*~

"Hey, Menace," Daddy calls, two days later, when Elizabeth is trying to do her next set of biology homework.

"What, Daddy?" Xylem and phloem, phloem and xylem...like xylophone...

"What did you mean when you said you were obsessed with tragic love because you wanted to be like me and your father? We're not tragic!"

Elizabeth sighs, rolls her eyes, sets down her laptop, and marches into the kitchen. Honestly, does she have to explain everything to everybody?

Daddy is scarfing down some kind of gross powerbar, raising his eyebrow at her as if she was the one who didn't make any sense.

"You and J-Dad were totally tragic! It's obvious. It took you four whole years, which is, like, almost half a decade, to realize that you were destined to be, and then, you were so tragically dumb that you actually broke up. With each other. The love of your life. There's totally no excuse!"

Daddy looks fidgety, which is the next best thing to admitting she's right about everything.

"In retrospect, that was, of course, not the smartest thing I've ever done – of course, the competition in that category is pretty fierce..." Daddy puffs up a little, then remembers what they were talking about. "We're together now! How is that doomed?!"

Elizabeth gives Daddy the "You Remind Me of Kavanagh" look. "You're only together now because of me. You were still broken up when you made me! I have to fix everything that goes wrong in this city!" Elizabeth throws her hands up in the air in the throes of total exasperation.

"Yup," she hears from over her shoulder. "Definitely your daughter, Rodney."

"J-Dad!" Elizabeth squeals, turning to give him a hug. She pulls back and looks him in the eyes, intently. "Tell him. Tell Daddy about how your love was so tragic and hopeless."

"Don't think I can do that, Jumper." J-Dad ruffles her hair, but he's looking at Daddy the whole time. "Because I, for one, am pretty happy with the way things turned out."

"Me, too...obviously." Elizabeth tries to be patient with her fathers. "But you had to overcome obstacles! Perform feats of daring! Go where no man had gone before!"

"There was a certain amount of that," J-Dad murmurs, with a smirk, while Daddy blushes.

"Your daughter has decided to get massively inappropriate crushes on men three times her age in some twisted attempt to emulate our supremely retarded love story. You speak 'Crazy Person,' right? Maybe you can talk some sense into her."

J-Dad starts pulling ingredients out of the refrigerator for burgers, handing Elizabeth some lettuce to tear.

"What's wrong with being in doomed love with Tegan? A nice, normal – mostly normal – guy your own age?"

Elizabeth shakes her head sadly. Don't they understand? "Why does everybody say that? Tegan's okay. I mean, he's a nice boy. But he's just a boy...I'm looking for a man." Daddy and J-Dad stare at her for a minute. And then another minute.

"That's it, no more soap operas with Aunt Laura," Daddy says. J-Dad just kind of shakes his head back and forth and looks like he might be sick.

"Are you okay, J-Dad?" Elizabeth asks worriedly.

J-Dad looks at her blankly. "Cadman's long overdue for a rotation back on Earth, anyway. Or, you know, the scorpion planet. Whatever. I'm an open-minded man."

~*~

There's nothing wrong with Tegan. Elizabeth likes Tegan. He's fun, and he teaches her stick-fighting and he doesn't use contractions, just like Aunt Teyla. But he's...Tegan. He's always been there. There's nothing tragic about Tegan.

"Elizabeth! I am going to play hide and seek with Father. Do you want to join us?"

Elizabeth wrinkled her nose. "Doesn't your kind of hide and seek mean a lot of running and jumping and shooting each other with Wraith stunners?"

"I...yes."

"I don't think I'd be very good at that."

"You could...I mean, you could hide. With me. If you wanted. And I would, you know. Help you. I...protect you. If you wanted."

"How would that be fun for you?"

Tegan looked at the floor. "I do not...I just. It would be. I would...I would enjoy it. To hide. With you."

"Oh." Elizabeth thought about that. "No, thank you. Uncle Radek is going to teach me to play three-dimensional chess this morning. But, you know, have fun!"

"I...oh. Yes. Thank you."

Tegan likes that stuff – running and fighting and chasing wild animals through forests with no toilet paper or pillows or Tylenol – and then eating them!

Elizabeth likes numbers and Atlantis and stars and fixing things. And toilet paper and pillows and Tylenol and ice cream and she does not eat food that has looked her in the eye.

Gross!

No. Elizabeth and Tegan are totally not meant to be. Plus, it totally doesn't count as tragic doomed love if everybody wants you to be together. Duh.

~*~

All of this drama about her tragic love for Lorne has been distracting Elizabeth from her real priority: The Top Secret, Super Awesome, Ass-Kicking, Name-Taking, Huzzah for the Genius Elizabeth, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, And He Shall Reign Forever and Ever Anniversary Present of Unparalleled Magnificence and Splendor.

TSSAAKNTHGEHHAHSRFEAPUMS, for short. Code name: Sackenhassapums. For stealth reasons, Elizabeth calls it "My Anthropology Homework Project."

This is where Tegan comes in. Daddy is paranoid and J-Dad is perceptive, so Elizabeth has to account for the missing time in her day that she spends in the lab working on Sackenhassapums. She can't say she's doing her anthropology homework all that time, because she actually does have real anthropology homework that takes up real homework time. Hence the minion. Sidekick.

"Partner," says Tegan, looking stubborn.

Elizabeth sighs. "Fine, you can be my partner. Now guard this door, and if anybody asks, we're spending joyous pre-teen bonding time playing hide-and-seek or tic-tac-toe or...strip poker."

"Strip poker?" asks Tegan. "Also, I am thirteen – I am not a pre-teen any longer."

"Oh, rub it in, why don't you," Elizabeth snaps, and slams the lab door behind her.

Hello, Elizabeth says.

Welcome, granddaughter.

Is it ready for the next part? Elizabeth asks.

Yes. Finally. Behold, granddaughter.

And the room explodes in a glittering fever of numbers made of light, panes of color that filter equations from the raw truth. The floor is a maze of glowing patterns, and every console blazes with pure white, slicing the room into pieces with their beams.

Cool, says Elizabeth. Let's get started.

 

~*~

(link to part two.)