Atl_Elephant1

Word Count: 4,164
Rating: PG13
Category: Angst
Story Status: Complete
Summary: Starts after 'McKay and Mrs Miller', spoilers also for 'Phantoms' and 'The Return'. There's something in Rodney's past that he doesn't want to talk about...

Beta: Thank you to Jayne Perry for the beta-reading.

Elephant
By Leesa Perrie

Chapter One – Parents
Set after McKay and Mrs Miller

It was Sheppard who asked. One of those few questions that I never wanted to answer, because of where the answer might lead.

“So, who were your parents?”

Such a simple question. No harm in it. Just a bit of idle curiosity. Jeannie had mentioned them in passing, though most of her stories were meant to embarrass me. At least, at first. Revenge, I guess, for cutting her out of my life for four years. For being so stupid, so short-sighted, so…petty. But she hadn’t really said much about them, our parents, hadn’t gone into any detail. Just a passing reference, nothing more.

Jeannie was gone now and the team seemed to be working hard to include me. Maybe they’d realised how much I’d been hurt by their actions. Laughing at painful memories. Hanging out with the ‘cooler’ version of myself. Pushing me out, probably without meaning too. I’m still learning about this friendship thing and perhaps they’d realised that, realised I didn’t understand the way they’d acted. Well, I do understand, in a way, and I’m sure now they hadn’t been trying to hurt me. Just wanting to tease me, only it had gone too far.

And then that question. We had been talking about…general things. Teyla’s crush on a new marine, things we’d been doing, things we’d want to do, even planning a mini-vacation to the mainland when we could get away. Somehow, the conversation had turned to family. Ronon had, reluctantly, shared a little about his own. Teyla had been happy to share good memories of her parents. Even John had mentioned that his father had been a General in the Air Force, and his mother a nurse.

And then it was my turn, and…I couldn’t speak. It was Teyla who spoke next, after moments of silence.

“You do not need to share, if it is too…difficult.”

Then all I could think was how difficult it must have been for Ronon to talk of his family, even the little he had said, and how even Sheppard had shared something, and just how rare that was. To not say something would be wrong. It would be like I couldn’t trust them.

“They were…” I paused. “My parents were both Professors at a university in Canada.” It didn’t sound bad…not bad at all.

“Professors?” John asked, obviously confused by my hesitation in answering the question.

“Yes, my mother was a Professor in Mathematics, my father a Professor in Physics. They were well respected by their peers.”

“Are all your family geniuses, then?” the Colonel grinned.

“Most,” I tried to grin back, but the memories were crowding in. I think they saw there was more to it, some hidden pain, but instead of digging for answers, the conversation moved onto safer topics, to my relief.

Maybe one day I could face my past, but not today.

Chapter Two – Friends
Set after Phantoms

“You shot me,” we were on the Daedalus, and I couldn’t resist pulling on Sheppard’s chain some more.

“Yes, Rodney, I shot you. And I’ve said I’m sorry, oh, about a hundred times! It wasn’t you I saw. And if you carry on like this, I might just be tempted to shoot you again!”

I narrowed my eyes at him, trying for annoyance. I think I failed, as he just grinned at me. I sighed, rolling my eyes.

“But…you shot me,” I whined again.

John made a frustrated noise, throwing his hands up in irritation. Ronon smirked. Even Teyla smiled. Carson had gone to get some rest. For some reason, the Daedalus medical team had placed Teyla, Ronon and myself in a separate room to their other patients. Can’t imagine why…well, I could. It probably something to do with the noise level.

“Rodney, you should not tease him so,” Teyla admonished me, as if I hadn’t seen her smile at my antics.

But why shouldn’t I milk this for all I could get? It wasn’t that long ago they were laughing at my sister’s embarrassing tales about me. Okay, okay, maybe I wasn’t as over that as I’d thought. Maybe I hadn’t quite forgiven them, especially John, for all of that. And maybe this was the only way I could deal with what had happened. I mean, I know John didn’t see me, but an enemy. And reliving Afghanistan couldn’t have been pleasant for him. I know he would never shoot me if he was in his right mind, but it still stung. My head and my heart weren’t quite on the same page with this yet. Getting there, but not there yet.

“Well,” Sheppard said suddenly. “I guess we’re even then, McKay.”

“Huh?” what was he talking about.

“Well, you shot me…”

“I didn’t mean to! You were taken over by that Thalen guy, and I thought you were going to shoot us all.”

“So you panicked and shot me!”

“It was only a graze!”

“Still shot me, though,” he growled, but I saw a hint of humour in his face.

So, he was teasing me back. Okay, I could handle that. Damn him.

“So…we even, then?” I offered.

“Even,” he smiled. “No more whining…”

“I don’t whine!” Okay, so I do, but as if I’m ever going to admit to that.

“You do,” Ronon entered the conversation. Wonderful, I was being ganged up on. What did I do to deserve this? Well, other than keep whining about John shooting me?

“Don’t whine,” I muttered.

“So do,” Sheppard replied.

I muttered darkly under my breath, though I didn’t mean it. The conversation moved on then to other things. Including how we were so going to have that mini-vacation we’d planned a short while ago but hadn’t had chance to take yet.

Conversation turned to family again. It seemed to be doing so more and more recently. I hadn’t told them any more about my family since after Jeannie had gone home, but I had to wonder why it kept coming up in conversations these days.

I listened, but did not enter the conversation, feigning tiredness. Trouble was, ever since I’d mentioned Dad to Jeannie on Earth, which should have told her how desperate I was, I had been thinking about my past more and more. About my parents, and why they blamed me for their problems. It was true that Dad had wanted Jeannie and me to work together, but it had nothing to do with liking me, and more to do with pride in the family name; believing that together we could accomplish so much more than individually. As if.

I listened to tales of parents who cared about their children, though I had a feeling Sheppard was holding back on some things. He talked about his mother, never much about his father. But still, hearing the good stories just made me realise even more how much I had missed out on. Jeannie had always been loved, and no one would ever blame her for my parents eventual divorce, the year after I had left home for good. As for me, things were never the same after…well, that was a long time ago now. I had pushed that away, rarely revisiting it. I could push it away again…if only my team would stop talking about family.

Maybe I was more tired than I realised, or maybe it was the drugs, because my body decided to stop feigning, and fell asleep.

Chapter Three – Brother
Set after The Return, Part Two (hadn’t seen at time of writing)

After the mess was sorted out, the whole going against orders and stealing, or more like re-acquiring, a jumper, not to mention the whole getting rid of the Asurans, I was surprised to find out that Jeannie had asked to see me.

Elizabeth agreed that I could go see her, and so a few hours later I boarded a puddle jumper and headed back to Earth. A hurried departure from the SGC, and I was catching a plane. Jeannie met me at the airport, and within a day of her request to see me, I was arriving at her house, to find that Caleb was out somewhere with Madison. Jeannie hadn’t said much about why she wanted to see me, and instead we had ended up discussing various aspects of astrophysics on the drive over.

I was nervous, I’ll admit it. And worried.

I sat in her living room, whilst she went to get something. Well, I started off sitting, but ended up pacing agitatedly around the room.

“Mer,” Jeannie came in, holding what looked like an old photograph album.

“Hmm, what have you got there?”

“I’ve been doing some research into our family history.”

“Oh, and why would you do that? Seems pretty pointless to me.”

I was afraid of what she might find out, might have already found out. There was a ‘pink elephant’ in the family…it sat in plain view but no one ever talked about it. Especially not to Jeannie. I was afraid she had found the elephant…and what that would mean for me. Would she blame me too, like my parents had? Like my grandmother, the only grandparent still around at that time, had? Like my uncle and aunt, and my cousin had?

Jeannie placed a photo album on the coffee table and opened it. My heart stopped, I swear it did, just for a moment, when I saw the photos. Photos I hadn’t seen in years. Photos I had thought lost, burned even.

“I wasn’t supposed to see this, but I found it in a box in Richard’s attic. I was helping him to clear it out, and I think he’d forgotten all about this being there,” Jeannie said quietly. “He wouldn’t tell me who the other boy in the photos was.”

“I…” I stammered, but couldn’t say anymore.

“I was looking into out family history, but never thought to look too closely at my immediate family. I thought I knew all there was about them, but when I saw the photos, and Richard wouldn’t talk about them, I looked into it.”

Jeannie’s eyes bored into me, and I had to look away. I rubbed my hands through my hair, but still I couldn’t speak. Damn our cousin for this.

“I didn’t know we had a brother. What happened to him? I know he died, but I couldn’t find out why. And why did no one tell me? I had a right to know.”

Angry. She was angry, and she had every right to be. And I should tell her, everything, but I couldn’t. I left the room. Ran in fact, but stopped before I left the house. Jeannie deserved answers.

I felt a pair of arms surround me in a hug.

“Mer,” it was quiet, the anger gone, replaced with concern.

“I…can’t,” I whispered.

I don’t know how long we stood there, Jeannie holding me as I cried on her shoulder, but eventually she led me back into the living room, and guided me onto a couch. I put my head in my hands, trying to regain some control.

“Eric…” I stuttered out a name I had not said for so long. “He was younger than me, by four years. You were just a baby when he…” I couldn’t say it, how pathetic was that? Jeannie sat down next to me, a hand placed on my arm, rubbing slightly.

“I found that out,” she said, turning to look at me, eyes red from her own tears. “I couldn’t find out how he died.”

“Drowned. He drowned.”

The memories flooded back, a pale body floating in the pond, a toy boat drifting close to the waxen limbs. The cries of my parents. Medics taking the body away. Police questioning. The shouting, the blaming, the banishment to my room. And then later, the funeral. The coffin, so small, the sounds of crying, the looks of blame…

“I was eight. I built a model boat from scratch. Butt ugly thing, but it was beautiful to me. I’d built it myself, using books to find out how, finding scraps and bits of junk, and turning it into a radio controlled boat. I was proud of it.”

I’d named it ‘Stingray’. Okay, so it looked nothing like the one from the TV show, nor was it a submersible, but I didn’t know many famous ships, and I certainly wasn’t going to name it after the ‘Titanic’. Besides, I was a lot less pedantic in those days.

“Eric and I used to play with it in the pond at the bottom of the garden. They filled the pond in, afterwards. I would never let him play with it on his own, knew someone should stay with him. Then that day, our parents were busy in their respective offices, you were in Mom’s office with her, and I was supposed to watch Eric. Only I was busy building something else, I can’t even remember what it was now, and he was playing with one of his toys. I was supposed to watch him, but he must have gotten bored, and wandered off, and I didn’t notice. I didn’t notice he wasn’t there anymore, playing in the corner of the room. I was too engrossed in what I was doing…” I stopped, pulling away and standing up, pacing but not looking at Jeannie. I couldn’t look at her, I didn’t want to see her face when she realised it was my fault.

“I realised eventually, though, and I went to find him. I was angry with him, he shouldn’t have wandered off. And I knew they’d be mad at me if they knew I’d let him. I looked all around the house, except for their offices of course, but I couldn’t find him, so I went outside. That’s when I found him. He’d taken my boat to the pond to play with. No one knows how he came to fall in, but he couldn’t swim and the pond was deep.”

“Mer,” I felt her hands on my shoulders, stopping my pacing, but I couldn’t look at her.

“He was so pale, and I knew. I knew as soon as I saw him that it was too late. Mom and Dad…oh crap, the tears, the cries…and everyone blamed me. It was my stupid boat, and I was supposed to be watching him…it was all my fault…my fault…” my voice trailed off, the memories too intense. The guilt too strong.

“No, Mer, you weren’t to blame. It was an accident, a tragic accident.”

I wanted to believe her, but I couldn’t.

“My fault,” I whispered. “No one talked about him after that. It was like he didn’t exist. The family decided you were better off not knowing about him, and he just vanished. But the blame was always there. That’s why no one in the family liked me, or wanted to be around me much. It’s why our parents divorced in the end, they couldn’t get past it, so I was to blame for that as well. And I couldn’t tell you…I didn’t want you to hate me too…”

“I don’t hate you. I’ve never hated you. I was pissed that you had cut me out of your life like you did, but I didn’t hate you then, and I don’t hate you now. You’re not to blame, Mer. If anyone is, then our parents are. They shouldn’t have had a pond like that in the first place, or they should have covered it or something. They shouldn’t have left an eight year old to look after him…you were just a kid, Mer. You shouldn’t have had that responsibility. It’s not your fault…”

I finally found the courage to look into her eyes, and saw that she truly believed what she was saying. I wished that I could believe it so easily.

“I’m sorry,” I could hardly speak. “I’m sorry you didn’t get to know him. That you never knew about him. I’m sorry.”

“I know. It’s okay.”

Time passed again, Jeannie holding me as we both cried, again.

“Tell me about him,” she asked.

I didn’t think I could, but I tried. And after a few stops and starts, I did. I told her about our brother, about his temper tantrums, his mischievous grin, his love of cars and planes and all things that moved fast. Memories I thought I’d forgotten returned, and we laughed, and cried, and laughed some more. I was even able to look at the photos with her.

And I think, maybe, something inside began to heal that day.

Chapter Four – Family

I returned to Atlantis a few days later, after staying in a hotel and spending time with Jeannie and her family. My family too, though that’s still an idea I’m getting used to. I was glad Jeannie knew about Eric now, and pleased that she at least didn’t blame me for what happened to him. I still blamed myself, but maybe not as much as before.

Elizabeth was curious about what had happened to turn a short two day trip into a longer five days trip, but I managed to deflect her by saying it was family business that needed to be sorted. She left it at that, for which I was grateful.

My team were also willing to leave it at that, though I could tell they were hoping I would tell them more. They weren’t going to push me, but I could feel some disappointment, and I felt bad about not telling them. But I just couldn’t face it, not yet.

Two days later, my team and I were talking about things in general, and how we really did need to take that mini-vacation we had planned, oh, ages ago it seemed now. And surprise, surprise, family came up in conversation again. Why? What was their fixation on sharing family tales? Were they trying to get me to open up about my own family?

I joined in as much as I could, without telling them anything about my own family. As much as I trusted them, I was afraid to see blame in their eyes. Sure, Jeannie might not blame me, might see it as an accident, but I had lived too many years with the guilt and the blame to let it go easily. And I was still afraid that others would judge me like the rest of my family had.

This time, I learned that Teyla had lost a brother in the same Wraith raid that had taken her father, and that Ronon’s sister had died of an illness a year before the Wraith came to Sateda. Sheppard was an only child, but he told how his Mom had died from cancer when he was a teenager. It was the most either Ronon or Sheppard had said about painful events in their life, and I knew I should share as well. Prove that I could trust them with these things. But I couldn’t.

I started to worry that they would think I didn’t trust them, or that I didn’t care, and that maybe they would pull away from me. I had waited so long to find a place to belong, a group of people to fit in with, a new family. To lose it now…it would hurt.

A week later and we finally got to take that mini-vacation to the mainland. Camping wasn’t really my thing, but it was a team break, and I was outvoted three to one. Typical.

Of course, Sheppard had managed to bring a couple of surfboards to the Pegasus galaxy. I didn’t ask how, I had a feeling I really, really didn’t want to know. Teyla and Ronon soon embraced surfing, and the three of them took turns. No way I was going surfing. Although the biologists were sure nothing bad lived in the sea this close to shore, I wasn’t going to take the risk of some unexpected predator attacking me. Perhaps I should never have watched those Jaws movies. Perhaps I should never have gotten stuck in a sinking jumper with a mega-whale thing hanging around.

So, they surfed, I read. Fiction, seeing as anything else had been banned by our illustrious leader. I wasn’t even allowed to bring a laptop and spare batteries. Still, there were a handful of books I had been wanting to read, so maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.

It was during this little break that I realised part of why the talk turned to families so much. That it was what we were to each other now, and so sharing about our other families was a natural extension of that. Only I couldn’t do it. I did manage this time to talk about Jeannie, about some of the things she’d done as a kid, even a few of the things I had done, but nothing important, and I knew they could tell I was holding things back.

The Colonel surprised me on the day before we were due to return, telling us a little bit about the problems he had had with his father. A difference of opinions was the best way to describe it, and the feeling that he was never good enough.

I told them that my parents didn’t like me much. That they had hated each other and blamed me. But I couldn’t tell them anymore, about why.

On the final day, Teyla talked of a ritual amongst her people, a way of honouring the dead. Basically, you painted the name of the deceased onto a smooth stone, and buried it with something that had belonged to them, or a likeness, a drawing, if you had one. They were buried in a special place, as a memorial to them. Afterwards, it was custom to speak of those that had died, sharing memories.

After leaving Athos, the place where her family’s stones, sorry, memorials were buried was no longer a place that she could visit. The Athosians had started a new special place, and many had placed stones into the ground, though without the accompanying personal item or drawing, to replace those they could no longer visit. She had been thinking of doing this for her family, but had never been able to bring herself to do so. Now, she felt she could, and she asked if we could be there when she did this.

Ronon asked if he could bury a memorial to his own family and friends lost, and Teyla thought it was an excellent idea, and suggested we could do so as well, if we wished. Sheppard said he’d think about it. I just shrugged.

We all agreed to be there for Teyla and Ronon when they did this. I might not hold with the ceremony involved, or believe in a hereafter, but I was learning to respect the beliefs of others…well, a little bit. Okay, mainly not, but this was family. And you were there for family; something I was finally beginning to learn.

So, a week later, the four of us were standing in the Athosians’ special place, watching as Teyla and then Ronon placed stones into the ground for family and friends lost, intoning the names as they did so in a formalised manner. Sheppard had decided to join in, and placed a stone into the ground for both his parents, along with a photograph of each of them.

As they turned to leave, to retire to a tent and share memories of those they had left memorials for, I surprised them by taking a stone and a photograph from my backpack. I moved forward, very much aware of their stares. As I picked up the trowel like spade to dig a hole, Ronon knelt beside me, taking it from me and digging the hole. I had forgotten the hole was supposed to be dug by someone else.

I stood back and watched, Teyla and Sheppard standing quietly by my side. Once Ronon had finished I moved forward and placed the memorial into the ground, and covered it up.

“For my brother, Eric Robert McKay, who died too young.”

I knew there were tears threatening me, but I pushed them back. This wasn’t the time for them. My team stayed close as we went to the tent set up for us, offering a quiet support.

That night we talked about those who had died. And I finally told them about Eric, his death, the blame, and how it was my fault. Even showed them the original of the photograph I had buried.

They reacted much like Jeannie did. And finally, I started to believe that maybe, just maybe, I didn’t deserve all of the blame that had been poured onto me over the years, that it was an accident…and that it wasn’t all my fault.

His photograph is on my wall now. After all, he’s no pink elephant…he’s my brother.

I miss him.

The End

Author's Notes: The elephant concept that I have heard and read about goes something along the lines that there is something that no one wants to talk about, even though it is sitting there in plain view. Like a pink, blue, dead (these are the three descriptions I have come across so far) elephant is in the middle of the room. Everyone can see it, but no one wants to talk about it.

In this case, it’s everyone in the family except Jeannie who can see it, knows about it, and ignores it. Hope this explains it for those who have never heard of this idea before. If not, just put ‘psychology elephant in the room’ into a search engine, and you should find some examples on the net!

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