Kiss Me

a sequel to Kiss This by Setcheti

 

 

Disclaimer:  Don’t own Stargate Atlantis or any of the characters thereof. 

 

Carson Beckett left his infirmary, answering the teasing comments from his staff with a smile and a wave.  He was past the point of blushing now, thank goodness – the lot of them had certainly enjoyed themselves at his expense before he’d gotten there, though.

 

He didn’t mind.  They were good people, his people, and they’d taken pains to let him know they were happy that he was happy.  They’d let Rodney know it, too, which had surprised the astrophysicist to no end.  He had, he’d admitted, expected…retribution.

 

It had taken a while, but Carson had finally figured out that Rodney expected the worst as a matter of course.  He had no experience with good things lasting, and therefore no expectation that they ever would.  He was still treating his relationship with Carson like a dream he was trying not to wake up from, moving so carefully, so warily, that it hurt to watch him.

 

They had a date tonight.  Actually they had a date every night, at Carson’s insistence, even if it was just a few moments grabbed together in the mess or a few words and a quick kiss goodnight at the end of a long day.  While he didn’t exactly share Rodney’s pessimism, the doctor did consider himself a realist; they were men with dangerous jobs in a dangerous place, there was always a chance that for at least one of them the next day might never arrive.  So Carson simply wasn’t willing to let a day go by without making some sort of time for the two of them in it.

 

Or as he’d put it to Rodney, “If I’m goin’ to die, I don’t want my last regret to be that I’d missed even one opportunity to kiss you.”

 

To date, not one opportunity had been missed.  Rodney was never late to meet him, never – another example of the care he was taking, since it had never apparently bothered the astrophysicist to be late for anything else.  Carson had, to his own amazement, become Rodney McKay’s number one priority in life.

 

Of course, not everyone was as happy about that as Carson was.  Dr. Weir hadn’t said anything to him about it, but Carson knew she didn’t like him being involved with Rodney.  Possibly because she’d gotten some sort of reprimand for mishandling the whole ‘kissing incident’, or possibly just because she wasn’t any too fond of Rodney himself.  Carson didn’t know and didn’t care.  He had sought out and received assurances from Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard and from his superiors on the Daedelus that there was no regulation which would prohibit or restrict their relationship, and he’d received a message from General O’Neill at the SGC requesting that he report it immediately if anyone – read Dr. Weir – tried to tell him any different.

 

O’Neill had also mentioned that he had ‘full faith in Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard’s ability to handle any further incidents of harassment’.  An opinion which Carson fully agreed with, although he was hoping they wouldn’t have any more incidents for Sheppard to handle any time soon.  He wanted to spend time with Rodney doing enjoyable things, not dragging names and dates out of him.  That had been an unpleasant surprise for Sheppard, apparently, finding out that his teammate – his friend! – hadn’t told him about what was going on.

 

Carson thought it spoke quite clearly to how much the relationship between Rodney and his team leader had degraded over the past six or so months, but he’d kept his opinion to himself.  Because he also wasn’t going to waste his time trying to repair the friendship Sheppard had all but thrown away in the first place; if the lieutenant colonel was going to learn from his mistakes, he was going to have to be a big boy and do it on his own.  Carson had better things to do.

 

Like kissing Rodney at least once a day.

 

They were meeting on a balcony tonight, and Carson tugged on his shirt to straighten it before going through the frosted clear doors.  It was windy and relatively warm tonight, and although clouds were starting to bank up on the horizon the sky overhead was clear indigo spangled with stars.  Rodney was leaning on the railing, watching the waves, but when he heard the door slide open he turned halfway around to look.  His carefully neutral expression bloomed into a genuine smile when he saw Carson, and he pointedly moved over as though making room at the rail.

 

Carson moved into the ‘cleared’ spot and slid his arm around Rodney’s waist, pleased when the astrophysicist settled into his hold with a contented sigh.  “Long day?” he asked.

 

“A normal day.”  Rodney sounded tired.  “How was yours?”

 

“Mine was not too bad.”  Carson squeezed a one-armed hug.  “But of course it’s much better now.”

 

“Ditto.”  They watched the waves for a bit more, and Carson was just about to suggest going inside when Rodney’s earpiece chirped.  The astrophysicist straightened away from the rail – but not out of the hug – with a sigh as he tapped on the little communicator.  “What?” he asked.  Carson could hear the buzz of reply but not the actual words, but he saw Rodney’s jaw tighten.  “I’ll be back down there in half an hour.”  More buzzing.  “Keep complaining and it will be an hour and a half, or maybe I’ll just take the whole night off.  I’ll be there when I get there, and if you mess around with anything in the meantime you’ll be there the whole night fixing it, got it?  Good.  Now don’t comm me again.”  He tapped the earpiece again, and gave Carson an apologetic look.  “Sorry.”

 

Carson’s response was a tightening of the hug.  “They wanted you for somethin’?”

 

“They always want me for something.”  A muscle twitched along Rodney’s jaw line.  “They can wait.”

 

A thought occurred to the doctor, and he raised an eyebrow.  “Do they know where you’re goin’ when you leave?”

 

Another sigh, and Rodney’s shoulders slumped.  “No.”  It was almost a whisper.  “If I tell them, it will get back to…well, I’d start getting calls I couldn’t blow off, okay?  On call means on call, 24/7.  Or 29.4/7, around here.”  He looked at Carson, blue eyes troubled.  “I’m not ashamed of spending time with you.  But if I want to keep doing it…I have to sneak around.  Your people will protect you, mine won’t.”

 

Carson wasn’t sure that was entirely true, but he had to admit that Rodney had good reason to be unsure of some of the people under him.  And even better reason to be wary of the one person over him, for that matter.  It might not be within regulations for Weir to demand an end to their relationship, but that wouldn’t stop her from interfering with it any way she could.  And Rodney, who legitimately did have to be ‘on call’ all day, every day, would have no recourse at all if she ever got the opportunity.  They couldn’t complain just because she was ordering him to do his job, and even if they did no one would be able to act on it.

 

It was a problem with no definite solution that Carson had been able to come up with.  And he’d tried, oh how he’d tried, because he knew that eventually Weir would find out where Rodney was going every day, and when, and with who.  Someone would tell her, and she would act on it.  And Rodney would be, as he would put it, screwed.

 

Just not by Carson – which was something else the doctor had been thinking about with an eye to solving.  He wasn’t any closer to coming up with an answer to that one either, because although he would like to…advance the physical side of their relationship, he didn’t think Rodney was ready for that yet.  Not to mention that at the moment it would be all but impossible to have an entire night to themselves when Rodney was having to steal every minute they spent together.

 

Carson drew Rodney closer, discarding the idea of going back inside, and pulled his head down for a kiss.  “We’ll figure out somethin’,” he murmured against the astrophysicist’s lips, and then set the problem aside.  They had thirty minutes, so instead of worrying about the unsolvable Carson was just going to make the most of what he had right here.  He thought he could fit a lot of kissing into thirty minutes.  And maybe someday, when Rodney was ready, they could fit in a few other things as well.

 

Until then, though, kissing would do him just fine.  As long as it was Rodney he was kissing, that was.  And Carson intended it to be Rodney, and only Rodney, for a long, long time.  No matter what Elizabeth Wier thought about it.