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“So what's the plan?” McKay asks.
“Plan?” Laura echoes. “ Plan ? In case you hadn't noticed, McKay, nothing is fucking going to plan!”
“Yes, well, I don't see how cussing at me is going to help.”
Laura's frozen hands slip painfully as she struggles with the tent peg. “Fuck, fuckity, fuck fuck!” she shouts at just shy of the top of her lungs. She'd save their full capacity for when they were well and truly...well...fucked.
“Oh, real mature.”
McKay’s right, of course. Perhaps she could have handled that a teensy bit better, but excuse her if their current situation is failing to bring out her best possible self. And it isn't as though he can talk. All he’s done since they stepped through the 'gate and onto this frozen planet is complain. About the cold, about his chapped lips, about how far they’ve had to walk, about his socks getting wet. The only thing he hasn't complained about is the one thing he’s so obviously upset about; the fact that he’s on a mission with her .
It would have hurt Laura's feelings, had it not been entirely mutual.
Her orders were clear; escort McKay through this planet while he took samples of this week’s super-important-material-that-Atlantis-can’t-possibly-function-without. And if said super-important-material happened to be buried under eight feet of ice then she was to do what she did best and blast her way through. Simple.
Simple for her, at least. Setting off explosives in these conditions without causing an avalanche was actually pretty tricky, hence the need for someone with her level of expertise and not any old marine who knew which end of a dynamite stick they were supposed to light and not much else. It was also the reason why they had sent in such a small team to begin with, just in case everything did go south.
Spoiler alert—it did. And quickly. And she never even got to blow anything up.
It was right when the little beeper machine McKay was holding started to, er, beep, that the snowstorm hit. Bad. So bad that one moment she was following McKay and his happy little beeps as they came in faster and faster—already imagining herself back on Atlantis for cups of cocoa and pats on the back for putting up with the Universe's Most Irritating Scientist —and the next they were separated from the rest of their team, a thick curtain of white in place of where they should have been standing, a screaming wind snatching away their calls for help.
Comms are out because of course they are. And who knows if it's the storm, some quirks of this planet, or just Laura's extremely shitty luck? What she does know is that if she doesn't get them both under shelter ASAP she can kiss her cocoa goodbye. Forever.
So here they are, hastily setting up Laura’s emergency tent and already at the point of coming to blows. She forces herself to count to ten as McKay begins to list all the ways this is anybody’s fault but his. Her orders were to protect him, not drown him in the snow, so that's what she'll do. Not to mention she needs him to survive. Well, his body anyway. Again.
Ugh. Laura hates irony.
She scrambles inside the too-small tent with McKay close behind. It's really only big enough for one but in this situation that might not be such a bad thing. She starts to strip the moment she's inside, shucking off her tact vest with a grunt. This is going to be the worst part and she'd like to get it over with lickidy-split. But, in her rush to be out of her sodden clothes and under the sleeping bag, she forgets to warn McKay about what's to come. Or rather, it doesn't occur to her that he needs to be told.
“What are you doing?!"
Laura turns to find McKay staring at her, not with embarrassment or—god forbid—lust, but with pure horror. “I’m taking off my wet clothes, McKay” she says, rolling her eyes as he continues to look at her as though she’s a particularly hungry Wraith. “Which is what you need to start doing.” McKay's so-called genius mind seems unable to compute what she's saying, or maybe it just hasn't caught up to his face yet. “You're Canadian, aren't you? Surely you know sharing body heat is the best way to survive in a storm like this?”
“Well...yes...” His cheeks, already flushed from the cold, turn scarlet. “Theoretically. But...really?”
Laura says nothing, just goes back to wriggling out of her BDUs.
“I mean...we could be rescued any moment, right?” McKay whines, the anxious twitch of his fingers restricted by his triple-insulated gloves. “How's it going to look if someone arrives in the next ten minutes to find us...canoodling...”
Gross.
“It's going to look as though we followed protocol by trying to, y'know, not die?”
“Yes, but do we really-”
“Strip, McKay,” Laura says, throwing her clothes so that they hit him right in his patronising face. And when he starts to argue a fourth time she cuts him off by saying, “It's not like I haven't seen it all before.”
It has the right effect. McKay finally shuts the hell up and unzips his parka, glaring at her all the while. She still feels it burning into the back of her skull as she buries herself in the sleeping bag. But she doesn't care; she’ll take any kind of heat she can get at this point.
It's getting dark inside the tent due to the amount of snow that's already settled over it, but Laura can just about make out McKay’s Star Trek boxers as he stumbles out of his pant leg. Even after he's finally undressed he dithers a moment, looking between her tucked up in the tiny sleeping bag and the door of the tent and back again, as though he might rather take his chances alone in the storm rather than get in beside her. But even a moment is precious time in these conditions and by the time he's clambered in beside her he’s shivering uncontrollably.
Even so, he manages to position himself so that no part of them is touching; not an easy feat in such as small surface area. It feels like they’re a married couple pretending to sleep after an argument, and somehow that makes Laura more uncomfortable than if he’d snuggled up beside her and popped a boner.
“Need to get a little closer, McKay.”
“I’m p-perfectly f-fine here,” McKay responds around chattering teeth.
“Oh, so you'd rather freeze to death than touch me, is that it?”
“Forg-give me for b-being a little hesitant,” McKay says bitterly. “The last time we were this close di-didn’t turn out w-well for me.”
“For YOU?!”
“Yes for me!” The sleeping bag jostles as McKay turns to face her. His anger must be warming him up a bit because he's not shivering quite so bad. "You piloting my body like a puddlejumper was not exactly a picnic.”
“Will you get over yourself?” Laura snaps. Then grabs his arm and pulls it around her bare waist, flipping over to trap him in the perfect spooning position. He makes a pained sound but doesn't pull away, the warmth of her body in these minus temperatures enough to make him stay put. “Besides,” she adds, unable to let it go. “I helped you.”
“ Helped me?” McKay repeats, astounded. “You humiliated me!”
“Please.” Laura does her best to scoff at him but her throat is starting to feel kinda tight. “You'd still be fumbling over Katie's fucking salad if it weren't for me.”
“You actually believe that, don't you?”
“Not that you learned anything.” She's feeling pretty salty now. No, more than that—she's lashing out. But who can blame her? She's trapped with Rodney McKay yet again. His maddening voice chip, chip, chipping away in her ear, making her skin crawl just like before.
“What's that supposed to mean?”
But at least it's her skin this time.
“It means you blew it! I know Katie let you down easy but you should have heard the things she said about you at poker night. By the end of the evening, she could barely stand you!"
“Now wait just a second—”
“When she left you didn't even put up a fight! And we all know why that is, don't we?”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that it's soooo obvious who you've really got it bad for, but you'll never make a move, will you?”
McKay's grip on her tightens along with the rest of his body. “I...that's ridiculous,” he says, “I don't...”
“Tell you what, if you hate being around me that badly why don't you shut up and pretend I'm the person you actually want to share body heat with? Seen as it'll be as close as you'll ever get.”
McKay is silent for a long time until he eventually snaps, “Fine by me.”
Laura squeezes her eyes shut. She doesn't imagine anyone else curled around her, just listens to whoosh of blood in her ears and the thud thud thud of pounding heart. Her extremities are so, so cold, but her chest is an inferno of pure, unfiltered rage.
And really, what had she done those few times she did manage to wrestle control of McKay's body that was so bad? Taken it for some much-needed exercise? Got him to finally go on a date? Kissed someone she might never see again? Did she really have to ask permission for every little thing?
Laura forces herself to take some deep breaths—in for four, hold for four, out for four—the way Heightmeyer had taught her during the mandatory sessions she was sent on after the whole fiasco. It doesn't really help (never does) but it does slow her thoughts down enough so that she can focus on them one at a time. And the one that's shouting at her the loudest, demanding her attention the same way she demanded McKay's from inside his head, was: yes, you should have .
It's not the first time she's had this thought. It comes most nights, actually, and always with gut-churning amounts of guilt along with it. She knows deep down that some of the things she did in McKay's body were kinda...uncool. Okay, maybe more than uncool. Maybe some of it was a little bit fucked-up actually. But it had been a fucked-up situation, hadn't it? And she'd been...scared. She still has nightmares about it for god's sake. Awful ones where her body isn't responding to her and she's trying to scream and call for help but it's someone else's voice coming out her mouth and they're saying and doing all the wrong things and everyone thinks it's her but it's not, and—
Shit. She should apologise.
“Rodney?” Laura is met with silence but she soldiers on. “Listen...I'm sorry if you felt...if some of the things I did were...” Jeez, get it together Lieutenant. McKay shifts uncomfortably behind her, as though trying to physically escape the awkwardness. She doesn’t imagine apologies were his area of expertise—as either the giver or the recipient. Laura sighs. Tries again. “Look. What I'm trying to say is AHH WHAT THE HELL, RODNEY THAT'S SO FUCKING COLD!”
Two blocks of ice have just nuzzled themselves into the back of her knees.
“I told you my socks got wet! My feet are probably in the early stages of frostbite already.”
“It doesn't mean you can just shove them into my kneepits like that without warning!” Laura says, not quite over the shock. McKay groans but starts to remove his feet from her warmth, grumbling about how if they need amputating by the time he makes it back to Atlantis it will be entirely her fault. But Laura squeezes her legs behind her, trapping McKay's freezing feet in place. “It's fine,” she says. “They can stay for a bit.”
They fall back into silence, albeit a slightly more comfortable one. Something in Laura's chest loosens as she feels McKay's feet steadily leeching the heat from the back of her knees and it takes her a while to realise the howling storm has finally started to quieten down. Maybe they were gonna be okay.
McKay is the first one to speak, his voice sounding too loud in the relative quiet they find themselves in. She’s already braced herself for the butt-load of questions he's about to hit her with. And he does ask her a question, but only one. And instead of one of the many she’s anticipating. What's happening? Is the radio working yet? Do I really need to help pack up your tent? Or even: Why are you such a complete and utter bitch? His question is composed of a single word and it's,
“Kneepits?”
“What about them?” Laura asks, defensiveness creeping back into her voice already.
“Nothing it's just...” There's a tickle of amusement that's almost...cute? “...the only place I've heard them being called that is in my own head.”
“Maybe that's where I got it from," Laura says, a grin spreading across her face despite herself.
“So let me get this straight, when you were plunging the depths of my psyche the main takeaway you got was that the popliteal fossa can also be called the ‘kneepits' and not, say, the basics of astrophysics?”
“I skipped the boring stuff.”
“Hmph, figures.”
Laura's joking, of course. While they shared the same body, their individual consciousnesses were entirely separate. And there wasn't a day that went by where she wasn't grateful for that. Still, maybe it would have been kinda cool if the full extent of McKay's genius had somehow siphoned into her. Maybe they could have done some kind of trade? As much as he'd never admit it, there were plenty of things she could have taught him in survival skills alone. Not to mention he could use some of her discipline...and charisma...and self-confidence. On second thought, no. The world was not ready for a McKay that strong. Laura’s mind conjures up an image of McKay, jacked-up Schwarzenegger style, so lost in quadratic equations that he's oblivious to the swooning women all around him. She laughs so hard she snorts.
“What's so funny?” McKay asks.
“Nothing!” Laura says. Then, unable to resist teasing him, she says, “I did see some veeeery interesting things in there, though...”
“No you didn't,” McKay says, dismissively. Then he adds in a smaller, more hesitant voice, “Did you?”
"Let's just say I have a pretty good idea who you were really thinking about while we've been cuddled up together...” Laura smirks. She didn't need to be inside his head to know he was head over heels for their new doctor, Jennifer Keller.
“I...I already told you I don't...”
“I could put in a good word for you if you want?” They would be kinda sweet together. And Jennifer seems like she’d be into the nerdy type.
“No!” McKay says desperately. “I don't need any more of your meddling in my love life, okay? Besides, I haven't even told him yet, so—”
“What?”
“What?”
“‘ Him ?’” Laura spins around to face him so fast that her nose smashes off what must be the only bony part of his face. There’s a crack of pain but she ignores it. “Who are you...oh my god...it can't be...Sheppard?”
Mckay's face twists into sheer terror. “I thought you said...you...you tricked me!”
Laura's barely listening, her head abuzz with this new and very important information. This is HUGE. How has she not seen it already? The looks. The teasing. The touching. They were perfect for each other, and she hadn't even noticed. But getting them together? Dr Awkward and Colonel Clueless? It won’t be easy. McKay will need all the help he can get.
“Cadman?” McKay says, voice sounding far away. “Cadman? No. Whatever you're thinking you can stop right there. Hey! Cadman? Are you listening to me?”
But it's too late. A plan is already starting to form in her brilliant matchmaking mind. And this one is going to go off without a hitch.