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The journey from Amsterdam to the small village outside Zwijndrecht takes three days and is slow and monotonous, the flat landscape broken only by the shining paths of water between the fields. Rodney spends most of it in feverish, disturbed sleep, face pressed against the window of the coach. When he wakes to the driver's final call, the first face he sees is Teyla's, smiling up at him.
"Rodney," she says warmly, and he stumbles down the steps of the coach to hug her, awkward around her large belly. The second person he sees is the tall, skinny guy behind her with messy black hair and muddy clogs. When Teyla says, "Rodney, this is John - John, this is Mr. McKay," he turns a slow, easy smile on Rodney. Rodney blinks at him, feeling suddenly very out of place in his crumpled coat-tails and cravat. "John will drive you to the farm, Rodney. I have some business in town," Teyla says.
"Hi," the guy - John - says, and gently pries the travelling bag out of Rodney's hand.
"You don't seriously expect me to ride in that thing," Rodney mutters, more out of habit than anything else. He's so tired. John cocks his head to the side.
"Don't worry, Mr. McKay, I'll be gentle," he says, sly and confidential. Rodney's surprised into a blush, which he tries to ward off by glaring, but John's hand is warm as he pulls Rodney up into the cart, and he doesn't complain once as Rodney feebly directs the stowing of his cases. They set off gently, and the road isn't too bad, for the time of year; after they've gone half a mile or so, Rodney's forced to admit the guy isn't a terrible driver. He doesn't force Rodney into inane conversation, either. But then, after a little while, he suddenly hands Rodney the reins.
"Hey, hey, take them back, take them back!" Rodney squawks, but John only reaches over into the back of the cart, and pulls out a straw-covered blanket. He shakes it out over the hedgerow they're passing, then drops it into Rodney's lap in exchange for the reins.
"Oh," Rodney says, "I don't -"
The blanket is dusty and smells of horse, but it's dry, and Rodney is shivering, he realizes. His teeth are chattering. He wraps the blanket around his shoulders. It's very warm.
"Thanks," he says.
"You're welcome," John says, looking at Rodney sidelong. Gradually, Rodney starts to wake up properly, to see the diamond-hard frost on the ground, the brightness of the huge winter sky. He takes a deep breath, and then another, and, suddenly furious at everything, yanks at his cravat, but his fingers are too numb to get it untied.
"Hey, hey," John says, "Slow down, McKay, you'll strangle yourself."
"I will not, I know perfectly well how to - oh, for Christ's sake -"
John grabs Rodney's wrists and pulls them away from his neck, presses the reins into his hands, and mutters, "Just hold them steady, okay?" then works on unknotting the now-slightly-grubby cravat. Rodney swallows, and John's cold fingers brush against Rodney's throat. Rodney's breath catches, suddenly, and he's sure John must have tightened the damn thing.
"There," John says finally, raising an eyebrow. "Can the suit wait until you get to the farm?"
Rodney feels his cheeks burn in the cold air. "Yes, yes, I'm fine now, I just - it was tight. Thank you."
A few minutes later, John tugs the corner of the blanket down over Rodney's knees. Between one hoofbeat and the next, Rodney falls asleep.
*
Rodney sleeps for practically three straight weeks before he finally feels well enough to start catching up on his correspondence, but Jeannie refuses in the face of his most vituperative prose to allow him to him even think about the business. The last vestiges of the tan he'd built up in the East Indies fade, and the nightmares come with less frequency. One particularly cold day, he stomps into the kitchens and installs himself in a chair near the fire. John is there, wearing an apron, his hands covered in flour.
"Hey," he says, leaning against the pantry doorframe. "Feeling better?"
"No," Rodney snaps. John shrugs, and goes back to kneading dough.
"I thought you were a farmhand," Rodney says eventually.
John shrugs with one shoulder again, and doesn't look up. "I do a bit of everything around here. Not much to do but milk the cows and cook in the winter."
"I want to -" Rodney says, scratching at his chin, "Um, do you have any hot water?"
"Sure," John says. "You got a shaving kit?"
"Oh," Rodney says, feeling like an idiot and cursing himself, "No, I - they wouldn't let me - look, never mind, forget it."
John looks at him quizzically. Rodney hunches down miserably in his chair. He supposes he might as well tell him; after all, Carson insisted on writing to Teyla before approving Rodney coming down here, so they probably know he's a crazy person already.
"They thought I'd try to, you know," he snaps. "Do myself in. You probably want to check with Teyla if I'm even allowed to be in here."
John raises an eyebrow. "You planning on sneaking a kitchen knife behind my back?"
"No," Rodney says, "Don't be stupid."
"That's okay, then," John says. He rummages in a low cupboard, and pulls out a leather bag. He drops it on the table. "Soap's in there, and a razor. I'll get you some water."
Of course, Rodney's stupid hands are shaky, and there's no mirror, so he cuts himself almost immediately, and hisses. He waves John away irritably. "It's only a scratch, it's fine."
John hovers. "Takes a while to get used to doing it without a mirror," he says, helpfully.
"Yes, thank you for that," Rodney says, rubbing a finger over the wet stubble where he's totally failed to get down to the grain.
"Need a hand?"
"You're not a valet," Rodney snaps. "I'm fine."
He cuts himself two more times before John comes and sits down next to him, rests his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands, and just stares at him over the bowl of cooling water. Rodney sighs, curses his ridiculously overprotective sister, this godforsaken farm and the whole world, then wordlessly hands John the razor.
"Look at it this way," John murmurs as he tilts Rodney's head back, "I can't do a worse job than you, right?"
Rodney can't answer without getting a mouthful of soap, so he just glares. John's careful and slow, and he runs his fingers over Rodney's cheek, afterwards, his eyes slightly crossed from the proximity, and Rodney feels his breath catch, an unfamiliar tightness in his chest. John stands up so abruptly it makes Rodney jump, and is over the other side of the room in about half a second.
"Okay?" he says, violently shoving some wood into the oven.
"Well," Rodney says, wondering if he did something wrong, but so relieved to be clean-shaven again that he can't really think about it too much. His whole face is tingling. He realizes he forgot about his moustache; but, he thinks, he never really liked it very much. "I suppose you didn't do a disastrous job."
A little while later, John gives Rodney a bowl of hot, creamy porridge without being asked, and then gets Rodney to roll out some sweet-smelling dough and cut it into little tree-shapes. Rodney hasn't done that since he was about eight, while he was still allowed to mingle with the servants. It's ridiculous and demeaning, and all his trees are lopsided, and he and John have to eat most of them when they fall to pieces in the oven. If Rodney shuffles down to the kitchen again the next morning, it's only because it's warm there.
*
It gets so cold that John has to break the ice in the cistern every morning. "No letter from your sister?" he inquires every day, innocent smile hiding an inner core, Rodney decides, of pure maliciousness.
"You know perfectly well there isn't," Rodney says acidly.
"Guess you'll have to help me with the cooking today, then."
John polishes harnesses and whittles handles for tools at the kitchen table, and Rodney mostly sits and talks, although he can never really remember what about. He tells John about the Dutch East Indies, sometimes, the smells and sights, that idiot Kavanagh who tried to embezzle from him that one time. John makes little humming noises and grins sometimes. One day, John comes in late; he stamps snow off his clogs at the door and says, "Market day today, McKay. You coming? Cart's ready."
Rodney endures the freezing ride into Zwijndrecht, and watches, appalled, as John totally fails to haggle effectively for eel which is, quite frankly, substandard anyway. "Oh, for god's sake, let me do it," he snaps finally, and terrorizes the entire market into submission. At the end, they have enough money left over to buy Teyla an orange, which she falls on when they proudly present it to her that evening. She wipes juice from her mouth, a little sheepishly, but her eyes are smiling, and Rodney feels himself smiling back, feeling lighter than he has in years. It's the first night he sleeps through to the morning without a single dream.
The next week, Rodney writes a list beforehand.
*
One evening, Rodney watches disapprovingly as John bolts down his evening meal. "What's the hurry?"
"Players' meeting tonight," John says. He pauses, and flicks a glance at Rodney before looking back at the table. "You wanna come?"
"Um," Rodney says. "What?"
It turns out that John is an itinerant actor. Rodney's never heard anything more ludicrous - or at least, he hasn't until he gets to the meeting. John and an enormous man with clogs the size of small coracles are arguing about whether they can afford to rent a donkey to play the donkey, or whether they should try and get a knock-off donkey skin; but then they'd have to persuade Dr. Beckett, the local practitioner, to play the donkey again even though Teyla's a lot heavier this year, being actually pregnant rather than stage-pregnant.
"Oh my god, you're complete idiots," Rodney snaps. "Look, how much money do you actually have to put on this production?"
John and the big guy - Ronon the Tilemaker - look at Rodney, then at each other.
"Two stuivers, three pennies," Ronon says finally.
Rodney pinches the bridge of his nose. "Okay, okay. Here's how we're going to do this."
By the end of the evening, Rodney's found a new career as a local theatre financier. Also, he's the third shepherd.
*
Rattling back to the farm in the freezing dark, the iced-up dykes shining in the moonlight, John says, "So. You want to be our production manager?"
"Well, obviously it's going to be a total disaster if I'm not there to keep an eye on things," Rodney sniffs. "How you managed to break even last year I'll never know."
"We didn't," John admits. "But, don't take this the wrong way, Rodney, you don't know anything about theatre."
"Oh, I don't want anything to do with the actual play, are you kidding?" Rodney says. "I just want to make sure you don't fall into hideous debt, since clearly there's nothing standing in your way otherwise. If we promote you effectively in the local area, we could even make enough money to buy you a proper stage next year. And I plan to make back the money I'm going to invest in the play, obviously."
"You don't - you don't have to do that," John says.
"Oh please," Rodney blusters, "I'm not doing anything with the money, and if Teyla won't take any money for putting me up, it's the least I can do. At least this way I can get my sister off my back by pretending to be doing something. And, you know. You've been, um. Nice to me. I appreciate that."
"Okay," says John.
He shuffles a little closer to Rodney under the blanket, his shoulder and thigh warm against Rodney's through about eight layers of clothes. Rodney's stomach flips with butterflies, and for a wild moment, he thinks, could Sheppard - might John -
Then he pulls himself together. He's being ridiculous, he tells himself; it's just cold.. Still, they ride all the way home like that, breath smoking and lips chapped and legs pressed together, and Rodney isn't cold at all.
*
The first time Rodney sees John perform, it's the dress rehearsal of their Christmas play, to be performed in the churchyard on their rickety wooden stage (fold-out, with wheels) which Ronon has been building since October, in between painting ridiculously delicate windmills on tiles. Rodney is extremely dubious about its safety, but Ronon just glares at him if he mentions this, and Rodney figures that it's not as if he's the one who will break his leg if the stage collapses mid-performance, so he restrains himself from making more than one or two comments about it.
Rodney's been slightly dreading seeing John onstage, because Rodney thinks they're becoming - friends, or something, and what if John's terrible and Rodney can't fake being impressed? But John shrugs and looks carefully in the other direction as he asks Rodney if he wants to come to the rehearsal, which Rodney suspects means he really wants him to come, and Rodney finds himself saying, "Yes, okay, absolutely," before he can think of an excuse. And anyway, he's curious.
John's not bad, exactly, but he's not what Rodney expected. He's… compelling. He slouches against the back of the stage (Rodney winces, but he doesn't fall through it), drawls up the angel of the Lord, and seems oddly uncomfortable with Teyla as he helps her up onto the donkey; but, Rodney reasons, it must have been pretty uncomfortable for the guy, with this teenage bride insisting her baby was God's, and actually it's quite insightful characterisation, although he isn't sure if the inhabitants of Zwijndrecht will get it. Rodney does a double take during the no-room-at-the-inn scene, though, because John's leaning really quite close to Ronon, tilting his hips and lowering his voice. When John gets back to Mary, he says apologetically, "There's no room at the inn," while staring at the wall and sort of smirking, and Rodney wonders, bemused, if this is some sort of bizarre local variant on the nativity story where it turns out there is room at the inn, or perhaps that Joseph has to offer the landlord some sort of obscene favour in exchange for room at the inn. Then he thinks he's probably being blasphemous, and tries to concentrate.
Teyla groans and puffs very convincingly, and when she grabs John's hand in an obviously unplanned moment, John winces. Ronon's scaffold holds him beautifully when he comes down from the heavens to bless the mother and child, but when Beckett gingerly appears behind him as a chorus of angels, he slips, shrieks, falls over the back of the scenery, tearing his wing clean off. Teyla starts to giggle, and John says, "Goddammit, Carson," and drops baby Jesus on his head. Rodney puts his face in his hands.
*
It's the weirdest Christmas Day Rodney's ever had; they're up before dawn, eating porridge in the freezing kitchen before bundling up for the ride to Zwijndrecht, with their hired donkey pulling the stage (they might as well get their money's worth, Ronon had reasoned), and the rest of them crammed into their own cart. Teyla can't touch her food, even though it's been a while since she's had morning sickness - Rodney privately thinks it's probably stage nerves, as he's got a few flutters himself, but he doesn't dare suggest it.
The ride to Zwijndrecht isn't actually too bad; Rodney ends up crammed in between John and Radek the Postmaster at the front, and although John has to mostly concentrate on driving, Radek, who, it turns out, is originally from Bohemia, isn't entirely uninteresting.
Rodney gets roped into soliciting 'donations' from the audience, and then helping strap Beckett into his new and improved harness, and he's just pausing for a second to watch Ronon inform John onstage about the nature of his wife's pregnancy, when Teyla hisses, "Rodney!", grabs his wrist and pulling him behind the scenery.
"Ow!" squawks Rodney. "What?!"
"I think the baby is coming," Teyla says, wide-eyed. "Now."
"That's impossible!" Rodney hisses, "You're not due for weeks yet!"
"I do not think the baby - realizes that," Teyla says, gasping suddenly and staggering, her grip on Rodney's wrist turning vice-like.
Radek pokes his head around the side of the cart, now wearing a crown made of straw and shiny loose threads pulled from some cast-off noble's cloak.
"What's going on?"
"She's gone into labour!" Rodney snaps. "Do something!"
Teyla's bent double, and a groan comes from between her teeth as she takes deep, controlled breaths. "Kanaan," she says, "You must get Kanaan."
"Get Dr. Beckett," Radek hisses, putting his arm around her shoulders and helping her onto an upturned barrel. "And Ronon. Stop the play."
"Um," Rodney says, but another loud groan from Teyla hurries him away, and suddenly he's standing on the stage in front of, oh god, several hundred people.
"Rodney," Carson hisses from above his head, dangling above him, red-faced, like some kind of indignant fruit, and John waggles his eyebrows desperately.
"Um," Rodney says loudly, "I'm, um, I'm afraid you'll all have to go home now, as Teyl - the Virgin Mary is having a baby."
There's a hum in the audience. "Oh my good lord, now?" says the heavenly chorus.
"Crap," says the angel Gabriel, and he whips a knife out of his hair, cuts the rope holding him up, lands easily on all fours, and leaps off the stage, leaving his halo behind him. There's a smattering of applause.
"Yes, now!" Rodney snaps, "Get down from there, you idiot!" Carson drops his harp and starts fumbling with his harness.
"What about a refund?" someone yells.
"I think on this holy day it would be, um, befitting a charitable spirit and love of our lord," Rodney says, thinking fast, "If you considered it a donation to, um, the miracle of life which has - or, ah, hopefully will - bless us here today. What better start in life could a baby get than the goodwill of the people of, um, this fine town?"
For a second Rodney thinks he's going to get stuff thrown at him, but then there's a general mumble of approval, and a few people in the front start to applaud. Rodney notices, gratefully, that one of them is actually Radek, who's slipped out, although he's still wearing his crown and also, for some reason, is holding Rodney's (moth-eaten, bug-eyed and quite frankly disturbing) stuffed sheep.
"Congratulations!" someone yells, "Merry Christmas!"
There's a much louder round of applause, and Rodney, feeling slightly dazed, looks around for his next cue. John slaps him on the arm and starts to tug him off the stage.
"For the love of God," yells Carson, flailing uselessly seven feet off the ground, "I need to attend the deliverance! The, the delivery! Rodney! That young lady needs a physician! Get me down!"
*
"There's no room!" bleats the innkeeper, and Rodney smacks his forehead with sheer inability to believe what has happened to his life, just as Teyla lets out an extra-loud groan from outside and Ronon picks the innkeeper up by the lapels and slams him against the wall.
"She's having a baby," he grits out. "Make room."
"Ah," the innkeeper bleats, licking his lips. Rodney wonders, slightly dazed, if they oughtn't let Ronon be Joseph next year. "And don't even think about the fucking stable."
"Right you are," the innkeeper says.
They get Teyla up the stairs and into one of the maid's rooms; all the staff are serving Christmas lunches downstairs, so they're left to their own devices, and Ronon and John are sent out to solicit hot water and towels.
"Rodney," says Teyla, blowing her hair up out of her eyes as she puffs rhythmically, Carson murmuring useless platitudes. "You must - get - Kanaan. He is on his way - from Rotterdam - he will be waiting - for a horse - you must -"
"Okay, okay!" Rodney says, trying to back out of the room. "We'll get him! Teyla, don't worry! Just - have the baby!"
"What," John says breathlessly, bumping into Rodney as he runs up the stairs, carrying a pile of towels. "Rodney? Is Teyla okay?"
He's flustered and looking slightly dangerous, so close to Rodney that Rodney could just lean forward and - he catches the thought before it goes too far, but then John's eyes drop to Rodney's mouth, and suddenly the air between them feels thicker, heavier. Rodney's heart stutters in his chest. He jumps back, feeling heat rise to his face. "She's -" he clears his throat, "She wants -"
"Get Kanaan!" Teyla bellows from the other room.
"Um, that," Rodney adds.
John opens the door, dumps the towels on the floor and says, "We're on it, ma'am." He grabs Rodney's arm. "Come on, Rodney."
"What?" Rodney says, weakly, practically falling down the stairs after John, "We're not actually going to - how on earth do you suggest we -"
"We're going to get a horse," John says.
Rodney has to pay an extortionate amount of money to rent the innkeeper's moth-eaten horse, but after John's petted it and murmured sweet nothings to it for twenty minutes while Ronon, Rodney and Radek argue with the innkeeper over the availability and quality of the horse's harness and kit, it's perked up significantly. By the time they come to an agreement by which John won't actually fall off and break both his legs, it seems almost excited about the ride.
"Good boy," John murmurs, as he settles the saddle, and strokes the horse's rump. "Hey, I bet you're a good jumper. I bet you could jump all the way to Rotterdam. What's your name, then?"
Ronon sticks his head out of the doorway. "Hans," he says.
Hans flicks his tail at Rodney.
"Hurry back," Rodney snaps, as John's wrapping a scarf around his neck. "And for god's sake, be careful! The roads are icy! Don't go too fast!"
John gives him a quick smile, loaded with something that makes Rodney's stomach flutter. "So long, Rodney," he says, and grips Rodney's shoulder for just a second too long. Ronon whacks him on the back, and practically throws him up into the saddle.
"But - wait," Rodney says, belatedly, "How are you going to get back, if he takes the horse?"
"Me and Ronon worked something out," John says, and catches a bag Ronon throws to him.
"What -" Rodney narrows his eyes. "No. Those are not those skates. Sheppard!"
"It's just in case I don't get a ride back, Rodney. Hoya!" John yells, and horse is surprised into a canter.
"Oh god, he's going to die on the road," Rodney mutters. "What if he meets a highway man? Or, or loses a shoe?"
Ronon slaps him on the back. "He'll walk to Rotterdam."
*
Rodney, to his intense relief, is banished from the room, and then finally from the corridor outside, when his fidgeting starts to make Radek irritable. Carson keeps poking his head out of the door with nonsensical platitudes and requests for more water and clean towels, and Teyla keeps shrieking, and it makes Rodney a little squeamish. When he nearly faints and falls down the stairs, Radek walks him out, and he realizes he hasn't actually eaten since about 6am. The innkeeper's wife, who's much more sympathetic than her husband, gives them some goose and roast potatoes.
"We should probably go up and help," Rodney says finally, glum.
Radek shakes his head. "If they need us, they will call. Ronon and Dr. Beckett are very experienced."
"With what?!" splutters Rodney, "Cows?"
"No, no," Radeks says, "Also sheep. Oh, debil, Rodney, I am joking!"
They find a battered chessboard. Rodney's so distracted he isn't even able to defend himself when Radek starts cheating viciously. After every game, Rodney goes outside to look down the road, straining his eyes until he's shivering with the cold. The third time, it's getting too dark to see.
"Is a four hour cart ride to Rotterdam," Radek says from behind him, making Rodney jump. "Perhaps Kanaan had not yet set off. It will be several hours yet before there is even possibility of Kanaan arriving." Radek puts a hand on his shoulder, surprisingly gentle. "John will find him, Rodney."
"It's not Kanaan I'm -" Rodney blurts out, and bites his lip.
"Ah," Radek says quietly. There's a pause where Rodney can't look at him, and their breath smokes in front of them. Radek clears his throat. "John is a good man," he says. "He is much improved since you have come to stay. I hope you understand I myself have no argument with the, ah, the teachings of Plato."
"Oh," Rodney says, deeply shaken, and swallows. "I - well. That's very… liberal of you."
"You are in theatre now," Radek says briskly, and pats Rodney on the shoulder. "Chess again, I think."
"Yes, yes, absolutely," Rodney says, and takes one last, long look down the road before going back inside.
After the third game, Ronon comes downstairs. His shirt is dark with sweat. "Beckett says we should switch for a while," he says, gesturing Radek upstairs. "Is there any food?"
Rodney starts to fidget again, watching Ronon eat his goose at the speed of light, and finally Ronon gestures at the chessboard. "You want a game?"
Rodney is halfway through beating Ronon (he is) when Radek comes down again.
"He says I am useless," he says with a put-upon sigh, and flops into the chair. His hair is sticking up everywhere.
"Don't lose my game," Ronon says, and ruffles his hair even more as he jogs back upstairs.
After a while, they go out again; it's really dark now, and they can hardly see beyond the firelight glowing from the inn's windows.
"Wait," Radek says, grabbing Rodney's shoulder as he turns to go back inside. "There."
"I can't see any - oh my god, you're right! Is it - no, no, it's not John, it's too short. Could Kanaan have made it this fast?"
They're both already walking fast down the road, almost jogging. "Kanaan?" Rodney yells, when they're close enough, "Is that you?"
"Thank god," the guy says, nearly falling off the horse in his hurry to get down. "Is Teyla -"
"She's fine, she's fine, she hasn't had it yet," Rodney snaps, trying to avoid the horse's rearing head. "Did John -"
"He's following on the canal," Kanaan says, pressing the reins into Radek's hand and patting the horse's neck. "Thank you!" he yells over his shoulder, and jogs towards the inn.
"Did he just say - oh my god, that idiot, you don't think he's really - he wouldn't try to skate back in the dark, would he?"
"I do not think so," Radek says, looking down the road.
"Oh, great, that fills me with confidence," Rodney snaps, and stomps back into the inn, until Radek yells at him to come and help with the horse. At least trying to avoid having his skull kicked in distracts him for a while, but he can't stop thinking about ice, drowning, a broken ankle, hypothermia…
"Rodney. Rodney."
"What?!"
Radek wordlessly hands him a glass of something that smells very alcoholic. Rodney knocks it back, then wheezes.
"Ronon says will not be long now."
Rodney looks at his pocket watch. It's nearly half past eleven. Suddenly, there's a commotion upstairs, yelling. Rodney and Radek take the stairs two at a time, but the door's shut. "Is that good yelling?" Rodney whispers furiously to Radek. Radek glares and shushes him. He still, Rodney notices, has a strand of gold thread in his hair. Then there's a great clatter on the stairs behind them, and, it's John, panting hard, cheeks bright red and hair sticking up everywhere. The surge of relief and - something - Rodney feels is so strong it almost knocks him down, and he has to grab the bannister for something to hold.
"Hey, guys, what's going on?"
"You - you -" Rodney splutters, but then Ronon opens the door, and the three of them pile into the room. It's stuffy, and smells of blood and sweat, and Rodney would be trying not to look at the pile of reddened sheets and towels by the bed if it weren't impossible to look away from Teyla - Teyla, hair sticking to her forehead and neck, who's glowing with exhausted pride and cradling the tiniest human being Rodney has ever seen.
"It's a boy," Kanaan says, pale and covered in sweat, an huge smile plastered across his face. Carson is lying flat on his back on the floor, one arm over his eyes.
"Look," Teyla says, a little husky, and they inch closer to the bed. She smiles, then brighter when she sees John. "John. Thank you."
John shuffles next to Rodney, and shrugs. "My pleasure, ma'am."
Kanaan takes the bundle and brings it over to them. The baby's red, wrinkled and asleep, with a little tuft of black hair on the very top of its head. One of its tiny, tiny hands is curled against the blanket, skin almost transparent. Rodney's almost afraid to breathe on it. Radek murmurs something in Czech, and nudges the baby's little fist with the tip of his little finger; reflexively, the tiny hand clenches around it. Beside Rodney, John huffs a laugh, and his knuckles brush against Rodney's. Shivers run up Rodney's arm, and he feels his face heating up. John shifts closer.
"I brought this," Radek says suddenly, pulling something out of a bag he's conjured up. To Rodney's horror, it's the stuffed sheep, an insane glint in its glass eyes.
"Oh my god, you can't give him that! It'll give him nightmares!"
"No Emmagan will be afraid of sheep," Teyla says firmly, and Kanaan takes the sheep. "Although perhaps we will wash it first. Thank you, Radek."
"We left the gold and myrrh with the donkey," Ronon says.
Kanaan says something, and they laugh, but Rodney doesn't hear what it is, because he's electrified by John's firm grip on his elbow, steering him towards the door.
"We've got to -" Rodney says, lamely.
"We'd better check on Hans," John says, and practically drags Rodney out of the room.
"I can't believe you skated back here in the dark, you maniac," Rodney manages, before John grabs his collar with both hands and kisses his mouth. For a second, Rodney can't process the sensations into anything that makes sense - the scratch of John's stubble, the slightly painful press of his closed lips against Rodney's - and then Rodney understands all in a rush that John is kissing him, and he surges forward frantically, grabbing at John's shoulders and opening his mouth against John's. He gives himself up to it, the soft, wet sounds of their mouths sliding together, John's damp hair between his fingers, John's arms around his shoulders.
"God, McKay, since the first second I saw you -" John mutters, eventually, his breath hot against Rodney's neck before his lips are there instead, and Rodney's knees suddenly don't seem to be holding him up very well.
"Jesus," he gasps, "John - god, John, yes, but anyone could - we can't, here -"
"Yeah," John whispers, "Yeah, I know, shit," and presses his forehead against Rodney's. Rodney rubs his thumb up through the short hairs at the back of his neck, hypnotized by the little sighs John makes. Then John turns his head to the side, so his hair tickles Rodney's cheek. "Oh, hey," he murmurs. "Look."
Rodney looks; out of the window, the faint glow from the downstairs windows is illuminating white, thick flakes falling from the sky. "Oh," he says, wondering. It's no colder, but he shivers a little, reflexively. John's arms tighten around his shoulders, and ridiculous, unreasoning pleasure makes Rodney smile. "Snow."
Downstairs, there's a faint whirring and a clang, and then a clock starts to chime. About four bongs in, the church bells start to ring too, faint, reassuring tones. Apropos of nothing, Rodney realizes that he's very probably better; that he could go back to Amsterdam, probably, go back to the business. But the sense of urgency he'd chafed at for the first month or so has completely gone, and instead he feels - well, at peace with all mankind, actually. Jeannie's really quite capable. He doesn't have to go anywhere. At least, not yet. There's no hurry. Theatre needs him.
Outside, the snow thickens and flurries against the window. In Teyla's room, there's a baby's mewling cry for a moment, then everything settles into peaceful, satisfied silence. It all feels embarrassingly like a Christmas miracle.
"Look at it out there," John murmurs, with a low whistle. "Lucky I got back when I did."
"Lucky you got back at all, idiot," Rodney hisses, and pokes him in the ribs. John snorts and doubles over, nearly headbutting Rodney in the face. "Watch it! For god's sake, I am not seeing the new year with a black eye."
"Hush, you'll wake the baby!"
That reminds Rodney. "Oh, hey, I'm, um, I'm sorry about your play."
John shrugs against Rodney. "That's okay. We'll make a killing with the St. Stephen's Day crowd. We'll need a new Mary, though." He slaps Rodney on the arm. "You came through for us before, McKay. What do you say?"
"What, I'm a casting agent too, now? Well, I suppose I could - wait, what?" John starts snickering, and Rodney hisses, "No, Sheppard, you must be joking, absolutely not -"
"I'm kidding, I'm kidding! Jesus, Rodney, you couldn't pull off a Mary. You're too old, for one - hey!"
"Shh, stop laughing, you'll wake the whole inn up! God, you're worse than that - that donkey, mm. Okay, look, we seriously have to - John, oh god."
John pauses from licking wet heat up Rodney's neck, and Rodney forgets whatever he was going to say and finds his mouth blindly. John's kisses are full of intent that makes Rodney feel like he's going to burn up, and his hands find John's hips in the dark.
"Okay," he says hoarsely, pulling away at last. "We have to find a room right now. But - fuck, there's no -"
John grabs his arm and starts tugging him towards the stairs.
"No," Rodney says. "No, no, no -"
"Come on, Rodney," John says, moonlight catching his grin, "I hear there's room in the stable."