So
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tropes and I are the phone for reasons that don't bear explaining, and we're suddenly plotting an AU in which Rodney McKay is a professional break-up artist. You know, for those times when it's agony trying to craft the perfect "it's not you, it's me" or "I really valued our time together, but I think it's time we go our separate ways" or "I've filed a restraining order and I want my shit back, you skeezy asshole" -- it's times like those that you really wish you could just contract the whole thing out to a professional. He ghostwrites your break-up email, closes your joint accounts, files the legal paperwork, whatever it takes. And your ex never knows it wasn't you.
So Simon Wallace hires Rodney to break up with Elizabeth Weir, because he doesn't want to eat Athosian food: "It does not sound
fan-tastic." This, of course, is not the reason Rodney gives. (Rule #12: the more spurious-sounding the explanation, however truthful, the more back-and-forth correspondence will be required. Clients don't like it when you go over-budget.) So Rodney sends her an elegant break-up letter, firm but oozing integrity, in Simon's impeccably forged left-handed script. And Elizabeth
almost buys it, but buried in the middle of paragraph thirteen is a small but decidedly paranthetical joke. And if there's one thing Simon never had, it was a sense of humor.
She goes digging through Simon's personal accounts -- because one of the perks of working for the SGC is you can get an order to hack
anything -- and finds a sizeable payment made to Forensic Services, LLC. One emailed work order to the SGC IT department gets her the sole proprieter's name -- Meredith Rodney Ingram McKay, Canadian citizen, Colorado DL 801792635 -- and the address of his business/residence.
It's a slow afternoon. She goes by in person.
The next morning, Elizabeth takes a personal day -- her staff know better than to ever ask -- but at 9 am sharp there's a really pissed-off Canadian guy yelling at the staff sergeant on door duty that he wants to see Dr. Weir right now, no he
will not wait, yes he
knows this is a secure facility -- though secure is a relative term, those keycard readers are woefully inadequate -- but she should have thought about that before she came to his
home. It was a business transaction, that was all: just because she is incapable of separating her personal and professional lives doesn't mean that everyone else suffers from the stunting of emotional intelligence--
The staff sergeant, in a blind panic, dials the first number he can think of, because he remembers John Sheppard bought him a beer that one time and besides, everyone says the guy has the emotional range of drywall. Having no idea what to say and next to no chance of being audible over Rodney's voluminous protestations, the sergeant waits desperately for the click of John picking up and then wordlessly hits "speaker."
tropes:
"Oh my god. This is the greatest thing ever written."John spends about two and a half minutes listening to Rodney, hears the staff sergeant trying to placate him in half-sentences, figures out where they are and decides to amble upward to see what's going on. This takes a few minutes.
fiercelydreamed:
"Then what?"tropes:
"Well, it's love at first sight, of course."***
This concludes our first exciting installment of
The Break-Up Artist. Because some things are better in summary than they are in real life. Tune in irregularly as our feature possibly continues. Or not. Whatever.
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