3Trust Me
Summary: Spoilers for Quarantine and Harmony. Rodney got dumped by Katie. A friend decides to help him get her back.
Disclaimer: No part of Stargate Atlantis is mine, Buffy the Vampire Slayer either. Darnit!
Author's Note: This is fluff, pure and simple and done for fun, so no over analyzing. Okay? ;)
Rodney is still smirking at John's grouchiness over the portrait Harmony had done as the two are about to step through the Stargate, back into Atlantis. The boost to his ego had done a lot to cheer him up since the fallout from the whole quarantine situation, but it's back to the real world now.
He steps through the 'gate behind Shepherd with a sigh and comes face to face with the last person he expects to see in the Pegasus galaxy.
"Hey, Stud, heard you were a free man again and thought I'd come stake my claim before anyone else had a chance to."
Rodney's eyes almost pop out of his skull in shock, "Faith? What- How- When-?"
With a sultry laugh, the dark Slayer steps close and pulls him into a searing kiss that takes his breath away and puts his brain even more on the fritz.
Everyone in the gate room and control room stop and stare, disbelieving. Before an hour goes by, the story of this kiss will be all over Atlantis via the rumor mill.
Shepherd shakes his head and mutters, "I'm going to the infirmary. I i had /i to have hit my head and am now seeing things."
Carter chuckles and dismisses John to do just that and turns back to wait for Faith to release McKay. When the young woman finally does, she tells them, "You're off duty until eleven hundred hours tomorrow, Rodney, but I want your mission report on my desk by noon."
Faith turns to lead the still shell shocked man out of the gate room and calls back over her shoulder, "I'll give him back in one piece, I swear."
Later in the Slayer's quarters…
"That's your plan? Do you really think that'll work?" McKay asks in disbelief.
Rolling her eyes, "If she's female, she's the jealous type, believe me! I know what I'm doing, Rodney. You'll get her back, trust me."
For an entire week, Faith did everything in her power to make sure Katie Brown saw what she wanted the woman to see and the evidence of her jealousy finally came to light.
Katie confronted Faith as she left Rodney's quarters one morning, "Who the hell do you think you are?"
The dark Slayer smirks, "Obviously someone you want to trade places with."
Katie sneers, "I know your kind. All you can offer is sex, not a i real /i relationship that'll last."
Hiding the fact those words hurt, Faith asks, "What do you care? You're the one that threw him away after he admitted how he felt about you, that he wanted to marry you, but wanted to make himself better for you first. In all the years I've known him, McKay has never said that to i anyone /i and your response is to b dump /b him? Are you really that stupid?"
The scientist goes white, "How did you- He TOLD you that? Did he tell you why, too?"
Laughing at the other woman's discomfort, she nods, "Yeah, because we're friends and friends tell each other their troubles." She glances around at hearing footsteps and sees someone coming, "Walk with me, all right?"
She leads the older woman to a balcony, "You've known Rodney for a good year and a half and by now you know what he's like. His team mates all have different ways of snapping him out of his 'downward spirals into negativity' as he calls them. Shep orders him to shut up or else. Ronon growls at him and Teyla only has to give him the big sister glare without saying a word. You had the most fun way possible available and what did you do? You sat there and watched, hardly saying a thing to contradict him and snap him out of it, even though you knew you could."
Katie turns beet red and turns to face the ocean breeze, "I don't know what you're talking about."
Rolling her eyes at that, "Yes you do. Maybe you were feeling hurt because he didn't go ahead and propose in what you both thought could have been your last hours, but you know damn well that's not how the man is wired. My guess is that you dumped him to hurt him and make him appreciate you more, but that's one of the stupidest games in the world to play, because it can backfire."
The older woman gasps, looks outraged and tries to leave the balcony, but Faith blocks her way.
Sounding very angry now, "Answer me this; do you really love him and want to marry him, or have you been stringing him along all this time, Dr. Brown?" she makes the title sound like an epithet.
" i Yes /i I love him and want to marry him, but that doesn't matter now, does it? Not now that you've come along and taken him from me!" The woman practically spits in the Slayer's face.
Smiling now, Faith asks loudly, "Did you hear all that, McKay?"
The sound of doors opening is followed by, "Yeah, I did."
Katie whirls around in surprise at seeing Rodney standing in the doorway and blushes in shame, "Oh my God." Her face crumples in pain and she starts to cry.
The man's expression is running the gamut of emotions at hearing all of that. Happiness that Katie does want to marry him, anger at the game she was playing and remorse for hurting her so badly with his and Faith's own game, even if it did work.
Faith decides to take the brunt of the woman's wrath, "If you're going to be mad at anyone, let it be me. Making you jealous was all my idea, but I was just so tired of my friend hurting, I wanted to do something to get his happiness back for him."
The woman glances up in surprise, "You mean-?"
Voice filled with love, Rodney tells her, "Faith and I are just good friends, nothing more and thank God, nothing less. It was her idea to make you jealous, but I went along with it. I'm so sorry I made you cry… I love you, Katie."
The two come together as if drawn by an unseen power and hold onto each other as if afraid to let go.
As they start whispering to each other of private things, Faith slips back into the hallway, wiping tears from her eyes and runs right into Teyla.
"It is a very noble thing that you have done today," the Athosian woman says quietly.
Shaking her head and pretending not to know what she's talking about, "Nah, I'm just good at making other women jealous is all. I run with my talents."
Teyla smiles knowingly, "Putting others' happiness before your own IS noble. I do not know if I would be able to do what you have, it would tear me apart."
Dropping the pretense, Faith responds, "All I've gotta say is, if she throws him away again, I'm gonna make damn sure she doesn't get a third chance."