Rodney Learns to Knit

SGA Season 4 (may be spoilers)

Disclaimer – Neither Stargate, Interweave Knits, nor Ravelry is mine.

A/N – This came to me while finishing up some last minute Christmas knitting and I had to take a break. If you’re a knitter, you’ll totally understand. ;-) Enjoy.

Teyla had told the team about her pregnancy two days ago. John was trying to kill himself with work, Ronon was trying to kill himself working out, and Rodney…well, Rodney had seen the sadness grow on Teyla’s face as her friends seemed to desert her in her time of need. An idea came to him late one night while trying to work on some power generation refinements.

He approached Katie Brown in the hydroponics lab the next day.

“You want me to teach you how to what?” She almost dropped the tray she was carrying.

Rodney reached out for the tray in case it did fall. “To knit. I want to make something for Teyla.” He shrugged, already uncomfortable. “Or…actually, her baby.”

“Baby? Teyla’s pregnant?” Katie’s face lit up at that.

“Oh, well, um.” Rodney had just assumed everyone already knew. That it was just him, John, and Ronon who were the dense idiots that had to be told. “Uh, don’t tell her I told you. I really thought that, you know, that everyone knew.”

“Oh, Rodney, this is wonderful news.” She put down the tray, sliding some potted cacti-like plants out of the way. “What do you want to make her?”

“Well, uh, that’s the thing – I, uh, don’t really know.” He was really bad at asking for help and knew it. Sucking up his pride to even ask in the first place - this was maybe the hardest thing he’d ever have to do. If John and Ronon ever found out – killing them would be the second hardest.

Katie patted his arm soothingly. “Don’t worry, Rodney, we’ll get you started then you can take a look at some patterns.” She smiled sweetly at him. “Come to the mess hall tonight at eight and I’ll have needle and yarn for you.”

OOOooooOOO

He almost turned around and went back to his quarters when he saw Katie, Sam Carter, Jennifer Keller, Miko Kasanagi, Laura Cadman, and three other women sitting around a large table, already chatting, eating, drinking (there were two bottles of something in the middle of the table), and knitting.

“Uh, hi.”

Katie looked up with a smile. “Rodney, there you are.”

The others looked up one by one, and slowly silence spread around the table.

“What do you want, McKay? It’s after hours.” Sam had a long-suffering look on her face, and her hands tightened around what looked like four small wood needles and a short knitted tube.

“Yeah, McKay – girls only.” Cadman had two large knitting needle gripped in her hand with a fluffy looking yarn attached. She held them up threateningly.

Katie stood up and put a hand on Rodney’s arm soothingly. “Hey, Rodney is here to learn to knit. He wants to make something for someone.”

Blank looks abounded then suddenly a snort was heard down the table. Rodney glared at Miko, who lowered her head quickly and focused on what was in her hands. It looked lacey and delicate and light shone through it. A ball of what looked a lot like thread sat on the table in front of her. He crossed his arms, and turned to go.

“Rodney, wait.” Jennifer stood, a sympathizing look on her face. “I’m sorry. Here have a seat.” She pulled a chair up from another table, and pushed him down into it. “What do you want to make? A blanket?”

“Who’s it for?” Intense curiosity and speculation lightened the eyes of Carter.

He just sneered at her. Rodney knew she knew, being the commander of the base, Dr. Keller had had to tell her. If he didn’t want to do this for Teyla so bad, he would have already been gone.

“Here.” Katie shoved some large wooden needles in his hand along with a soft ball of yarn. His hand closed over the yarn, fingers sinking deep into the warm silkiness. It was wrong for a simple ball of string to be so, so…sinful feeling.

The other women went back to what they were doing. As Katie showed him patiently how to cast on then knit, conversation picked up again. He focused on the yarn and needles in his hands, trying to figure out how to hold all of it. He had never before been aware of how awkward his big hands were.

“Hey, did y’all see the recent Interweave issue?” Cadman stopped knitting long enough to take a drink and pop a chocolate in her mouth.

“Yes, my mom sent it to me.” Miko spread her project out on the table to eyeball it. Rodney looked up long enough to see a wave pattern emerging. “I really want to make the Henley Perfected sweater. I like the Fircone lace pattern at the top, and it looks like it would be real easy to sub a different pattern.”

“Speaking of lace did you see that cabled, dropped-stitch shawl that was on Knitty?” Carter asked. She put her fingers inside the tube she was knitting, spreading the fabric out to see the stitch definition.

“Oh my god…Yes!” One of the other women leaned forward, an excited look on her face. “My aunt printed out all the patterns and sent them to me. I so want to make that one.”

“Hey, did you guys hear about that new site on the web called Ravelry?” Jennifer looked up from the purple yarn in her lap. “My sister told me about it. Apparently it’s a really big deal in the fiber world, a lot of people have signed up.”

“You know what, someone else was telling me about that. Isn’t supposed to end up being a database of yarns, patterns, and where to get them?” Cadman pulled her scarf out length-wise and draped it about her neck.

“Something like that. One of us’ll have to check it out next time we’re at the SGC and have access to the net,” Jennifer replied.

“You guys want to know who I ran into right outside my door?” Cadman leaned forward, an evil glint in her blue eyes. Rodney kept his head down, hoping she wasn’t going to start talking about him.

“Who?” another woman breathed.

“Ronon, again,” Laura announced.

“Oh, that guy makes me so hot.”

Rodney felt his face burn as the conversation degenerated into lewd gossip. He kept knitting away, though. You never know what information might be dropped, he thought.

OOOooooOOO

Over the next couple of weeks Rodney joined the knit night (as they were calling it) two more times. He learned that originally Kate Hieghtmeyer had started the group, but Katie took over when she had passed. Teyla had also been coming quite regularly up until about a month before. Katie confided that it was not unusual for an avid knitter to suddenly have the urge to not knit somewhere about the second trimester of pregnancy. It came back pretty quick after the baby was born though, she laughingly concluded.

The following knit nights were almost identical to the first, except that on the third night Rodney’s hands caught up with his brain, and he happily knitted and purled away. Katie found an easy blanket pattern for him – not too easy, but not super challenging either. Big needles and bulky yarn made it go fairly quickly, and he smiled at his progress.

Periodically he would make a mistake or look at the previous stitches and think he had done them wrong.

“Here, it’s real easy to tink back if you’re not sure.” Carter leaned over to view his work.

“Tink?”

“Yeah, you know – knit spelled backwards.” She took the needles from him and showed him how to undo the last couple of stitches he had knitted wrong.

“Oh, that looks easy.” He took back the half completed blanket and tried himself. He picked up the back loop of the stitch below with the left needle, sliding it back into place – all ready to be knit again.

When Katie was sitting next to him she would murmur instructions to him if she noticed him hesitating. He learned a many great useful things – including the fact that pulling the end from the middle of a ball of yarn kept the ball from degenerating into an unholy tangled mess near the end.

“No, no – you need to pick up the front loop on this one. It looks like you twisted the stitch.”

“Like this?”

“Exactly.” Katie smiled happily at him.

His brain happily applied equations to the stitch structure, and after looking at the doily Miko had finished, wave function vectors began to caress his mind like lovers. Everything had a mathematical equivalent to him.

OOOooooOOO

Four weeks after he learned to cast on, Rodney approached Katie about how to finish. She showed him how to cast off in about a minute. He went back to his lab, wanting to finish the blanket and give it to Teyla before the end of the day.

“Whachya workin’ on, McKay?”

Rodney shot up out of his chair, the blanket slid out of his lap and under his desk. He didn’t see the ball of yarn shoot across the room to land next to a loosely unlaced black boot.

“N-nothing important.” He turned and crossed his arms defensively over his chest. “Did you need something, Sheppard?”

John leaned down to pick up the ball of yarn next to his foot. Rodney saw his long fingers rub unconsciously over the softness of the ball, and Rodney was strangely envious of the yarn.

“Nothing, huh?” John held the ball out. “Missing something?” He smirked and raised an eyebrow.

Rodney’s lips tightened into a straight line as he swiped the ball out of the outstretched hand. “Did you need something, or did you just come to interrupt?”

John sighed. “I need to talk to you actually.” He looked down and scuffed a boot toe over a scratch in the floor.

Rodney raised an eyebrow. John had never been this ill at ease in front of him before. “Oh, yeah, what about?’

“Teyla.” John looked up and directly into Rodney’s eyes. “I have to apologize to you.”

“Apologize?”

“Yeah, to you and Ronon and Teyla.”

“To me and Ronon and Teyla?”

“Would you quit repeating what I’m saying,” John snapped. He uncrossed his arms and propped his hands on his hips. He took a deep breath. “Look, I’m trying to say that I’ve been a little angry lately, and…I’m sorry.”

“Oh, that.” Rodney let his lips curl up in a half smile, and waved a hand dismissively at John. “Okay, yes, you have been a little out of sorts, but that’s completely understandable.” He laughed a little. “I mean, come on – it’s Teyla. It was a little surprising for everyone.”

“You’ve got that right. Unfortunately, I just didn’t, uh, handle it as well as I could have.”

“Handle?” Rodney snorted. “You didn’t handle it at all. That’s the problem.”

“Hey, now don’t get personal. I’m apologizing here, ok?”

Rodney relented and changed the subject, sort of. “Have you talked to Teyla?”

“I’m seeing her next.” John looked uncomfortable again.

OOOooooOOO

Later that day Rodney approached Teyla. She was coming out of the sparring room, sweaty but glowing. Her ornately carved bantos sticks were sticking up from her gym bag. Rodney spotted John sitting on the bench inside, forearms braced on his thighs, breathing still heavy. The apology must have gone well, Rodney thought, smiling.

“Teyla,” he called. She faced him and smiled widely. He shoved the crudely wrapped bundle at her. “Here, this is for you. Er, rather, your baby.”

“Why, thank you. Rodney.” She set down her bag and unwrapped the present. Soft, fragrant (he had washed it in lavender-scented soap), happy yellow fabric spilled down over her arms. “Oh, Rodney.” She ran a hand over the cloth, fingertips rubbing the velvety texture. She looked up at him, and he was shocked by the tears in her eyes. “This is…this is absolutely the most wonderful thing. Thank you.” Her mouth trembled as she said it.

Rodney looked down, unhappy to see her so overcome with emotion. “I, uh, didn’t mean to make you cry.”

She wiped a hand across her eyes, smiling at him again. “Thank you, this is a most wondrous present.” She grabbed her bag and nearly ran away.

Rodney turned from watching her retreat to see John in the doorway. “I, uh, didn’t, um…”

“Rodney.” John took a step toward him, face serious. “That was the best gesture anyone could have done.” A corner of his mouth tilted up. “Does she know you made it?”

Rodney shrugged. “I’m sure Keller or Carter will tell her once she shows it to them.”

John’s hand came down on his shoulder, warm and insistent. “You do realize I’m going to have to tell Ronon about this, don’t you?” Laughter barely hid behind the words.

Rodney looked daggers at him. “I am so going to kill you.”

Laughter floated back to him as John walked…er, ran away.