Title: Quicksilver in the Hand
Authors:
ariadne83 and
lunabee34Pairings: Rodney McKay/Brendan Gall, Rodney McKay/Svetlana Markov
Rating: Explicit
Word count: 25880
Summary: Rodney McKay met Brendan Gall years before the Atlantis expedition. This story explains their relationship from the beginning through Gall's death in "The Defiant One."
Ariadne83 and I started writing this fic in 2008 because we decided "The Defiant One" just wasn't sad enough as it is. We also wanted to explain why Rodney, who almost invariably calls everyone by his or her last name, very comfortably and naturally calls Dr. Gall by his first name the entire episode. This implied some kind of history between them that we wanted to explore. Finally, we sometimes find it hard to reconcile the Rodney we first encounter in SG-1 with the Rodney he will later become in SGA. It's hard to watch him without cringing in some of those early episodes. So this is our effort, not to redeem Rodney or change him in any fundamental way, but to present him as he's given to us in canon and show how that man who is "petty, arrogant, and bad with people" might one day become the man who regularly risks his life for his teammates.
Story Link:
Quicksilver in the Hand