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Ada picks Finn up from preschool on Valentine's Day – agrees to keep him for a couple of hours since John's (literally) stuck inside the Dowells' attic with two rolls of insulation and a pissed off squirrel, and Rodney's not answering his phone. They have rules about phones – rules that were Rodney's idea, which makes his whole not-answering performance that much more irritating. "Phones will be charged every evening!" John tells the squirrel, herding it with a broom, and resolutely (sort of) not paying any attention to the way he sounds borderline hysterical. "Carried in pockets at all times! Answer if the caller is pregnant! Or made sperm! Or is the sperm donor's boyfriend!"
The squirrel looks at him for a long moment, tilts its head to one side, then flees through the open window.
John swears at the insulation and gets back to work.
He's feeling less ornery by the time he gets in his truck to drive home, even if his beard is peppered with tufts of pale blue insulation. Rodney still hasn't answered, called back, or generally acknowledged that they have a kid already in the world who's no doubt causing mayhem in Ada's back garden with a shovel and desperate love of worms, but there's beer waiting in the fridge at home, and John's shoulders thrum with the steady ache that means he worked hard and steady that afternoon. He sings along with the Violent Femmes when the Waterloo station manages to broadcast clear enough for the truck's antenna to catch it and swings into the lane by the farm with a heady little swirl of dust at his tail. Rodney's car's already parked on the concrete apron outside the garage, and John can't help but lay hand on the hood as he walks past. He feels like a dork for being so pleased that the engine's still warm, but at least the bastard hasn't been hiding at home the whole afternoon.
"You," John says as he knocks the dirt off his boots and steps inside the kitchen, "are a loser."
Rodney's studying the back of a frozen pizza box as if he's never had occasion to bake one before. He looks up and blinks in John's direction. "Uh. Hi?"
"Always charge the phones!" John says, waving his hands and raising his eyebrows. "Always answer if . . . "
Rodney gapes at him – John can see him speed from brain-fogged to panicked in two short seconds. "Oh my god – is she, is – is there – with the baby and the – "
His gesture could mean anything – aliens exploding out of someone's navel, or both of them being forced to listen to Ronon's lecture on the libido-enhancing qualities of beets again. John finds himself compelled to grab Rodney by the back of the neck, shake him gently, and kiss his forehead. "Nope. It's all fine. Just needed you to go pick up Finn, but Ada got him."
"Oh – oh, well . . . that's stupid. My phone is stupid!" Rodney tilts his chin. "I want a new phone, one that's not stupid."
John nods slowly. "An . . . iPhone, maybe?"
"Yes! Yes, exactly, an iPhone would mean that I never missed a call, and would also mean that I could check the gestational progress of . . ."
"No."
"Okay, not the gestation stuff then, but they have international chess chatrooms, and I can check the baseball scores for you when you're . . . stuck in a . . . well."
John scrunches up his face. Life is never dull when Rodney's brain is on the case. "A well?"
"If you were stuck down a well and the police and firemen were not particularly speedy and it was summer and a Saturday or something, I would be able to tell you the baseball scores while we waited for help. And that would be an extremely important thing. I think. For well-waiting."
"You are out of your ever-loving mind," John offers, and leans to look out the window as Ada pulls up. He waves as Finn tumbles out of the back of her car, winces at the force with which his son slams the door, and gets out of the way as their four-year-old hellion runs up the porch steps, oversized backpack trailing in his wake.
"Hey!" Rodney says as Finn barrels inside. "You were at school!"
"GLITTER SCHOOL," Finn says, punching the air with his free hand before squatting to tug at the zipper on his backpack. "We made stuff today!"
"Oh, yeah?" John asks, squatting down beside him, curious. "Cupcakes?'
"Nooooooo," Finn snorts. "Better'n."
"What's better than cupcakes?" Rodney asks, sounding genuinely confused.
"THIS!" Finn replies, and he pulls two construction-paper hearts from his bag with an energetic flourish and an impressive accompanying shower of glitter and stars.
The hearts are crumpled, dogeared, and one is smeared with something that looks a lot like jam, but John takes hold of his like it's the best thing he's ever seen. And maybe it is – the riot of marker pen zig-zags and stickers from the craft drawer show some serious thought (silver and blue and tractors and carrots); and while it's clear Finn can't really figure out how to write 'Happy Valentine's Day, Baffa!' without his teacher writing it first, the bright blue x's at the end, six of them in a row, are kisses that are pure Finn McKay. "This is awesome," John says. "You are awesome," and he grabs Finn by the waist and blows a raspberry into his hair.
"I'm putting mine on the fridge," Rodney says, his voice unsteady but happy, and John grins at him, says, "Put mine up there too," hands him his heart and smears glitter on Rodney's wrist.
"There's 'nother one!" Finn says. "For the fridge!" And he tugs a third heart from his backpack, showering the kitchen floor with more sparkles that they'll never get up if they try to sweep, but'll track through the rest of the house before dinner time, and shoves it toward Rodney, bouncing up and down. "Up! Put it up!" he says. "It's important!"
And John stands as Rodney reads the heart, smoothing a corner between his fingers, asks "What?" as Rodney swallows, his cheeks turning pink.
"Here," Rodney says, and hands him the Valentine. To My Baby Sister, love from Finn xxxx, it reads. John blows out a breath – he never saw this coming.
Finn reaches up and tugs on John's jeans. "I'm awesome," he reminds him.
John laughs and plucks a magnet from an old pizza flyer, fixes their daughter's Valentine to the freezer door and leaves Rodney to the important business of plucking Finn up by his legs and tickling him madly out of sheer stupid-lucky love.
(And if later, Rodney finds an iPhone under his pillow, it's cool – especially considering there's a 1942 standard-issue compass beside John's toothbrush when he turns in for the night.)