Problems and a Miracle

Disclaimer: "Stargate", "Stargate Atlantis" and all related characters are the property of MGM Television Entertainment.

Rating: T (13+)

Summary: Set in the future, a couple of years after S5E20 Enemy at the Gate, Jennifer and Rodney are now married, but their marriage starts to fall apart as Jennifer cannot seem to get pregnant. Will they never be able to have children? Will their marriage and love survive?

Central Characters: Jennifer Keller & Rodney McKay

Written by Jasper

Chapter 1: The Hospital

A/N: Thanks to my beta-readers dwparsnip and Shadows-of-Realm.

Click. Click. There was it again. Click. Click. Click. Again and again, the clicking sound reverberated off the white plaster walls in the otherwise calm and previously silent room.

"Stop that, will you!" Jennifer suddenly snapped, giving the offending ballpoint in his hand an angry look, driven crazy by the irritating, clicking sound it was making. "Please?" she kindly added more calmly after a few seconds.

Rodney quickly stopped clicking the ballpoint in his hand and looked to his right side at Jennifer as if wondering where that sudden, angry-sounding voice had come from, even though he knew that they were the only occupants of the room. Sitting next to the physicist, Jennifer was now intently staring at him with a mixed, unreadable look on her beautiful face. Although a couple of years older since they had first met, she still looked as beautiful and sexy as ever, especially with that fiery look in her eyes. Yet, absent and lost in his own mind, Rodney did not seem to notice this.

"I'm nervous," he said apologetically but without remorse while shrugging his shoulders unconvincingly.

"So am I," she answered a bit more considerate before continuing, "but I am not annoying the hell out of you."

Rodney turned his head away from her, averting his eyes and hiding from her piercing, accusing look while pretending to read the poster on the wall next to him.

"We should support each other and we should be sticking together," Jennifer added, talking to the back of his head.

She gently grabbed his forearm with her own small hand, but got no response. Her gesture did not seem to affect him. Unnoticed to her, however, Rodney closed his eyes in a tired gesture.

"I am here for you," she almost pleaded with him, but in the end her pride got in the way and it came out as an accusing statement at his behavior instead of a soothing, reassuring proclamation.

"Easy for you to say," Rodney replied a bit angrily, his eyes fluttering open, but still not looking at her. "There's nothing wrong with your… stuff." His voice which had risen at first died in a hushed mumble at the end of the sentence.

"Rodney…" the beautiful, blonde woman started compassionately before falling silent.

He turned around again, shrugged off her hand and looked at her. At first glance, someone who did not know Rodney would have said that he looked very antagonized and that he was angry at her for provoking him, but Jennifer knew better. He was having a hard time dealing with the whole situation and the two-and-a-half hour wait had not made it easier for him or for her.

"No, I'm serious," he spat out, venting his frustration, insecurities and anger. "We've been waiting months and months for this. Test after test. All for them to find out what's wrong and do more tests and…" Rodney hastily swallowed and quickly gasped for air. "Now they call out of the blue. I'm telling you! This cannot be anything good for me."

"Don't be like that, Rodney!" she argued with him, frustrated, much more with his behavior and inability to handle things than their current situation.

"Why not?" he added bitterly. "You should know this better than me, you're a doctor yourself," he charged, losing more and more of his calm with every passing second as they were arguing.

They were arguing again and for the umpteenth time this month, Jennifer tried to keep the peace and reason with him calmly, "Rodney, please calm down. Even if…"

"Even if what? Huh! Even if?" he challenged her, a defying look in his eyes, almost as if daring her to finish the sentence so that he could spurn her words once more.

Jennifer, even though she knew she was just as much to blame for their current situation as him, lost her calm as well, angry at his implied accusations and unfair behavior towards her.

"I didn't mean it like that! God!" she huffed out, aggravated and exasperated. "You're just intolerable today," she threw back at him, also not for the first time this month.

"Well, I have every right to be, I – " Rodney argued, heatedly defending himself.

"Okay, that's it!" she exploded, silencing him and with the last remnants of her calm, she took a deep breath.

However, still angry and completely fed up with him by now, wanting anything but his company she abrasively said, "I've had enough of this. I'm going to step outside for a minute to get some fresh air. You can call me if they need us."

With that Jennifer got up from her seat in the waiting room and stormed off, her heals loudly clicking on the grey, stone floor and her hair whirling around in the air, floating after her as she left through the doorway.

Approximately ten minutes later, Rodney had reverted back to anxiously clicking the ballpoint again. Jennifer still had not come back and he was sitting all by himself in the empty, dreary waiting room now. As Rodney shuffled guiltily and uncomfortably in his seat, a new pair of footsteps reached him, interrupting the buzzing thoughts in his head. A middle-aged, average-looking nurse appeared in the doorway.

"Mister McKay? Rodney McKay?" the nurse called out in the waiting room.

At the nurse's voice, Rodney jumped out of his seat as if a bee had stung him and walked over towards the nurse.

"Yeah," he said to her, "I'm McKay."

Otherwise occupied and anxious as he was, the physicist uncharacteristically forgot to correct her wrong use of "Mister" instead of "Doctor".

"Please follow me, sir," she replied.

He trudged after her through the corridor, then another corridor, before she pointed towards a new pair of seats against the wall in front of a door.

"Please have a seat, sir," she invited. "Wait here, the doctor will be right with you."

"Great more waiting," Rodney mumbled.

"Excuse me?" she responded politely.

"That's great. Thank you. I'll do that." Rodney said to her, more politely now, but still very unenthusiastically, while taking a seat as she had requested.

As the nurse walked away, leaving him in front of the doctor's office, Rodney pulled out his cellphone and texted Jennifer.

Enjoying the cool breeze and letting the wind play with her hair, Jennifer felt her phone vibrate in her pocket.

After pulling it out, she flipped it open and read Rodney's text: 'They called me in. Now in front of the doctor's office. x'

"Aargh," she huffed out in frustration that he had gone on without her as she forcibly clapped her cellphone shut before making her way back inside.

Inside the hospital, the door in front of Rodney opened revealing a handsome, older man wearing a typical white doctor's coat.

"Doctor McKay," said the man, who Rodney knew to be Dr. Copeland, as they politely shook hands, "please come in."

As this was already Rodney's eleventh consultation with the doctor, they were already acquainted and there was no need for any more formalities.

"I'm surprised to see Doctor Keller isn't with you today?" Copeland said as he closed the door behind Rodney and walked over to his desk.

Normally, the doctor would have gestured towards the comfortable chairs in front of the desk, inviting his patient to take a seat, but Rodney, having been there before, was already way ahead of the doctor, seating himself.

"Oh, she's here, but she's getting some air," Rodney answered his doctor's question airily, almost stoically, avoiding any emotion or give-away that they had gotten into a fight earlier.

"Ah, I understand," Dr. Copeland said.

He could not have understood any less. Doctor Copeland had known Rodney for a couple of months now, but he was not nearly familiar enough with the scientist to see through his pretense.

"Sorry for the long wait. I had an emergency," the doctor apologized.

Rodney wondered what kind of emergency someone like Copeland would ever have, but he could not think of one, so he just stayed silent.

"Well, we – " Copeland began, wanting to move on quickly, but he was immediately interrupted by Rodney.

"Tell me, now. I want to hear it before Jennifer comes in," Rodney said.

"Are you sure?" Dr. Copeland asked surprised. "Maybe we should wait?" he suggested.

"No. No. I want to know now," the physicist assured him.

"Okay, well, if you insist," the doctor caved. "Well, the results from the last tests are back. As you know when you first came in, after the first tests we confirmed your oligoasthenoteratozoospermia. We've indeed confirmed this, several times now, but further research hasn't been able to find any causes or any other faults."

"So that's it?" Rodney said bitterly, with a rhetorical question.

Sensing Rodney's readiness to give up, and not wanting him to abandon all hope already, the doctor answered, "Well, there's not much more in the form of tests that we could do, but of course we could also discuss some other options for you and your wife to have a baby together. We could try – "

He was interrupted by a slight knock on the door.

"Come in," Doctor Copeland answered.

"Doctor," the nurse's head appeared through the door, "Mister McKay's wife is here, she said it would be okay for her to come in."

Doctor Copeland looked at McKay who nodded.

"Of course. Let her come right in," he said after Rodney's nod.

The nurse head disappeared again and they could hear her say to Jennifer, "It's okay, you can go in ma'am."

A couple of seconds later, Jennifer appeared in the doorway. Copeland shook her hand and she took a seat next to Rodney who she gave an angry glare to for not waiting for her. However, when she saw the look on his face, she grabbed his hand and squeezed it.

"Oh Rodney," was all she said.

TBC