From the porch steps of a brick two-story house, John watches the movers unload furniture from a truck with the words Rock Solid Service boldly proclaimed across the side. “We have got to be the only people who’ve been forced to a new galaxy for the witness protection program.”

“I know,” Rodney says. “Are you seeing the things they’ve picked out for us? Do I look like a man with a black lacquer bedroom set?” He looks up from the file he’s been studying since they’d been whisked away from the SGC two days earlier, and squints toward the place where the movers are easing a tall gleaming hutch down the ramp in the late afternoon sun. “And don’t call it that,” he adds. “We’re not, we’re…” He grasps for the right word and turns down at the mouth when he comes up short.

John nudges Rodney with his shoulder. “Yeah. I know,” he says. No one knows the circumstances of their exile better than John. “Hey, that guy just nicked our china cabinet.”

Rodney snorts. “You might want to reevaluate your priorities. Have you even looked at our orders yet?”

“It’s not going to be that bad, Rodney.” Not that part, at least. The hardest part is being away from Atlantis when they need to be out looking for Michael. The hardest part is doing nothing while Lorne’s team fights John’s battles, and worst of all, waiting for Keller to figure out what Michael did to them—to their heads, their blood, wherever they carry the tracking imprint that’s forced them from Pegasus.

“No, right,” Rodney says. “Because you’re so good at sitting around doing nothing.”

“I might be able to swing it for a week or two.” Maybe longer. John wears the strain of the past months like a hard beating that leaves its marks below the surface where they can’t be seen. If Rodney hasn’t noticed, it’s not his fault.

Rodney doesn’t seem to like that idea very much, and he lets it lie for about five seconds before he says, “Fine. Then I’ll just let you deal with all the people who want to know why two middle-aged men would buy a house in this neighborhood as though it’s perfectly normal.”

“Rodney, they couldn’t exactly put us in a house with Ronon and Teyla. That would draw way more attention than a couple of guys who like to save a couple bucks on the rent. And what people?”

Rodney points out toward the street. “Those people, for starters. I’m sure they’re dying to know everything about us.”

The couple that approaches from across the street looks nice enough. They’re both perfectly coiffed in pressed khaki, and it strikes John that this is what’s foreign, now; this is the world he doesn’t understand. Every introduction he’s made for the past six months has been to haggard and war-weary survivors, but the woman who steps over the curb in canvas sneakers belongs to a world of precisely-clipped lawns and patio furniture.

Rodney’s agitation is familiar, though; a restless energy at John’s side that shifts things back into perspective. “Be nice, McKay,” he mutters, rising to his feet and descending the stairs, Rodney’s heavy footsteps behind him.

The couple is Diane and Steven Thomas, who live across the street. They pay as careful attention to the furniture being unloaded as they do to John and Rodney, and the small talk is remarkably smooth, because their new neighbors seem to consider it their duty to fill them in on every aspect of living in Rolling Meadows.

“You have until Wednesday to get these boxes down to the curb,” Steve says, just as the movers pass by with a piano hefted between four of them. “It looks like our other newcomers are ahead of the game,” he says, gesturing two houses down, toward a white ranch-style house with a mountain of boxes and other trash arranged neatly on the curb. “They just moved in yesterday; I can’t believe they’re already finished.”

“Yeah?” John looks for signs of movement inside the house. They haven’t talked to Teyla and Ronon since the SGC.

“A couple with a sweet baby,” Diane says, patting absently at her blonde highlights. “And they run…what was it, Steve? Some kind of Karate studio downtown.”

“Martial arts. Maybe we should sign up for some classes,” Steve says. “You can’t be too careful.”

In this neighborhood, John doubts the truth of that statement.

“That’s the last of it.” One of the movers hands John an inventory list, and he signs off on it without looking.

“Don’t you want to double-check that?” Diane asks.

John smiles and hands the clipboard back to the mover. “We’re very trusting.”

“But not too trusting,” Rodney cuts in. “Mostly, we like to keep to ourselves.”

Diane nods as though she’s taking it all in for a test later on, and as the movers prepare to leave, she says, “Oh. I hope you don’t mind, but the Russells will be by in a few minutes with a welcome basket, so you don’t have to worry about dinner.”

“Well, I think we’re willing to-,” Rodney says, but the rest of it is lost in a flood of white noise that steals up the back of John’s neck and expands to fill the space between his temples. When the roar fades out, Rodney is jabbering, “-one of his migraines, probably the stress of moving, so if you’ll excuse us, thank you, yes, we appreciate it,” and guiding John in through the garage with one arm around his waist.

“There aren’t any windows down here,” Rodney says as he helps John down to the basement. From the stairs, it’s a dozen excruciating steps across plush carpet to a wide sectional sofa that smells showroom-new, a scent that stabs at John’s brain as persistently as Rodney’s anxiety, the weight of his sunglasses, and the protest of damaged nerves that flare unchecked through his skull. A moan rolls up from his throat before he can stop it.

“Here.” Rodney pushes a capsule past his lips and follows it up with a trickle of water that John swallows with a burst of agony like a stunner to the head.

“This is the stuff Jennifer gave us for when it gets bad, so just relax,” Rodney whispers. The sunglasses are lifted from John’s face with more care than he would have thought Rodney capable, a tiny ease in pressure that gets him through until the drugs begin to buzz through his limbs and knit him into a thick blanket of relief. He knows this. He’ll sleep, now.

He drifts back to consciousness a few times, Teyla’s faroff voice rolling across his skin like another kind of drug, and floats through a dozen uneasy lifetimes before he’s finally washed back ashore to a warm nest and only a distant throb of pain.

He knows this, too. If he lies still for a while longer, the pain will recede enough to sit upright, and after a few shaky hours, he’ll be as good as new. As good as Michael left him.

“Looks like he’s coming around.”

“Leave him alone. He will need his rest.” Teyla, and John’s throat closes up when he hears the burble of Torren’s happy baby noises. It feels as though he’s been gone for so long. He agrees with Teyla; they should leave him alone until the drug wears off and he feels more in control.

Rodney makes a few thoughtful sounds from nearby, and then, “I’ll go make some of that tea.”

When he returns, Teyla asks, “How are your headaches, Rodney? Are you rid of them?”

“All clear. I haven’t had one since right after Michael,” Rodney says. When he settles on the edge of the sofa, John can smell the medicinal components of the tea beneath the stronger sweet cloves.

“Me either,” Ronon says. “But Teyla still gets ‘em. Bad.”

“I am fine,” Teyla says in a low voice. “I believe they are receding with time.”

“That’s what John said yesterday,” Rodney says, bitter as the tea, and before John has time to be annoyed, there’s a warm pressure on his shoulder. “John. Can you sit up and drink?”

The tea doesn’t help any more than a few aspirin, but he can’t afford to be choosy. The band of pain has loosened, but it’s left him in a cold sweat, shirt stuck to his skin and his muscles bunched into uncooperative knots. “Yeah. Give me a minute,” he whispers without opening his eyes. He hates how weak the drugs make him, but Rodney has been through this before, and he knows just how to slide his hand behind John’s shoulders and lift him to sit against the sofa cushions. He hates that, too, because Rodney isn’t a nursemaid.

This has to stop, he wants to say, and We don’t have time for this, but his tongue is too heavy, and Rodney would debate the second point to the end. They do have time right now; all the time in the world for lying around floating on a cloud of souped-up narcotics while Rodney spoons tea into his mouth. He’s not crazy about being so vulnerable—he can’t even walk right now—but after having his last two relapses under the care of strangers at the SGC, he can admit that it’s better with Rodney, who didn’t sign on for any of this.

“We nearly finished the basement while you slept,” Rodney says as he withdraws the spoon and lets John swallow down the warm liquid. “It’s actually kind of nice down here. Big TV, stereo, lots of places to lie around doing nothing.” John tentatively lifts one eyelid, braced for a flood of pain, but the room is pleasantly dark, lit by one dim lamp with a violet-tinged shade.

“Stop that.” This time, Rodney prods John’s lower lip with the rim of the cup. “Just drink this and relax.”

“Can’t,” he breathes, a wisp of a sound that barely makes it past his lips.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Rodney says. “And stop trying to do so much. You’ll be fine if you just sit there a while longer.”

Teyla moves into his line of vision to hand over a cool wet cloth, and when Rodney begins to wipe a soothing swath along John’s hairline, he’s caught up in a prickly net of chagrin until the small, faltering pleasure begins to push back the pain.

****

Michael is exceptionally intelligent.

It had been easy, in the early days, to remember his sweet human face and underestimate his capacity for destruction. But John has never underestimated him, and he never will; not after watching his team dragged off one at a time and then dragged back in, listless and cold. Their sutures had been as neat as if Michael had studied alongside Carson at St. Bartholomew’s, and when John had seen the tidy row of knots across the nape of Rodney’s neck, he’d finally understood the sting at the back of his own head.

Three months later, there’s just the hint of a scar, a thin rubbery line against his fingertips to remind him of why they can’t return home.

The surgery must’ve been exploratory, Keller had said after her exhaustive tests. Subtle changes, but no real damage, which had appeased them all but Ronon, who’s been cut open by the Wraith one time too many. He’d walked around like he didn’t trust his own skin for weeks until their first bad mission, when Michael had shown up and wiped out the city that just allied itself with the Atlaneans. Ronon made the connection before anyone, and after the second, third, fourth mission that brought Michael’s army straight to their allies, they’d stood at the edge of a ruined village under a cloud of smoke and ash and the realization that they were worse than any common Runners, because they had never been in any danger themselves.

“Will you stop doing that?”

John jerks his hand away from his scar and digs his spoon into the cereal bowl that sits in front of him, untouched. Rodney gives him a hard look before he goes back to rifling through boxes, rattling dishes and silverware until he finds what he’s looking for. By the time he gets to the table with two cups, the floor is littered with wads of packing paper. “You always get like this, the day after. Melancholy. It’s depressing, really, but you’ll probably feel better once you’ve unpacked twenty or thirty boxes.”

John sips coolly at his coffee. He knows damn well how he feels the day after, but it bothers him that Rodney has noticed. “I’m fine, McKay. Just a little tired.”

Rodney looks up over his toast, breakfast on hold just long enough for him to narrow his eyes on John, a silent reprimand for his reply and his wording. “It’s not you. It’s the meds; you know that. You’ll feel better by tonight. But I’m serious,” he says, taking a large bite from the corner. “Between the two of us, we can probably finish today. Oh, and here.” He retrieves a large envelope from a drawer, and when he upends it, a few small items slide out onto the table.

John reaches for the first thing that catches his attention. An ID with his real driver’s license photo, but with a fake name. There are a few credit cards, a few keys, insurance cards and registration--pretty much everything they’ll need for as long as they’re here.

He stares at the pile for a few minutes, and then puts down his tea. “Fine. Thanks. I’ll just…” He points toward the stairs. “I’ll be working upstairs.”

It feels good to finally accomplish something. John can’t evade Michael or keep his allies from becoming those awful hybrids, but he can lift and carry and crush boxes until the house starts to look like a place where someone lives. Rodney wanders down a few times and waves hello as he hunts down various tools from the garage, but otherwise they work quietly, separately, and John isn’t sure what it means—unless it’s the result of last night. It makes sense that Rodney might want his space after being forced to sit with John for hours, to practically hold his hand and make sure he didn’t seize or roll off the sofa or get too thirsty. John kicks the last living room box into the garage, and hates this situation all over again.

He finds Rodney upstairs in the room he’d claimed for his office. “Oh, good,” he says as soon as John walks in. “Can you take these?” The stack of books in his arms leans precariously until John takes half the load and deposits them onto the bookcase.

“That’s a lot of books,” he remarks, looking through some of the titles.

Rodney snorts. “Yes, well. Let’s just hope we don’t have to resort to reading them.” Rodney glares at the shelves as though he’d like to be rid of the whole thing

“Still. You’ve got to give them points for authenticity,” John says. Rodney is supposed to be a historian on sabbatical, and John an aspiring writer. Teyla and Ronon had gotten real jobs, which isn’t fair at all. “Listen, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“I’m listening,” Rodney says from underneath the desk, where he’s plugging cords into a power strip.

John folds the box shut, one flap at a time. “I just wanted to say thanks for yesterday.”

“Yesterday? What- oh, that. Don’t mention it.”

“I kind of have to mention it, because as much as I hate to admit it, it’s probably going to happen again, and what you did yesterday, I don’t expect you to go through that every single time. As long as you get me to bed and make sure I’ve got my meds, I’m good.”

Rodney crawls out from beneath the desk, but remains on the floor with John. “What does that even mean?” he asks, looking a little lost.

“It just means that you don’t have to do all that other stuff.”

“Why not? Did I…did I do something you didn’t like?” Rodney asks, so far from the truth that John can’t stand it.

“No! It was- you were great, Rodney. It just wasn’t necessary.”

“I see.” Rodney gets up and wipes his hands on his jeans, nodding to himself. “So we should tell Ronon that the next time Teyla has an episode, he should just toss her in bed with a couple pills and leave her there until it’s over?”

And okay, it’s ridiculous when Rodney puts it that way, but that’s Teyla, and Ronon would never begrudge her the care.

John glares, but Rodney’s back is drawn up straight, his face set tight with aggravation.

“Exactly. So what I need to know is whether you’re just doing the brave little soldier thing, or if there’s something you’d like me to do differently.”

It’s not a brave little soldier thing to shy away from extravagant care that he doesn’t deserve, or to suggest that a top astrophysicist might have better things to do than spoon-feed a friend. It’s all such a waste of time and resources, and John can’t get used to having either to spare. Yet Rodney is putting himself out there the way he always does when John least expects it, and asking if he did something John didn’t like, when the only thing John doesn’t like right now is himself.

“You did everything right,” he says softly, head bent forward as he folds the box’s flaps inward, one at a time. “Thanks.”

“I’m…glad we got that cleared up,” Rodney says, and for a moment John is afraid he’s going to say more, but then he clears his throat loudly and jerks his thumb toward the door. “Come on, then. Let’s get the last of these boxes down to the garage.”

****

They meet Ronon and Teyla for dinner at a family-style restaurant, Torren squirming happily in Teyla’s arms as they catch up.

“How long do we have to sneak around like this?” Ronon says. “I want to come over.”

“We have to make it look like we’re just getting to know each other,” Rodney says. “But the people around here don’t look too bright, so- a few days, maybe?”

“You can come help me work on the car,” John says. That sounds like a pretty good day in his book: Ronon, a few beers, and an engine to tinker with.

“We will not have to pretend for very long,” Teyla says. “Diane and Steven wish to welcome the four of us to the neighborhood. They are having a party this weekend, and we can make our introductions then.”

“Oh, wonderful.” Rodney’s mouth flattens in disgust.

“They’re nice,” Ronon says. “They showed me how to recycle.”

“He should have shown you how to drive,” Rodney says, and elbows John. “Did you see the way he parked? Those lines exist for a reason, you know. And how did you even get a license?”

Teyla shifts Torren over to Ronon’s lap. “They gave us a class at the SGC. It was very long, but we both passed the examination. After the burden of a Hive ship, I find Earth cars very simple to maneuver.”

And she’s so lovely and unguarded as she squeezes lemon into her tea, as though she could be any young mother, that John can’t help but think of the day she’d pushed away her tray in the mess, eyes rolled back into her head, and choked, “Michael is not tracking us; he is with us.”

She’d been right. John had felt the stir of Michael’s long reach at the back of his mind—had already felt it a few times without putting a name to it—and they’d packed their bags for the SGC the next day.

The SGC hadn’t been any safer. There’d been two close calls in one day that had nearly killed Rodney and Teyla, and the brass had moved quickly to place the team in these safehouses.

Safer, but never safe. Even now, John can feel something shifting within that place Michael had brought to life. It’s not the same as before; there’s no threat of danger, but it makes him uneasy, like going at full-throttle without a test flight. It tastes vaguely of Rodney’s reproach, and when he finally turns from Teyla, Rodney’s eyes are on him. “Hello? Are you even listening?”

“Sorry,” John says slowly. “I was just trying to decide if I should get the Cobb salad or the Hawaiian chicken.”

“Cobb salad,” Rodney says automatically, and whisks the menu from John’s hands. “Now pay attention, because Ronon was just telling us all about how our new neighbors are already gossiping about us. Already!” he adds, as though scandalized, but his eyes are bright and interested.

“Do tell,” John says, and pushes the feeling until it goes away.

**

The party isn’t bad. In fact, he enjoys watching Rodney interact with their neighbors, because a little positive attention has always gone a long way with Rodney, who schmoozes like he was born to it, martini in hand.

Later, on Diane and Steve’s deck, John tips his head back and looks at the stars, dimmed by street lamps and porch lights. He can hear karaoke from inside, and Rodney is sprawled on a chaise lounge, half drunk and more sedate than John is accustomed to seeing, even on their downtime.

“The sad thing is,” Rodney says, “We have the best party stories, and we can’t even tell them.”

“You could creatively edit.”

“Right. Instead of a volcano, it was a looming deadline, and instead of an ancient spaceship, it was a busted hard drive?”

John smiles. “And Michael is Teyla’s stalker ex-boyfriend.”

“Exactly.” Rodney’s eyes are glassy and heavy-lidded, as though he’s ready for bed but doesn’t have the energy to leave. It’s very late; Teyla and Ronon are long home with Torren. “I can’t believe we’re here. Look at this,” he says, and John doesn’t have to look. He knows that the chairs are too comfortable, the food too rich. Even his clothes are wrong; he can’t get used to walking around unprotected all the time with his underbelly exposed.

“It’s temporary,” he says. “Come on, let’s go say our goodbyes. I’m ready for bed.”

*

“What’s the matter?” Rodney asks when they’re heading upstairs for the night.

“Nothing,” John says as he turns off the hall light. “Just a little tired.” Tension pulls at the back of his neck; an impending headache, or maybe he shouldn’t have had that beer.

Lying down doesn’t help. The longer he lies there, the worse he feels, aching all over with a worry that won’t subside—a worry that is somehow related to the warm, pleased feeling from the party.

John rolls onto his back and breathes deeply as he waits for the feeling to pass. The vague sense of worry never quite dissipates, but it eases enough that he can stretch his legs out and enjoy the give of the mattress beneath his back, until eventually, the pleasure isn’t just comfort anymore. The weight of the covers feels fantastic where it’s draped over his hips, and he’s abruptly operating under a low hum of arousal.

John slides a hand over the front of his boxers, with a guilty glance toward the door. He shouldn’t be doing this with the door open, but he’s all revved up with nowhere to go—in fact, he can’t remember the last time he’s been this turned on for no reason in particular, something he thinks about as he rubs himself through his shorts, still undecided. He lets his eyes fall shut on the image of some guy’s smooth, naked torso, which is odd enough in itself, but when he stops to sit up, he can’t blink it away. It’s all in his head: the hazy impression of dog tags draped over bare skin—his hand goes to his own chest and comes up empty—widespread thighs and the arch of a cock in a glossy photographic sheen he suddenly recognizes as the pages of a magazine.

But why?, a half-formed question that fractures as he falls back into the bed, his back stiff with agony, pain signals bolting to his head so relentlessly that he can hardly take a breath. This is what it’s all been leading up to; he should’ve known this was the inevitable outcome, but it’s so hard to think with the ghost of a knife jammed through the back of his neck, an echo of what Michael had done on that operating table.

He rolls to his side and pulls his knees up to his chest, aware of the tremor that runs through his hands and across his jaw. If he’s going to seize, which he hadn’t done in weeks, then Rodney should probably be here, but Rodney is—why didn’t Rodney hear him call out?—he’s, he’s, oh, John thinks as pleasure buoys up from beneath the pain for the briefest moment. He gets it.

He get it, but it doesn’t help him any, doesn’t stop the jagged colors from bleeding behind his eyelids as he clenches the covers in his hands--waiting, waiting. Eventually, he gives up and curls up and breathes, in, out, in, out. It’s the only thing he can do.

He’s never had to tough it out for this long. After a while, he’s aware that he’s gasping, dizzy with the effort, and that his eyes are leaking wet and messy into the mattress. Then, finally something is pressed between his lips and he swallows it dry, choking it down by force.

“Sorry, sorry,” he hears Rodney say after an eternity, another prod at his mouth and then a trickle of something that wets his tongue and soothes his scraped throat.

“I, are you, how long have you been like this?” Rodney asks, forgetting to be quiet, forgetting everything, the bathroom light like a white blaze against John’s skin. John moans against the stimulation; he’d yell at Rodney if he didn’t think he effort would kill him. “Oh,” Rodney says suddenly, and again, “Sorry,” this time in a whisper, and the light disappears like a cool black balloon that floats up from his forehead.

The problem with this kind of pain is that regular meds can’t put a dent in it; instead, he needs something that swallows him whole, and he thinks, as he waits for the final descent, that maybe it’s chewing him up a little every time he goes down.


****

He wakes in a sweltering tangle of covers.

“Here.” Rodney must have been watching, because his hands are all over John, gently extracting him from the blankets and tugging them to the foot of the bed. “I know the tea helps, but you just sweated through about five layers, so I’m going to start with some Gatorade.”

It’s not like John can argue. He just lies there as Rodney feeds him Gatorade through a straw and frowns down at him as though he’s doing everything wrong.

“Okay,” Rodney says, when John doesn’t think he can keep any more down. “In case you didn’t notice, you’re soaked, so I’m going to clean you up and change the linens.” He keeps talking as he peels away John’s socks and t-shirt. The air is heavy with the smell of his body, old sweat and something else that makes him a little queasy, just as he dredges up a vague memory of being sick over the side of the bed.

“No,” John protests, appalled by his wrecked voice, and that doesn’t even have the strength to pull away.

Let him help, Teyla says, but he doesn’t want to let Rodney help. Rodney has already seen him like this too many times.

“Don’t,” he says, desperation rising up just as a wet cloth descends on his collarbone. Rodney; he doesn’t have to do this, but the gesture feels like relief; like being able to rest after a long run, and Teyla is right about most things, so maybe she’s right about this, too.

His skin prickles with sweat that Rodney wipes away one gentle stroke at a time.

“You know, it’s a little unnerving with you just watching me like that,” Rodney says, sloshing the cloth in the rinse-bowl.

He hadn’t even realized his eyes had drifted open. Judging by the glow beneath the curtains, it’s just past dawn, and Rodney is perched at the edge of the bed in a red t-shirt so new it must have come with the house. John’s been studying Rodney for a while, gathering a solid image to go with the thoughts that roll uneasily through his head about what Rodney thinks of this added responsibility, and how he got to be so damn good at it.

Rodney just sighs loudly and works some water into John’s heat-drenched hair, and John has to hand it to him, he keeps up a reassuringly steady stream of complaints even as he combs cool rows of relief through John’s hair with his fingers. He works with the same concentration he gives intricate system repairs: mouth firm, eyes hard and focused, and John expects nothing less from Rodney, but even as his body sighs with satisfaction, he shies away from the contact.

“I know what you’re thinking, you know,” Rodney says, bent forward to frown directly at him. “Just relax; I’m almost done here. Then you’ll take another nap while I make breakfast, and after I feed you I’m sleeping all day, so don’t even think about waking me.”

Now, this feels more like them. And maybe that’s why he can’t stand to lie here so helplessly, because he likes what he’s got with Rodney, the steady give-and-take. These relapses disrupt what’s taken so long to develop between them, and John needs that right now, when everything is so torn apart. He needs this one thing to remain intact, but when Rodney helps him into a clean t-shirt, he can’t do anything but ease onto his aching side and fall into a drug-heavy sleep.


****

“Why did you call Teyla?” John asks over breakfast.

Rodney looks up from his eggs, bleary-eyed. “What are you talking about? I never called Teyla.”

“Then how did she… When did she come over?”

“Oh, this is great,” Rodney says, animated with dismay. “You’ve been hallucinating? Remember what happened last time you hallucinated.”




John cradles his mug of tea in both hands and tries to think back to the hazy, elastic hours he’d just spent in bed.

“I got shot!” Rodney says.

“It was probably a dream,” he says, but the strange worry-tinged memories are beginning to creep back into place. “Those drugs are pretty potent. Seriously, don’t worry about it. And thanks, you know. For everything else.”

****

True to his word, Rodney spends all afternoon snoring steadily on the basement sofa. John needs to get out, even though his limbs ache from being clenched up for so long. Teyla’s studio is within easy walking distance, but the idea of running out of steam halfway there makes him queasy, so he calls Ronon, who says, “Greenhouse gas emissions are the number one cause of global warming, Sheppard,” and picks him up anyway, the windows down and Torren strapped into the back seat.

He finds Teyla sitting at rest in the yoga room, the lights down as her students roll up their mats and filter out into the lounge area. John waits until they’re gone before he slips into the studio and sits facing Teyla, legs crossed, their knees nearly touching. “Here,” he says softly, and hands over Torren, who is already squirming for her, arms flailing with excitement.

Teyla smiles at her son, and then at John. “Stay,” she says as she pushes her top aside and guides Torren to her breast.

John had already planned to stay. In the dark studio, his body responds to all the meditation training he’s been coaxed into over the years, and he finds his breath slowing to match Teyla’s: deep and calm, slow and steady. It helps, even with the lingering pain. “I need to talk to you,” he says, and takes a moment to breathe in the faint traces of the incense Teyla burns before class. Torren’s soft suckling is barely audible over the music that filters through the speakers, spare mournful woodwinds that make John want to sleep. “Something happened last night.”

“You have had another episode,” she murmurs.

“Yes,” he says, feeling his way through with caution. He knows what he hopes Teyla will say, but there’s no guarantee. “But there was something else going on; only, before I could figure it out, I was laid out on my back.”

“Something else?”

“Just hear me out, all right? I know this sounds a little strange, but you know that thing you do with the Wraith?” She holds his eyes, nodding slightly, so he goes on, hands no longer resting on his knees, but gripping, holding. Bracing. “That happened to me last night. It’s happened to me a couple times, actually. But it wasn’t with Michael, or the Wraith. It was with Rodney.”

“With Rodney,” Teyla repeats, and people always call her inscrutable, but John can read her face as easily as his own, and right now she’s working things out, fitting his information to her own, which is so gratifying that he chokes out a little laugh, laced with disdain for his own nerves.

“And if I’m not crazy, it happened with you, too.”

“Last night,” she says, shifting Torren in her arms. “Yes. That was not my first time, but it was the first time I had actively sought to control it.”

“I heard you,” John says, stunned. He’d suspected, but his muddled suspicion had been entirely different from this matter-of-fact confirmation. “You told me to let Rodney help me.”

“It was advice you were wise to take. I do not know why you—“ She stops herself and shakes her head. “I do not understand why you are so reluctant to let Rodney do what he is quite happy to offer. You would do the same for any of us.”

“He’s not happy to do it,” John protests. “And I think we can talk about that some other time. Right now I’m a little more concerned with closing off this link before somebody gets hurt.”

Teyla’s eyebrows lift in surprise, genuinely off-kilter for a change. “You wish to end the link with no further exploration?”

“Well, yeah! Do you know how vulnerable this leaves us?”

“Michael cannot reach us from another galaxy.”

“No, but what about the four of us? No offense, but I’m not crazy about the four of you having access to my private life.”

“Right now I believe it is just the two of us,” Teyla says, “but I also believe that in time, this ability could be a very useful tool.”

“Just us?”

“I have had a few experiences similar to yours. Most of the time it is Ronon, perhaps because he is so near, but it is occasionally you or Rodney. Ronon has said nothing.”

Neither has Rodney, which probably means nothing is going on at his end, because he tends to let everyone know if he suspects anything might be even remotely amiss. And if Rodney suspected something like this, he wouldn’t slip off in the middle of the night to jerk off to gay porn, now, would he? John’s queasiness threatens to return. He should have eaten the toast Rodney had put in front of him, but Rodney had been right; he feels awful the day after, low and sulky and not above punishing others.

But being here helps. Teyla helps. Watching the rhythmic pull of Torren’s mouth at her breast and the curve of her hand over his small head, John lets himself soak in the soothing effects of the scene, because it’s nice to know that somewhere in this situation, someone has some small aspect of their life under control. Someone knows what they’re doing, and right now that person is Teyla, whose arms are sure and her gaze unwavering as she minds her child and John at once.

“I believe we can use this gift,” she says firmly. “I have been working on my focus, and last night I was able to deliberately communicate with you.”

“I’m not arguing about that; it’s the unfocused stuff I have problem with,” he says. “I don’t want to just come waltzing into your thoughts in the middle of something important. Or Rodney’s, for instance.”

“Why do you think I began working at this focus?” she asks with dark amusement written across her face. She’s teasing. “You must believe that I do not wish to waltz into any of your…important thoughts.”

“So, last night…?”

“Last night I was up with Torren. I was using the time to work on this control, and you were too much for me to keep out. Your pain was quite strong, but before that, there was something. I believe it was Rodney.”

And John doesn’t want to have this talk with Teyla. He can’t even believe she’s bringing it up—the two of them shouldn’t do this to Rodney, especially not when he’s crashed out at home after cleaning up after John all night—but then she says, “I do not know how to describe what I felt other than to say it was a strong sense of worry,” and John goes slack with relief. Worry,, yes. Rodney’s worry had kept them up; not the other way around. And nothing else.

“It doesn’t sound like you’re getting very far with that control,” he says as she switches Torren to her other breast. He’d spent the first couple months averting his eyes and pretending not to know what was going on, until one afternoon Ronon had leaned right in and said, “I knew he was hungry,” his hand skimming easily across Torren’s dark hair, and after that John’s discomfort had seemed a little silly.

She nods lightly. “You are tired today, but perhaps tomorrow you will be able to meet me here? We will all benefit if you and I can gain some control of this gift.”

It’s startling to hear her phrase it that way. It’s how she refers to her connection with the Wraith, and that’s what this is, isn’t it? Michael did this; the alteration to their DNA has been crafted by him and for him, and whatever benefit it brings the team is inconsequential. John is suddenly angry, his body reacting to a threat, but too wrung out to do anything about it. “Michael,” he says.

“Yes.” Teyla holds his gaze, and he sees the same ferocity he feels in his own gut. “We will find him, John. He must die.”

“I’m really glad you feel that way,” John says.

“There is no other way,” she says, as though puzzled. John rubs his hands over his face, rough stubble against his palms. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.

“Right, right. I’ll just be glad when we get the word he’s dead. When we get any word,” and there’s the heart of it right there. The SGC had designated him as point man for some exchange of information that he’s still waiting on, and they’d said it might be a while, but he needs news from Atlantis so badly he can feel it like a small, deep wound of wanting that refuses to heal.

“I feel the same way,” Teyla says. “But for now, it would please me greatly if you spent the afternoon resting. You do not look well.”

****

Ronon buckles Torren into the carseat as though he’s been doing it for years.

“How’d you get saddled with baby duty?” John asks.

“I like it,” Ronon says as he starts the car. “Better than teaching those classes. These people don’t really want to learn to fight. There’s no point. But Teyla feels like she’s helping, so.” He shrugs. “This way she gets to do what she wants, I get to do what I want.”

“What do you do?”

“Hang out with you and McKay. Take Torren to the park. Sheila Cranby invited me to join their play group, too. It’s pretty cool.”

If John had more energy, he’d be surprised. Then again, Ronon has embraced Earth culture more easily than John has been able to do, which means that Ronon is currently wearing Bermuda shorts and sandals, and John is uncomfortably warm in jeans because he keeps forgetting he’s going to be in the same climate all day. “Is Torren even old enough to play?”

“He’s not too young to watch TV. They watch Sesame Street at four.”

“While you swap recipes with the other moms.”

“Sometimes.” Ronon grins dangerously. “They’re funny.” He pauses, thumbs tapping at the steering wheel. “Earth women. They’re different from the ones you brought to Atlantis.”

“You’re supposed to be married to Teyla, you know,” John says, because he senses something in Ronon’s tone; something light and contented, and he doesn’t know if it’s Ronon taking genuine pleasure in this life, or if it’s something else.

“I know. It’s not like that. We do other stuff.”

“Good to know.” And it is good. John lets his head fall back against the seat and tries to remember what it’s like to just drive with a buddy.

“We’ll go for a run in the morning,” Ronon says as he pulls into John’s driveway. “Six okay?”

****

Rodney is crashed out on John’s bed, taking advantage of the fresh linens, when John drags himself upstairs. The windows have been opened, curtains pushed aside, and by the time he crawls next to Rodney, he’s already half asleep.

When he wakes, his head is clearer and his body feels more like his own. Rodney is still beside him, staring up at the ceiling fan. They lie there for a few quiet minutes, John drowsing in and out of sleep, until Rodney finally lifts his hands and makes a tentative building gesture that usually means he’s circling a new hypothesis.

“It’s Michael,” he says. “The timing, it’s, he’s hunting us down.”

That’s John’s gut feeling, too, but it’s-

“I know it’s improbable. But he’s smarter than we want to admit. Smarter than the others.”

“Maybe we’ve just been around the weird stuff for too long. These are people we’re hiding from, Rodney. The reason they haven’t found us yet is because they’re bound by the laws of Earth, just like us. People. And they could be working for anyone. Maybe it’s time we stop blaming Michael, and start thinking about what other enemies might be behind it.”

“Maybe,” Rodney says grudgingly. “But we need to get a message to the SGC. When they send their contact, assuming he’s not an assassin, we need to make sure you tell them about your symptoms. They might need to send a doctor, or…”

And the reason Rodney doesn’t finish is that he knows damn well there isn’t anything even the SGC’s doctors can do for him. They’ve already tried, and if the equipment in Atlantis hasn’t helped him, then there’s nothing some local physician can do. Earth doctors—hell, Earth--seem so limited right now; so two-dimensional when he’s used to the depth of a city that goes back ten thousand years.

“Or send more tea?”

Rodney rolls off the bed and straightens his shirt, the same red t-shirt from that morning. “More of that tea won’t hurt you. There’s a reason Jennifer started using it, you know.”

John suspects that the main reason Dr. Keller had begun distributing containers of crushed Reyvalia leaves is that if nothing else, it ensures the patient will slow down for the five minutes it takes to drink. Those with the worst injuries tend to be the ones with the most pressing duties, the ones who want to limp back to work with blood still on their clothes.

“I guess I could stand one cup,” he says, suddenly hungry. “Did you go shopping?”

Rodney stops in the doorway. “I was a little tired,” he says defensively. “We can make sandwiches, but we’ll have to get groceries tomorrow.”

“It’s not like we’ve got anything else to do,” John says, and drags himself into the bathroom, where he carefully avoids his haggard reflection. He really does look rough, but after a shower and shave, he only looks faintly tired, and a dig through the wide dresser produces a fresh stack of t-shirts like the one Rodney’s wearing.

They take their sandwiches down to the basement, which is always cool and dark and smells of the eucalyptus arrangement they’d found in a box marked home décor and snorted at, but still unpacked.

“We’ll go into town tomorrow,” Rodney says, settling at one end of the sofa with his plate. “Is there anywhere you wanted to go?”

“Maybe Best Buy.”

Rodney nods as he chews. “Okay, we can do that. We’ll just do groceries last.”

“We don’t both have to go,” John protests.

“Don’t be silly. We’ve basically got the same errands, and that way I’ll be able to keep an eye on you.”

“I’d say you’ve been doing nothing but keep an eye on me lately,” John says. He feels it all the time, now; Rodney’s constant, anxious attention, and now he wonders how much is Rodney looking over his shoulder, and how much is coming straight through from Rodney’s brain to his own. Michael’s handiwork, Michael’s doing, and every time he thinks of it that way it goes through him like cold dread, his hand clamped to the back of his neck.

“Like you said, we don’t have anything else to do. Besides, maybe you’re freaking me out, sulking around all the time.”

“Maybe you’re freaking me out, fawning over me all the time,” he says, and then concentrates hard on his sandwich. He’s spent half his life waiting for fallout; he ought to be used to it, by now.

“You know, I think I’ll do the shopping tonight after all,” Rodney says as he wads up his napkin, get up, and carries his plate back upstairs.

****

“I don’t think living with Rodney is such a great idea,” John says a few days later, when he and Teyla are holed up in her studio and everyone else is gone for the day. They’re supposed to be working out the connection, and while Teyla is concerned with learning to control it, John just wants to know how to turn it off.

“I think it is a very good idea,” she says, and scoots forward until their knees are pressed together.

He just shrugs. It’s easier than admitting that he can’t stop his careful avoidance of Rodney, or that for the past two days, Rodney has made it easy for him by keeping to his office, door closed and keyboard clacking noisily from the other side. Two weeks ago, Rodney would’ve been his first choice for someone to be holed up with for an indefinite amount of time, but now everything is breaking down the same way it had their last few months in Atlantis. Atlantis; and god, it still aches to think about it, existing out there without him.

“Perhaps you have trouble sharing your space,” she says. She reaches for his hands, her palms smooth and dry as they slide across his own. “And you blame him for being strong while you are hurting.”

“I’m doing just fine.”

“John,” Teyla says softly, and lightly squeezes his hands. “You are too hard on yourself and on Rodney, but I believe when you have regained control over the situation, you will feel more at ease.”

Control sounds perfect right now; John can’t remember the last time he’d been so desperate to make things right. Teyla is right; the first step is getting some control, so he squeezes Teyla’s hands back and shuts his eyes, breathing deeply through his nose. “Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

“Focus on me,” Teyla says on a soft breath.

He obeys. He can feel the connection now. He’s been aware of it for days, now; an ever-present insistence in his pulse, akin to Atlantis and yet so far removed that John would never compare the two. Atlantis is an easy whisper that he wears like his own skin, but this thing of Michael’s is clunky and claustrophobic, like maneuvering the corridors of a Hive ship. It’s better once he begins to sense Teyla; not just the sweet fleshy smell of her skin, but what lies beneath: warm concern for Torren, a fondness for Earth that surprises him, and then he can see himself, eyes shut, and the lines of concentration written onto his face. The rush of affection--Teyla’s affection--takes him by surprise, the worry and exasperation and love, so much that he practically crashes through the bond and opens his eyes, blood pulsing hot and quick through his veins.

He’d had no right. It’s more than he’d wanted to know, and now he carries the imprint of Teyla’s wet, trembling sympathy for Rodney, and how she hurts for them both.

“Teyla-“ he chokes.

“I know.” She holds his eyes and grips his hands tightly. “I know you wish to stop, but this is what it will be like if you do not learn to focus. This time, try to shut me out gently, and continue to breathe without letting me back in.”

She can’t know. She can’t know what it’s like to be thrust into all that raw emotion, but she’s right, so John braces himself, his fingers damp and slipping against Teyla’s by now, and lets his mind guide him back.

It’s easier to handle this time as he keeps himself guarded, like learning to check the sky without looking directly into the sun. Even so, he can sense Teyla’s struggle to focus.

“We’re doing good,” he says, but she’s slipping more than he’d known, and a new visual slides into focus: Ronon’s hands tickling gently across Torren’s pudgy belly, helpless hiccupping giggles surrounded by something fiercely protective. Ronon’s brand of emotion feels closer to John’s own; less complicated than Teyla’s; less tangled by the desire to reach, to touch, to heal, but his fondness for Torren is reassuringly powerful, and John isn’t sure if the pleasure that loops through the connection is his, Ronon’s, or Teyla’s.

But there’s no mistaking it as anything other than pleasure. The sweet warmth rolls through him as though the fondness is his own--right up until it flares into a shock of darkly colored pain, like being unexpectedly burned.

He falls back onto the mat, and Teyla follows.

“Are you all right?” he asks, catching the stiff way she lowers herself to the ground. The pain hadn’t been his, and somehow he knows it hadn’t been Ronon’s. “Was that…?”

“I am fine,” she breathes, and folds her hands over her belly. Her eyes close, her skin damp. “I could not focus. Since Torren, it is difficult to wholly devote my attention to any one thing. A part of me-“ She pauses to catch her breath. “Part of me always remains with my son.”

“Understandable,” John says. “That’s, uh…a pretty neat trick, what we just did. I mean, that was Ronon.”

“Yes,” she says weakly, and for the first time, John feels the threat of danger slowly creeping in. Teyla had seemed so sure of herself the whole time, but right now she can barely speak. He pushes himself into a sitting position.

“Wait, are you really okay? Because you look like you just went a few rounds with a Wraith and barely came out alive.”

The smile that spreads across her face is tired, but genuine. “I am fine,” she says, and lies there for a few moments. “Though it is possible I may have overtaxed myself.”

“Come on,” he says, and climbs to his feet. “I’ll help you lock up.”

*

They take the walk home slowly, Teyla’s bag slung over John’s shoulder, though she had glowered at him when he’d insisted.

“We should try to leave them out of it,” he says as they near their neighborhood. “Rodney and Ronon. It’s not right, seeing them like that.”

“I agree.” Teyla pushes the hair from her eyes and gives him a wry smile. “But that will take some work.”

It’s not right, but in some ways he hadn’t minded. He’d thought it would be too much, seeing his friends like that, but instead it’s a clear picture of the best relationships in his life without all the messy, inadequate words that always get twisted up along the way. It’s just a good thing it hadn’t been Rodney. John isn’t sure he’d want to see how Rodney feels about him right now. McKay has too many ways of holding a grudge: an enduring glacial freeze, or quick and hot, a little wild around the edges.

John kind of likes the latter, not that he’d ever admit it, but he’s afraid a glimpse at Rodney might reveal something closer to hurt, and Rodney’s hurt face is bad enough; from the inside, John isn’t sure he could stomach it.

Ronon is in their driveway, bent over a bicycle with Rodney, and sorting through a pile of small metal pieces while Rodney reads the directions aloud.

“Insert the seat through slots A, B, C, and D.” Rodney glances at the blue plastic baby seat. “They’re actually more like holes, but fine.” He snaps his fingers at Ronon. “Screws later, baby seat now.”

“How about baby seat later, dinner now,” John says, shifting into a lazy stance of caution.

Rodney pretends not to see him.

“Hey, Sheppard,” Ronon says. “If you take over, I’ll fire up the grill.”

“Fine.” Rodney flaps the instructions in John’s direction. “Then I can take a break.”

John had spent the morning with Ronon at the local sporting goods store buying bicycles, assorted sports equipment, and most importantly, a basketball hoop to mount on the garage. “The other moms said he’s not old enough to sit up in one of these,” Ronon had confided as he’d pulled down a box with the baby bike seat. “But he can sit up in his high chair, not supposed to do that, either. He’s strong. Way stronger than the other babies.”

“What does that mean?” John had asked, and Ronon had shaken his head.

“If I had to guess, I’d say it was that stuff Michael did to him,” he’d said, and John had agreed, uneasy despite the clean bill of health Torren had received at the SGC.

Now, cradled in Teyla’s arms, Torren looks like any other baby, kicking his feet and making grabby fists toward Rodney as he walks past.

“He wants you, McKay,” John teases, reaching for a crescent wrench. He watches from the corner of his eye as Teyla makes the handoff and eases herself down onto the grass. They’re all pretty easy with the baby by now, but it’s still a surprise when he sees the way Rodney settles Torren’s fussiness with just the sound of his voice, Torren’s brown eyes wide and worshipful as he stares up at Rodney’s face.

Maybe John shouldn’t be surprised. The Rodney Mckay he lives with here on Earth is not the same Rodney McKay he’d worked alongside in Atlantis, but John isn’t like other people when it comes to Rodney. He’d liked Rodney in Atlantis and he likes him here, so he can’t quite articulate the difference.

He returns to securing the baby seat while Rodney and Teyla sit beneath the silver maple that’s beginning to show signs of the summer’s end. This scene, right here, is one of the differences. This Rodney has time to debate the local grocery versus the farmer’s market with Teyla, and the whole while runs his hands over Torren’s silky head the same way he used to touch consoles that yielded enough firepower to destroy a planet.

He’s softer around the edges; less defensive; and as John watches the way he nods at what Teyla is saying, he realizes that the biggest difference may be the way he relates to other people. He’s actually listening to Teyla; not hurrying her along or thinking about something else, but smiling with an indulgence he just couldn’t afford in Atlantis. He hadn’t been allowed the time.

John gets to his feet and tightens the bolts one last time. “Want to see if this thing is roadworthy?” he asks, while Rodney eyes the bike with suspicion. “Just up and down the street,” John says, and Rodney helps settle Torren into the seat while John slips the harness over his pudgy arms.

It’s not just the way Rodney carries himself. John has shared a space with Rodney so many times he’s lost count, and he knows the smell of Rodney’s skin. He knows Rodney’s soap and deodorant, and all the rest of it: city and sea all at once, coffee and something sharp and electric that might originate with machinery, but that John associates with fear.

But now, as Rodney bends his head next to John’s and snaps the buckles into place, his skin holds the scent of mellow aftershave and cool clean sheets. The coffee is the one constant, always warming in the kitchen, where Rodney’s work has migrated, the table piled with books and papers and two different laptops.

“You’re coming back to Atlantis, right?” he asks before he even knows he’s going to say anything, and maybe Rodney isn’t the only one who’s changing, because John barely recognizes his own mild tone.

For a moment, Rodney forgets his grudge. “Where else would I go?” he asks, his expression halfway between scorn and compassion, as though he doesn’t know what John is asking any more than John does. “I’m waiting on the same thing you are,” he says, and adds a dark, “for now,” that eases something in John’s chest. Rodney is with him. He might be angry right now, but when push comes to shove, Rodney will do what it takes to get them back to Atlantis.

“Just checking,” John says, and pushes off on the bike.

****

Torren laughs every time they hit a rough patch, a crazy uncontrolled sound that John wants Teyla to hear. He goes to the end of their cul de sac, then once around the block, and by the time he gets back to the house, the yard is empty. It seems odd that they wouldn’t have waited, but when he steps through the front door, Torren in tow, he finds Teyla curled on the living room floor, her face clenched with pain.

Ronon is knelt beside her as he tries to coax her mouth open for a pain pill, but her jaw remains locked into place.

“What happened?” John asks, depositing Torren into the playpen they keep near the kitchen.

Ronon settles back on his heels. “She might have had a seizure, Mckay thinks. It might be the pain. Hard to tell, sometimes.”

Rodney hurries down the stairs, a black bag under his arm. “Did you get her to take it?”

Ronon shakes his head.

“Okay, shoo, I’m going to try something else,” Rodney says, and takes Ronon’s place. “Something I do not want to do.”

“Hurry,” Ronon says. “She’s hurting.”

John steps forward. “Can I help?”

Rodney is unpacking the contents of the bag, all items from the infirmary, including an intimidating needle that he holds between his knees as he rifles through some tubing and other items wrapped in plastic. “Not unless you think you can find a viable vein sometime in the next two minutes.”

“And you can?”

Teyla’s nose has begun to bleed, a steady trickle that Ronon stems with a blue hand-towel, his face strangely pale. He’s seen worse than this.

“Jennifer showed me how to do this in case of an emergency,” Rodney says, and then slides the needle and catheter into Teyla’s forearm. He doesn’t fumble his way through—not that Rodney ever fumbles at anything important—but works the catheter into her vein with one hand while the other tugs at the tourniquet, reaching for the luer lock as though he’d been a field medic in another life. He flushes the site and tapes it down with strips that he’d ordered Ronon to cut, and it isn’t until after he slowly injects something else into the site that he sits back on his heels and looks up at John, a little defensive, as though he’s waiting for judgment on his work.

Whatever Rodney gave her is much faster-acting than the pills he usually forces down John’s throat. Then again, John hasn’t ever been so bad off that he’s unable to open his mouth, and he’s never soaked a towel with a nosebleed either. Something should probably happen now, but they all just sit around Teyla and watch her body slowly unfold, her face smoothing out until she looks as though she’s merely resting.

“We can, uh.” Rodney clears his throat. “We can give her intravenous fluids if she needs them, but she should be okay.” He sounds scared now, after all that. John is so used to Rodney pushing forward when it matters most that he sometimes forgets about all the soft, vulnerable parts of Rodney that are always there waiting to be exposed. It makes John want to reverse what’s just happened, to wrap Rodney back up in whatever it is that keeps him so shielded most of the time, but he doesn’t have a clue how to go about it.

“Good. You did good, Rodney,” he says, and hopes it’s enough.

*

John makes up the sofa bed while Ronon and Rodney sit with Teyla.

“I thought she was doing better,” Ronon says. “Thought they might stop sometime soon.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Rodney says, and John tucks in the last blanket with the grim realization that he owes them some kind of explanation.

“Let’s get her up here,” he says, and when they’ve made her as comfortable as they can, he shoves his hands in his pockets and says, as lightly as he can manage, “Look, me and Teyla think we’ve figured out some stuff about what Michael did to us.”

Ronon peers over the edge of the playpen at Torren. “Yeah?”

“Maybe.” John wanders into the kitchen and hops up onto the counter. “We think this thing that allows Michael to get at us might work in other ways.”

“Other ways?”

“For example, it might also allow us to get at each other.”

Rodney leans against the opposite counter. John’s gotten good at predicting the swift paths Rodney’s mind travels, and right now, even though Rodney’s face appears blank, mouth slightly open, he’s assessing the theory and finding it lacking.

“But then the link would still work here on Earth. It would be open right now,” he says, and John averts his eyes.

“Yeah, uh, that’s the general idea,” he says. There’s a trail of coffee across the tile in front of the refrigerator.

“What are you saying, John? That we can read each other’s minds? Because if I could tell what you were thinking, I wouldn’t be left with such a dismally unclear picture of what’s going on right now.”

“It’s not mind reading,” John says, and looks Rodney in the eye. It’s the least he can do. “It’s like what Teyla does with the Wraith. Sometimes we can see what you see, but mostly it’s just feelings.” His face goes hot with the last word, and at the same time he sees Rodney go cold.

“What’s that mean?” Ronon says.

Rodney stabs his finger toward John. “I’ll tell you what it means. It means Sheppard didn’t think it was worth mentioning that as far as he and Teyla are concerned, we no longer have any private thoughts—or, sorry, any private feelings--and that mechanisms such as doors and locks are pointless because he can snap his fingers at any moment and see what we’re doing.”

“It’s not like that,” he begins, but Rodney is flushed with fury, and maybe today has been a little much, because he’s shaking with it, as though he’s going to be sick, or go after John, or just implode once and for all the way everyone’s always predicted.

“How, then?” Rodney demands. “Or, rather, who? Me? Have you been- was it me?”

“Only a couple times, and it wasn’t intentional,” John says quickly. Now is the time to use the calming tones that usually work pretty well, but Rodney is beyond that, beyond being appeased by anything other than a denial John can’t give him.

He slides off the counter and reaches for Rodney’s shoulder. “Relax, it’s not what you think,” he begins, but Rodney shrugs out from under his hand with a force that seems excessive. He gives John a hard shove, and they’re suddenly locked into a scuffle that makes no sense at all because it’s Rodney shoving against him and grasping at his arms like a panicked animal, except it’s more than that because they’re all over each other, the perfect conduit to flood John with all the worry and anger and hurt that pours through; Rodney’s hurt, so sharp that John wants to check his chest for some gaping wound.

“Are you doing it right now?” Rodney pants, his knee digging into John’s thigh. “Anytime you want?”

“Knock it off, McKay! I can’t—I don’t know how to—“ how to stop it, he can’t keep this out any more than he can willfully let it in, and he can feel the sting of betrayal in his blood as it pumps through to every limb, which isn’t fair. It isn’t fair that even one of them feels this way, let alone both, and with that thought he wrenches away and clasps his hands over the back of his buzzing head as though that alone might break the connection.

“What the hell’s your problem?” he yells at Rodney. His eyes are wet and burning, which makes him even angrier, because Rodney isn’t the only one who’s losing something.

“My problem is that you’ll barely look at me since we got here, and I just discovered why,” Rodney says from where he’s pressed up against the refrigerator, his voice thin and sharp, like the shrapnel you don’t even feel until it’s too late. His shirt is twisted up around the waist, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

Torren lets out a wail from the playpen, a miserable sound that Ronon silences by scooping him up with an extra bounce. He says something about going home for a bottle, and walks out as though there hasn’t just been a great humiliating spectacle of wrestling and yelling and almost-crying. McKay; only McKay could take an already hard situation and tie it up in knots until John can’t begin to find his way out.

“I need to check on Teyla,” Rodney he says on a deep, shuddering breath, and gives John a wide berth as he exits the kitchen.

*

John gets ready for bed slowly, and when Rodney still hasn’t come upstairs, gets into bed with a Golf Digest he’s already read. He’s good at waiting. Rodney will have to eventually come upstairs, at which point he can let John in on exactly what had happened in the kitchen, those accusations that are still tumbling uneasily around in John’s head.

The sound of Ronon’s and Rodney’s voices drift up from the living room, where Ronon is going to stay with Teyla. He’d returned with an overnight bag and a sleepy Torren tugging at his dreads, and had looked John and Rodney over as though checking for damage. John doesn’t need to know what they’re saying down there; he recognizes the rushed, uneven patterns of Rodney’s agitation, and Ronon’s terse replies.

John does look at Rodney. They live together, for fuck’s sake. He sees Rodney every day, and every night he falls asleep to Rodney’s nighttime sounds: rapid-fire typing, running water, the coffeepot sputtering from the kitchen.

He sees Rodney. He looks. He’s just not sure he sees whatever it is that Rodney thinks he does.

Finally, Rodney’s footsteps sound on the stairs.

“Hey,” John says cautiously. “Everybody all settled in?”

Rodney stands near the door in a posture that John recognizes from every time Rodney has steeled himself for criticism, perceived or real. “Yes.”

They face one another for a moment, slightly adrift, until John puts his magazine aside. He’s the one who owes Rodney the apology. “Look, about what you said before. You’re way off, okay? If I’m a little on edge, it’s only because of what’s happening to us, not because of anything you did.”

“You don’t have to explain anything to me.” Now Rodney’s the one who won’t look at him. “Your twitchiness is pretty straightforward.”

“C’mon, McKay. “It isn’t you.”

“I’m going to bed now,” Rodney says, disappearing down the hall, and John has pushed Rodney many times and in many different ways, but tonight is different. He senses that any liberties he’s taken with Rodney in the past are off limits, beyond the boundaries of their friendship, so there’s nothing more to do but lie silently and wait to fall into an uneasy sleep.

****

Teyla is up in the morning, slumped at the kitchen table with crazy hair and sallow skin. When John and Ronon return from their run, Rodney is typing at his laptop and feeding Teyla extra-toasted Pop Tarts.

“These are better than the ones in Atlantis,” Ronon says, biting into two Pop Tarts at once.

Rodney makes an annoyed sound. “That’s because in Atlantis, even though we save the world on a daily basis, they serve us a cheap imitation.”

“We could bring a case or two back with us,” John says. He waits for Rodney to look up, but if anything, Rodney just types faster, his face impassive, and Teyla glowers at him for no good reason. It’s cheering, in a way, to know he’s not the only one who loses the next day to a black drug-induced mood.

“So, Teyla,” Rodney says abruptly. “In the interest of science, would you say that your episode was a result of your attempts to access the rest of us? Because I think that was what John was getting at last night, but seeing how I’m not a mind reader, I still had to check.”

“Why do you not ask him now, since he is right here and I am not feeling myself.”

Rodney’s face goes tight at the reprimand. John thinks of the way Rodney’s hands had moved with such care across Teyla’s skin, and something like sympathy—or affection; he finds the softer emotions harder to sort out—moves through his chest, quick and painful. “Yeah, that’s what I was getting at,” he says, in case Rodney had been asking an actual question, and not just twisting the knife.

“Gotta go,” Ronon says, and raps his knuckles on the table next to Teyla’s plate. “I’m covering your classes. See you tonight.”

“Thank you.” She begins to reach for his hand, but changes her mind at the last second and curls her fingers into a fist.

Ha, John thinks, but then she ruins the snub by giving him a beautiful, weary smile and murmuring, “Ronon,” with such gratitude that John looks away, because Rodney’s watched the entire exchange and is undoubtedly comparing Teyla’s appreciation to John’s grudging acceptance of his help.

****

Teyla starts to nod off while Rodney walks her through the intricacies of online banking, which leads to a suggestion that they take Torren to the park while she gets some rest. Seeing her so fragile makes John uneasy in the same way that it bothers him to walk around unarmed the way he’s been since they arrived, his soft underbelly exposed all the time.
It feels as though they’ve done nothing for the past four months but recover from the same thing over and over again.

“I saw what Teyla did this morning,” Rodney says as they hit the brick path where trees grow like a canopy overhead. “With Ronon, in the kitchen.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.” Rodney firms his jaw and looks John in the eye. “And I suppose you both have the right to be a little touchy right now. There’s no point in us fighting, and I, ah, I really am sorry about what happened last night.”

“Forgotten,” John says. “I should’ve told you what was going on.”

Rodney gets that warm, pleased expression he always gets when he’s surprised by something after expecting the worst, and they walk the path in silence for a while, John pushing the stroller along at a slow pace.

“He likes to watch the dogs,” Rodney says, so they hang a right at the next path, toward the grassy area where people bring their dogs to run free. “I didn’t know babies could actually have preferences, but he shows clear signs of excitement when he sees a dog.”

“Ronon said he’s advanced.”

“Not scarily advanced,” Rodney says, curiously defensive.

“No,” John says slowly. “Not scarily so.” A shriek tears out of Torren’s throat as he catches sight of the first dog, a Dalmation that bounds past the stroller with a wildly wagging tail. “Hey, you’re right.”

“Of course I am. Isn’t that the guy who was playing basketball with you and Ronon last week?” The trees cast moving shadows across Rodney’s face, sinuous shapes like the interior of a Hive ship, and John braces himself against the disquiet that spreads through him like a sudden fever.

It’s possible, he realizes, that he’s a little messed up by what happened with Michael. He’s used to beatings and insults, but even now, he still doesn’t know what to do with the numb, helpless feeling that had buzzed through him like an unwanted drug when he’d realized that his friends were being cut open. The memory of it is right there just past his shoulder, and he bumps into it at random moments throughout the day, cold fear at intervals until he isn’t sure he’s escaped entirely intact.

“John?” Rodney steps fully into shadow, and John rubs his palms against the stroller’s handlebar; shakes it off the way he’s been trained to do.

“Yeah,” he says, scanning the field for the man Rodney had been talking about. “That’s Abe.” Abe is a broad, full-bearded single guy who holds his own against Ronon in even the most competitive games and lives two doors down. He catches John’s eye and waves at them, jogging toward them with an easy smile and a friendly greeting.

“Babysitting?” he asks, studying them both with far more scrutiny than makes John comfortable.

“Teyla’s not feeling well,” Rodney says. “So we’re helping out.”

Abe nods. “That’s pretty generous. You know, since you two have only known Ronon and Teyla a few weeks.” John recognizes something within the remark, some deeply cloaked meaning that makes his hands tighten on the stroller. Beside him, Rodney bristles and moves closer.

“We hit it off pretty quickly.”

“Uh huh.” Abe’s posture doesn’t send off any alarms, but his eyes are full of warning. “A word of advice,” he says, “You two need to work on blending in. They gave you an assignment for a reason, and you’re walking around screaming military for everyone to see.”

John is aware of the rigid set of his shoulders, the way he can’t ever let his guard down, and of his own ability to pick a soldier out of a crowd just by the way he moves.

“What?” Rodney leans in, his hand bumping John’s on the stroller as though he wants to get Torren home as badly as John does. “He’s so far from the military standard it’s ridiculous! Do you not see his hair?”

But John knows it’s true as soon as Abe says it, because has the same instincts; he sees the same things in people, and can even tell by the quality of someone’s voice whether they’ve done time in the service.

“You’re not military,” John says.

Abe smiles and clasps his hands together in an unthreatening manner. “No, not exactly. I helped arrange your stay, here here. But that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be a dozen operatives scouting out this park, and the way you carry yourself draws attention.”

“I didn’t know there was a threat, way out here,” he says.

Abe smiles and rubs at his thick, curly hair. “The point is that we don’t know where the threat is. Hence, the reassignment. But I don’t understand why you would walk around like a target when you could be…less visible.”

“Look, are you from the SGC?” Rodney breaks in. “Do you have any information for us? Have they made any progress at all? Because I have some very important work to do back in Atlantis.”

“Rodney,” John hisses, but Abe laughs, soft and full of regret. “Sorry, Dr. McKay. I don’t have anything yet but a bit of advice.”

Torren shrieks at a poodle that wanders over to sniff his tiny shoes, while John considers that advice. “So, what would get us to ‘invisible?’” he asks. “Since you’re the big expert.”

“I know this isn’t easy. I know you’re military, but the point is to downplay that aspect of yourself,” Abe says, and John can’t even resent him, because the guy’s just doing his job—a pretty good job, since John hadn’t pegged him as anything but a cuddly loner who likes to shoot hoops—and most importantly, he represents the link to the SGC John’s been desperately wanting. “Focus on your friends; don’t always look like you’re scouting out the perimeter. I understand if you don’t want to let your guard down, but if you gave the appearance of a carefree guy out for a walk, that would be great.” Rodney gives another sharp elbow to his side, and John rolls his eyes up toward the sky where there are no answers, only more trees.

****

The thing is, he’s not even sure Abe’s suggestions are an option right now; not when he’s making an effort to keep his team’s feelings tucked safely out of reach. John’s instincts are pushing him to give everyone some space, even though Rodney insists on taking even that the wrong way, making it about his own paranoid issues.

When they’ve walked far enough for some privacy, John says, “What would bother you more: me invading your privacy, or me acting like I don’t want to be around you? Because you can’t have it both ways.”

Rodney shoots him a suspicious look, but doesn’t shut down the way John keeps worrying he will even though it’s Rodney; he doesn’t shut down, he just comes at you harder than ever. Instead, he walks with his hands in his pockets for a few moments before he says, “The second one” with a decisive nod. “In case you didn’t notice, I was witness to that conversation with Abe, who is humiliatingly better at subterfuge than we’ve managed to be so far.”

“It’s his job to be good at subterfuge.” John protests. “I’d like to see him go up against the Wraith.” He stops at the park’s edge. Some clouds have moved in from the west, intent on sweeping away the last of the summer. “Is there a jacket in here?” he asks as he crouches to inspect the contents of stroller’s bag.

“I put that red sweater thing on top,” Rodney says, and John had hoped he’d step in and take over, but instead John has to stuff Torren’s uncooperative arms into the sweater, unaccountably self-conscious as he fumbles the buttons through their slots and Rodney stands by, watching with a strange half-smile.

“Never thought I’d be doing this,” he says as he tugs Torren’s collar into place.

“But you’re so good at it,” Rodney says insincerely.

“In that case,” John says, gesturing at the stroller, “I think it’s your turn to push.”

****

Ronon brings home dinner: Chinese food that he eats from atop the kitchen counter, carefully maneuvering his chopsticks as he listens to John’s account of their conversation with Abe. Rodney’s work is still spread across most of the table, a reminder of the labs they’ve left behind, so John does his best not to drop noodles on anything important.

“Huh. I had a good feeling about that guy,” Ronon says. “Do we trust him?”

“As much as we trust anyone,” Rodney says. “He seems okay.”

“Yeah. He’s okay,” John repeats, thinking of Abe’s advice. .

Rodney snorts, eating lo mein out of the container with a fork. “I’m surprised you think so.”

“Something weird happened today,” Ronon says. “At the Old Moon Café. The waitress recognized my tattoos.” His elbow bends as his hand passes over the rings that mark his Wraith conquests. “Spooked her, too. She took off into the back and I didn’t see her again.”

Rodney puts down his dinner. “What? How? You’re sure she recognized them?”

“Pretty sure.” Ronon’s fingers walk through the hard-won patterns that circle his arm. “We should definitely check her out.”

“What did she look like?” John asks, taking his leftovers to the refrigerator and wiping his mouth. His body is already revving with pre-mission readiness, coming to life in a way he’s been aching for ever since they’d left.

Ronon chews for a few seconds, then takes a drink of water. “Small, pretty, blonde.”

“The only way someone could recognize your tattoos would be if she were from Pegasus,” Rodney argues. “I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but the chances are almost nonexistent.”

“We should still check it out,” John says.

“What, now?”

“Five minutes,” he says, and jogs upstairs to brush his teeth.

****

They get a table near the back, and John keeps an eye out for the girl Ronon had described.

Rodney looks up from his coffee, once their waitress is gone. “You’re doing it again. Not that I expected you to stop. But Abe was right; you give off a vibe. They probably think you’re about to rob the place.”

“I can give off another vibe,” he says recklessly.

“So do it,” Rodney says, and when John doesn’t move, gives him a helpless look.

And John isn’t bad at this; he knows how to be close to people, it’s just that he can’t stop thinking about Rodney’s reaction in the kitchen, all that furious hurt because he’d thought John had gotten too close and then not liked what he’d found. Angry with himself, he presses his mouth shut against all the explanations Rodney doesn’t want to hear.

Casually, he drapes an arm over Rodney’s broad shoulders, and it seems like Rodney should be the one getting all flustered right now, but John is the one who feels like he’s gone too far, while Rodney just keeps talking as though everything is perfectly normal. “I think we should give Abe a message for the SGC,” he says. “Just check in with Jennifer, let her know what’s going on with you and Teyla.”

“Yeah, all right,” John agrees. He sips at his iced tea as something washes over him, like the relief of landing the jumper after a good hard mission, or—no, it’s more like what he’d felt yesterday when he’d tapped into Ronon: pleasure and affection like every warm feeling he’s ever had about another person. It could be the tea. It’s cold and strong, and he feels good right now, more content than he has in a long while. “I’ll drop by his place, tomorrow. It’s getting a little boring, hanging out at the house every day.”

“We’d have more to do if you didn’t spend all your time moping,” Rodney says, but John feels his affection down to the bone, and oh, of course it’s Rodney that’s sending off all those pleasure signals, unobtrusive ribbons of satisfaction that leave John half-drunk and sleepy, like lying in the sun.

Rodney is happy right now.

It’s a little sad, he thinks as he idly rubs Rodney’s shoulder with his thumb, because Rodney has never let on that he likes being close like this, and John is pretty sure he doesn’t have anyone to share it with. Katie Brown had always seemed a little too awed by Rodney; John had seen her skitter out of his path more than once, so he can’t imagine them fitting together in the easy way Rodney seems to like so much.

“It must have taken a long time for Keller to teach you how to start an IV,” he says, giving Rodney a gentle nudge.

“So?”

“So, you know. You and Keller…” He’d told Rodney the version of the future he’d seen, but Rodney had seemed decidedly unimpressed. In fact, he’d been more disturbed than anything, and John should’ve known not to talk about it, because he can feel a black mood creeping in beneath the affection, and that’s not what he wants. “I just thought you guys might hit it off, that’s all.”

“Yes, because long-distance relationships work so well under normal circumstances; I thought I’d take my chances on the intergalactic version.”

“Okay, okay.” John slides his arm away from Rodney as the waitress approaches with the desserts they’d ordered. “Just a suggestion.”

“Well, suggest something useful. I’d like to hear a suggestion on how to find the person who’s trying to kill us.” He turns thoughtful. “Find them, extract information by whatever means necessary, and then blow Michael to smithereens.”

“Geez, Rodney,” John says, with an admiration he knows isn’t entirely appropriate. “And here I thought you guys were having a great time.”

“What? Who’s having a great time? Me?”

John shrugs as he picks the walnuts from the top of his muffin. “I don’t know, maybe. All of you, but especially Teyla. Haven’t you noticed that she’s-“ He waves his hand and smiles in a coy manner she’d have his ass for if she saw, but it’s true; she’s been as soft as Rodney since they arrived, with the exception of yesterday, when they’d both shown their teeth.

“If you must know, I actually think it’s nice,” Rodney says. “She’s never been anywhere safe, so I’m glad she gets to relax for a while. After everything,” he adds, and John can’t bring himself to disagree. But there had also been Rodney’s ease at the party, the way he connects to their neighbors in a way John’s never seen him do with strangers. He’s not prickly and uncomfortable here; he’s like a regular guy John would’ve known in college.

“I noticed you’ve made a lot of friends here,” John says pointedly, an unspoken unlike Atlantis lurking beneath the statement, because in Atlantis, Rodney’s friends have been hard-won with blood and tears and courage.

“Mm hm. It’s remarkably easy here.”

“Easy?”

Rodney turns a little pink and makes the sighing sound he always makes when he’s forced to admit something unpleasant about himself. “Yes, easy. People like me, here. They like me right off the bat, and that does tend to grease the wheels of social interaction.”

“But why is it different here?”

Rodney glares. “Because here, I have you! You’re you, and since they think I’m part of the package, they just…” he makes a sweeping gesture with his hand, meant to indicate the doors that he imagines John opens for him.

“Rodney,” he says, rolling his eyes even though his throat is a little tight. “Did you ever think that maybe you’re a little more…relaxed?”

“I’m not,” Rodney says. “You think I didn’t think of that? But no, I don’t have to do anything but make meaningless conversation, and these people send over muffins for no reason at all, and- and brownies. Do you know how often that’s happened to me in the past?”

“Not very?”

“Try not at all. So…thanks, I guess,” he adds, but John doesn’t want to be thanked. He wants to go back to the SGC or to Pegasus, somewhere they’ll be found, and fight the bastards who are after them, the same way they’ve faced a hundred other battles. But the SGC wants them here, a waste of their skill and experience. Shelved. He’s seen it before with other soldiers; he’d just never thought it would happen to him.

They eat in silence for a few moments before John catches a glimpse of pale blonde hair and an apron tied around a slim waist. “I think that’s her,” he says, and gets to his feet. “I’m gonna go talk to her.” It’s been too long since he’s been forced to interact on a meaningful level with anyone not related to the Stargate program, and as he walks over, he works to shuffle things around in his head, an effort that falls apart entirely when he catches a glimpse of the girl’s face.

He hadn’t expected to know her.

Sora’s curls have been bleached to a platinum blonde, but everything else is the same: quick brown eyes, a smattering of freckles across her nose, and the instinct to run, which he sees kick in as soon as he says, “Fancy meeting you here.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” he says, easily blocking her path. “I’d like to have a little chat, if you’ve got the time.”

“I don’t,” she says, her cheeks blooming red. However long she’s been pouring coffee in Nebraska, she hasn’t lost her instincts. She bolts toward the entrance, and John nearly topples the hostess as he goes after her.

She’s fast, but he’s desperate, and he chases her four blocks before he finally catches her at the waist in what ends up as a sloppy tackle that takes them both down, skinned knees and elbows, her legs heaving against him as she attempts to dislodge his weight.

“Help me get her!” he pants when he sees Rodney approach at a light jog, and can’t comprehend the shock on Rodney’s face until he feels himself being pulled roughly up away from Sora and toward the wall, his face scraping the brick as he’s held there by what feels like two or three grown men. He distantly hears Rodney shouting, but that fades out as sirens approach, and by the time he’s been cuffed and escorted into the back of the police car, Rodney has disappeared.

****

There’s no way for him to explain that the helpless waitress he’d attacked is actually part of a ruthless military regime—not without adding even more complications to his arrest—so he sits tight in the holding cell and waits for whatever comes next. There’s a small cot built into the wall, with a narrow attached mattress not unlike his bed in Atlantis, a similarity that gets him right in the chest with a pang of unexpected homesickness that’s the perfect end to this perfectly shitty day.

The worst part is not knowing, he thinks as he lies back and tries to doze. It would be nice to know someone was working on getting him out, if he needs to get a lawyer, and what the hell Sora is doing in the same town—no, the same suburb--where John and his team are living.

He hasn’t been separated from his team since they’d been taken by Michael, a memory that keeps pushing its way to the front of his mind. Teyla had been taken into the operating room after Ronon, and John had worried that they would return her without the baby, or worse; take the baby and discard Teyla entirely. When they took Rodney, he’d worried that they would slip, go too far, or try something different on Rodney’s exceptional brain from what they’d tried on the others. The waiting had made him sick, or maybe it had been the drugs Michael had supplied as a slow, continuous drip into his veins.

They’d checked one another’s sutures diligently, obsessively, until they’d been back in Dr. Keller’s care, and the truth is that John still finds his gaze drawn to the surgical site at the back of Rodney’s neck, relieved by the pale pink scar each time.

He dozes until morning, when his door unbolts like a weapon charging and a guard says, “Time to go, Stevens.”

It’s Abe who’s bailed him out, but Ronon and Rodney are waiting in the car.

“I spend the night in a cell and I don’t even get shotgun?” he says as he climbs in the backseat next to Rodney, who is wearing the same clothes from yesterday.

“You’re lucky I’m not making you walk,” Abe says. “You know what keeping a low profile means?”

“I’m vaguely familiar with the concept,” John says tightly, because he’d been well within his rights to do what he’d done; it’s more than the SGC has accomplished so far. As far as he knows, they don’t even have a lead, but John does, and he’s going to get his hands on Sora as soon as he gets another chance. “I did what I had to do.”

“They have people at the SGC who are trained in this kind of thing. They’re good with discretion; they understand not to take down a hundred pound girl on a busy street in broad daylight.”

“She was right there!” He sits back, rubbing his face with both hands. He knows he fucked up, but it’s been so long since he’s been in a place where it’s not life-or-death all the time, somewhere he doesn’t have the authority to make things right. “Just take me home,” he says, and maybe Abe is a good guy after all, because he lets it go and drops John off without another word.

“Teyla okay?” John asks as they trudge up to their bedroom.

“Already back at the studio,” Rodney says, and crawls up the bed. He’s still lying there when John gets out of the shower. John looks at him for a while as he rubs his hair with a towel, at the open curve of his hands, unspooled and empty in sleep. It’s no big deal to climb in bed with Rodney, but John is tired and depressed, and once he’s lying there with Rodney’s shoulder just an arm’s reach away, he can’t stop thinking about the warmth that had been fed back to him when they’d touched.

It’s such a simple way to feel better.

“Rodney,” he says softly, dragging the word out, and maybe it’s not fair, but he’s been alone all night, and he can still feel the echo of the silent walls in his head; worse than a Wraith cell; certainly worse than a sunny cloister. “Rodney.”

“Hm?”

Good question. It’s not like there’s any good reason for them to touch right now, and the bed is too big for John to pretend it’s an accident.

“I’m, uh.”

“What?” Rodney sits up. “Are you getting a headache?”

“Maybe.” John turns his face into the pillow so Rodney won’t see the lie.

“Let me grab something for you.” He retrieves some ibuprofen and water before John can protest, and brings them around, watching as he dutifully swallows them and gives Rodney a weak smile. He shouldn’t have said anything, but now Rodney is right here, and John finds himself rolling onto his belly and saying, “My neck is pretty tight.”

Rodney goes quiet. John can feel his eyes on the incision site, which isn’t fair, but Teyla had said this might be useful, that he shouldn’t try to shut it down. Maybe this is what she’d meant.

Or maybe this isn’t at all what she’d meant, and he’s out here on his own.

Either way, Rodney’s hands settle onto the back of his neck, gentle smoothing motions that give way to a firmer press of fingers that prod softly at the line of muscle on each side. “Is this okay?” Rodney asks.

John works to open up to it. It takes some effort, but then there it is; the pleasure of touch. It’s only faintly tainted by worry, the enjoyment Rodney gains from this small act of kindness, spreading through John as much as he dares to let it in. He wonders if Rodney is getting the same thing back from him, but to ask would be to give himself away, and there’s always the possibility that Rodney wouldn’t understand. John isn’t sure he understands.

“That feels good,” he says, his voice rough, and for some reason the phrase works as a trigger and the pleasure is suddenly double-threaded, layered with something that pulses quick and goes deep, through muscle and bone and nudges alarmingly at the last of John’s barriers.

“That’s—thanks Rodney, I think I can sleep now,” he says, but when Rodney lifts his hands away, the feeling clings to his skin and follows him into sleep.

****

John wakes with the sun seeping through the windows in the burnt tones of late afternoon. After a few disoriented moments, he settles into the sounds that are familiar by now: the sound of Rodney’s busy keyboard, a neighbor’s leaf blower, the loose gutter rattling in the wind. It’s still Thursday, the same day he’d been released, so Teyla is at the studio, and Ronon will be two doors down with Torren, just rousing him from an afternoon nap. Everyone is accounted for, so John lets himself relax for a few minutes, dozing under the covers until he realizes that the house smells like food.

“Did they feed you in jail?” Rodney asks, when John wanders down to the kitchen.

“Yes, but I didn’t exactly have much of an appetite.”

Rodney pulls a lasagna from the oven with potholders, and sets it on the counter to cool. “From the deli,” he says, waving at the food. “And I can’t believe you just tackled her like that in front of everybody. Do you ever operate in anything other than military mode?”

John shakes his head, stomach rumbling longingly.

Rodney leans against the counter and gives John a long look. “Some people would say you’re not fit for polite society anymore.”

What he really means is fit for Earth. The worst part is, John thinks he might be right.

“I’d hardly consider Sora polite society,” he says lightly.

“Of course not. She tried to kill Teyla, after all.” Rodney turns abruptly and cuts into the lasagna with a spatula, serving out a huge piece onto a plate that he brings to John.

“Right, Teyla,” John says wryly. He hasn’t forgotten what Sora and her people did to Rodney.

“Which brings us to the inevitable crime we’re about to commit. Do we even have a plan? Because I think I know how you operate by now, so I see us dragging Sora away against her will and pumping her for information, and it’s a little harder to make bail for kidnapping. If we take her, it’s going to be a little hard to walk around at the block party tomorrow night knowing that we’ve got a girl tied up in the basement.”

“Block party?”

Rodney rolls his eyes. “If you weren’t holed up meditating with Teyla all the time, you’d do your share of socializing with the neighbors, who are all somehow convinced that you’re writing the great American novel. In addition to having that flirtation with Ronon, what with all that sweaty running around you do at all hours,” he adds. “But yes, they all expect us to show up at some point tomorrow night.”

If they get something solid from Sora, they might not even be around tomorrow, but nothing is ever that easy, so chances are he’ll be making small-talk with the neighbors tomorrow night while Abe looks on in judgment over John’s ability to have a group hug, or whatever it is he wants. What Abe wants, John thinks, is for John to be off his guard enough that someone could take him down with no trouble, but that’s not going to happen.

“Do you think Abe’s okay?”

Rodney thinks for a while, chewing slowly. “He seems legitimate, if that’s what you mean.”

“Yeah.” It still feels good to hear it from Rodney, whose judgment is reassuringly sound, his brain reassuringly unscathed. Rodney and Ronon both; those aren’t bad odds, in case John and Teyla both go down when it counts.

“Plus, I think he was genuinely trying to help you—not that you were willing to listen.”

“I guess not,” John says, but all it means is that Abe is reporting back on how well John is cooperating, in which case this is pretty much like every other time he’s served on Earth.

****

In the end, John doesn’t get to fulfill his fantasy of tracking Sora and wringing information from her stubborn mouth, because the next morning, when he and Ronon walk into Teyla’s kitchen with Rodney after their run, they find Teyla already at the breakfast table, sipping a cup of tea.

Across the table, Sora has her own cup, set just out of Torren’s curious hands.

“What’s going on?” Ronon asks. He’s strangely indecisive as he looms over the seated women, halfway between the table and the doorway—as though he wants to snatch Torren from Sora’s arms, but knows the situation belongs to Teyla.

“Sora has come with many questions,” Teyla says firmly. John doesn’t miss the way her body leans toward Sora, as though her protection is clear, her hand on the table halfway between her cup and Sora’s. “She knows nothing about what has happened to us.”

“Right, it’s just a coincidence that she’s in the neighborhood at the same time people are trying to kill us,” Rodney says, his arms crossed over his chest, face flushed pink. He hates the Genii more than anyone; has never gotten over what they’d done to him back during the storm, and it doesn’t seem fair for Teyla to welcome Sora here after she’s done so much harm. John steps in front of Rodney, gratified when Sora tracks him carefully, her tendency toward flight fluttering right beneath the surface.

“No one has tried to kill us since we left the SGC,” Teyla points out. “And it is not a coincidence. Sora was given a reassignment just as we were, in return for a favor.”

“What, spying?” Rodney sneers. No one says anything, but John has a feeling it’s more like sniping; an assassin with Genii training.

“It doesn’t matter; I’ve done my part,” Sora says, her hand spread out over Torren’s fine brown hair. “Earth is my home now. I have a job, and I want to be able to go there without being attacked. That’s the whole point of Earth, right?”

“For now,” John says. “But if we’re right about who’s after us, then a Wraith hybrid may have established contacts on Earth, which means it’s only a matter of time,” and Sora might be a lot of things, but he doesn’t think anyone could feign the fear that transforms her face just long enough for John to remember how young she is, and how much she’s already done in her short life.

“I swear I don’t know,” she says. “I didn’t know anything about you until I saw him in the coffee shop.” She nods at Ronon. “I followed Dr. McKay back here and waited until Teyla was alone because I knew you wouldn’t listen. You Lanteans never listen.”

Rodney makes a disgusted sound and heads for the front door. The jarring slam speaks his mind more eloquently than words.

“McKay’s still a little wound up about being tortured,” John says. It’s probably a mistake to let his teeth show the way he’s doing; Ronon is waiting for his lead, and he needs to stand down but he can’t just yet, because his skin feels clammy with sick humiliation and it’s Rodney’s, of course, but that doesn’t make it any less real. Sure enough, Ronon draws himself up, hand grasping toward his absent sidearm.

“That was long ago.” Teyla says. “If we want to work together, we must let go of the things we cannot change. Many wrongs have been done on both sides, and Sora could just as easily blame us for bringing Michael into the world.”

“I don’t get it,” Ronon says, but drops into one of the empty chairs. “You can just forget that?”

Teyla’s fingers wrap tightly around her cup. “I can forgive. Sora is a very old friend, and I believe she can be a useful ally. It seems that more Genii have been brought to Earth in return for various services.”

“I don’t know where they are,” Sora says. “I might be able to find them, if you stay out of my way. I don’t care about you all, but I want to see Teyla.”

“And the baby,” Ronon says, and she lifts her chin and looks him in the eye.

“Yes, and the baby.”

****

“So, what’s your story?” Rodney asks, after he’s returned and Teyla has taken Torren away for a nap. He crosses one leg over the other, arms crossed to his chest; body language that can’t be mistaken for anything but McKay’s most unbending suspicion.

Sora hesitates for a second, then shrugs. “Sara Roth from Great Plains, North Dakota. I pour coffee at the New Moon Café. I’m an only child who likes rainbows and kittens, and I’m not even allowed to own a weapon, so you can stop acting so suspicious.”

“Oh, a Genii, telling me to stop being suspicious,” Rodney says. “I wish I were in Atlantis right now, so we could all have a good laugh over that one.”

“I like my assignment,” Ronon says.

Sora looks at Ronon for a long moment, inscrutable. “What about Teyla?”

John frowns. “What about her?”

“Is she successful at playing a married lady?”

John would answer if he knew what Sora were getting at, so he’s grateful when Ronon finally drops into a seat and stops Sora’s line of questioning entirely by saying, “Not really, but she’s good at the other parts.”

****

“Isn’t he the sweetest thing?” A woman from down the street coos over Torren, who is slumped sleepily against Ronon, bundled in his baby backpack. John chews a hot dog he’d swiped from the grill and smiles at the way Torren kicks his tiny shoes against Ronon’s back.

“He looks just like his daddy. So handsome; definitely a daddy’s boy,” someone remarks, and whatever they say next is lost beneath an odd shock of emotion that takes John by surprise: regret and a bleak insecurity that John would’ve never expected from Ronon, but then there’s a dizzying flash of his own face, of careless amusement that appears cruel from this perspective. From Ronon’s perspective.

“Hey, Ronon, no,” he says, wiping crumbs from his shirt as he goes after Ronon, who retreats with a bounce for Torren’s benefit; away the women, away from John. “Ronon!”

Ronon glances over his shoulder, and John hesitates. It’s not like he knows how to go about reassuring someone they’ve got a valid claim to the baby they’ve fallen in love with, but he can’t just go on his way, knowing Ronon’s been bruised in such a tender spot.

“Hold on,” he says, jogging up behind Ronon and flipping Torren’s hood up over his head. “I just thought I should get his ears covered up. It’s getting chilly.”

When he’s finished, John steps back and squeezes Torren’s foot.

“Teyla knows,” he says, and Ronon’s eyes are guarded, but he doesn’t take off. “She watches him around the clock—hell, even when she’s sleeping—and she knows who’s got him.”

A painful silence stretches between them, after too many words that John isn’t sure he should’ve spoken.

“She goes way back with Sora, that’s all. She might-“ John stops, abruptly aware that he’s not sure what Teyla might do for or with Sora, but he does know that she reserves an entirely separate level of trust for things that concern her son. “He’s with you for a reason,” he finishes with what he hopes is a reassuring slap on the arm.

“Okay,” Ronon says, finally. “I’m gonna find her now. Make sure Sora hasn’t done whatever it is you and Rodney are scared she’ll do.”

“Good luck,” John says, and is just about to search out Rodney when an early-autumn storm with a drenching rain sends everyone running for cover. At first, John thinks this gets him off the hook, but Steve pulls him aside and issues a private invitation, making sure to mention Rodney and Teyla have already headed inside. John could probably sneak home in the chaos, but he wants to keep an eye on Rodney, Abe and Sora--all for different reasons, all of which put him on edge. It’s not exactly a job, but it’s all he’s got.

“Go on down to the basement; make yourself at home!” Steve says as he collects lawn chairs from the yard, and John heads obediently toward their house, picking up a few chairs along the way.

He finds Rodney at the bar that runs along the far wall, with damp hair and a rain-spotted shirt, leaning toward Diane as she fixes him a drink in a tall blue glass. John squeezes himself between Rodney and one of Ronon’s playgroup moms, giving her an apologetic smile.

“I knew they’d get us down here eventually,” Rodney says as soon as Diane is busy with someone else. “Their suburban den of iniquity. I can barely stand to look.”

John scans the room out of habit. “I see our good buddy Abe,” he says lightly, and Rodney lowers his drink.

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” John tucks himself against Rodney’s side, away from the shifting crowd. “I wonder if he has any more advice for me.”

“Besides ‘don’t get arrested’?” Rodney snorts, but through the connection, John can feel how good Rodney feels.

The basement is filling as everyone trickles in from the storm, so John follows Rodney’s lead to a loveseat opposite the sofa where Abe has settled with a blonde divorcee from down the street.

“So, where are you two from?” Abe asks, and John goes cold because he’s willing to bet that he and Rodney both outrank this guy in one way or another, and he’s having fun at their expense. At John’s expense.

“Boston.” That’s what the file says. With a smile so grim that it pulls at the edges, he settles in closer to Rodney and forces himself to relax.

Rodney jumps a little against his shoulder. “Don’t feel like you have to prove anything,” he whispers.

“I think maybe I do,” John whispers back. Abe is judging him--the way you carry yourself draws attention--because he doesn’t think John can just be a guy with his friends, and he probably thinks it’s a big joke to watch him try.

“For crying out loud, stop letting him push your buttons,” Rodney says, passing his drink over to John, which feels pathetically contrived, but tastes strong and sweet on his tongue.

John takes another long sip while Rodney looks on with a silent, steady gaze, as though he buys into the fake identities far more than he claims.

The lights have gone down, but John can see the flush of alcohol on Rodney’s cheeks, and smell the damp rain scent as it warms on their skin and clothes. If he could forget about Abe, he’d be comfortable, which is happening more and more often here in this phony life; too many evenings laughing through a game of hoops with Ronon, and mornings where he wakes to the smell of pancakes, Rodney standing at the coffeepot in bare feet.

No wonder the others like it so much here. There are too many tactile pleasures to distract them from their problems: the press of Torren’s soft baby fists against his face, the eucalyptus scent of the basement, the drink in his hand right now--not that Rodney has been distracted from his sense of purpose. Despite the time he spends with the others, he works for hours each day, waving away interruptions with the same furious hand he’d used in Atlantis.

“What are you working on right now?” he asks abruptly.

“I—an article on the fall of the Soviet Union.” Rodney’s reply is halting, curious, and the foreign thud of defeat sounds deep in John’s belly. He tries to speak, but the words have been pulled down with the undertow, and it’s not worth the effort to go after them. He drops his gaze to his lap, Rodney’s thigh snug against his own, and the place where his hand connects them. These are his orders now, and they don’t fit. Maybe he doesn’t know who he is anymore, outside Atlantis and the military and the planes that sit in a hangar five hundred miles away.

“I mean—John.” Rodney’s frustration is coarser than his pleasure, harder to take, and John can’t even complain, because his timing sucks.

“No, I know, I know,” he says, shaking his head as he slumps back onto the sofa.

“We should go.”

“No. I want to keep an eye on…” He twists around and sees Ronon deep in conversation with a few couples.

Sora and Teyla are gone, and John sure hopes Teyla knows what she’s doing.

“Come on.” Rodney rises, John’s fingers skidding across the damp patches of his jeans, and John jerks away, an instinct he doesn’t understand. He only knows that Abe is watching, and he wants out from under this scrutiny he hasn’t done anything to deserve.

****

“That guy’s a real piece of work,” he says when they’re at home locking up for the night, and Rodney huffs with impatience, crowding John upstairs as though there’s some kind of rush.

“Yes, he’s the source of all your problems. Never mind about him. I have no idea why you’d ask about my work at a time when you know I can’t talk about it, but since you’re suddenly so interested, I’m working on a quite few projects.” Rodney toes off his shoes and leaves them at the foot of the stairs. “Some new insights on Ancient technology I’ve been meaning to write up—that’s mostly for fun, some neurological studies, and of course you know I’m still trying to figure out how to activate that locked ZPM from PX-1191.”

John knows. It had been Rodney’s pet project when they’d been forced out of Atlantis, so much that John wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d smuggled the ZPM through the gate. “Neurological studies?”

Rodney is halfway through the bathroom door, but he turns and draws himself up into a defensive posture. “If the doctors at the SGC can’t figure out what’s wrong with you, then I might as well see what I can do.”

“That’s…did you find anything yet?” It isn’t what John had intended to say. that’s amazing, you didn’t have to, thank you; those are the things he means to say, but he says, did you find anything yet?, and Rodney holds that protective posture as though he’s bracing himself for a reprimand.

“Not yet. It’s actually a lot more complicated than you might think.”

“I know it is. I can’t believe you even tried.”

“Trying,” Rodney corrects. “You can’t go back on active duty until you’re fixed, so it’s not like I can just give up.”

“Neurology,” John says again. “But I thought he irreversibly altered our DNA.”

“Of course that part can’t be fixed,” Rodney says as he disappears into the bathroom, raising his voice so he can be heard. “But we don’t necessarily want to, do we? Don’t tell me you haven’t fantasized about flying a Hive ship.”

John’s thought about it almost every day since they realized the nature of what’s been done to them.

“It’s not the genetic alterations that are hurting you; it’s likely something Michael did wrong when he operated. And it would be stupid for me not to use all this free time to look into it.”

“Well, I appreciate you not doing anything stupid.”

“No,” Rodney says. “With Abe hanging around, I’ll just leave that to you.”

*

“I can’t control it,” John tells Teyla the next time he’s in her studio, fiddling with the speakers as she finishes stacking the mats. “I can’t figure out how it works.”

She pauses in her work and gives him a sly look over her shoulder. “The link? I thought your concern was with eliminating it altogether.”

“It’s…complicated. It’s not just the bad stuff coming through, anymore.”

“I see.” She puts the last mat in place and joins him on the floor, her limbs folding gracefully into place. “So you have discovered that it is not always unpleasant.”

Sometimes, it’s the opposite. His team is remarkably content, and any pain that’s bled through has been because they care for one another more than they can help—and in Ronon’s case, more than he wants to, which John can understand. He still doesn’t know what to do with the tight feeling he gets in his chest when Teyla slips her hand into Ronon’s as they walk, or the way his stomach does a slow rolling flip when he wakes to Rodney’s muffled night-sounds.

“Not always,” he says. “I saw you take down that jerk last week, just like I was there myself.” He’d seen the guy hit the mat and felt Teyla’s satisfaction, a deep, cutthroat ferocity that he doesn’t get nearly enough, now that he’s off-duty.

“That is an experience I do not mind sharing,” she says as they share a smile along with the warning that there are things she does mind, a warning that John would be happy to heed if he knew how.

“Yeah. And Rodney…”

“Rodney?”

He lies back on the floor and presses his lips together as though she’s trying to extract a great secret from him, when he’s the one who brought it up. And what a stupid thing to have brought up. Then again, Teyla is pretty hard to shock.

“I get a lot of random mundane stuff from him--physics, driving, that kind of thing. But when I touch him...”

“I see.”

“It’s just, I’ve known McKay for over four years and never had any idea there was such an easy way to deal with him.”

“To offer comfort,” Teyla corrects. I believe it is a gift to both give and receive comfort at once. A gift Michael did not intend to give,” she adds just as John thinks the same thing. The only thing Michael would ever plan for them to share is pain.

“Yeah.”

“You are not alone,” she sighs. “I have enjoyed the same effects, particularly with Ronon. But there are times when he is troubled by his attachment.”

“I kind of noticed.”

“He distrusts…” She is silent for a moment, and her breathing slows to match John’s, readying herself for their meditation. “I do not know what he distrusts, but I believe he needs to be reassured that I will not take Torren from him, or allow Sora to do so.”

“You have a plan for dealing with that?”

“I am not certain. But I will deal with it, and you will continue to offer Rodney your friendship.” It’s not something a person should be reminded to do, and yet when things get tough, John’s instinct is always to pull the reins on the friendship.

He manages to open the connection with Teyla twice, but his attempts to shut it down fail until he’s nearly desperate to succeed just once, because he still can’t forget about the magazines, or Rodney’s awful hurt, or Ronon’s insecurity.

He works at it until he’s sick of seeing his own face through Teyla’s eyes. If he always looks this goofy when he’s concentrating, he’s surprised any of the Pegasus native women have ever put the moves on him—or maybe that’s just the way Teyla sees him. He looks different through Rodney’s eyes: bigger, better looking, sure of himself. The compliment is unexpected, since Rodney is never verbally flattering, and tends to second-guess John more often than not. It’s strange that Rodney would pretend to like him less than he actually does. Then again, Rodney is typically contrary, and warms with pleasure at the simplest touch, so maybe it makes perfect sense after all.

****

When John gets home, Rodney is in the basement, sitting in the dark except for the glow of the television. He’s slumped on the sofa with a chenille blanket bunched on his lap, and doesn’t say anything when John comes in.

“Want to go out for dinner?” he asks, flopping down next to Rodney, who shakes his head, a miserable twist to his mouth, more tired around the eyes than John’s seen in a long while.

“What’s the matter? Did you hear something from Abe?”

“Yes. Atlantis checked in a couple days ago. Nothing on Michael—it’s like he’s completely disappeared—but things in Atlantis are going swimmingly.” Things click into place and John guesses at the truth just as Rodney says, “Zelenka figured out how to activate the new ZPM.”

If it feels as though he’s been slapped, John doesn’t know if that comes from himself or from Rodney, because Rodney had been head over heels in love with the puzzle of that ZPM, the way he’d coaxed its secrets out in strings of math that he’d lain out on the whiteboard like victory ribbons, when everyone else had seen the extra work as an annoyance.

“Sorry, buddy.”

Rodney gives him a curious glance. “Thanks. And I appreciate your restraint, but it’s okay to ask.”

John shrugs; he’d known they’d get there. “Let’s hear it, then.”

“Eighty-nine percent charged,” Rodney says mournfully.

A long, low whistle escapes before John thinks better of it. “Sorry. But it’s been a long time since we’ve had that kind of security.”

“If we’d had a few more days.” Rodney sinks deep into the sofa, as though he could lose himself in it entirely. “I could’ve done it; I should’ve done it. I’m the one who found it; would it have killed them to wait just for us to come back?”

“Tough break,” John says, and he means it. He tries to convey just how much he means it when he claps his hand over Rodney’s shoulder and lets it rest there.

“Except,” Rodney says abruptly. “Except they couldn’t, because we don’t know when we’ll be going back, do we? Michael could just lie in wait forever, and we’ll be hunted men our entire lives, in two different galaxies. This is why you’ve been so grouchy; you’ve known this all along!”

“No, Rodney,” he says, rubbing at the tight muscle. “That’s not why. Okay, yes, I’m worried, but like you said before: we’re only waiting for now.”

“Right,” Rodney says, a sound of skepticism that gets lost somewhere between John’s gently kneading hand and his own tight grip on the blanket on his lap.

A month ago it would’ve been uncomfortable, but he and Rodney have been pushed into this situation so many times that it doesn’t feel awkward anymore. John can’t do anything about their situation, but he can make Rodney feel better with this small amount of contact. Just because the pleasure isn’t bouncing back to him at the moment doesn’t mean it’s not there for Rodney.

“What do you say we stay up late and watch old TV shows,” John says, withdrawing his hand and tugging the edge of the blanket over his own lap.

“It’s not like I have anything better to do,” Rodney grumbles, giving the blanket an impatient tug when John takes too much. “I’m getting nowhere with the medical stuff, and the great ZPM mystery has been snatched from my rightful hands.”

Griping aside, he’s taking it better than John would have expected. John stops at some old detective series with cheesy dialogue and easily solved cases, and Rodney settles in for a while--until a commercial for toothpaste, when he abruptly says, “So, you’re getting a lot better at this- at, at being…pretending to be... And all this touching, which you formerly avoided with all the effort of a man dodging a nanovirus, is suddenly your specialty.”

He’s not pushing John away. He’s not complaining, not doing anything but resting at John’s side, but there’s a steel thread of caution beneath his placidity. Rodney doesn’t trust this, which is a little perplexing, because John has proven, himself, he’s shown that he can be here for Rodney like this; that he really doesn’t mind.

“What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know,” Rodney says sharply, his arm jostling John’s as he folds them protectively over his chest. “Some people might accuse you of overcompensating, but that’s not your style, so…I don’t know.”

“Look, I’m just trying to cheer you up.”

“And you think that getting handsy under a blanket is the logical approach?”

Under other circumstances, John would back off, apologize and try something else, but he can suddenly feel the way Rodney soaks up every touch, like a sigh of contentment that rolls out across John’s skin and settles in his gut, warm and satisfying.

“Yes, Rodney, I do,” he says. “I’m trying to help you out, here. I know you like this-” He gestures at their proximity. “So you don’t have to be so suspicious. I’m being nice.”

Rodney goes a bit flustered, as though he can’t quite put together the words to express whatever he’s feeling--suspicion, chagrin--before he comes out with, “Who asked you to?” and pulls away, arms still tucked over his chest.

“Nobody asked, but I can tell you like it.”

“But that’s just the thing,” Rodney says, and he’s not angry, just frustrated; John would be able to tell the difference even if he couldn’t feel it outright—which he can, like a heavy place in his chest that he can’t do anything to loosen because it’s not his. “You know that I like it, you know what it feels like when you touch me, so how am I supposed to live with that? It’s not equal, because I still don’t know—beyond spaceships and weapons—how to do the same for you.”

“Spaceships and weapons go a long way with me,” John says softly.

“A lot of good that does me. In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t have access to either of those things, these days.”

“Look,” John says, cringing at the bitterness that cuts through—and since when is this thing on all the time, anyways? “Don’t do that. It’s not like I’m not benefiting from it. If I’m getting everything you feel, then it’s kind of in my best interest to make sure you’re feeling good, you know what I mean?”

“Oh, so now I’m not allowed to be in a bad mood, on the off chance it might rub off on you? Thanks for that added pressure at a time when, in case you haven’t noticed, things aren’t going particularly well for me.”

“For us,” John says, but it’s too late, and they’re right back where they’d started.

*

Rodney is gone when John wakes up, so he spends the day hanging out at Ronon and Teyla’s, and watching them do their strange dance of suspicion with Sora, who seems to be there at Teyla’s invitation. The first time she’d gone off on her own, John had been convinced she was gone for good, but then she’d returned with the names of a few Genii who have been reassigned to the same area—two Sora has checked in with personally, and one that no one has seen in months.

It’s Ronon who finally brings up what John’s been wondering all along. “Who’s bringing them here?” he says from the sofa, where he’s lying with his feet up, arms folded behind his head. “And why doesn’t the SGC keep tabs on them?”

“I believe it is for the safety of the reassigned individuals,” Teyla says. “This method of blindness may be the only reason they have not found us yet. As for the reassignments…they may seem like a good idea at the time of crisis, but perhaps the SGC is not keeping a careful record of just how many Genii they have brought through the gate.”

“That’s pretty sloppy,” John says. “Doesn’t sound like the SGC to me.”

“Who knows why they do what they do,” Sora says, tucking her legs up on the loveseat so her toes slip beneath Teyla’s thighs. They exchange a fleeting smile, and whoa, when had that happened? “Nothing the SGC does makes sense to me. Why would you come to our Wraith-infested galaxy, when you have Earth?”

“You, uh. You like Earth?”

“I love it,” she says, but she wears her love like a cloak of defiance. “My home is always warm, there’s plenty of food, and there are no enemies waiting to attack.”

“Well, Earth isn’t all like that,” John says, but he does see her point. “We have our share of problems.”

“Not here, you don’t. But that’s not the only thing. My people put all our resources into fighting the Wraith, but no matter how much I enjoyed my work, when it came down to it, I was expendable. I was nothing, and I had nothing. On Earth, I have my own apartment, my own things, and I make my own choices.”

John glances at Teyla and Ronon, expecting a remark on her selfishness, but Ronon’s face is impassive, and Teyla tips her head thoughtfully before giving a slow nod.

“Yes,” she says. “Earth’s safety is a welcome change. It is a good place to raise a child.”

“Or a cat,” Sora says, and there goes that private smile again, the one John has pretty much only seen in his fantasies, the ones where Teyla says, thank you for saving me, John.

Torren plods across the carpet on his hands and knees, strong and determined until he ends up at John’s feet. John smiles down at him and waves hi, but that’s not enough; he tugs at John’s jeans until he hoists the little guy onto his lap.

“Cats are cool,” Ronon says. “What’ve you got?”

The whole scene is surreal, Torren’s chubby palm patting at John’s face and his team having a lazy discussion about cats with a Genii turncoat.

“She’s a little orange tabby,” Sora says. She lifts her arm, tiny pink slashes of newly healed skin across her forearm. “She’s got some claws on her, but I wake up every morning with her curled up purring on my pillow.” And that sounds a lot like Sora, especially the last part, because being curled up with Teyla has done wonders for her personality—or maybe it really is Earth life.

“Yeah, cats are great,” John says. “Look, did Rodney say anything about when he was going to be back? Or where he was going?”

Ronon shrugs. “You’re the one who lives with him. He didn’t tell you?”

“Not exactly,” John hedges.

“Fighting again,” Ronon says with a snort.

“Not fighting.”

“Bull. You’ve been having the same fight ever since you got here. McKay’s had this thing for you for a while, but it was his thing. He might talk a lot, but he keeps his personal stuff to himself. So he’s pissed off that you can see how much he wants you, and you’re pissed off because…I don’t know, Sheppard. I don’t know what your problem is.”

“Now, just hold on,” John says, ready for a fight—just itching to go a few hard rounds with Ronon until they both work out the things that are killing them about this place. In Atlantis, he hadn’t been accountable to anyone for every minor squabble with McKay.

“I believe Ronon may be oversimplifying the matter,” Teyla says, and hell yes he’s oversimplifying the matter, because whatever he and Rodney have been going through, it’s not what Ronon thinks. In fact, it’s the opposite, but to say so would be to give himself away. “I believe that…” She pauses, turning away from Sora and toward the edge of the loveseat, her expression distant.

“Teyla?”

”It is Rodney,” she says slowly. “He is not well. He is…I do not know. He is frightened, but I cannot see where he has gone.”

“Are you sure?” John gets to his feet, Torren clinging to his shirt and biting at his shoulder with the four teeth he’s cutting all at once. John doesn’t feel any of that--he doesn’t feel anything at all except for the instinctive hunch that Rodney is somehow out of range.

“I’ll go see Abe,” Ronon says, already halfway across the room.

“Teyla-“ John clamps his mouth shut, horrified by his pleading tone. They’ve lost Rodney in distant galaxies, but Earth seems infinitely more terrifying, too many places to hide.

“I know, John.” She has relaxed into a meditative posture, and begins to draw in a deep breath. “I recognize one of the men. A Genii soldier, but he is dressed in Earth clothing. He is watching Rodney…guarding him. Rodney is very frightened.”

“You said that already,” John says sharply. Sora approaches with outstretched arms, and he hands Torren off without thinking.

“Because it is true,” Teyla says, as though she is choking. “And he has reason to be afraid. They have killed Abe.”

Damn it. Rodney’s been shot a few times and roughed up more than John can count, but he doesn’t hold up as well in captivity, when the dead bodies of his colleagues are involved. It’s routine tactics, but it seems unspeakably cruel when it happens to Rodney.

“Okay,” he says. “But we’ve got an advantage here. We find him, we get him, we get the bad guys.”

“I will try to see,” Teyla says, and John sits down to do the same.

He’s always thought of himself as disciplined, but wrenching his thoughts into a focused path takes more effort than he’d expected. Maybe the meditation had been a necessary warmup, because going into this cold is like pulling—no, like eviscerating--a muscle, and it’s only a few seconds before he goes down, his head so full of agony that it bleeds down and grabs his chest like a fist.

Get him, he hears Teyla call out, but he still can’t breathe until Sora knocks him on the chest and oxygen tears through his lungs like the knife she swears she’s not allowed to have.

Somewhere along the way, he’d honestly begun thinking he wouldn’t have to go through this again. The worst part is that no one is prepared this time, and Teyla is rightfully preoccupied with Rodney. When he finally feels her hands on his face, he shrugs her off and says, Find Rodney, but it emerges as an unintelligible moan.

Ronon is the one who carries him to bed, which makes it slightly less mortifying when he throws up in the hallway and passes out before he can feel miserable about it. He comes to with a bitter, grainy liquid being poured into his throat, and hates Ronon for the few brief minutes it takes him to lose consciousness entirely.

*

He wakes slowly, a groggy expanse of time that feels vaguely familiar. As usual, he hurts and is sticky all over.

A weight moves at the side of the bed. “You awake?” The sound moves through John’s head like a sluggish cursor. He’s pretty sure he’s awake, but it would be too much effort to say so.

“Okay, okay, don’t talk.” It sounds like Rodney. “Are you comfortable?”

Is he comfortable? Rodney’s the one who was abducted and subjected to God knows what, and now he’s already back to playing nursemaid?

“Do you need water?” Rodney’s mouth sounds swollen, as though it hurts to talk. A straw is gingerly placed to his lips, Rodney’s body bent close. Again, they’re here again, and John doesn’t have the energy to do anything but lie there and sip. When he’s finished, he rolls onto his stomach and shrinks away from the bruised, hollowed out feeling that makes him feel fragile, when he’s anything but. He could get up right now if he had to; could strap on his gear and follow Teyla…except he doesn’t need to do that, does he? The facts are blurry, and drift just out of reach.

The sheet pulls away from his body, cool air and a drip of warm water that John recognizes from all the other times they’ve done this. Rodney was lost, and now he’s back. John doesn’t know when any of it happened, but he knows Rodney’s matter-off-fact touch, the drag of wet terrycloth on his bicep, the almond soap from their shower.

“I couldn’t find you,” he says, forming the words with deliberation, as though they might get out of his control if he isn’t careful. Even now, he can’t feel anything but the washcloth; nothing of Rodney himself.

The bed shifts where Rodney sits next to him. “Teyla found me. We can talk about it later.”

“You hurt?” John shuts his eyes and waits for Rodney to either answer or move his hand, but it’s a long time before Rodney does anything at all.

“Yes. Well, no more than usual,” Rodney says, and begins to wash the back of John’s neck with rough, thorough swipes.

“Rodney,” he says, eyes still shut, even though he can feel the lack of light against his eyelids. “That’s pretty scratchy.”

“It’s just a washcloth from the bathroom,” Rodney protests, but he lifts it away, leaving a damp patch to cool on John’s neck, goosebumps pulling his skin tight as he breathes into his pillow. He sounds uncertain, but John can’t feel that uncertainty. “Ronon was about to do this when I took over, but I guess it can wait until, until you’re up to a shower?”

“No, it’s good,” John murmurs, dizzy with his own nerve. “You could just lose the cloth. Your hands are okay.” How’s that for bending that stiff military exterior; he’s just asked Rodney to touch him with bare hands. That would show Abe, wouldn’t it? That would…oh.

Rodney doesn’t reply—doesn’t move, doesn’t even seem to breathe—and for a while, John isn’t certain he hasn’t fallen back into some kind of drug-induced doze. But then a trickle of water slides down his shoulder and Rodney’s hand follows, warm and slick with soap. His arms are washed first—Rodney’s fingers stroking over his biceps while neither of them say a word—and then his back, Rodney’s hands returning again and again with the water to rinse him clean.

“You are impossible to understand,” Rodney says as helps John turn over onto his back. But he doesn’t stop. He soaps John’s chest with a little more care, his hands curving to fit the slopes of John’s body.

“I can’t feel you at all,” John says, letting his eyes slit open just enough to see the shape of Rodney, crouched on the bed. How had Teyla found him?

Rodney gives him a little pinch, just above his belly. “For real, or are you commenting on your inability to go parading around in my head?”

John shivers when Rodney strokes lightly down the inside of both arms at once, skating over the sensitive crook of his elbow to the thin skin of his wrist.

“Does this feel okay to you?” he asks, like his mouth isn’t attached to his head, and everything is under the control of the small, obsessive need to tap back into Rodney. “I don’t have my tags,” he adds, and it doesn’t make sense to have said, but then he remembers the magazines, Rodney’s magazines now, and the very idea ought to turn him back, but instead it makes him even crazier that he doesn’t know what Rodney feels when he puts his palm over John’s belly and moves it in slow, slick circles.

“You’re okay without them for now,” Rodney says. “But maybe soon. After they sort everything out and you get to be John Sheppard again.”

“But does it—“

“Does it feel okay to me?” Rodney cuts in bitterly, but his touch is still gentle. “You’re not even making sense now, so you should probably just be quiet while I finish.”

And John has every intention of obeying; not because he feels particularly compliant, but because everything is all twisted around and he’s not sure of what he’s saying that’s got Rodney so annoyed—but then Rodney drags a wet thumb down below John’s belly and says, “I mean, it’s not like I have a choice in the matter. This is what we do when you’ve been sweating through your clothes for twelve hours—Ronon was doing this before I took over, and he does it for Teyla, too. It doesn’t mean anything, and you want to know if I—what, if I like it?”

It’s a rhetorical question, but John answers by stretching out on the bed, abs flexing against Rodney’s careful fingers.

Rodney lifts his hands in surrender, suds dripping down his wrists.

“Don’t stop,” John says, so much easier when he doesn’t even sound like himself, hoarse from the pain and drugs.

But Rodney does stop. He moves the bowl to the far side of the bedside table, a scraping sound that triggers a wave of exhaustion so strong it can only be Rodney’s. Now that John’s not reaching, here it is—and it’s too late.

“Sorry, but I need to lie down,” Rodney says, and shucks his clothes before he crawls into the small space next to John. John has every intention of exploring what Rodney is feeling, inch by inch, but it works against him, and Rodney’s fatigue is what ultimately pulls him under.

****

“Where’s Teyla?” John asks sometime in the night, when he wakes in the dark, face pressed to Rodney’s shoulder.

“Taking care of things,” Rodney mumbles, and his spine is a perfect curve for John to drape himself over, strange to act on instinct, but so simple. They don’t usually go to bed so undressed; they’re always careful when they’re in this big dangerous bed, but right now it seems natural that John would curl against the smooth skin of Rodney’s back, taking comfort in the surge of contentment that dampens his headache, the medicinal melancholy, and the sting of not being the one to take care of things.

“How bad are you hurt?” he asks, his lips bumping awkwardly against Rodney’s neck. Rodney’s hair has grown longer in the back, and it smells of his body and of their bed.

“Can’t you tell?” Rodney whispers. His legs shift between John’s, a shocking rub of skin that feels entirely different from what’s happening above the waist. This is comfort, friendship, but John can’t lie to himself; he’ll follow this feeling to wherever it takes them. Maybe Ronon had been right after all, and had seen the obvious route this would take if John decided to go after what he really wants, because John can already feel the pull, the positive reinforcement he gets every time he lets his hand drift somewhere new, Rodney’s pleasure like a live thing that shudders beneath John’s skin.

He also knows what Rodney is asking. The real question is whether or not John can feel how much Rodney wants the steadying pressure of John’s hand on his hip, and for the first time, he lets himself admit that yes, he feels it, and at least Ronon had been wrong about one thing, because John doesn’t mind.

“It’s all a little fuzzy,” he says, not entirely a lie. Everything he’s getting is swamped by a heavy sense of anticipation, like being poised for takeoff, filling up on adrenaline and white noise and pure mechanical power. “Are we…what’s-“ He stops and bites down on his frustration. His head is full of questions, but it’s getting lost in translation, and he can’t even get out of bed.

“Ronon’s downstairs with the baby and a P-90, but he won’t need it. I don’t think we’ve been compromised, so relax. We’ll know more when Teyla gets back with Sora.” Rodney says, and maybe Rodney’s the one who can read minds, because he’s addressed everything John had wanted to say.

The reassurance leaves him back where he’d left off, under the covers with Rodney in his arms. This time, as John fingers the soft hair on Rodney’s chest, the questions are all Rodney’s. It’s a vague confusion before it becomes a tug between resistance and what feels like a sigh, and Rodney has always been strong-willed, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that the resistance wins out.

“You don’t owe me anything,” Rodney says stiffly, tense under John’s hands.

It’s the most wistful rejection John has ever heard.

“This isn’t about that,” he says. It couldn’t be; they’re both too beaten up for anything but a little comfort, their bodies folded together, John’s mouth tucked against Rodney’s shoulder, and finally, after a long, reluctant thaw, Rodney’s hand clasped over John’s.

****

The next time he wakes, Rodney is coming out of the bathroom with wet hair and clean clothes.

“Oh, here,” Rodney says, and hands off a glass of water as John sits up slowly.

He takes the water with a satisfyingly steady hand, and drinks down the whole thing.

“Ronon made some of that tea, so when you go downstairs…” Rodney points toward the door.

“Right. Thanks,” John sighs. Last night, everything had seemed so easy.

“Would it make you less weepy if I told you that Sora and Teyla brought back Michael’s contact, who is indeed Genii, and are keeping him in the basement?”

A good old fashioned adrenaline rush propels John out of the bed, uncaring of his nakedness, and into a fresh set of clothes. The blood that pumps a dark rage through his veins and sets his head to throbbing is nothing more than a nuisance, not when he can walk down the stairs and look into the face of the man who tried to kill Rodney and Teyla for the benefit of a Wraith.

He’s made it as far as the doorway when Rodney steps into his path. “Um, not to disrupt your momentum, but judging from the look on your face, I think I need to remind you that we need this guy in working condition if our plan is going to succeed.” He pauses and bounces on his heels just as John realizes he might not be up to bounding down the stairs. “Yup, we have a plan. It was mostly Ronon’s idea, but we would’ve come up with the same thing eventually. And…I’ll fill you in as soon as we get you into a nice steady chair.” He steps out of the way, but John feels his hovering presence all the way to the kitchen.

There’s a cup of tea waiting on the table. John can tell Ronon made it, because Ronon always adds a hearty dose of honey, to mask the bitterness. “Ronon, will you bring our visitor up to meet John?”

He’s glad they’re not there to see how shaky he is as he takes his seat and stirs the thick coating of honey from the bottom of his cup. He’s weak and hurting, but part of it is excitement about this plan of theirs, and the rest is the lingering memory of what he’d asked of Rodney last night. He cringes just thinking about it, and takes a swig of tea that’s still too hot.

“You’ll feel better in a few hours,” Rodney says, and John jerks his gaze up to Rodney’s face, because there’s something unfamiliar in his tone. “I know you were under the influence of a lot of drugs last night. We gave you the last dose against my better judgment, so…well, I don’t want to dismiss it entirely, but I want you to know that I understand what it’s like to just want to be touched.” He laughs, a little bitterly. “But I guess you know that. But later, if you’re open to it…” he begins, just as the basement door opens and Ronon leads a normal-looking guy—other than his extensive bonds—into the kitchen.

John takes another long drink, enjoying the upper hand for the first time in a very long while. The guy doesn’t even bother struggling; he just takes the seat where Ronon shoves him, and that’s when John realizes that he’s not just normal looking, he’s familiar.

“Do I know you?”

“Ha. I knew you’d figure it out. He works at the SGC. They hired him as an act of good faith, and forgot about him. Meanwhile, he’s trying to trade favors with Michael, which we’ve already explained won’t get him very far.”

John just nods. Last night he had asked Rodney to touch him with bare hands. “Okay, what’s the plan?”

Ronon flips a chair around backward and sits. “He’s gonna trade favors with Michael, all right. Then, when Michael show up—bang.”

It’s a good plan, and Rodney’s hands had felt strange on his belly, as though they’d known something John doesn’t. John holds onto his cup and lets Rodney talk.

“It’s so perfect; there’s no way he can get away. We’ll just send the meeting coordinates to Atlantis, and then they can take out Michael’s entire ship.”

“Then we’d better take good care of this guy,” John says, and nods toward Ronon, who takes the guy back downstairs.

“With Abe gone, there’s no way to contact the SGC, so Teyla and Sora are on their way as we speak. Should be there soon.”

John finishes the tea and meets Rodney’s eyes, which is so much harder than it ought to be. “They take the baby?”

“Yes.” And there’s no way it can’t be awkward when Rodney has to be thinking what John can’t stop thinking: John’s mouth at the back of his neck, and why it had happened.

“So, what do you need now?” Rodney gestures at his empty teacup. “Food? Sofa? Bed?”

“Trying to get rid of me?”

“No,” Rodney blurts. “I just thought you might need a nap. You look a little…”

“Yeah, I know. You guys must have really dosed me last night.”

“We had to,” Rodney says flatly. “You were in a lot of pain. Teyla said you were trying too hard to find me.”

“For all the good it did.” He could probably make it upstairs on his own, but he doesn’t protest when Rodney gives him a hand.

“Wake me when you hear from Teyla,” John says, when his head is back on his pillow. His eyes are already pulling shut, and he doesn’t even have the energy to hate how useless he’s been to this whole mission.

“Hm. We’ll see,” Rodney says, standing over John, arms crossed. “Try to get some sleep.”

“No problem,” John says, and it’s not, because he falls into it as though he doesn’t have a choice in the matter.

When he wakes, it’s dark and he’s alone, for which he’s glad. For once, he can shower and make the bed and do all the things he used to do without any help at all. He moves quietly through the bedroom, enjoying his returning strength.

“You’re up.” Rodney slips silently through the door. “Teyla called from the SGC. They’re sending a team out to retrieve our hostage and take care of, ah. Take care of things at Abe’s house.”

“What about us?”

“We’re supposed to stay put until Michael has been neutralized,” Rodney says. He doesn’t turn on the light, but he does shut the door behind him.

“Is everyone asleep?”

“Ronon never sleeps.” He can hear the smile in Rodney’s voice, even if he can’t make out more than the vague shape of his body. “He could probably use some company in a while, though. He’s not as excited as we are about leaving.”

“Yeah. I think Earth reminds him of Sateda.”

It’s all just small talk. Neither of them is behaving normally, with John hovering near the bed and Rodney nearly motionless near the door.

“Your tags are in the side table drawer,” Rodney blurts. “You kept asking for them last night.”

Rodney probably doesn’t know why John had wanted them, but John is still glad for the darkness when he opens the drawer and finally slips them over his head, cool metal that warms slowly against his skin. “Thanks.”

“You asked for other things last night, too.”

John shuts his eyes. “I know.”

“You have no idea how much I wanted to keep going,” Rodney says, but John does. He’d felt the way Rodney’s hands, slick with soap and water, had slid so easily across his skin. If Rodney had gone just a bit further, dipped those hands a few inches lower, he could have felt that touch between his legs. Even with the drugs, he knows he would’ve hardened with Rodney’s wet hand cupping his balls, rolling the head of his cock from one side of his belly to the other. Rodney could have kept going as far as he’d wanted, and John would have lain there and loved it.

“And you’re not saying anything, so you’re either waiting for this incredibly awkward moment to end, or you expect me to make the first move.”

John manages a small laugh. “Rodney,” he says, and whatever it is Rodney hears in that word sends him across the room into John’s space, one hand on John’s face that John belatedly realizes is guiding his mouth to Rodney’s.

They kiss with Rodney’s hand at the nape of John’s neck, brushing restless lines through his hair. He’s been teasing John about needing a haircut for weeks, but John can tell by the fascinated pull of his fingers at the shaggy length that he likes it, has maybe wanted to touch like this for a while. In response, John deepens the kiss and touches his tongue to Rodney’s, feels the scrape of teeth and Rodney’s eager response that pushes him onto the bed.

“Hey,” he says when Rodney crawls between his legs, but stops when he feels Rodney’s mouth working at him through his jeans, hot and rough push of tongue that moves up and then down, settling finally at the head, where he feels the pull of suction for as long as he can take before he fumbles his pants open and shoves them down, jeans and underwear around his thighs in one desperate move.

The difference between the washcloth and Rodney’s hands had been considerable, but the smooth, hot clench of Rodney’s mouth over the bare length of his cock is enough to make him curl up off the bed with a choked sound that he barely recognizes. “Wait. Come on, get undressed.” He guides his cock out of Rodney’s mouth and glides his thumb over Rodney’s lower lip, and then Rodney is the one making the strange sound, and undressing while John pulls off his own clothes.

Kissing is different this time, with Rodney’s body solid and warm above him, pressing him into the bed as they fit together in phases: Rodney’s pushy thigh between John’s, his cock settled into the soft part of John’s belly, and John’s hands at the small of Rodney’s back, urging him into the rhythm of their kiss, deep and slow, because it doesn’t seem like it could be any other way with Rodney; not with the way they’ve been working toward this for so long.

“If I come, will you feel it twice?” Rodney pants into his ear, and John is about to ask why, are you that close? when the words sink in and suddenly he’s the one coming, Rodney’s mouth a hot rush in his ear and his body a heavy stroke of friction on his cock. He shudders through it, moaning softly against Rodney’s shoulder.

“I really want to know,” Rodney says, sitting up to straddle John’s hips, and John’s forgotten the question until Rodney gives his own cock a long, slow pull and John feels drugged with pleasure, unfocused but real as it builds as quickly as he’d expect, judging by the way Rodney’s cock is dripping through his fingers and onto John’s belly.

He knows he ought to do something but lie there, but Rodney is as skilled with his cock as he is with a fine piece of machinery, and when he gets going, John is lost in the slick sound of it: the flex of Rodney’s bicep, the curve of his shoulders as he works himself at a steady pace. Soon, he begins to lose his rhythm, jerking at a rapid, sloppy pace, and John feels it down to the pit of his belly.

“I, uh, I think maybe,” John says, swiping his palm across the wet, swollen head of Rodney’s cock, and they both have their answer when the pleasure throbs inside him like a gong, Rodney’s hand stroking one last time as he spills across John’s chest. They fall back to kissing, and John holds Rodney to him again, Rodney’s emotions mixing with his own until he’s unsure which of them is being wrung out by fierce desperate longing, or who has brought the tenderness that John knows is love. He shies away from that one because he’s afraid it belongs to him—he knows it belongs to him, and he doesn’t know what to do with it but hold on to Rodney for as long as he can.

*

The soldiers arrive while they’re watching TV with Ronon and William, their Genii prisoner. They’ve brought Teyla and Sora, who are pale with exhaustion, but keep watch over the proceedings until William is secured in the back of a heavily armed Humvee. Only then does Teyla hand Torren over to Ronon and head home with Sora to get some rest.

They take turns passing Torren around and checking him over, as though looking for some sign that he’s been away from them. It provides a nice distraction from Rodney, who is still a bit pink in the face, hours later. They share a kiss in the kitchen while a bag of popcorn turns in the microwave, with John backed against the counter and his hands on Rodney’s ass. In the morning, they wake up together, which isn’t all that uncommon since they’ve lived here. Rodney’s stubble is rough against John’s neck, but his mouth feels fantastic in the soft spots beneath John’s ear.

“We should get up,” John says. It’s noon; the SGC should have William’s meeting with Michael set up by now. He’s already beginning to feel more like himself.

Rodney rolls back onto his side of the bed with a sigh. “I can hear them down there. Are they using every dish in the cupboard?”

“Yeah, I really don’t remember Sora being this talkative, either.”

Rodney snorts. “Maybe it’s been triggered by her deep and abiding love for Earth.”

“Or for Teyla.”

“Then again,” Rodney says thoughtfully. “I think I smell pancakes, and I definitely smell bacon.”

John inhales deeply. “I could get out of bed for this.”

They get out of bed after John sucks Rodney slowly, covers thrown to the foot of the bed and Rodney’s hands in his hair. They shower together—he knows it can’t always be like this, but it’s so easy here—where Rodney returns the favor.

The pancakes turn out to be apple-cinnamon, for which Teyla beams with pride even though Sora is the one who had cooked them. Torren waves half a pancake at them while Teyla piles their plates with food, and between her smile, their impending freedom and all the blow jobs, this just might be the best day ever. Even Ronon seems to be in good spirits, as he snaps a bite of food from Torren’s hand just to hear him laugh with delight.

Maybe the Daedalus is in orbit right now, preparing to blow Michael to smithereens.

“Too bad they don’t have you there,” Rodney says through a mouthful of bacon. “No one can make the drones do what you do.”

Teyla smiles at him again from across the table, in a way that makes him think she’d felt the sharp burst of satisfaction—not over his drone skills, though that’s nice to hear, but that Rodney has the same thing on his mind.

“You should have seen Teyla,” Sora says. “When we busted in on where they had Rodney, I didn’t think she was going to leave the place standing. No firepower like you Lanteans love so much; just her fists.”

“Oh, look who’s talking about firepower,” Rodney begins, just as Teyla says, “I had many weapons, I was just fortunate enough to have no use for them.”

“Guns have their purpose,” Sora says. “But it’s better to master manual weapons first. Your people are terrible at hand-to-hand.”

Ronon lets out a snort. “She’s got you there.”

“We’re working on it,” John says grudgingly. “But we didn’t come to Atlantis to fight.”

“For which I am very glad,” Teyla says. “But it was not just my work that freed Rodney. Sora is the one who recognized William—Jonnah, he was called on Genia—and took him into custody.”

“And the best part is that Michael’s tampering is what made the whole thing possible,” Rodney says happily, just as the phone rings. Everyone freezes for a moment; it could just be one of Ronon’s playgroup moms, or one of his environmental activist friends, but now that they’re not hiding, the SGC can call them on the phone.

Rodney snaps his fingers insistently in the air. “Phone, phone!” and Ronon grabs for it.

“Yeah?” His eyes go to John, and he knows this is it. Ronon listens for a while, then says, “Got it. Thanks,” and hangs up.

“Well?”

“They got ‘em,” Ronon says, and the room is suddenly a frenzy of shouting and toppled chairs, Ronon’s arms hoisting him up and up until he’s dizzy and Torren is wailing. “They took a video so we can watch it when we get back,” Ronon shouts over the chaos.

The only one who isn’t over the moon is Sora, who remains at the sink, her hands in the dishwater.

“When can we return home?” Teyla asks, holding Torren to her chest. “There are arrangements to be made. The studio, our friends…Sora must have much business, as well.”

“Me?” Sora turns, her hands dripping with suds. “I don’t know what I would need to do. You didn’t think…Teyla, you didn’t think I was coming back, did you?”

John doesn’t think he’s ever seen Teyla so shaken, so unable to hide her shock or check her emotions at all. Her lips move slightly, as though she cannot grasp a thought long enough to voice it, and when she does, she sounds just as bad. “I…was mistaken,” she says. “I must admit that I failed to realize our situation was so temporary.”

“It doesn’t have to be temporary,” Sora says, flushed all the way down to her collar. “I could easily say the same about you. You seemed happy here, how did I know you wouldn’t decide to stay? You said it a hundred times, Teyla; this is the perfect place to raise a child.”

John glances at Rodney, who is staring wide-eyed at the exchange, and Ronon, whose bored expression doesn’t fool him for a minute.

“I have enjoyed my time here very much,” Teyla says. “But my people are not here. Ronon has father-bonded to Torren, and he would never agree to remain here while there are still Wraith in the world.”

“There are no Wraith in this world,” Sora argues.

“Security is not a fair exchange for what I have in Atlantis,” Teyla says. John has never seen it take her so long to compartmentalize, but she finally begins to regain her grace, and places Torren back in his high chair so she can wipe his face and hands.

“They said they’ll expect us by tomorrow,” Ronon says. “And that we can bring a reasonable amount of stuff.”

“I’ll go,” Sora says, and to be fair, she looks as shaken as Teyla as she makes her way to the door.

When John turns back, Ronon has Teyla tucked into a crushing embrace. “I’m sorry,” he hears Ronon murmur into her hair. “But thank you.” He doesn’t hear Teyla’s reply, but he’s not meant to, and Rodney must sense the same thing, because his chair scrapes across the tile as he gets up from the table and heads for the stairs.

“If they’re allowing us to bring luggage, then I need to pack. No, I need to go shopping.”

“Maybe we should all go,” John says. “Make a day of it.”

“We can go to that restaurant Teyla likes,” Rodney says, brightening, and John squeezes his arm because Rodney hates that restaurant, with the fake pirates and serving wenches, and the time they’d put a lemon slice on his water glass.

“What do you think?” Ronon asks.

Teyla turns, and John isn’t sure why he’d expected to see tears, because this is Teyla, who gives birth on Hive ships and eats slug-things from underground, but he’s still startled by her clear face. Maybe he’s more like Sora than he’d thought, and had half-expected Teyla to dig in her heels about staying.

“I would like that very much,” she says, and when John sees Ronon take her by the hand, he reaches for Rodney’s.