zeegoeshere

Within Reach
By Zeelee
Summary: As Major Lorne tells it, John had stayed behind to buy them time and defuse the bomb—it had been Ancient, and thus of *course* he’d assumed that it would do whatever he told it to. 10,512 words, NC-17
Disclaimer: Not Mine. Am poor. Don't sue.
Notes: Endless thanks to liviapenn for constant hand-holding and audiencing, and also to anyone else that I showed this to demanding validation. Thanks to lierdumoa for the beta.




Looking back, Rodney would have liked to say that he knew something was wrong the minute he heard ‘unauthorized offworld transmission.’ Would have liked to say that he just *knew,* that he *felt* it, because those were the kinds of things noble, mourning people always said.

But in reality, he isn’t even in the Control Room when Team A comes back from PXI-371. He’s staying behind to tinker with brand new Atlantis tech, and Simpson is with John instead. Rodney is wandering the halls near the mess when his radio crackles to life, and Weir is on the other end, telling him to come down to the control room in a voice that’s much tighter, much more gravelly than usual.

He’s used to dealing with strange, life-threatening emergencies. He barely even gives it a second thought.

Then he gets to the Gate Room, and Simpson is sobbing, and Major Lorne looks shell-shocked, and there are people all over the place yelling and crying and looking terrified and Elizabeth—

Elizabeth looks completely, eerily blank. And when he meets her eyes, Rodney knows what has happened.

"Rodney," she says. "John didn’t make it."

***

As Major Lorne tells it, John had stayed behind to buy them time and defuse the bomb—it had been Ancient, and thus of *course* he’d assumed that it would do whatever he told it to. Rodney has to work to subdue the urge to reach beyond the grave and smack him.

He *had* managed to buy them enough time to save their own skins. Major Lorne says that there was no way in hell they could have risked going back through the toxic bomb debris to search for him; Rodney believes him, but it doesn’t change the fact that *John* would have gone back for one of his team members regardless.

Rodney spends most of the first two days focusing on not hating Lorne. And succeeding—for the most part. In any case, there’s nothing he can say or do to Lorne that would make him feel worse than he already does.

There’s no body, but John still gets a funeral—two, actually: one on Earth organized by General O’Neill, and one here in Atlantis.

They talk about emulating a seaman’s funeral, but it seems wrong somehow, despite the city being surrounded by water. Even though there’s no body, Rodney can’t stand to think of any part of John being trapped under so many tons of water. He wouldn’t be able to see the sky.

Elizabeth is the one who has the brilliant idea. She gathers the whole city and any Athosians that want to come (pretty much all of them) on the East Pier; she makes a speech, and so do Teyla, Carson, and even Ronon (in a way: he says gruffly that he’s always thought John was a great leader, and that he’ll always be grateful to him, then leaves the podium). Rodney is supposed to make one, too, but when the funeral service is ten minutes away and he still has nothing, he has to go to Elizabeth and tell her that he can’t do it. Rodney is the world’s foremost expert on wormhole physics and can do quantum physics in his head, but he can’t sum up Lt. Colonel John Sheppard in a five minute speech.

Rodney and Zelenka have figured out how to connect this to that and that to this so that Carson can operate the chair remotely at least this once, so that he can be out here to watch. They can’t actually afford to use up this much of their ammunition, but they are regardless, and no one’s said a word to object.

The Ancients have an extraordinarily varied array of bombs, flares, and weird things that don’t seem to be bombs *or* flares but that light up and explode colorfully and loudly all the same. All in all, they make a damn good display of fireworks to send John off—and if they could spare a jumper, they’d send that, too. Rodney thinks John would be proud.

Afterwards, Elizabeth comes by his room with a bottle of vodka and two shot glasses. The hollows beneath her eyes are worse than usual, and she looks like if she actually unclenched her jaw, she would cry.

Rodney was in the middle of his own bottle, and Elizabeth smiles crookedly when she sees that they have the same kind of alcohol, right down to the brand. Rodney figures that it’s bad manners even for him to drink from the bottle when you have company, though, and he accepts the glass.

They don’t say anything for a while, but then Elizabeth straightens her shoulders and puts her mouth into that grim line, and he knows that A Talk is coming. He downs his shot.

"Rodney," she says. "Listen to me. We just can’t afford to let you drown in guilt over this."

The vodka is beginning to catch up. Rodney blinks and says "What?"

"I know what’s probably going through your mind right now, and I’m *ordering* you to snap out of it as soon as possible. I can’t afford to suddenly have an emergency that you can’t deal with because you’re dwelling on why you *think( what happened is your fault."

It isn’t fair that she knows him so well, when *she* can still throw him for a loop like this. "Oh, that’s just great," he hears himself saying, slurring a little bit. "So now I’m not allowed to grieve? That’s very warm-hearted, Elizabeth, that shows truly exemplary leadership skills."

"Grieve all you want. But you need to be concentrating on ways to keep the rest of us alive, not ways you could have saved John."

She’s right. He really, really doesn’t give a shit. "I’m happy for you that you’re dealing with losing one third of our triumvirate so well. But we can’t all be cold heartless diplomats, you know."

She doesn’t even bat an eye. "You can insult me all you want, Rodney. An order’s an order." She frowns down into her shot glass and finishes it off, and Rodney’s too tired to be angry anymore.

"Yes, sir," he mutters as she walks out, taking her vodka with her.

All the orders from Elizabeth in the world can’t change his sickening certainty that this is his fault. He could have gone with that team, *should* have, but he stayed behind to play with his new toys. And maybe wouldn’t have been able to convince John to not kill himself playing hero, but then maybe he *would* have. He might have been able to come up with some genius plan to save them without sacrificing John’s life. *Something.*

That night, Rodney dreams of John in a dark, abandoned building that’s falling apart. For some reason he can see John perfectly, even though everything else is nearly black, but he never gets a chance to see John’s face, because John is always ahead of him, running—not from him, but from something.

In his dream, he’s miraculously able to keep up with John at a flat-out run without getting winded. He only catches glimpses of their surroundings—sometimes it’s an abandoned Wraith ship, sometimes it’s the burned carcass of his home on Earth, sometimes it’s the underwater shipwreck from the beginning of The Little Mermaid (though there are no sharks).

Abruptly, their surroundings disappear, and he’s floating in a sea of inky deep blue. He sees flashes of John and then hears John’s voice saying words so fast all at once that he can’t even decipher them, can only hear ‘Rodney’ and ‘you have to’—the rest is gibberish.

He wakes up in a cold sweat, with his muscles aching like he’s been running for miles. He makes it to the toilet before he vomits up all the vodka and most of last night’s dinner, and heads to the labs instead of trying to get back to sleep.

When Elizabeth gathers Rodney, Teyla, Bates and Caldwell for a meeting the next day, no one looks like they’ve slept well. Maybe Elizabeth planned it that way, knowing they will be too tired to protest or act outraged when she formally gives Caldwell command of the military in Atlantis.

Rodney can see that the tension between Elizabeth and Caldwell is already high. Caldwell is going to expect her to go along with everything he says, like she (mostly) did with John; he doesn’t understand that she only seemed like a pushover because she and John were always on the same wavelength, because she trusted him and he earned that trust with everything he did. Elizabeth and Caldwell seem courteous now, but Rodney predicts they’ll be butting heads within a few hours.

He spends the rest of the day getting into horrible, nasty, screaming fights with Zelenka and anyone else that gets within ten feet of him. In the back of his mind he realizes that it’s unfair, because Zelenka recognizes how distracted he is and is only trying to keep him from making mistakes that will blow himself up. But he yells anyway, and it’s a miracle that Zelenka doesn’t punch him.

Rodney is kind of hoping that Zelenka *will* punch him, but he doesn’t; after the fifth screaming fight, he just grits his teeth and storms out of the room, leaving Rodney slumped in his chair feeling sorry for himself.

Teyla finds him there, staring dumbly at his computer screen, fifteen minutes later. She looks even more awkward in the labs than John does—did, but she comes to put a hand on his shoulder regardless, and he’s too exhausted to push her away.

"My people are performing our own Grieving Ceremony for him," she says, her voice low, husky, almost melodic. "To send his spirit off safely. You are welcome to join us, Rodney."

Rodney is kind of touched, but he shakes his head. "Somehow I don’t really think I’d fit in."

She nods like she expected him to say that—which, well, yeah. "Nevertheless. If you want to..." she squeezes his shoulder and lets go, smiling at him, before leaving.

He gives up on the labs after that. He spends the evening wandering aimlessly through the halls, and...

It’s strange. Very few people in the city actually knew John at all well, but the sorrow coming off *everyone* in waves is almost palpable. Everywhere he looks he sees eyes that are red and puffy from crying, or people weeping outright, or talking about their own memories of Colonel Sheppard, all grieving in their own way. John had been an unlikely hero for everyone from the moment he stepped foot in the city: the person that you trusted to save you, that amazingly enough never seemed to feel afraid, that made you believe things were going to be okay just by smiling at you. To say that ‘he will be missed’ is the biggest understatement of the century, Rodney thinks.

Even the city itself seems to mourn for him. Rodney is probably imagining things, but it *feels* like every light is slightly dimmer, like every time he touches something to activate it, it resists more than usual. There’s a quietness in the air, on the walls, like Atlantis knows that its favored child is gone.

After enough wandering, he finds himself in the Jumper Hangar. He remembers showing this to John on their very first day, watching John’s face light up and almost glow, and it’s like pouring salt in an open wound to sit down in the pilot’s seat of the jumper he’d shown John that day.

He thinks about the fact that John never finished teaching him how to properly fly, and his eyes burn. But he’s too exhausted, too wrung out and sick of himself and everything else in this entire galaxy to actually cry.

***

After a couple weeks, things are on their way to back to normal, and Rodney is trying not to feel too bitter about this. Intellectually, he knows that they *need* to be, that no one knows when the next Wraith attack will be and that spending too much time grieving too long could cost lives.

And Rodney’s not sure that one could even call his own behavior ‘grieving.’ So far, he’s refused to talk about John except on the rare occasions when Elizabeth catches him too tired to censor himself; he’s become even more hermit-like than before, holing himself up in his lab all day and snarling at minions to go bring him something from the mess hall when he needs to eat. He tries not to sleep too much, because dreaming of John is much worse than surviving on no sleep.

At the end of the third week, Elizabeth finally confronts him about it. "Rodney, I don’t mean to sound callous-"

"Too late," he says with a sneer.

She grits her teeth. "But you *can’t keep doing this.* For our sake, if not your own. I’m sending you to see Dr. Heightmeyer."

"Like hell you are."

She glares at him, and it occurs to him that she looks like she hasn’t been sleeping much more than he is. "I’m not *asking,* Rodney. Frankly, even though you’re spending all your time working, that work is shoddy and not nearly as useful to us as it could be. We all miss him, but-"

"Look, just go *away.*" Rodney can’t even drudge up the energy to yell at her. "I’ll go see Heightmeyer, just *leave.*" The last thing in the universe he wants to talk about right now is John.

Elizabeth is silent, and it’s possible (though highly unlikely) that he’s hurt her feelings. Then, "Don’t you dare think, even for a second, that you’re the only one still hurting over this," she says, and for the first time in this conversation she sounds really *angry.* "Just because the rest of us realize that we have to move on doesn’t mean we cared about him any less."

You’re wrong, he wants to tell her. You don’t know- "Yes, I know, and I’m sorry, Elizabeth. Just — please, leave. *Please.* Let me not-sleep in peace."

She frowns at him, like she wants to say more, but she doesn’t. "All right. Sweet dreams, Rodney." From the sound of her voice, she knows exactly how unlikely that last statement is, which makes him kind of wonder.

***

John is sitting in the Ancient Chair, looking... looking like a king out of some Arthurian romance, looking like he did the very first time Rodney saw him, looking like something Rodney could reach out and touch. He’s making the universe spin around him, and when he turns and looks straight at Rodney, he makes him spin, too.

John is speaking, saying something, and it looks *important* because John has his Serious Face on, but Rodney is too far away to hear. He keeps trying to get closer, but it’s like a tornado or a hurricane around John, and the winds buffet him away every time he takes a step.

I can’t reach you, he wants to say, even though it’s the most glaringly obvious, stupid thing in the universe, but it’s also the truest. John’s expression softens, and he says something that Rodney strains to hear--

-- and he’s back in his room, sitting bolt upright and drenched in sweat. He’s shaking and his room is dark and silent, and there’s no one else here.

He looks at the clock. The glowing red numbers smugly tell him that it’s four thirty-seven am, that he has once again proved himself a dismal failure at sleeping through an entire night.

He throws the sheets and covers off, stumbling into the shower and thinking glumly that at least he’ll have the best choices at breakfast.

***

When offworld missions start up again, a Rodney declines the offer to be on Team A, with Teyla, Ronon and Lorne. Elizabeth looks like she wants to argue with him, but just opens her mouth and shuts it, giving him an inscrutable look.

"If you think you’ll be more useful here, then I guess that’s fine," she says after a while, using the same voice that she uses to calm down murderous/psychotic/wrathful alien diplomats, the one that annoys the hell out of Rodney. "But I do hope you’ll change your mind after a while. You know that we can use your expertise offworld."

Rodney hears the underlying meaning there, the tone that means ‘get your shit together or else, Rodney,’ and he knows that Elizabeth really *means* the ‘or else’ part. He just completely fails to give a shit, and if he’s giving Elizabeth and everyone else the impression of being a moody, petulant asshole...

Well, he doesn’t particularly care about that, either.

The dreams have been getting more and more vivid. He hasn’t slept without dreaming of John in weeks, and his sleep-deprived brain is more-than-half-convinced that John is actually *haunting* him.

At first, the dreams varied, but now it’s the same every night. John, the Chair, John trying to speak to him, Rodney unable to hear or reach him because of all the wind. It’s getting repetitive and annoying, and it’s fucking with Rodney’s work. He keeps hearing noises behind him and whirling around, expecting to see John, but of course John isn’t *there*--it’s just empty space, or Zelenka giving him another ‘you are clearly insane and should not be working’ look.

He avoids going to see Heightmeyer for weeks, but she finally corners him in the mess hall and refuses to let him get his lunch until he’s agreed to an appointment. That evening he finds himself sitting across from her, babbling on about anything and everything while she stares at him, blue eyes placid and calm, knowing that when it comes to a contest of wills, she can wait him out.

At the moment, he’s involved in a lengthy rant about Zelenka and how he’s way too nice to the underlings, how Rodney has to take all the burden of being the mean cop himself. Heightmeyer, dastardly woman that she is, jumps in when he takes a breath.

"You must really miss-"

"Of *course* I miss John, you fucking idiot! Why the hell do you think I’m here?" Rodney yells before his brain can quite catch up with his mouth.

Heightmeyer blinks at him. "I was going to say," she says, voice as polite and calm as if he hadn’t just yelled at her. "That you must miss being part of a team like you were on offworld missions, sharing the responsibility with others instead of bearing it all yourself."

"Oh." Suddenly, Rodney’s exhausted. Too exhausted to keep stubbornly not-talking about things, too exhausted to be angry. "Not really. I’ve been... sort of distracted."

Heightmeyer smiles at him. "I had noticed," she says dryly, and she might as well be saying ‘that’s the understatement of the millennium and you know it.’

He shrugs, and tries to look manfully grim and like he’s actually coping. "John was a good friend. I’m okay; I just... need some time."

Heightmeyer raises her eyebrows, and he knows she doesn’t believe him for a second. "Why don’t you tell me what the last few weeks have been like."

He glowers, but there’s no point in *not* telling her. She is a therapist, after all. "They... haven’t been good." He hesitates, and she smiles encouragingly. "....I’ve been having — dreams."

"Describe them for me."

He does. He tells her about the Chair, the wind, John’s face, and the fact that his dream-self spends a disturbing amount of time focusing on John’s ridiculous hair, and if Kate hears his voice breaking when he mentions the way he can never quite *reach* John, she doesn’t mention it.

She looks thoughtful and taps her pen against her chin; Rodney has a theory that she does that when she has no idea what to say, but is trying to look smart anyway. "Why do you think you’re having these dreams?"

"Because I’ve finally cracked and gone insane? *I don’t know,* that’s why I *came* here!"

Heightmeyer ignores his outburst. "Would you say that they’re possibly the symbol of your refusal to let John go?"

Rodney slumps. He hates therapy. "I don’t know. Maybe. Probably?"

Heightmeyer makes a ‘hmm’ sound and jots something down in her notebook. Then she looks up and says, "I’m going to try something a little unorthodox."

***

Rodney stumbles out of Heightmeyer’s office feeling distinctly disturbed and a little violated. He can’t help but wonder just what he told her during the hypnosis, especially considering the long, contemplative look she gave him as he walked out of her office.

That one scene from Donnie Darko flashes in his mind, and he shudders. No, it couldn’t have been *that* bad.

She had told him to try his best to get to bed at a reasonable hour tonight because the hypnotic suggestions would work best that way, so Rodney drags himself away from the lab at 1:30 am. He lies in bed, still feeling wide awake—his body is used to putting off sleep and working as long as possible. He wishes that there was something interesting on the ceiling for him to look at, a ceiling fan maybe, or disturbing cracks or patches of fungus; but of course all the ceilings in Atlantis are smooth, sleek, unmarred metal, completely useless when you’re trying to find something to help trick you into falling asleep.

By 2:00, he gives up and starts counting sheep; by 2:15, he’s counting sheep in prime numbers; by 2:20, all the sheep have started wearing John’s face.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but suddenly John is there, *right* there, just like in his dream. He’s sitting in the Chair, which of course is bright blue and glowing, and the whole universe is floating above his head.

Wind is battering at Rodney, forcing him to his knees. John turns to him with a smile, and when he opens his mouth Rodney can actually hear him. "Hey," he says, his smile growing wider. "You’re getting better at this."

"I am?" Rodney says dimly. Then, "Wait, what *is* this? And what the hell? I’ve never been able to talk to you in one of these before."

The smile is now a grin. "Things change. Anyway, now that you *can* talk to me, tell me what’s going on! How’s Ronon doing? Has there been any progress finding Ford? I’ve missed a lot of things, being away."

"Away?" Rodney sputters. "You’re not—you’re not on fucking *vacation*, you moron, you got yourself *killed* trying to play hero!"

John smirks, that smirk that *still* irritates the living hell out of Rodney. "You don’t really believe that," he says confidently.

"I—what? Of course I do, that’s what *happened.*"

John looks way too smug, making Rodney’s temper rise. "This is your subconscious, Rodney. And I’m saying that you don’t really think John’s dead."

This is officially the strangest dream he’s ever had. "Oh, this is bullshit," Rodney snaps. "This is just—this is just leftover weirdness from the hypnosis-"

"Or maybe," John continues loudly, interrupting him, and Rodney notices that the command chair is glowing brighter and brighter, pulsing a bit. "Maybe this isn’t really a dream. Did you think of that?"

"I—" Suddenly, it occurs to Rodney that if he can speak in this dream, maybe he can *get to John,* and then he’s moving, running desperately against the wind, and that’s when John and the chair get smaller and smaller and finally disappear.

He sits up, chest-heaving like he’s just run a marathon. (Or, well. Half a mile.) He glances at the clock, and it’s... only 2:30. He frowns. He usually manages to stay asleep for at least more than ten minutes at a time.

And of course there’s no way he’s going to get back to sleep *now.* He gets up, thinking vaguely of going to his lab to finish up some experiments, but instead finds himself wandering to the control room.

No, not wandering; going there purposely, because he can’t say why but he *needs* to be there, it’s *imperative,* and he breaks into a dead run one hallway away.

He stops short when he gets to the entrance, panting and staring at the chair—not because it’s doing anything particularly interesting, but because it’s already occupied.

Elizabeth jumps up when she sees him, looking around guiltily like she’s doing something wrong. She’s in her nightgown with a robe thrown over (it just now occurs to Rodney that he himself is only wearing holey boxers and a ratty t-shirt), and she looks.... she looks *exactly* like Rodney feels.

They stare at each other, completely unsure of what to say in this situation. "You don’t have the gene to operate that," he blurts out, feeling more than a little stupid.

She blinks. "I know. But John does."

Rodney shakes his head, trying to clear it. John, he—John *brought* him here, to this room, to Elizabeth. *John* did, not his ghost or Rodney’s subconscious or anything else—John. Rodney has never been more sure of anything in his life.

He hears footsteps, and then Teyla is sprinting into the room, skidding to a halt when she sees him and Elizabeth. She’s in her dressing gown and has the same wild-eyed look in her eyes that Elizabeth does—that Rodney suspects he has as well.

She gawks at them, and Rodney gawks back. Elizabeth meets his eyes, and frowns, her eyes narrowing.

"We have to go back."

***

The planet’s surface is charred and lifeless and grey for miles around the gate. Rodney’s heart begins to pound uncomfortably the second he steps out of the event horizon because nothing could be alive in this. He’s hallucinating; they all must be.

Despite Bates’ protests, only the three of them are going on this mission. If something happens, Atlantis will have immediately lost three of its commanders, but he tries not to think about that. Nothing’s going to happen, because they’re going to find John and John is going to make things right again.

The life signs detector isn’t picking up anything around for miles, and Rodney tries not to panic at that. Instead he just follows Elizabeth when she suggests that they find the weird Ancient thing that John tried to deactivate, that must have caused the explosion. 99% of his brain is insisting that this plan is not at all conducive to him staying alive much longer, but he has to ignore that. Has to.

Teyla makes a choking sound behind him. "There," she says, pointing to a silvery, metallic device that looks kind of like a DHD without all the buttons. "That’s what caused the explosion."

They walk over to it, even though Rodney feels like he’s going to be sick. It’s about as tall as his waist, and has the big red button in the center, and nothing else. There’s writing all over the sides, and Elizabeth crouches down to read it.

Rodney watches as her brow furrows. "This isn’t—it doesn’t make *sense.* It’s — I think it’s something of a doomsday weapon..." her voice trails off, and Rodney resists the urge to yell at her with impatience.

"But—hmm. Okay, this seems to be poetry so it’s all kind of confusing, but it *looks* like this was a device the Ancients wanted to activate in case of a battle they knew they would lose. It’s a bomb designed to kill everyone within range, but I *think* it’s also supposed to save any Ancients left alive. The language is very vague, but it’s supposed to grab any Ancients within range, to... preserve them, I think...?" Her voice trails off *again,* and Rodney has to clench his hand over the butt of his nine millimeter to keep from screaming.

"Oh!" She stabs a finger at the device. "Oh, this makes *sense* now: it puts any Ancients left in stasis chambers, but it also gives them the ability to call out for help—to send out a sort of distress signal. It’s only supposed to reach other Ancients, and only the Ancients closest to the Ancient in stasis, at that." She looks up, her face excited. "That must be why we were only getting it in dreams! We’re not Ancients, so it wasn’t as strong!"

"Great, that’s wonderful," Rodney snaps, even though it *is* wonderful, and his brain is babbling John could be alive could be alive could be alive at him like a broken record. "Now how the hell do we find him and get him *back*?"

Elizabeth hesitates at that. "It... doesn’t say."

"What do you mean it doesn’t say?" Rodney shoves her out of the way to get a closer look, though since he can’t read Ancient, that’s pretty pointless.

He studies the device—machine—whatever. There’s... not really anything he can see that might activate anything, except for the big red button, and he’s kind of wondering how the hell they made it explode in the first place.

He knows Elizabeth will say no, which is why he doesn’t ask before pressing the big red button that practically screams ‘don’t touch.’

There’s a very loud cracking sound, and then kind of an earthquake, and Elizabeth turns to scream at him, and then the ground opens up.

It’s... a tunnel. A complete, whole, sturdy-looking tunnel leading down into the earth. Rodney, Teyla, and Elizabeth exchange looks, and then Rodney stuffs his fears far down inside of himself and they go in.

Rodney’s skin crawls as he stumbles down into the darkness. He’s always been somewhat claustrophobic, and his most recent memory of being underground like this is associated far too closely with Kolya and the Genii. But Elizabeth and Teyla are trudging down like nothing in the galaxy could stop them, and even though the chance that John is down here is horribly slim (life signs have yet to show up), it’s enough.

After a while, they stop trudging downwards and start trudging forward, following the tunnel. Rodney prays desperately that it opens up soon, because fainting right now would be horribly embarrassing, not to mention problematic.

Just when Rodney thinks that breathing is starting to become difficult, the tunnel *finally* ends, opening up into a huge, dimly lit cavern. He looks around eagerly, but it’s empty, aside from a strange sort of *pod* thing near the entrance.

The pod is bright blue, mostly transparent, human-sized and *pulsing,* and Rodney knows what he’s going to find before he steps up to look inside it.

However, he isn’t prepared for John’s eyes to be *open.* Rodney starts and takes a step back, because... christ, that’s creepy. Hazel eyes staring up at nothing, and John is more still than Rodney has ever seen him before. His face is completely blank, and Rodney can’t tell if he’s breathing or not.

Elizabeth and Teyla look as horrified as he is. Rodney clears his throat. "Well—on the bright side, why would that device put him down here if he were already dead?"

Elizabeth glares at him. "How do we get him out?"

"How should I know?" Rodney is still staring down at John’s *god-so-creepy* open eyes.

He’s... well, okay, he might not be alive. It’s impossible to tell. But he’s remarkably well-preserved in an alien pod, and that is a step above unquestionably dead.

Rodney wonders if this is another dream.

He sighs and scrubs a hand through his hair. "Right. Now we just have to... get him out."

There’s more Ancient writing on this thing, and Elizabeth reads it and he and she argue for a while while Teyla looks dubiously around at the cave. Then she walks up to the pod, just touching the glass (or Ancient plastic, or *whatever*) above John’s face, and the pod opens, and Rodney kind of hates the universe in general quite a lot.

He can’t quite breathe as the pod opens. He’s flashing back to Star Wars, of all things, and the moment when Leia removed Han from the frozen carbonite, and he thinks that this is sort of like that except without the cringe-worthy dialogue.

The top of the pod is completely off (it clatters to the ground in an undignified way that’s rather unusual for Ancient technology), and neither he nor Elizabeth nor Teyla move for several seconds.

Then John blinks and stiffly props himself up on his elbows, wincing. "*Ow.*"

Rodney can’t move, can’t speak, can’t do anything but stare dumbly at John. Teyla and Elizabeth are hugging him hard and saying things that Rodney’s brain can’t quite catch. Elizabeth is actually crying, or at least her eyes are brighter, and Teyla appears to have super-glued her forehead to John’s, she stays that way for so long. John looks slightly bemused when they finally let go, and a small part of Rodney observes that he doesn’t look like he *knows* that he’s been dead for weeks.

He turns to Rodney, smirking. "What, no hug from you?"

And that’s when Rodney loses it. He’s vaguely aware of laughing at an insanely high pitch, of yelling crazy things and hugging John hard over and over again and feeling John hug him back, but mostly his whole being is focused on being ecstatic ecstatic ecstatic, on feeling the kind of elation and relief he hasn’t felt since he was awarded his Ph.D.

When he finally pulls back, grinning like a loon, John is giving him an odd look; over his shoulder, Rodney can see Elizabeth raising her eyebrows so high that they almost disappear into her hairline.

It’s then that Rodney realizes that during the hug and the yelling and the joy, he kissed John. On the lips. Possibly quite hard.

He pulls back immediately, his cheeks burning. "It’s good to see you’re all right," he says gruffly, trying to sound as manly and platonic as possible, given the circumstances.

John doesn’t say anything, mercifully, just gives Rodney a funny little smile and turns to Elizabeth and Teyla. "How long was I away?"

"Several weeks," Elizabeth says, apparently taking her cue from John and pretending the kiss didn’t happen. "John, we thought you were *dead.*"

"Well. I’m not," John says, like it’s the most obvious, unremarkable thing in the universe, and Rodney is torn between wanting to strangle him and kiss him again, and that’s how he knows that he has him back.

***

Getting out of the cavern and off the planet turns out to be much more difficult and dangerous than getting in was. After Elizabeth and Teyla hug him some more, John gets a thoughtful look on his face and announces that he can’t move his limbs. When they manage to help him out of the pod, it triggers something and the entire cavern starts shaking; they manage to get out before it collapses, Teyla and Rodney moving as fast as they can supporting John between them and Elizabeth following.

John’s arm feels cold and (he can’t help thinking it) dead around Rodney’s shoulders; John’s breath is hot and humid and very, very distracting against his cheek. Rodney thinks he should be concerned, because while he *should* be terrified for his life, all he can think about is the feel of John’s stubble every time John’s head lolls toward him.

Of course, by the time they reach the surface, he’s back to panicking for his life, because the tunnel is *collapsing* behind them, and even with adrenaline he’s having a hard time running and simultaneously dragging John. The only reason they escape alive is because Teyla pulls a Xena heroine move and *pushes* John and Rodney both up through the entrance, pulls an exhausted Elizabeth up behind them, and then *vaults* out right before the entrance to the tunnel turns into quicksand.

Then Elizabeth notices that the Ancient device is beeping and blaring an ominous red light, and suggests that they all get out of the way; Rodney is thrown to the ground by the explosion, and he can feel rubble and dust pouring down on him.

When everything clears, Rodney is covered with soot, and has no doubt that he’s pierced all over by pieces of Ancient shrapnel. After the explosion rush has worn off (and how sad is it that he’s been around so many explosions in the past year that he knows *just how long* it takes his brain to get back to normal?), he notices that he’s landed splayed on John. And John, of course, isn’t moving, because John can’t move his extremities.

John blinks up at him, a dazed expression on his face, and Rodney has time to think of how unfair it is that John *still* looks pretty even when covered in soot and explosion debris before Teyla and Elizabeth pull them both up.

When they limp through the gate, what looks like half of Atlantis is waiting for them in the Gate Room. There are a few moments of stunned silence, and then chaos erupts.

People are cheering and sobbing, and Rodney is pretty sure he sees a couple of the more delicate biologists faint; then someone asks John why he’s still leaning on Rodney, John casually says ‘Oh, I can’t move my arms or legs,’ and Carson whisks him away to the medlab so fast that Rodney almost gets whiplash.

After that things calm down a bit. Elizabeth orders him and Teyla to take showers before they do anything else, then heads off to presumably take one herself.

Rodney starts shaking in the middle of scrubbing explosion-dirt out of his hair, and has to brace himself on the shower wall and just breathe for several long seconds to keep from getting shampoo in his eyes.

The first thing he does after towelling off and putting on clean clothes is head down to the medlabs, but his heart sinks when he sees the crowd: at least fifty people are clustered at the doors to the medlabs, milling around and yelling and shoving and (some of them, at least) crying.

He spots Teyla shoving her way through the crowd to get to him. "They all want to see Sheppard," she says, looking exasperated. "Dr. Beckett has disallowed all visitors and locked the doors."

"But what about us?" Rodney feels himself start to panic, because it’s *absolutely imperative* that he sees John *right now,* because... because.

Teyla smiles at him like she knows what he’s thinking. "Dr. Beckett says that John needs to rest at the moment. But he will call us first thing when he’s ready."

Several someones jostle Teyla, and it looks like her Sticks of Doom are coming out at any second, so Rodney decides prudently that the hallway outside the medlab is not the best place for him at the moment. He heads down to the mess and devours three roast-beef (ish) sandwiches and four cups of it-*looks*-like-tomato-soup before his comm crackles to life and a murderous-sounding Carson tells him to get the hell down to the medlabs because ‘bloody Mr. Popular has decided against his physician’s advice that he’s ready for visitors.’

Rodney makes it there in record time, and thankfully the crowd has thinned; only a few loyal marines and some scientists that Rodney knows are half-in love with John have stuck it out. He resists the urge to smile smugly at them as the doors unlock for him and he goes inside.

John looks better, and he’s already interrogating Elizabeth and Teyla about what he’s missed, military-wise. Carson only looks slightly disgruntled, as opposed to furious, so Rodney figures that John is mostly fine.

His heart skips a beat when John sees him and quirks an eyebrow before smiling normally and saying "Rodney. Wondering when you’d show up."

Rodney isn’t sure if it’s just his imagination or if everyone in the room *is* suddenly embarrassed and looking away from him deliberately. He tries valiantly not to blush. "Yes, well, I thought it was best to stay as far away from your hordes of enthusiastic fans as humanly possible."

John grins at that. "Apparently dying for a while makes everyone a lot fonder of you in your absence."

And it is definitely not Rodney’s imagination that John looks at *him* when he says that, or that John emphasizes the ‘fonder.’ Rodney loses his battle against the blush.

He assures John that he’s very happy he’s not dead, but he ends up just feeling awkward. Elizabeth and Teyla are chatting with him like nothing’s changed, like John has simply narrowly escaped death again, rather than been *dead* for over a month before coming back. And Rodney can’t say what he wants to with anyone else there, anyway, so after a while he politely excuses himself. He can feel John’s eyes on his back as he leaves.

He comes back that evening, and for once the universe smiles upon him, because the Medlab is virtually empty except for a few nurses wandering around. John is lying in bed, his eyes closed, but he opens them when Rodney comes in, half-smiling half-smirking at him.

Rodney licks his lips, and every speech he’d prepared goes flying out the window.

He sits in the chair next to the bed, trying to ignore the intensity of John’s gaze. "So, um, how are you feeling?"

"Well, I can move all the parts of my body now, if that’s what you mean."

All the parts of his... no, Rodney is *not* going there. "That’s good," he says hurriedly, berating himself for having a far too dirty mind.

"Yes, it is," John says, in a tone of voice that clearly implies that Rodney should stop with the small talk and get to whatever is bugging him.

Which... is a good idea as any. "Listen, about earlier—I’m sorry about the, uh," Rodney makes a vague hand motion towards his mouth, wondering when he regressed back to his incoherent, hormone-driven adolescent self.

"About the kiss?" John supplies helpfully, and Rodney blushes again.

"Yes, that. Although I hope you’re not going to make a big deal about it," he says hurriedly. "I mean, what’s an itty bitty kiss between friends, right? Really, only someone small-minded and homophobic would freak out over one teeny tiny kiss." His voice is getting more high-pitched and hysterical by the second.

John rolls his eyes and lies back on the pillow. "I cannot believe that it took me being *dead* for a month and then miraculously coming back to life for you to make the first move."

"I—what?" Typical: Rodney is on a roll and John forces him to completely shift gears without a moment’s notice.

John gives him an amused look. "Were you ever planning on asking me out, or was ‘pine away until he dies’ always your game plan?"

"Excuse me!" Rodney says defensively. "I didn’t even *know* that I wanted to kiss you *until* you died!"

"Ah, then that explains it."

Rodney scowls and is about to protest some more—against what, he’s not entirely sure, but that’s not the point—when a warm hand curls around the back of his head, and John’s lips press against his.

It’s nothing like the mostly-chaste kiss that Rodney can barely remember from earlier that day. John has warm and flexible lips, and his tongue is flicking over Rodney’s lips in ways that make him shudder all over. When Rodney opens his mouth and John’s tongue strokes inside, it’s even better.

Rodney maybe whimpers a little when John pulls back. "I—are you—god, *John.*" And no, he was *more* coherent than this as a hormone-driven adolescent.

John is still so close that Rodney feels more than sees his smile. "I’m obviously not freaking out about the kiss, Rodney."

And it’s like every painfully emotional dream and all the hours of sleep deprivation catch up with Rodney at once. "You *fucking asshole,*" he growls, grabbing John’s shirt. "God, you—you *died,* you got yourself blown up, it wasn’t just a near miss, don’t you *get* that?! Don’t you get what we’ve *been* through—god, you idiot-" He pulls John in close, smashing their lips together and groaning and biting down, and—John has to know. He has to *know* what happened, what Rodney has been through, what they all have, he has to know that he can’t *do* that, can’t just act like his life doesn’t mean anything. And Rodney has no idea how to explain this, no idea how to articulate it in words, so he just kisses John again and again until his lips feel raw and he can’t breathe.

John keeps pulling at him and Rodney keeps going with it, until he’s standing and leaning over the hospital bed and over John, practically on top of him. He realizes with a start that they’re in public, and pulls back in a panic. No one is around, though, except for one nurse he catches staring at them with interest. She jumps when he sees her, and scuttles away.

John tries to kiss him again, but Rodney moves away. "We shouldn’t do this here."

John frowns and hooks a couple fingers in the collar of Rodney’s shirt, attempting to pull him down. "I just got back from the dead, Rodney. They’ll cut me some slack."

Rodney snorts and shakes his head. "I don’t want Carson to kick me out for molesting his patients. And he *will.*"

"What, you kiss me in front of my CO but you’re unwilling to make out in the medlab?" John protests, sounding miffed. "There’s not even anyone *here.*"

"Carson has eyes *everywhere*," Rodney protests, but he lets John pull him down again, muffling his concerns against John’s lips.

Rodney doesn’t have many opportunities to practice self-restraint when it comes to sex, and thus he really doesn’t think he can be blamed for letting things escalate. He’d like to meet the person that could resist John hauling them onto a bed and kissing them crazy, but he seriously doubts that such a person *exists.*

And so it’s definitely *not* his fault that he ends up pushing John’s scrubs out of the way and kissing his way down his chest, or that John’s hand is in his hair, pushing him downwards. He’s swirling his tongue around John’s navel and working on pulling his pants down when a hand yanks him roughly back.

"Get. Out. Of my medlab."

Rodney squeaks. He had never heard a Scottish accent sound so ominous before.

John is attempting to be sincere and dignified, and pull up his pants at the same time. "Sorry, doctor. This was my fault."

"I don’t care whose bloody fault it was! This is unacceptable! It’s horrifyingly unsanitary, it’s distracting the nurses, and John, what the *hell* gave you the idea that sex was all right when I haven’t even given you the okay to get out of bed yet?!"

"He didn’t tell me that!" Rodney looks accusingly at John, who has the grace to look abashed.

But not the grace to stop arguing, apparently. "Carson, there was no one around! And I was already in a bed, and I was just *dead.* Can’t you, you know, cut me a little slack?"

"Cut you a little slack? Cut you a little slack? This is a fucking hospital!" Carson roars. "I should not have to put up signs saying ‘No sex allowed’, it’s self evident! Now get out!"

"Not you," he adds impatiently when John starts to eagerly get out of the bed. "*You* stay. *You* out," he says angrily, turning to Rodney, who doesn’t need to be told twice before escaping to go die of embarrassment in his quarters.

***

That night, Rodney still can’t sleep, although it’s for very different reasons. Every nerve ending in his body is telling him to get his ass back down to the medlab and see John, but he knows the second he steps out into the hallway, the staring will start, and he’s feeling bashful. And there’s the fact that Carson really might be moved to violence if he tries to go visit John again.

So he stays in his quarters, working from his computer and blackmailing one of his science lackeys into bringing him dinner so that he doesn’t have to leave. He didn’t really sleep at all the night before, and by all rights he should be exhausted, but instead he’s almost as hyper as he was the day they got the go-ahead for the Atlantis mission.

It’s almost one a.m., and he’s to the point of seriously debating running around his room in circles until he falls over exhausted when someone knocks on his door, then opens it without waiting for a response. It’s John, still in the medlab scrubs, and he’s leaning against the doorjamb and actually looking hesitant, and Rodney thinks he might faint, and also that fainting at this moment would be *horribly* embarrassing.

He swallows. "John! Carson let you out? I mean, um. Hi."

John smiles at him. "Yeah. I think he just got tired of telling me I couldn’t leave yet."

He takes a step into the room and stumbles, and Rodney rushes to his side, helping him up.

John makes a face. "Thanks. The legs are still a little shaky."

"No problem," Rodney says, distracted by John’s proximity. His dick is already remembering where they left off, and from the look on John’s face, he remembers, too.

John makes a soft, gravelly sound and leans in, kissing Rodney. Rodney thinks that he wants to catalogue each and every kiss John gives him, because each one is so different, so breathtaking: this one is soft and so gentle that it makes something crack and break inside him.

Then Rodney pulls John towards the bed, and nothing’s soft or gentle anymore. All Rodney can think about is wanting to touch John all over, and apparently John is thinking the same thing because they’ve stopped kissing to fumble wildly at each other’s clothes, so impatient that they do a horrible job of actually getting naked. Rodney finally has to push John’s hands away and strip himself, and after a noise of protest John takes off his clothes, too.

John’s nakedness reduces Rodney to slack-jawed staring and caveman noises. No one that scarily pale (he’s even worse than usual thanks to spending a month in stasis underground) should be so unbelievably attractive, but. But.

Rodney kisses him again, dragging his mouth sloppily over his cheek and jaw and licking his way down his neck, sucking on his collarbone. John presses up against him, groaning and clutching at him, nails scraping up his back. John’s nails are long and unkempt, and it kind of hurts in a delicious way.

John is warm and alive and moving beneath him, chest rising and falling under Rodney’s mouth. The hair on his chest is wiry and just as unruly as the hair on his head, and it scratches Rodney’s cheeks as he kisses his way downwards, stopping when he reaches John’s navel.

He looks up. John is staring at him, and having all of... all of John’s *everything* focused only on him is a little intimidating.

"I missed you," Rodney says, not quite sure why he’s talking instead of moving on to oral sex. "I don’t think I’ve said that yet, but I *did,* and it was horrible and awful and feeling you in the dreams just made it worse."

John’s expression softens, and he reaches out, combing his fingers through Rodney’s hair. "I’m sorry. I didn’t *mean* to not-really-die."

Rodney glares. "We’ve already covered my rage at your impulses to explode yourself. I suggest the subject remain closed for now, unless you want me *yelling* instead of doing... other things."

"Consider it closed," John says meekly, and Rodney raises an eyebrow at him and looks back down. John’s half-hard cock is peering up at him, and Rodney strokes it, experimentally. That earns him a soft moan from John, and a louder one when he squeezes.

He doesn’t waste any more time getting his mouth on John’s dick, sucking and licking at the head and wrapping his fist around the base. He hasn’t done this since grad school and thus his skills are a little rusty, but if the loud verbal encouragement from John is any indication, he’s still not *bad.* He goes down further, sucking rhythmically and tonguing the underside of John’s cock until his lips are pressed against his fist.

He’s already hard just from this, from the *obscenely* wonderful sounds John is making, and when John’s hips start thrusting erratically into his mouth, Rodney has to reach down and squeeze himself. He realizes that he’s moaning and drooling around John’s dick, but he can’t stop himself, especially when John clenches a hand in his hair and starts pumping his hips, fucking Rodney’s mouth and *using* his mouth and it’s hot and so good and Rodney has never enjoyed sucking dick quite so much.

"Rodney—I’m going to-" The hand lets go, but Rodney doesn’t stop sucking, just slides his mouth up so that he doesn’t choke when John spills down his throat. When he does finally let John’s cock slip out of his mouth, his tongue and lips feel raw, sore.

Rodney sits up, wiping his mouth, and meets John’s eyes.

John is looking at him like he just single-handedly defeated the Wraith, created world peace, and gave John his own ferris wheel. Rodney has a moment to feel slightly alarmed before John pounces.

It’s like making out with a hurricane, a tornado. John’s lips are all *over* him, sliding wetly down his chest, sucking on his nipples, dancing around his hipbones, and John’s hands are just as bad. Then without warning, John is slurping down Rodney’s cock, going down on him farther than Rodney thought possible.

Rodney has enough time to observe that John must not have a gag reflex before he’s coming so hard that his vision whites out. John doesn’t skip a beat, just stays down so far his nose is probably brushing pubic hair, and doesn’t pull back until Rodney goes limp, panting and staring at the ceiling.

It’s a little terrifying that John turns him into such a teenager, complete with the embarrassing lack of stamina.

John stretches out next to him, lanky and beautiful and god-- he’s such a porn star. And he’s *alive,* and Rodney can’t believe he’ll ever get used to all of this. John is staring at him again, though not as intense as before; his eyes are half-closed and sleepy, and a lazy smile is playing around his lips. Rodney kisses him, and John makes an ‘mmm’ sound and then a long arm wraps itself around Rodney’s waist, pulling him closer.

"It’s good to have you back," Rodney murmurs. "Really. It’s very, very good." He doesn’t think anyone can blame him if his voice is a little shaky.

John’s fingers stroke his back. "It’s good to be back. Very, very good." John leers at him, and Rodney blushes *again,* and mentally informs his body that it can go back to being full-grown and not hormone-driven anytime now.

John hooks a leg over Rodney’s hip and nestles his face in the crook of Rodney’s shoulder. Soon he’s asleep, his breath snuffling against Rodney’s arm, but Rodney lies awake for hours, listening to him breathe.


***


When Rodney wakes up groggily, he’s alone, and there’s a note taped to his alarm clock saying ‘I thought I would just let you sleep.’

He looks at the actual clock and groans. It’s six pm. Letting him sleep is one thing, but this is ridiculous.

His mind feels fuzzy the way it does on the rare occasions when he gets too *much* sleep, and he can feel wooly sweaters on his teeth and tongue. He hasn’t even showered since John...

He stumbles to the bathroom and into the shower, blinking against the hot water and wondering what the hell he’s got himself into. He hasn’t actually had a ‘successful’ relationship, or even one that didn’t end up with the other party hating his guts with a passion afterwards, in.... well, too long. After a while, he’d given up and stuck to one-night-stands with awed rookie scientists or other people who were stupid enough to sleep with him.

But John isn’t stupid, and Rodney’s afraid that it’s only a matter of time before he figures out that Rodney is a giant asshole. Still, he’s not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. If John wants to give him blowjobs on a regular basis, he’s not complaining.

After getting himself a cup of the Pegasus Galaxy’s pale imitation of coffee, he goes to see Elizabeth.

Who is having a heated argument with Caldwell, and Rodney thinks that this is possibly not the best time. He’s about to turn around and head the other way when Elizabeth sees him.

"Come on in, Rodney," she says loudly. "The Colonel here was *just leaving.*"

This is a power struggle that Rodney *really* doesn’t want to get caught in the middle of, but fortunately Caldwell just scowls and leaves, practically stomping off.

"Erm," Rodney says awkwardly; he’s never sure how to handle these weird political situations going on around him. He usually just hides in his lab. "I take it things with him aren’t going... well?"

Elizabeth shakes her head. "I’d tell you if it was something I was actually concerned about." And she would, so Rodney drops it.

"I wanted to talk to you," he says, and the awkwardness definitely doesn’t go away, because how the hell do you talk to your boss after they’ve seen you kiss another man?

Elizabeth looks vastly amused. "I’m going to guess that this is about you and Sheppard."

"Uh," Rodney says helpfully.

Elizabeth rolls her eyes and folds her arms across her chest. "Rodney. I have a city to run. I really don’t care about your sex life, though I agree with Beckett that those things should take place *outside* the medlabs."

Rodney thinks he’s blushed more in the past two days than he has in the past two years. "What about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell?"

Elizabeth hesitates. "Well... public displays of affection are probably a bad idea. And if Caldwell doesn’t already know, don’t *let* him know. Other than that..." she looks Rodney in the eye. "*I’m* certainly not going to report you."

"Oh. Well. I... thank you." Rodney has no idea what to say to that.

He turns to go, but stops, turns back around. "I realize I may have been a bit... edgy the last few weeks."

Her eyebrows do that thing where they go up into her hairline again. "That’s ‘a bit’ of an understatement."

He winces. "Yes, well. I’m—look, I’m really sorry. There’s no real excuse for my behavior."

She smirks a little. "Oh, I think I understand your behavior just fine."

He blushes *again,* dammit. "Am I going to have to put up with you teasing me about this?"

Her eyebrows go up even higher. "You kissed him in front of me, Rodney. I think a little teasing is to be expected."

"Hmph." She’s still giving him a very amused look, and what’s so *funny* about him apologizing?

"Well, anyway. I’m sorry. And it won’t happen again."

She shrugs. "We were all grieving; it was harder for you than it was for most of us. I understand that. Although I *do* think you owe most of your science team quite a *few* apologies."

Rodney waves a hand. "They’re supposedly tough and smart, they can handle it." Elizabeth gives him a Look. "Okay, *fine,* yes I’ll go apologize to all the people whose self-esteem I pissed on, all right?"

She rolls her eyes. "Yes, you go do that."

He grins at her and probably looks like a lovesick moron, but he doesn’t really care. "Thanks, Elizabeth. I—yes." He leaves before he can make more of an ass of himself.

He heads in the direction of the mess hall, vaguely thinking of eating something, and several nurses smirk at him along the way. Rodney wonders if he and John are the latest hot piece of gossip, or something, and hopes really really hard that he’s not going to get John fired because of this.

For once, though, he’s feeling optimistic.


***


He finds John at the mess, and he smiles and smirks a little at Rodney in the line, and *godammit* but it would be great if Rodney could stop blushing. Any time now.

They don’t sit *together* together; they go and sit down at one of the many tables that features a lot of people begging John to grace them with his presence. John looks like he wishes he had a big brave adventure story he could tell everyone--‘I got stuck in a pod for a month’ isn’t such a crowd-pleaser.

Rodney tries to avoid looking at John *too* much while he eats, but probably fails. It’s just—god, he’s not sure when he’s going to get used to seeing John walking and talking and being himself around Atlantis again. He’s not sure if he *wants* to.

They eat, and John gets up and bids them all a farewell, and doesn’t linger to say goodbye to Rodney. Rodney watches him go, and represses a sigh.

He gets discretion, he really does. He gets that, even though Elizabeth, Teyla, Carson and a few random nurses know, that doesn’t mean that *everyone* can know; he gets that this isn’t a college campus and that John could conceivably be reported and recalled back to earth, and....

He can throw his tantrum in private. He waits until it’s not suspicious for him to leave too, and works himself up into a good sulk on the way back to his quarters.

Is it so unreasonable to want to touch him in public? He endured an entire month of sleeplessness and angst and manly pain, he nearly died in an exploding tunnel, he embarrassed the hell out of himself in front of his colleagues, and now he can’t even *kiss* John except in the most private of situations. It’s fucking unfair.

When he opens the door to his room, John is on his bed.

In only his dogtags, stretched out on his back like he just *knew* Rodney would show up eventually, and Rodney can’t help but gawk.

John turns, and smiles at him. "Hey."

Rodney claps his mouth shut. "Hello. I mean—John, what are you doing?"

"What, that isn’t *obvious*?"

Rodney has to laugh a little at that, and he goes to sit by John on the bed. "This is insane, you know that?"

"We’re in another galaxy. Define ‘insane.’"

Rodney snorts. "Point." He doesn’t say anything else, because John is pulling him in and kissing him hard enough that it makes the rest of reality go a little bit fuzzy, and Rodney thinks, fuck the rest of the galaxy.