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John leaps out of the 'gate and skids to a halt, staring wild-eyed around him.
"John," Carter says warily.
"Colonel," he replies automatically, still looking around the gateroom. The lighting is the familiar green and blue instead of that awful desert red. And there are people here to greet him. His home, his team. And Rodney.
Rodney stares at John and takes what feels like his first real breath in nearly 288 hours. (288 hours of not being able to do anything because John was just gone.) He's here, Rodney tells himself, he's back. And then John looks at him.
"It worked, it worked. Rodney, you're a genius," John says, stumbling forward and only just stopping himself from kissing Rodney right there in the gateroom.
"Okay," Rodney says, forgoing any snarky reply because there's a look on John's face that he can't quite decipher. His eyes are dark and wide. His clothes are dirty; there's no blood, but that's no guarantee that he's unharmed.
"John, what happened?" Carter prompts.
"How much time has gone by?" John asks breathlessly.
"You've been missing for twelve days," she replies.
"Twelve days, twelve days, okay, she wouldn't have had her baby yet." He takes a breath and continues, "Look, I know this sounds kind of weird but we're on the clock."
"John, what are you talking about?" Carter demands impatiently.
"I know where Teyla is."
Carter and Rodney stare at each other and John tells them his story as quickly as he can. Carter looks at him skeptically (even though she had to have seen things that were equally strange with SG1) and sends him off to the infirmary for the standard back-from-MIA check-up, but he knows Rodney understands. Rodney will remember the Elizabeth who went the other direction in time to save Atlantis from drowning.
*
When Keller gives him a clean bill of health, John hurries out of the infirmary. He finds Rodney pacing in the hall outside. There's not enough time because they have to find Teyla before... They have to find Teyla. But first he needs to touch Rodney and smell the ocean and see the clear blue sky, so he grabs Rodney's arm and drags him along the hall.
"You're okay?" Rodney asks quietly.
"Yeah, I'm fine," John replies. Which is only really true in the medical sense because everything else is still so far from being okay. I'm back, I can change it, he tells himself.
John pauses to swish a door open and they step out onto a balcony. He barely registers the familiar blues of sea and sky before turning to Rodney and kissing him, hands wandering restlessly across Rodney's neck, arms, chest to reassure himself of touch, here, now.
When they break apart, John takes a deep breath of the ocean air, still trying to dispel the memory of sand and wind and too-bright sun. He leans his head on Rodney's shoulder, tucking his nose against the curve of Rodney's throat.
"You were old," John mumbles into Rodney's neck.
"Sorry to break it to you, but coming back from the future won't stop me from getting old," Rodney says gently.
John pulls back to look at Rodney's face again. "You were alone," he clarifies. And there are a thousand other things he wants to say--I want to be with you when things go wrong; I want to be there every time you snap your fingers and save the galaxy; I want to watch your hair turn gray; I should have been there--but the words get tangled in his throat. He swallows and whispers, "I want to be old with you."
"Oh." Rodney knows this is a big thing for John to say, but all he can manage to reply is: "Me, too."
John buries his face in Rodney's shoulder again and closes his eyes, trying not to think about the odds of either of them living to old age in this unpredictable galaxy, let alone living to old age together. Then he thinks of all the times they've almost died in the past four years, but somehow they're both still alive, still here in spite of space vampires and bombs and time dilations and everything in between. Rodney could write an equation to determine the odds against all their narrow escapes (and probably has), but John doesn't want to think about those kinds of numbers.
Instead he thinks, maybe, Atlantis and Pegasus have some sort of soft spot for them. When he disappeared, the whole galaxy went to hell, but Rodney sent him back and they can change it, they can fix this. He wonders why they are so special, why they should be allowed get-out-of-death-free cards and do-overs while others will remain ghosts forever, but he knows there is no answer and no time to think about it right now. Teyla and her baby are counting on him, on their team, and he has to make Carter understand that he's not insane.
He doesn't move immediately. He takes another deep breath, letting the smell of sea and sky and Rodney fill his lungs. The city hums beneath his feet, the ocean sings a blue melody, and Rodney's heartbeat under his hand is the steady rhythm of hope.
~ { fin } ~