Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Rodney had always figured himself for a man born in the wrong era. He’d read everything there was to read about the Ancestors, but no amount of reading could make him walk among them or live in their enlightened age. No amount of learning could change the nature of his birth, either, but Aunt Elizabeth’s protection had enabled him to twice see the Ancient City, lit up and glowing, and almost as beautiful as the stories. He’d been twelve years old the last time he’d seen it. That had been before the war.

The war was over now, though—or that one was at least—and Rodney knew that if he just worked hard enough, just did enough to square with Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Evan, then he might one day soon be able to go back. He was still Lantean, no matter what he’d been born to; and no matter what had happened between the Lanteans and the Terrans, it was still his city, his destiny.

He had a book. It was only children’s stories, but it was written in Ancient, which he had almost taught himself to read. He was out back in the cemetery, reading to Teyla, when he heard the sound of a rider approaching. Teyla sprang to her feet. Kate had done her younger sister’s hair in braids that morning, but they loosened as Teyla moved, the hair curling down her back. “It might be from town!” she said, “it might be a letter!” Rodney made grumbling noises, but he was curious, too. He got up and followed her toward the house.

They reached the yard just in time to see Aunt Elizabeth come outside, her hands falling away from her apron, letting it and the fabric of her skirts drop into the dust. Her fingers rose to her mouth as if she were using them to muffle a word, but Rodney heard nothing, not even a breath, until Uncle Evan came around from the barn and said, “John?” Rodney’s eyes snapped away from the approaching figure and turned toward his uncle, sharply. He’d hardly ever seen Evan speak even a syllable of surprise.

It had been a long time since any of them had seen Uncle John—not since before the end of the war—but Rodney didn’t see why that had everyone all shocked; who wouldn’t jump at the chance to go to places more exciting than Athos? Yet Kate was throwing down her mixing bowl, and Chuck was tossing away his firewood, both of them rushing out into the yard like it was the Ancestors who were arriving and not Uncle John. Even Teyla, who could scarcely be old enough to remember him, was bouncing up and down, vibrating with excitement. Rodney watched them all, awkward and out of place, unsure where to stand.

Uncle John rode into the yard and sat his horse. He wasn’t wearing a hat, but a shadow still fell over his eyes. There was a long silence that even Rodney couldn’t bring himself to break. Then Uncle John inclined his head, as if tipping the hat that wasn’t there, and spoke in the slow drawl that Rodney remembered better than his mother’s voice. “Hello, Evan...”

Uncle Evan didn’t say anything. Rodney wouldn’t have cared if he had, because even through the shadows he’d seen Uncle John’s eyes shift: he was staring down at Aunt Elizabeth, and she was staring up at him. There was something queer to that stare. Rodney wanted to look around and see if Kate had noticed it, but he couldn’t seem to break his eyes away from Uncle John’s face.

“Elizabeth,” John said.

“Hello, John,” she answered.

Uncle John swung slowly but gracefully out of the saddle. He was a lot smaller than Rodney had remembered him. He was tall, yes, but his shoulders and hips were slim. Also, Rodney had grown.

Uncle Evan stepped forward, wiping his hands on his pants. “How’s the Cloister?” he asked.

“How should I know?”

“Eldon said—”

Uncle John snorted. “I see you’re still getting your information from reliable sources.”

Rodney blinked, surprised. Nobody talked to Uncle Evan like that—Rodney knew from experience. And if they did, Evan certainly didn’t take it with nothing more than a slanting twist of lips.

Uncle Evan also usually helped guests to tend to their horses. Now, though, he just stood back and watched.

Chuck was stepping forward, his hands (and his hair) a little more polished thanks to the water trough. He smiled up at Uncle John, nervously. John watched him out of the corner of his eye. “You must be Chuck,” he said, and the little curve of an approving grin that Rodney saw his brother receive made his heart skip. No wonder Kate was walking further away from the cool shadow of the house, skin flushed from more than just the sun.

But Uncle John’s eye was caught by Teyla first. He frowned—not in anger, but in puzzlement. “Kate? You’re not much bigger than the last time I saw you.”

Teyla smiled, an expression that could almost match John’s when used to its full effect: countless were the times that smile had gotten Rodney to put aside his studies and go riding with her, or even play one of the complicated games she invented. “I’m Teyla,” she said. And pointing to her sister, “She’s Kate.”

“Uncle John,” Kate said, and blushed.

“Kate has a beau,” Teyla supplied helpfully, the very picture of eleven-year-old innocence.

“Mother!” said Kate.

“Girls.” Aunt Elizabeth finally pulled her gaze away from Uncle John. “Go inside and set the table. Charles, finish bringing that wood in. Rodney...”

Rodney knew what to do without being told, and appreciated the order remaining unsaid. He snatched Uncle John’s horse’s bridle and started to lead her away.

A hand closed roughly on his arm and jerked him around. “Hey!” Rodney exclaimed, pulling the limb back, offended. He wanted to say something else—complain about what such rough treatment was surely doing to his already taxed muscles, maybe—but the cold look of hatred in Uncle John’s eyes stopped him short. “John!” Aunt Elizabeth said quickly, stepping forward, even as Uncle Evan shook his head and turned away. “This is Rodney. Don’t you remember Rodney?”

Uncle John blinked and stepped back, but Rodney could still see the ghost of the initial reaction on John’s face, like the image of the sun stayed behind your eyes if you stared too long. Uncle John’s lips quirked up into something that was not quite a smile. “Mistook you for a half-breed,” he said, and beside him, Aunt Elizabeth laughed, as if it were a joke.

Rodney fought to keep his face blank. Sensing that it was a losing battle, he then fought to do one better: with mocking in his tone, wonder at Uncle John’s utter idiocy, “I’m a quarter Genii,” he admitted. “Rest is Athosian. Manarian, too. Which makes me Lantean,” he explained, as if to a small child, caught asking stupid questions. And Rodney almost wanted Uncle John to press it, to make Rodney explain it further, in detail. His version of their galaxy’s history, on which, if he had his way, their future would be built.

But Uncle John just shook his head and remarked, “You’ve done a lot of growing. Didn’t use to talk so much, either.”

Rodney hadn’t seen Uncle Evan turn back around, but suddenly he was using this comment (with which Rodney was sure Evan would usually agree) to step in between Uncle John and Aunt Elizabeth. “It was John who found you after your parents were taken,” Evan said, sliding the bridle out of Rodney’s hand. “Heard the crying and went back for you.”

Rodney had heard this story many times before. From the look of him, it had been told much too often for Uncle John’s liking. “My brother exaggerates,” John said, concentrating on unlacing his pack from his horse’s side. “It only happened to be me. I was just there.” He gave the horse’s flank a rough pat and turned abruptly toward the house. Aunt Elizabeth followed after him, her skirts floating gently above the ground.

Rodney glanced back at Uncle Evan. He wanted an explanation, but all he got was a slight nod of Evan's head. They were all so damn quiet; that was how Rodney knew, sometimes, that they weren’t really his people.

“Go wash up,” Uncle Evan said. He turned and led the horse away, into the setting sun.

Rodney jolted awake, the book he’d stayed up far too late reading (Chuck complaining endlessly about the flickering candlelight, then finally rolling over in disgust and settling into a low snore) clattering to the floor. He heard knocking and loud voices and the sound of someone pulling back the bar, then Uncle Evan and Aunt Elizabeth speaking, lower but still rapid, worried. Chuck slid out of his bunk and down to the floor. “What is it?” he asked from his crouch. “Should I get my gun?”

“Shh!” Rodney hissed. What was with everyone, always wanting to go off half-cocked? “Listen.”

The voices had lowered to a more civilized volume, but everyone had stopped talking at once, which made what was being said easier to distinguish. “Sorry to get you all out of bed so early,” said a gruff voice, and Rodney quieted Chuck’s enthusiastic whisper of “Captain Caldwell!” with an annoyed wave of his hand.

“That’s all right, Captain,” said Aunt Elizabeth. “Radek, Aiden, sit down. Eldon, you can have the rocking chair.” There was the sound of movement: coffee being fetched. “Captain, do you have time...?” Pouring. “What’s the matter?”

“I’ll let Radek here explain it,” Caldwell said. Chuck, in turn, had to stop Rodney from racing out into the parlor and revealing that they’d been eavesdropping. In Rodney's opinion, Radek Zelenka was one of the only men, on this planet or any neighboring, who was at all worth listening to.

“Mister Sheppard,” Radek said, “you were there when I found that device, buried out behind our house?” Rodney assumed Uncle Nick nodded—it had been him, after all, who had kept Rodney away from the site for days. Then Aunt Elizabeth had pulled her husband aside, and Rodney suddenly found himself allowed to assist Radek, Aiden in exchange taking over Rodney’s duties on the ranch. Kate was still grateful to him for that.

Radek continued: “Well, then you remember what I theorized at the time, that it was detection device. And even though your—even though Rodney and I were not able to make it work then, this morning I come out to check on the krávy and I find it has just...switched on.”

“That’s impossible!” Rodney declared. It was only after Chuck put his head in his hands that Rodney realized how loud he’d been.

“Rodney, get out here!” Uncle Evan called, and Rodney came, face flushed. Captain Caldwell was sitting at the table, chuckling despite the grave lines ingrained in his face. Radek was sitting across from him with Uncle Evan and Aunt Elizabeth hovering nervously at his side. Eldon was by the fire, lost in his own world, and Aiden had disappeared somewhere, which was good—one less person to witness his humiliation. Still, “It is impossible,” he said firmly. “Radek, we agreed—”

Radek shrugged, his hands clasped tightly around a cup of coffee; ignoring Uncle Evan's disapproving look, Rodney went and poured himself his own cup. “Something must have happened to recharge its power,” Radek said. “Perhaps that lightning strike last week—”

Rodney rolled his eyes. “Oh, please—” he started, but Uncle Evan said his name sharply. “Radek has years of experience with this kind of technology,” Evan cautioned. “You’re just a boy...”

Captain Caldwell glanced up. “How old is he, Evan?”

Uncle Evan paused with his mouth slightly agape. Rodney took advantage of the opening. “I’m twenty,” he said, firmly. After a moment, he added, “Sir.”

“Good,” said Caldwell, slapping his hands on the table and standing. “Then Rodney, Evan: raise your right hands—”

“Captain,” Uncle Evan said, the word underlined by a hint of a question, by an inkling of anger. Rodney wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard Aunt Elizabeth suck in a sharp breath.

“Evan,” said Caldwell, and it was like a battle to see who could say the most by saying the least of all. “Boy’s old enough, and if Radek’s right and the Wraith are on Athos, then we’re gonna need all the hands we can get.”

“I’ll come!” said Teyla, bounding out of the girls’ bedroom. “I’ll fight the Wraith!”

“Me, too!” said Chuck. He came out carrying the small saber Uncle John had given him the night before, as if to make up for the fact that his younger sister had volunteered first.

Caldwell was already shaking his head, but Aunt Elizabeth silenced him by stepping forward and taking first Teyla and then Chuck into her arms. “I need you both here,” she explained. “You’ll stay and protect me while your father and brother are away?”

Teyla nodded, her braids bouncing. “Yes, mamma,” Chuck said.

Aunt Elizabeth hugged them close. Rodney looked away.

Uncle Evan touched his shoulder, surprisingly gentle. “Raise your right hand, Rodney.”

Rodney lifted his fingers, concentrating on holding them steady. He didn’t look at Radek, staring at the table, or at the soft movements of Aunt Elizabeth’s skirts. He stared straight at Caldwell’s face as the Captain solemnly intoned, “You are hereby volunteer privates in Company A of the Athos Rangers and will faithfully discharge the duties of same without recompense or monetary compensation, but with the blessing and good will of the Ancestors. Nod your head, son.”

Rodney nodded.

From behind him came the sound of laughter. “Started sending boys to do men’s jobs, have you, Captain?”

Rodney’s back stiffened. How long had Uncle John been standing there? He looked to Aunt Elizabeth, but her face didn’t carry any answers. Just another queer look, one that made Uncle Evan's eyes narrow and Eldon rock his chair and chuckle.

“Very impressive,” Uncle John continued, his eyes on Caldwell. He poured himself a cup of coffee.

“Well, if it isn’t the prodigal brother,” said Caldwell, dryly. “When’d you get back?”

After a moment, Rodney realized that Uncle John wasn’t even going to bother answering. Instead he sipped his coffee and smiled a smile that almost made Eldon look sane.

Caldwell continued, seemingly unfazed. “Haven’t seen you since the surrender,” he said, casual, conversational. “Come to think of it, I didn’t see you at the surrender.”

“I don’t believe in surrenders,” Uncle John said. He finished off the coffee in one big gulp and set the cup aside, the metal ringing loudly against the wood.

“John,” said Aunt Elizabeth, stroking her hand through Teyla’s hair. “Radek thinks there might be Wraith...”

“I heard.” Uncle John swiveled his gaze to Uncle Nick.

“John, I’m counting on you to look after things while Rodney and I are away,” Uncle Evan said. Every trace of flippancy was gone from his voice. Rodney swallowed, his throat dry and bitter from the coffee.

“You’re not going,” Uncle John said, and for one wonderful moment, Rodney thought that John meant him, that he’d been given an out. But, “Stay with your wife,” Uncle John said. “I’ll go.”

“John...” Uncle Evan started. Rodney was surprised that it was so weak a protest.

“I’ll go, I said,” Uncle John repeated. He was not a man you argued with, Rodney realized. Rodney didn’t trust people who couldn’t be properly persuaded.

Caldwell didn’t look too pleased, either, but he lifted his hand. “All right, I’ll swear you in.”

“No.”

“Why?” demanded Caldwell, after they’d all waited for John to say more, and he hadn’t.

“I figure a man’s only good for one oath at a time.” Rodney couldn’t look away from the sharp shine of Uncle John’s eyes. “I took mine to a free Atlantis.

“So did you, Captain,” John added, after a moment. He shot Uncle Evan one last look before he strode from the house. “Stay close, brother...”

Only later would Rodney realize that he’d really been looking at Aunt Elizabeth.

After that, things moved remarkably quickly. They pulled Aiden away from Kate, Radek scolding his son even as Kate blushed and grinned and bustled back inside. Rodney was struggling with his horse, trying not to stare as everyone else (Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle John) said their goodbyes. He was sufficiently secure in his saddle when he saw Teyla come running up. “Rodney,” she said, “what was the rest of the story? How did it end?”

“I’ll read you the rest when I get back, promise,” he told her. He could feel Uncle John’s eyes on him, and because of that, he didn’t linger.

They rode off together, in the direction of the Ring.

They were only a couple klicks away when Caldwell spotted it. Scarring on the land, a slight tear in the line of trees. “Dart,” he said, and dug his heels in. Eldon and the Zelenkas and Uncle John—and Rodney, too—all followed after.

The trail went on for a long while, away from the homestead and from the Ring. They rode hard at first, but soon had to slow to rest the horses. Rodney fell to the back of the line. There was something...off about the whole thing. The scorch marks were real, and he couldn’t think of anything else besides a dart that could make marks like that. But the flying patterns...

“Uncle John!” he cried suddenly, urging his horse to draw even with the older man’s. Sheppard’s sharp look sapped some of his certainty, but still he persisted. “There’s something mighty fishy about this trail, Uncle John.”

“Stop calling me ‘uncle,’” Uncle John said. His eyes had turned back to the horizon, where if he squinted, Rodney could just make out the dark shape of Aiden atop his horse, scouting ahead. “I’m not your uncle.”

Rodney’s mouth twisted. “Yes, sir,” he said, with as much sarcasm as he dared.

Sheppard snorted. “Don’t have to call me ‘sir,’ neither. I ain’t above you or anybody. Though,” he gave Rodney a dismissive once-over, “I could still kick your ass.”

Rodney rolled his eyes: this was not news. “What should I call you, then?”

“Name’s John,” Sheppard said. “Now—what’s so fishy about this trail?”

“Well,” Rodney said, pleased to return to the topic at hand. But before he could get another word out, Aiden was shouting and waving his hat. He’d clearly found something, but Rodney thought this was blatantly stupid behavior if he had actually stumbled upon the Wraith. Still, Uncle—Sheppard and Caldwell and Eldon and even Radek all tore off after him. Rodney had no choice but to follow.

Up over the ridge, and then they saw it: a downed Wraith dart, tip burrowed into the earth, the rear smoking. Aiden was whooping and circling the dart with his horse, obviously pleased that at least one Wraith had met such a messy and ignoble end, but the wrongness Rodney had felt looking at the trail was returning hundred-fold, and from the uneasy awkwardness of Radek’s mount, Rodney could tell that he felt it, too. Even Sheppard seemed to see it: his shoulders had gone rigid and still, and his horse was as anxious as its rider.

“That’ll teach ‘em!” Aiden was saying, but Sheppard dropped down to his feet and pushed the younger Zelenka away with a hard slap to his horse’s flank. “Sheppard—” Caldwell cautioned, but Sheppard ignored him and with confident, competent hands, did something to make the canopy of the dart draw back.

Inside, hunched over, was a man. A dead man. A man.

“Well, I’ll be,” said Eldon. “The Wraith sure are funny looking! Haw haw, yessir! Funny!”

“Mister Sheppard,” Radek breathed, “it is a trap, no?”

“Yes.” Sheppard turned back to his horse.

“A trap?” Rodney hated how high-pitched his voice sounded. “For us?”

“No.” Sheppard wasn’t looking at him, at any of them. “It’s a Genii murder raid.”

“Zbav nás od zlého!” Radek said. “Laura!”

“Pa,” said Aiden. Hesitating, horror-stricken.

“Yes, go!” Radek said. “I will catch up!”

Aiden took off riding the way they had come. Radek turned to him. “Pros za nás, Rodney,” he said, then followed after.

“The Zelenka place is closest,” Caldwell was telling Sheppard. “If they’re not there, we’ll come straight on.” Sheppard’s only response was to nod.

“Wait,” Rodney said, over the thundering sound of the hoof beats. He’d put the pieces together already, long before, but he couldn’t, wouldn’t believe...

But even the most cursory hint of humor and mocking was gone from Sheppard’s face. Grimly, he started stripping the gear off his horse. He pulled the grain bag off her and worked it open with his hand.

Rodney’s brain whirled around, raced off in the opposite direction. “What are you doing? There’s no time! If we leave now, we can still reach them...”

Sheppard gave him a cold look. “It’s more than forty klicks,” he said, tonelessly. “Horses can’t run on nothing. They need some grain and a little rest.”

“A little rest?" Rodney knew he sounded hysterical, but he was, he was. “There isn’t time! If we don’t leave now they’ll be—” He saw Kate and Aiden embracing behind the house; saw Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Evan sitting by the fire, his big sturdy hand on her shoulder; saw Chuck leaning out of the top bunk to grin down at him; saw little Teyla, her braids bouncing on her back as she ran between the headstones. “I’m not waiting!”

He wheeled around without another word. He had never been an especially good horseman—he was, he knew, a perpetual disappointment to Uncle Nick—but he’d grown up out here, and he could ride quickly when the need arose. He rode quickly now. At any other time, he would have been terrified that he was going to break his neck, but as the distance fell all-too-slowly away, it was the last thing on his mind.

Rodney’s horse was named Allegra. Uncle Evan had given her to him, but in Rodney’s mind, grudgingly—with none of the pride he had shown on presenting Chuck with his mare. Rodney took good care of her because he understood the importance of treating one’s equipment well. He didn’t love her.

After about ten klicks, Allegra began to tire. Rodney patted her neck and urged her on. Twenty klicks and she had visibly slowed; spit was frothing at the corners of her mouth. “Come on, girl,” Rodney told her. “We’re almost there. Almost there. We can rest when we get there. We’re almost there.” Thirty klicks and she began to stumble and to sway; Rodney thought he saw smoke, thick and dark, rising from the horizon, but it was his imagination, it had to be. He was tired, too. So tired. He’d stayed up too late reading—why hadn’t he listened when Chuck had asked him to blow out the candle?

The world tilted under him, and at first Rodney thought that it was he who had fallen, tumbled from the saddle and into the dirt. But it was him and Allegra both, her body collapsing and him falling with it. He hit the ground hard, his head missing a rock by a matter of inches. He could see the other way it could have happened: his skull striking stone and splitting open, his brains spilling out into the dust and the mud. Instead he lay panting and winded in the dirt. Allegra was dead. Rodney pulled his leg out from under her body; by some chance, it wasn’t broken. He felt completely shattered.

He sat for a moment until his head cleared, and then he started walking.

It had gone on past midnight while he’d been riding; it was edging toward morning when he heard hoof beats. He looked back: Sheppard was bearing down on him, riding hard on his rested horse. Rodney summoned what little energy he had left and ran to meet him. “Uncle John! Uncle John! It’s Rodney, wait!”

Sheppard’s horse kicked up a cloud of dust. Rodney caught a short glimpse of his face as he barreled past. He didn’t stop; didn’t pause; didn’t acknowledge Rodney at all.

Rodney ran after him as long as he could. When the dust had cleared and he couldn’t run anymore, he saw that he’d been prophetic—or, as he always liked to claim, just plain right all along. The sky was dark with smoke. Rodney stumbled the rest of the way down into the small valley where Uncle Evan and Aunt Elizabeth’s (his) house was. The air was thick with it, the smoke. He couldn’t breathe.

Uncle John was sitting at the foot of the porch—of what had been the porch. His back was to what was left of the house. The roof had collapsed; the whole thing was black and charred and smoking. The smell...

“Teyla!” Rodney cried. “Aunt Elizabeth! Teyla!” He scrambled toward the steps.

Uncle John caught his arm and jerked him back. “You stay out!”

Rodney struggled, but as easily as his arm had come away the last time Uncle John had held it, it was not budging now. “Let go of me!” he shouted. “Teyla—”

“Nothing for you to see,” Uncle John said firmly.

“Let go!” Rodney demanded, and then he was flat on his back, the side of his face stinging. Sheppard was standing over him, his right fist held in the left.

“I said don’t go in there,” Sheppard said. He turned and walked away, and Rodney heard nothing, saw nothing, but the crunch of his boots on the ground.

The funeral was the next day. There was no time to waste. Three bodies in the ground, not five, and Rodney tried desperately to cling to that as a positive, to cling to hope. Or else be like Sheppard: block out all the images of Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Evan and Chuck (only fourteen, and Rodney didn’t know how he was supposed to look to the Ancestors for meaning in this); to block it all out and concentrate instead on Teyla and Kate. If he rode hard enough, thought long enough, he might see them again, still.

They left the funeral and took straight to the saddle, Sheppard and Aiden and Eldon and Caldwell, and a few others that the Captain had rustled up. Radek stayed behind: he was acknowledged a poor rider, and he was disinclined to leave his only daughter alone after what had happened, despite Laura’s skill with a rifle. Likewise, intimidatingly fierce though she was in normal times, Laura seemed reluctant to see any of them go. She grabbed for Rodney’s hand as he pulled himself up onto his borrowed mount. He couldn’t look at her, but he felt the cool press of her fingers, the squeeze.

Then they rode, and they rode, and they rode, and Rodney felt his fingers go numb and his mind go number.

On the afternoon of the second day, on the planet Hoff, they found a hastily dug grave. The disturbed dirt had been weighed down, somewhat sloppily, with stones. Sheppard whistled when he saw it. “Good on Evan,” he said, mouth a twisted grin. He looked at Caldwell. “I believe that’s seven we can score for my brother?”

Aiden scrambled down off his horse and began tossing the rocks aside. Rodney felt his mouth stutter into motion. “What are you doing?” On some intrinsic level, he was disturbed by the casual desecration of a grave.

“He’s making sure,” Caldwell said: and indeed, there was a Genii corpse laid out. Rodney recognized the distinctive lines of paint on the dead man’s arms, the odd combination of savage clothing and sophisticated weaponry. The remnants, Rodney thought, of a once great society destroyed by the Wraith. As the war with the Terrans had almost destroyed the Lanteans—as the Wraith could destroy them still.

Rodney did not present this theory to Uncle John.

He wouldn’t have had the opportunity, because one of the other riders was already presenting his. “I don’t like this,” Kavanagh said, doffing his hat and wiping his sweaty brow. “Genii on a raid usually hide their dead so we can’t know how many they’ve lost. If they don’t care about us knowing, then it stands to reason that they don’t care about us following—or catching them, either!”

Caldwell took a swig from his canteen. “You can back out any time, Kavanagh.”

“Now, I didn’t say that—” Kavanagh started, but his protest was drowned out by an echoing shot, and then another.

Sheppard was already packing away his pistol by the time Rodney’s eyes caught up with him. But everyone could see what he had done.

“Are you n—” With effort, Rodney bit back the word. “What good does that do?”

“None, by what you believe,” Sheppard said. He gave a casual shrug and remounted his horse. “But the Genii have legends—without their eyes they can’t see the Ancestors to guide them, they have to wander forever through the spirit lands.” Sheppard’s horse stirred into motion. “Maybe if she’d lived, your grandmother would have told you something about that.”

That night in front of the fire, Aiden hunkered down next to Rodney, who was rubbing and warming his sore hands. Rodney looked up, surprised. They were about the same age—Aiden was only a few years older—and they’d grown up together, known each other almost all their lives. But they’d never been friends.

Now Aiden turned to him and whispered, “She’s alive, isn’t she? She’s gotta be alive. If she’s alive I’ll make it up to her, I’ll make her happy, make her forget. But she’s just gotta be alive...”

Rodney didn’t know what to say. He thought of Kate, who was friendly and open and understanding—and too trusting. He thought about Teyla.

He opened his mouth to say something, some meaningless reassurance that he knew would sound false, but then a bedroll connected none-too-gently with the back of his head and he literally bit his tongue.

“Get some rest,” Sheppard said.

He turned and stalked off. Rodney watched him over his shoulder. He thought maybe Sheppard was looking at something, maybe a miniature. Or maybe he was just staring into space.

Rodney looked up at the stars. He used to try to map them, match up what he saw from the ground on Athos to the other few worlds he knew. This sky looked completely different. He wondered what sky he’d be staring out at tomorrow.

They were following them from world to world, Ring to Ring. Radek had long since shown Aiden how to uncover the last sequence dialed, and Sheppard knew the basic method, too. But Rodney was better and faster than both of them, and his skill with the Ancestors’ gifts was one of the only things that kept him from feeling completely useless.

On Doranda, Rodney had just finished making sure that the Genii hadn’t dialed immediately out again when Caldwell pulled them in to talk strategy. Sheppard stood on the edge of the circle, turned almost fully away, washing the dust out of his mouth. Rodney pulled his eyes from the undulations of Sheppard’s throat and instead concentrated on Caldwell.

“I’m sick of being led around in circles,” Caldwell was saying. “But they made a mistake coming here, and I say we take advantage of it. Rather than following after them and not catching up and just being led ‘round back to the Ring, still behind ‘em, I say we take cover behind those rocks there and lay in wait for them. They have to come back sooner or later, and if I’m not mistaken this planet gets real cold come nightfall, so it’s gonna be sooner.”

“Damn right it is.” Sheppard was laughing to himself.

Caldwell turned and glared at him. “You got a problem with my plan, Sheppard?”

Sheppard scratched absently at the side of his head. He was the only one not wearing a hat—and the only one whose hair wasn’t matted down by grime and sweat. “How many Genii do you think were in that raiding party?”

Caldwell stared him down. “You’re saying we’re outnumbered? We’re outnumbered riding after them, too. I don’t see how setting up to take them down on our own terms changes that.”

Rodney found he was nodding. He was scared to face the Genii—terrified, even—but he wanted to; he wanted the confrontation, wanted to look the people who had murdered his family in the eye and— He wanted Teyla and Kate back.

Caldwell’s plan seemed smarter, and more expedient. “That makes sense to me,” Rodney said suddenly, loudly. “Logically—”

Sheppard scoffed. “Is the quarter-breed gonna lecture me about Genii logic?”

It was a dismissal. Sheppard’s next words were directed at Caldwell, not at Rodney. “You don’t know anything about it. Genii have this down to an art. It’s the only thing they still do well, and if we lay a trap for them, I guarantee they’re gonna spring one on us. They know we’re following, and if they get wind of the fact we’ve stopped, they’re gonna send back enough men to put us in the ground while the girls stay tucked away on the far side of this ugly rock. No, the only thing to do is keep following and wait for them to slip up.” Sheppard’s gaze was even. “I can wait a long, long time.”

When Rodney got set in an idea, he didn’t like to change his mind, was unlikely to have it changed. But already he could feel the days of rough riding and hard living having an effect: he could suddenly see the thing from a world of different angles. Furthermore, he was learning that logic didn’t mean much out here, barely anything in the face of experience. He felt his direction sway...or maybe that was just weariness.

Caldwell was much sturdier. “How long, Sheppard?” he asked. “Weeks? Months? Years? Until their captors have set their hooks in and—”

“Fine,” Sheppard ground out—loud enough that some of the horses stamped, whinnying and stepping back. “I take it you’re giving me an order, then?”

Caldwell’s nod was firm and decisive. “Go set up behind those rocks over there.” And when Sheppard still didn’t move, save the tightening of his hand around his horse’s reins, Caldwell growled, “And that is an order, Sheppard!”

“Yes, sir.” Silky smile, with jagged teeth underneath. “But if you’re wrong, Captain Caldwell, don’t ever give me another!”

True to its definition, the ambush was sudden and took them completely by surprise. Rodney was crouched next to Eldon, doing his best to hold still and keep his gun in position and his eyes focused. He was also doing all he could to keep Eldon quiet, which mostly consisted of hissing, “Shh!” and “Hush it!” and “Would you shut up?” Then there was—nothing, no sound, no warning, but suddenly Sheppard was pushing his head down and the rock in front of him was splintering, catching him across the forehead. Sheppard had spun around and was firing his gun. Rodney realized that he’d dropped his. He scrambled for it in the dirt.

Caldwell had turned and was firing, too. “How the hell did they get behind us?”

Rodney was wondering the same thing. He knew Markham had been on lookout at their six...and he knew, catching sight of the heat in Sheppard’s eyes, that Markham had seen and heard absolutely nothing, right up until the moment when he’d stopped hearing and seeing for good.

Rodney’s hand closed on his gun, but his palms were sweaty and his eyes were stinging with blood and dust. They were outnumbered and worse, they were now pressed up against the rock they’d been planning to use as a shield. There was a pained cry and Rodney saw a blurry shape slump backward against the stone; he thought it might be Kavanagh. He wondered if it would be better or worse for Kate and Teyla if they all died.

He could see Sheppard, standing up straight and firing away like he knew he could hit every target, like he didn’t think he stood a chance of getting hit himself, or just plain didn’t care. Sheppard certainly wasn’t looking at him, wasn’t paying him any attention at all, but Rodney could feel his judgment anyway: waves of it. Sheppard was not impressed. Even Eldon was aiming and shooting with impressive skill; Rodney wiped the blood and his hair out of his eyes and sighted as best he could down the barrel of the gun.

His shot went wide—pathetically so—but he had the excuse of hearing Caldwell shout “Rodney!” at the last second, startling him. “Get to the Ring! Dial out! Dial home!”

To his surprise, Rodney almost answered, “No!” But there was blood in his eyes and Kavanagh was moaning and holding his gushing thigh. And they weren’t doing his sisters any good like this.

He scrambled up over the rock, sure that at any moment he was going to take a bullet to the head. (Or—worse, more humiliating—the ass.) But he suffered no further injury besides scrapes to his hands as they fumbled. The Ring activated, blasting blue, and then Aiden was shoving the injured Kavanagh into his arms and yelling at him to go through. Aiden and Caldwell and Eldon were right behind him.

Sheppard was last. When he tumbled out on the other side, he was still firing.

Markham was dead. Caldwell had taken a bullet to the shoulder, and it wasn’t certain yet whether Kavanagh was going to keep the leg. Worse, they had lost their best and maybe only chance of finding Kate and Teyla.

“I’m going to keep looking,” Sheppard said.

“I have to find Kate,” Aiden insisted.

Rodney got on his horse—his third in almost as few days. He’d given up on putting answers to this, or explanations. But he hadn’t given up.

Caldwell waved to them from his bed—an almost salute. All he said was, “Good luck.”

It did seem that luck was with them, for once: back on Doranda, eerily quiet now after the noise of the fight, with only scuff marks in the dirt to show that a struggle had even taken place, Rodney dialed the last outgoing address. They stepped back through the swirling blue passage to discover a trail leading away from the ring on the other side, perfectly preserved. Rodney was instantly suspicious. But Aiden looked pleased and John looked determined, so they set off. The suns were a pair of hot white circles in the sky. The mesas were blood red.

The trail led them close to one of the cliffs, then along its side, in its shadow. Rodney looked up nervously, convinced that Genii were waiting for them, ready to leap down onto their backs and slit their throats. But nothing swooped down from above; there weren’t even any birds.

They rode on into the afternoon. Rodney’s brain had slipped into its most comfortable holding pattern—running calculations, declining Ancient—when suddenly Sheppard stopped, slid off his horse. Squatting above the dusty ground, “The trail splits here,” he said. He pointed to a passageway, a jagged, narrow cut in the rock face. “A group of ‘em broke off, rode through the passage. The rest continued around. You follow the main bunch,” he told Rodney and Aiden, without really looking at them at all. “I’ll meet you on the other side.”

“You want us to split up?” Rodney was incredulous. “What, do you want to make it easier for them to pick us off?”

Sheppard looked at him for several long seconds, rocking back and forth on his heels. His long grey duster trailed along the ground.

“Thought we got free of the whining when we got rid of Kavanagh,” he said finally. He stared Rodney in the face. “I don’t need you here.”

Rodney wanted to throttle him. He didn’t even care that he’d lose. But Aiden put a restraining hand on his arm, and with an impressive amount of single-mindedness said, “The sooner we stop arguing, the sooner we can find Kate.”

Sheppard didn’t respond, but then, he wasn’t really listening to them anyway—he’d made it very clear that he didn’t care what they did. He got back on his horse and stood watching, waiting, at the entrance to the canyon. It was almost like he was guarding it. He stood there until grumbling, Rodney got on his horse, and he and Aiden rode away.

It didn’t make any sense. Sheppard had made them take the longer route, but he wasn’t there when they rounded the far side of the butte. Rodney and Aiden exchanged nervous glances. “You think he ran into trouble?” Aiden asked.

“I don’t know,” Rodney said, thinking, Bastard’s probably gotten himself killed and left us here to die! “I don’t like it.” It took him a moment to work up the courage, but when he did say, “We should go in after him,” he managed it with only the slightest shake.

Aiden, however, shook his head. “Sheppard said to wait for him here.”

Rodney shifted uncomfortably in his saddle. “So? When did we ever agree to just blindly follow his orders?”

Aiden’s mouth was flat and firm. Following Sheppard blindly had obviously been his strategy from the beginning.

Letting out a frustrated huff, Rodney swung himself down to the ground. He might not like the situation, but he wasn’t going into the canyon alone, that was for sure. So instead he unstrapped the bag of grain and set about feeding his horse. It was good for her to have the rest; that was a mistake that was never going to be repeated.

His gear had been checked twice over when he saw Aiden’s head turn, and a moment later, Sheppard come riding out of the canyon. He halted, abrupt and awkward, a few feet away from them, and with a surprising lack of grace tumbled to the ground. His knees sank into the sandy soil, and his hands, raking through. Rodney opened his mouth, worried and surprised, but Sheppard looked unhurt. His brow, however, was damp with sweat, and his shoulders were vibrating, so slightly that Rodney felt it more than saw.

“What happened?” Aiden asked. “Why’d they break off?”

Sheppard didn’t say anything. Rodney could tell that this was a silence different to Sheppard’s usual snubs—he wasn’t making a point, or keeping quiet to make those around him look the fool. He was just...quiet.

“Was there water in that canyon?” Aiden asked. He sounded hopeful—but at the hope of Sheppard snapping out of it or the prospect of a cool drink, Rodney couldn’t tell.

“Uncle John,” Rodney said, the old title now uncomfortable and awkward in his mouth. “Are you all right?”

“Huh?” Sheppard said, looking distant and utterly lost. Then suddenly his gaze sharpened, his eyes focused. “Sure I’m all right,” he said. Almost easy again.

But Rodney’s racing mind had already arrived at its destination. “Your coat’s gone,” he said. It felt like a revelation. But he couldn’t take it any farther, couldn’t decipher what it meant.

“Must have left it behind,” Sheppard muttered. He got to his feet, then swung back onto his horse, his movements fluid again. “I’m not going back for it.” He dug in his heels. “C’mon.”

Rodney didn’t want to let it lie, but Aiden was already trotting off after Sheppard, eager and determined, as if nothing had happened. Casting one glance back at the dark mouth of the canyon, Rodney followed.

Rodney had an old Athosian lighter that he had fixed; he had the design pretty well figured out, and he’d been building another out of some material that Radek had given him, planning to give this one to Teyla once he was finished. It seemed like a lifetime ago, but counting back the days, Rodney realized that it was just over a week. He’d dreamt about getting away from the ranch, Rodney thought bitterly, watching the campfire flare up; well, he’d certainly gotten that wish.

He turned his head and watched as Sheppard’s long-fingered hands moved over the ropes, confident even in the dim light, securing the horses. Night had come on quickly. Rodney stared for a moment at the inky black sky, then jerked upward when he heard the rapid approach of hooves.

It was just Aiden, coming back from patrol, but it was Aiden riding roughly, sloppily. He tumbled off his mount on wobbly legs, and started speaking far too loudly and with a speediness that would rival Rodney at his best. “I saw her! I saw Kate!”

Rodney’s mouth opened in surprise, his heart making a hopeful leap in his chest. Beside him he felt Sheppard shift, slow and unexcited.

“They’re camped about two miles over, down in the valley.” Aiden took a gasping swig of water. “I saw their smoke, so I went in low and peeked over, and there they were, right below me!”

“Did you see Teyla?” Rodney asked, his fingers clenched tight around the lighter’s frame.

“No,” Aiden said, apologetic for the space of a syllable before getting excited again. “But I saw Kate all right! She was wearing that white dress...”

“What you saw wasn’t Kate,” Sheppard said.

Aiden reeled on him, eyes wide and dark and frightening. “It was, I tell you!”

Sheppard stared him down. When he spoke, his voice was expressionless, flat.

“What you saw was a Genii armsman wearing Kate’s dress.”

Sheppard took a breath, but that was it, that was all. “I found Kate back in the canyon,” he said. “I wrapped her in my coat and I buried her with my own hands. I didn’t tell you because...”

He trailed off then, unable to voice or maybe even think of a reason. But neither Rodney nor Aiden was protesting. Rodney felt like he wasn’t going to manage saying anything for a long while.

In fact, Aiden spoke first. His face turned away so that Rodney couldn’t see him, “Was she...?” he asked. “Did they...?”

Sheppard burst into motion so fast that Rodney almost didn’t catch the movement. His hands were clenched into fists, one slightly raised; for a second Rodney thought that he was going to hit somebody.

“What do you want me to do, draw you a picture? Don’t ever ask me!” He sank back onto his heels, shaking. Within the space of a few more heaves of his chest, the emotion had gone out of his face.

Aiden stared at him. Then he turned and his gaze encompassed Rodney, too. The light of the fire cast half his face in brightness and threw the other half into shadow. Rodney took an involuntary step back.

There was a pause in which they all stood, not quite looking at each other; finally, Rodney hazarded a shaky, painful breath. Teyla, he was going to say, there’s still...

When Aiden broke for the horses, he was moving faster than Sheppard had. He swung up onto his mount and spurred her away before Rodney could get out more than a startled, “Aiden!”

Sheppard was moving swiftly, undoing his careful knot work, but even as they urged their horses into a gallop Rodney knew that it wasn’t going to be enough. They saw Aiden pause briefly, a dark shadow against the light from the Genii fire; then he charged into the camp, yelling.

The shots were loud, but the silence that followed was even louder.

When Rodney woke in the morning, it was only the two of them. And in the weeks and months that followed, it was only the two of them, and the increasingly faint trail, and the tiny flicker of hope that Rodney kept and held and sheltered from the cruel wind and Sheppard’s colder stare. Sometimes, there was something in his eyes that made Rodney wonder if they were even searching for the same thing.

But whatever they were looking for, they both lost it together, coming through the Ring onto a planet busy with traders. Whatever address the Genii had dialed had been lost many times over in the shuffle. Rodney looked down at the Ancient symbols, frustrated and furious, and the people who pushed past on their way to the market took one look at his expression and laughed.

Sheppard wasn’t laughing. He stood off to the side, waiting for Rodney to join him. Rodney hesitated, but eventually he walked over, his head held high.

“We’re not giving up,” he said, pleased that it was almost entirely not a question.

“No,” Sheppard said. And he touched Rodney’s shoulder briefly as Rodney punched in the sequence to take them home.

Chapter Text

The second he hopped off his horse, Laura was throwing her arms around him and kissing him full on the mouth.

Rodney made a squeaking sound and stumbled back. From the porch, Radek was mumbling to himself, his gaze averted, but what little of Rodney’s attention wasn’t taken up by the task of repositioning Laura’s arms—either pushing her away or pulling her tighter, he wasn’t yet sure—was focused on Sheppard. He was making a noise Rodney had never heard him make before: full-out, belly-laughter.

“Well, looks like she sure missed you!” Sheppard said. “Do you even remember her name, McKay?”

“Sure I do!” Rodney said, offended but appreciating the opportunity to take a breath. “It’s Laura!”

He beamed at her, but suddenly she was glowering and shoving him away. She was powerfully strong for someone so tiny.

“Sure you can remember it, but did you ever bother writing it down? Were there no couriers on any of the worlds you went to?”

Sheppard had stopped laughing. “Radek,” he said, with effort forcing himself to meet the other man’s gaze. “You did get my letter.”

Radek nodded. “Yes. I do not blame you, Mister Sheppard.” He inclined his head in Rodney’s direction as well, and Rodney let out the breath he hadn’t been aware he’d been holding. “Come inside. I would like to hear it from you, if you wish to tell it.”

Sheppard followed him through the door, his head bent.

At the sound of the door closing, Laura turned to him. She gave him an openly appraising look and Rodney flushed, wishing he could draw closer the fabric of his coat.

“You’re filthy,” she said. Then she took his hand. “Come on, let me draw you a bath.”

The grime washed off in the warm water. Rodney stared down at his pink skin like it was something that belonged to a stranger. He felt possessed, but he was no longer sure which body was the real one and which the fake: the skin of dirt he’d shed, or the figure turning prunish beneath the water. When Laura barged in to collect his dirty clothes, in complete disregard for his privacy, he was almost glad.

He slept in a real bed that night—Aiden’s old one, but Rodney tried not to think about that, or the fact that Laura had none-too-subtly suggested he instead share hers. He slept without dreaming. When he woke, it was long past sunrise, and he could smell coffee, warm and inviting, from the kitchen.

Someone, most likely Laura, had set some of Aiden’s old clothes at the foot of his bed. Rodney hesitated for a moment and then got into them. He was surprised to find that not only were they big enough around the waist, they were a bit too tight across the shoulders.

He went out into the front room. Radek was sitting by the fire, a book propped open on his knee, and Laura was bustling around near the big wood table, shoveling bacon out onto a plate. She looked up at him and smiled. “Breakfast,” she said, and winked.

He slid eagerly into place and snatched at his fork. “Where’s Sheppard?” he asked, spearing a piece of bacon and raising it to his mouth.

Laura’s smile drooped. She bent forward and hastily filled his coffee cup to the brim. “He rode on an hour ago.”

Rodney’s fork clattered down. “What?”

By the fire, Radek closed his book. He looked up, gaze steady. So it was true.

Rodney leapt on his feet. “And you just let him go?” Without me, he didn’t add.

“I don’t know what you can do about finding Teyla that he can’t,” Laura said. There was sympathy to her tone, and also an odd desperation. “He’ll find her, Rodney. Believe me, I know.”

Rodney pushed away from the table. “You don’t know anything!” he said. “You haven’t been out there. You haven’t seen him...”

“And do you think that’s easy for me?” Laura demanded, surprising him. “Always having to stay behind...I want to help as much as you do! But.” She took a breath, fisted hands slowly uncurling. “But my place is here. And maybe yours is, too.”

Rodney lifted his chin. “My place is with Sheppard,” he said.

Laura put down the coffee pot with a clang. She turned her back on him.

“Rodney,” Radek said, stepping forward, “I know you don’t have—”

“Have what?” Rodney snapped. “Money or kin? A home? Well, I don’t need much money and I’ve done fine without a roof over my head, better than anybody thought. And I do have kin—Teyla is my sister, by birth or no, and I’m going to find her. I’m going to find her and take her to Atlantis, and forget this whole sorry system of planets ever existed!”

He plucked his hat from the wall and started toward the door. “Rodney!” Radek called. The voice still carried some authority for him; he paused.

“You are always welcome here,” Radek said.

Rodney fumbled with his hat. He nodded.

Rodney had brought his horse out from the barn and was checking over his gear when Laura came running out of the house, skirts held in a bunch and something white clasped in her hand. She was waving it above her head like a flag.

“Rodney! Rodney, wait!”

“I’m not changing my mind!” he shouted back, but she just shook her head and thrust the piece of paper at him. “I stole this for you.”

Rodney gave her a suspicious look, but he unfolded the sheet. A small scrap of lavender calico fell into his hand. Rodney shivered, but he pushed the feeling aside, concentrating instead on the messily written words.

I bought a small size child’s dress off a Manarian. If this is a piece of your child’s dress please bring reward. I know where they gone. -- M. Cowen

Rodney’s gaze flashed up, his hand closing tight around the calico scrap. “Cowen!” he said. “He’s got a little trading post on Dagan! If that’s where Sheppard’s gone, I can catch him, I can—”

He stared at Laura, who looked like she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to be smiling or frowning. The wind was blowing her hair and she moved a hand, gently brushing it away from her face.

“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for—” And staring at the uncertain curve of her mouth, he suddenly bent forward and kissed her.

Her hands wrapped around his shoulders and the back of his neck. She tasted warm and sweet and safe and he clung to her—for one second, two—before he had to drop his hands and let her go.

“Thank you,” he said again, hastily swinging up onto his horse. “Laura—”

He rode away before he could figure out what he’d been going to say, if he’d had it in his head to say anything at all.

Sheppard was waiting from him when he came through the Ring onto Dagan. “You just won’t quit, will you?” He held out his hand.

Rodney tried not to delude himself into thinking that there was something like respect in Sheppard’s voice. He slapped the letter into Sheppard’s palm.

“I haven’t and I won’t,” he said. Then a new wave of anger rushed at him. “We’re in this together, Sheppard! Don’t you dare leave me again! How do you think you’d like it, getting left?”

“Not much,” Sheppard said, almost idly. “Now, if you wanna stand here and talk about our feelings...”

“Didn’t know you had any,” Rodney grumbled.

They rode off together, toward town.

Rodney knew Cowen a little. Both Uncle Evan and Aunt Elizabeth had had some dealings with him; Elizabeth had never liked him much, but Rodney remembered Evan saying that he always gave a fair price for goods bought or sold. He didn’t seem to recognize Rodney when they stepped inside his establishment, but he smiled at them both and brought out a bottle.

“You’re here about the dress,” he said casually, pouring.

Sheppard put his hands over the top of one of the glasses—the one nearest to Rodney. “Hey!” Rodney said, but Cowen just chuckled and pushed one of the other two glasses over to Sheppard.

Sheppard closed his hand around it, but didn’t drink. “How’d you come by it?”

Cowen eyed him, slipping the bottle back down under the bar. “You said there’d be a reward.”

Sheppard nodded.

“You got it with you?”

Sheppard’s smile said that maybe he had it right in his pocket—that much and twenty times over. “You’ll get your reward when we find her—and if she’s still alive.”

Cowen’s expression didn’t change. “A man’s got a right to expect something,” he said, reasonably. “I paid out for that dress, and to get that letter to you.”

Sheppard made a contemplative sound. His hand dipped into his pocket, then re-emerged, heavier. He dropped a few coins onto the bar. “Show us the dress,” he said.

Cowen hesitated. “A man’s time is also worth something...”

The movement was so subtle that Rodney didn’t even realize that Sheppard had made it until he saw Cowen suck in a breath. Then he looked down: Sheppard’s hand was on top of Cowen’s on the bar, squeezing so tight that his knuckles were turning white and Cowen’s fingers were trembling.

All Sheppard said was, “Talk.”

“Smeadon of the Manarians fetched it in late last summer,” Cowen ground out. Sheppard eased up on his grip a bit. “Said it belonged to a captive child of Chief Scar...”

The name sent an involuntary shiver through Rodney, but Sheppard remained unimpressed. “Scar? Never heard of him.”

“Me neither,” Cowen said. Sheppard had freed his hand, and he moved it delicately, reaching under the bar and pulling out a pale lavender dress. He passed it to Sheppard. “The Manarian claimed he was a big Genii war chief...”

Sheppard barely even looked down, just shoved the ball of fabric in Rodney’s direction, his eyes level on Cowen the entire time. “Where’s he headed?”

“Scar’s band went through the Ring to Belsa. They were planning on laying low there for a while, stealing Terran cattle.” Cowen shrugged. “That’s what the Manarian said, anyway. Maybe he lied.”

Sheppard’s grin was friendly. “And maybe you’re lying.”

He didn’t turn to look at Rodney, but his tone shifted just enough that Rodney could tell he was the one being addressed. “That her dress?”

Rodney looked down at the bundle of fabric in his hands. He could remember the feel of it under his fingers, Teyla sitting in front of him on the saddle while he tended the cattle and occupied his mind by telling her stories. She’d been getting to be a better rider than he was. He resisted the urge to lift the dress to his nose, see if it still smelled like her.

“Yes.”

Sheppard nodded and started for the door.

Cowen called after them. “It’s getting dark,” he said. “You’re welcome to stay the night...”

Rodney’s memory shifted to another scene. Uncle Evan by the door, getting ready for a trip to Dagan. “Be careful, Evan,” Aunt Elizabeth said, forehead creasing. “There’s just something about him... You know how I have instincts about people...”

“Sheppard...” Rodney said nervously.

“We’re going,” Sheppard told the room at large.

They left.

It was getting dark, and they’d only made it about halfway back to the Ring before they made the decision to camp for the night. Sheppard led the horses down into a small dip and tied them to a tree. They were bounded on either side by higher rises, which shielded them nicely from the wind. Rodney knelt down and started building up a fire.

He got a nice blaze going and spread out his blanket roll. They had some foodbars the Zelenkas had given them, and Rodney ate one quickly, catching every crumb. He used to complain about it mightily, but boy did he ever miss Kate’s cook—

Rodney’s stomach turned, and he quickly wrapped up the small piece of leftover bar. He’d eat it come morning.

He settled down onto his side. Sheppard was still standing, stroking the neck of his horse, Memento. She looked restless: shaking her head and stamping her feet. Rodney saw Sheppard’s lips move, whispering something that looked like easy, easy...

Rodney rolled up onto his elbows. “She’s acting like there’s something out there.”

Sheppard shook his head. He went over to the fire and kicked at one of the logs that had slid a little way out. “Smells a change in the weather.”

He turned, eyeing Rodney over his shoulder. “Why don’t you bed down a little closer to the fire? I worry about you, nights like this. You weren’t raised to it.”

Rodney flushed. He wasn’t sure to be flattered by Sheppard’s concern, or insulted by the slight to his...upbringing. “I do all right,” he said, scooting a bit closer anyway.

“Sure.” Sheppard lifted up one of the saddles and plopped it down at the head of his blanket roll. Sometimes he used it as a pillow. Rodney had tried the same thing, but it made his neck ache something awful. His back was probably ruined for life.

Rodney settled down, but Sheppard was still moving around, adding more wood to the fire. He dropped a big log on and it flared up, enough to make Rodney fear for his eyebrows. “Hey!” he said. “What do you think you’re doing? I handle the camp fires, and now I see it’s for a reason!”

“Sorry.” Sheppard turned around so that his back was to the flames. He rubbed along his shoulders and the small of his back; Rodney tried not to stare when his hands dipped lower.

“I’m getting older. My bones are cold.”

Rodney swallowed. “You’re not so old as that...”

Sheppard snorted. “I have twenty years on you,” he said. “Was your age when I found you. Since then I’ve lived a whole other lifetime...”

Rodney tugged his blanket tighter around his front, then rolled so that his back was to the fire, just like Sheppard had showed him. Sleepily, “Tell me about it?”

This earned him a chuckle instead of a snort. “Some other time.”

Rodney drifted slowly off to sleep.

He woke suddenly to the sound of gunshots—very near. “Sheppard!” he said, leaping both for cover and for his rifle. But Sheppard wasn’t there. His bedroll had toppled over, spilling gear onto the ground. His saddle had a big, rough tear in it—a bullet hole.

Rodney put what little evidence he had together very fast. “That—” jerk he was going to say, asshole—but then there were more shots, two in quick succession, and a figure tumbled down into the clearing. It was Cowen.

Sheppard scrambled down the opposite rise, casually holding his rifle. He gave the corpse a bored glance, but turned and smiled at Rodney. “Thanks,” he said. “You did fine.”

“Fine?” Rodney sputtered. “You—you used me as bait!”

“Like I said, you did just fine.” Sheppard knelt by the body and began going through its pockets.

Rodney was so angry he could hardly see straight. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

“Getting my coin back.” Sheppard pulled out a small pouch, shook it. “We did all right.”

“We?” Rodney’s hands flew through the air, gesturing. “You made your nice little decoy for yourself, but me you just left staked out like... You said you worried about me, but you were just fixing it so he would get confident thinking he had a nice easy shot... He could have blown my brains out!”

Sheppard shrugged. “Figured you had plenty to spare. Besides,” he hefted his gun, “I was ready.”

“Yeah?” Rodney pushed in as close as he dared, got in Sheppard’s face. “And what if you’d missed?”

A blink. Sheppard looked honestly surprised at the thought. “Never occurred to me...”

“Ohh!” Rodney scowled. He grabbed at Sheppard’s shoulders, wishing he were bigger and stronger, wanting to shake him. “I ought to...”

“What?” said Sheppard, sounding as dismissive as if he were swatting away a fly. He stood perfectly still. “You ought to what?”

Rodney said nothing, staring up at him, chest heaving. Sheppard stared back, gaze perfectly steady. Only...only... There was something in Sheppard’s eyes, a slight widening of his pupils, maybe a drop or two of sweat, moist on his upper lip. Something had changed. Something had happened to make him afraid.

Then Sheppard was shaking him off, jerking away. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s what I thought.”

They had no other information save Cowen’s, so they decided to hope there was a grain of truth in it and deal with what else came at them when it came. Rodney had adopted the same philosophy in his dealings with Sheppard: he was a long way away from a grand, unifying theory of Uncle John, but he could collect evidence, bit by bit, and store it all away in the ample brains even Sheppard himself had admitted he possessed. It was the same old story: Rodney lacked the tools he would need to make his task an easy one (Sheppard on the surface being as flat and empty as the land on Athos) but he could study, and he could learn.

On Belsa, they stopped at another outpost and used some of Sheppard’s coin (Rodney realized that he had no idea how deep Sheppard’s pockets really went, another question he filed away) to buy goods for trade. Then they sought out the bands of nomads, the people whose homes had been destroyed by the Wraith (and some, lately, unseated by the war), who wandered and scraped what kind of living they could. They would enter a camp and while Rodney spread out the blankets full of trinkets they had gathered, Sheppard would wander around, watching and listening, seeking out the right sort of person, the type he thought might be inclined to talk. The third time they did this, Rodney had almost finished talking down the price of something akin to coffee beans (doing the best he could, in spite of the language barrier) when Sheppard stepped out of a tent and took him by the arm.

“Let’s go,” he said. “I think I stumbled onto something.”

Rodney stared back at him, surprised. “About Scar?”

At the name, a low murmur started up among the men he’d been trading with. The daughter of one of them—a slight, strawberry-blonde girl in her late teens whose pale skin was marred by a dark purple bruise across her left cheek—shot him a warning look.

Sheppard’s grip tightened on Rodney’s arm. “When are you going to learn to keep your mouth shut? Come on, we’re leaving. Now.”

“But I just bought some coffee...”

“Forget it!” Sheppard snapped. He swung up onto his horse.

Rodney looked back at the growing crowd, the angry eyes, the dark looks. Quickly, he gathered up what he could of their goods and clambered up onto his own mount.

They weren’t very far away from the camp when Rodney realized that they were being followed. Sheppard had probably known it from the start. Rodney glanced back over his shoulder, uneasily. He could only see one rider, but...

It was the girl, he realized. Seeing him turn, she leaned forward, putting in enough speed to draw even with him. She spoke—rapidly, and still in a tongue he didn’t understand. Her hands moved back and forth between them,

Sheppard had slowed his horse, was looking back at them with a sardonic expression on his face. “Look,” Rodney said desperately, “I changed my mind, you can keep the beans...”

Another rapid-fire burst of words. Sheppard began to laugh.

“What?” said Rodney, angrily. “How is it my fault that I can’t make her understand?”

Sheppard looked like his birthday had come six months early. “You’re the one who doesn’t understand, genius! You didn’t buy coffee beans—you bought her! You got yourself a wife!”

“What?” Rodney turned back to the girl, gaping. Sure, she’d be pretty if she were cleaned up, but she had to be younger than Kate—than Kate had been. And also, it was just...icky.

“No! No, you gotta tell her that she has to go back...Go back, please,” he told her, trying Ancient this time. “There’s been a mistake...”

“Stop it, she doesn’t understand Ancient anymore than you understand Genii. Didn’t your grandmother teach you anything before she died?”

Now Rodney gaped at Sheppard. “That’s Genii she’s speaking?”

Sheppard nodded. “Useful language, Genii. Not too hard to pick up. Unlike some other, long-dead tongues...”

This was almost too much for Rodney to take in at once. But he had to focus, deal with the immediate problem. “If you can speak it, tell her to go back!”

“Hell, no.” Sheppard turned his horse away. “And have her whole family after us for flouting one of their women? I’ll pass.” He beckoned at the girl, sweeping his arm out: a surprisingly grand gesture, for him. “Come along then, Mrs. McKay...”

Still sputtering, Rodney rode after them.

They camped that night by a riverbed. Sheppard was unusually talkative, making a big deal out of serving up their little bit of meat and beans. “Here you go, Mrs. McKay.” “Would you like a bit more to drink, Mrs. McKay?” “Oh, I’ll make sure to spread my bedroll over here, Mrs. McKay—give plenty of space to you and your husband!”

“Ha ha,” Rodney said. “Ow, my side. Seriously.”

At least the girl—Rodney was pretty sure she had told him her name was Sora (or else that was the Genii word for breasts—what did he know?)—seemed less than amused by Sheppard’s display of charm. She was sullen and mostly silent, and seemed relieved when Rodney moved his bedroll away from where Sheppard had laid it out, practically on top of hers. Rodney felt kind of bad for her. But mostly, he just wanted her to leave.

For all Sheppard spoke of leaving them to their “private time,” he seemed surprisingly reluctant to actually get up from the fire. He sat sipping the last of their coffee, watching Sora as she lay down, turning her back away from them both, curling in on herself.

Rodney gave him a dirty look. “Yeah, it’s just hilarious, isn’t it?”

Sheppard shrugged. “Matter of perspective.”

“Oh, enlighten me.” Rodney folded his arms. “As a matter of fact, why don’t you tell me this ‘big piece of news,’” he emphasized the words with a dismissive wave to show Sheppard exactly what he thought of that, “that had you running out of the camp before I could get this business,” he inclined his head in Sora’s direction, “straightened out. Not to mention make it so you didn’t have to go drinking the last of our coffee!”

Sheppard took a final gulp and sat back, licking his lips. “Why don’t you ask her?”

“What?” Rodney followed Sheppard’s gaze: Sora was on her feet, in a crouch; she had a knife half-pulled out of her boot and her eyes were narrowed in some complicated combination of determination and fear.

Rodney’s mouth dropped open. He tried to move, but could only stare as, with a sudden, quivering motion, Sora threw down the knife and took off toward the river bank. If she’d leapt on him, held the knife to his throat, Rodney wasn’t sure he would have reacted any different.

Sheppard was the same under any situation: swift-moving and sharp, he caught Sora before she’d gone more than a hundred meters. He dragged her back and plopped her down in front of the fire, his hand tight on her arm.

“Unt osupanet cah-nay Scar?” he asked her.

She glared at him and didn’t answer. Then her gaze flickered to Rodney. For someone who’d been contemplating putting a knife in his back, she sure looked an awful lot like she was now asking for his help.

Sheppard turned to him, too. “You ask her.” He smiled without humor. “After all, she’s your wife.”

Rodney shot him a hateful look. But he didn’t have a choice. “Sora,” he said. “Scar...do you know where he went? And if he has a girl with him, a Lantean girl?” His brain shuffled back through the little bit of Genii he’d heard spoken that day. “Nai-bist pabo taibo...?”

Sora’s lips parted, but it was a moment before she spoke. “Mah nee-koo-ur?”

“Huh? No, not my wife.” He flushed at the thought. “My—Sheppard, how do you say ‘sister’?”

Not a pause: “Nami.”

Sora looked between them both. Then she said something else, too rapid for Rodney to have any hope of understanding. But Sheppard nodded. He dropped his hand; he let her go.

Rodney watched, open-mouthed, as she gathered her meager belongings, mounted her horse, and rode off quickly in a different direction than the way they had come. He turned to stare at Sheppard, astonished. “That’s it?”

Sheppard’s lips twisted up. “So much for the honeymoon, huh?”

The information Sora had given Sheppard turned out to be a Ring address. “It could be a trap,” Rodney pointed out.

Sheppard shrugged. “Could be.”

If it was a trap, it wasn’t one set to be immediately sprung. The vast plain that led away from the Ring was empty save for a milling herd of the strange, shaggy cattle that ran wild on some of the less civilized planets. Rodney looked at them and instantly thought: Dinner!

Sheppard had already whipped out his rifle. His first shot was perfect: one of the big bulls stumbled and dropped. Rodney licked his lips, thinking: Hot, juicy cooked meat; thick, salty dried meat; praise the Ancestors, meat... But then there was another shot, and another. The herd was panicking, the animals stampeding. Sheppard had his rifle pressed tight atop his shoulder; he was firing away, mouth slanting up each time another animal went down.

“What are you doing?” Rodney yelled. “Stop, stop! We can’t possibly eat that much!”

He winged another one as it ran away. “Yeah!” he shouted. “And now the Genii won’t be able to, neither!”

“But...”

Sheppard shot him a dirty look. He kept firing until the animals were all gone, until the plain was echoing and empty.

“Other people besides the Genii depend on that cattle,” Rodney said finally. His throat felt sore, which was odd, ‘cause he’d barely been shouting.

Sheppard wheeled on him. “And I’d feed everyone in the whole damn galaxy if I could! But it doesn’t work that way, does it?”

He pulled out his knife and stomped over to the nearest bull. When Rodney didn’t move to help, Sheppard angrily turned his head.

“Well? Do you want to eat, or are you gonna go on a hunger strike in sorrow for your poor starving kinfolk? Do you wanna leave these here and hope they don’t rot before they can be eaten by your Genii wife?”

Rodney took a shuddery breath. “F-fuck you,” he said.

Sheppard laughed as he slit the bull’s throat. “That’ll be the day.”

They awoke early the next morning to the sound of ships overhead. Rodney sat up, pulling the blankets tight around his chin. He whispered the word. “Wraith?”

Sheppard stared up at the sky. “No. Terrans.” He got up and started packing away his gear. “I hope we’re not too late.”

When they reached it, the ground around the settlement was scorched. A few of the huts were still on fire, the flames curling listlessly. Rodney shuddered when he saw the smoke. There was something about that smell... He wanted to be away from here.

Sheppard charged straight in, poking at things, turning over bodies with the toe of his boot. After a minute, he straightened up. “Them, all right,” he said. “Our Genii.”

Rodney didn’t remark on the possessive. He stared down at one of the bodies, a young Genii girl smaller than both his sisters. She was face down in the mud, bleeding from her back. “Teyla?” he said.

Sheppard gestured. “Search that end.” Then he ducked into one of the huts.

Rodney hadn’t gotten far when he heard Sheppard call his name. He stepped out gratefully into the daylight, away from the close smell of burning and death. Sheppard was standing in front of one of the sturdier-looking huts. He pointed Rodney inside with a solemn finger. Rodney almost said her name again, but the word froze on his lips. He didn’t want it to end like this.

She was lying on her back, wide-eyed and staring. Rodney knelt beside her, just looking. After a moment, he carefully brushed the matted curls away from her face. With gentle fingers, he closed her eyelids.

Outside, Sheppard was waiting for him. “So I guess you’re a widower now, huh,” he said.

Rodney didn’t respond.

“She was holding this.” Sheppard pushed a small tangle of metal and ribbon into his hand.

Rodney turned it over. It was a medal—Rodney could vaguely remember seeing some of the Lantean soldiers wearing something similar, back before the end of the war. “How did she—”

“It was mine,” Sheppard said curtly. “I gave it to Teyla. Same as I gave Chuck a saber. Same as I gave Kate a locket.”

“Oh,” said Rodney. “So Sora—”

Sheppard shrugged, indifferent. “Don’t know if she was coming to warn them or to help Teyla get away. But Teyla was here. We know that for certain. We were on the right track.”

Were, Rodney thought. He glanced back at the hut. Through the shadows, he could still see the golden splay of Sora’s hair, muddy and torn.

“Why’d they have to do that for?” he asked, pointlessly. “What reason did they have to kill Sora?”

“What reason does anyone have for killing anybody?” Sheppard asked. From him, it sounded like high philosophy. “If things had gone differently, she might have killed you.”

Rodney shook his head. “No, I should have helped her, protected her...It was my, my...”

“Duty as a husband?” Sheppard asked. He turned and stalked back toward his horse.

“Yes!” Sheppard snorted. “No, listen,” Rodney said. “Sheppard...have you ever been married? Had a sweetheart?”

Sheppard paused with his hand on the pommel. “No.” And up he swung.

“If it had been Laura in trouble,” Rodney insisted. And then, when a deliberateness that Sheppard probably wouldn’t have credited him with: “If it had been Aunt Elizabeth...”

Sheppard whirled to face him, eyes dark. Rodney was pleased with himself—he didn’t even flinch.

“People die,” Sheppard said. “Sometimes no matter what you do. The sooner you learn that, McKay...”

He didn’t finish the sentence. He turned his horse around. “Let’s go pay a visit to the Terran army.” He made the last words sound like a curse.

“You think maybe they’ve got Teyla?” Rodney asked, suddenly filled with the image of her already rescued, waiting for them.

Sheppard spurred his horse. “Maybe they’ve got Scar!”

Rodney had always felt an odd mixture of fear and respect for the Terran army. He hated them as an invading force, as a conquering, occupying body. But they had incredible technology: they had made the Ancient City come alive, made the Lanteans see its true promise before they had taken it away. Rodney wanted nothing more than to live and work among them, to have free reign over their foreign wonders and those of the Ancestors combined. The outpost that he and Sheppard rode to was just that—an outpost, hardly a jewel of Terran architecture or tech—but just watching the doors slide open without a touch made Rodney’s heart beat faster. He wanted to rip open the walls: take everything apart, see how it worked.

But that would be pleasure, and they were here for business. Sheppard smirked at the young Terran officer—prim in his uniform, greeting them with an over-elaborate flourish—and stated plainly, “We’re looking for a girl. A Lantean girl.”

“She’d be about thirteen now,” Rodney offered, barely able to comprehend it. Two years. But the officer nodded. “Got a couple about that age,” he said, and led them inside.

In a back room, behind the clean and brightly lit offices, was a medium-sized holding cell. There were three women inside. Two of them were huddled in a blanket, sitting together on the bench that lined the back wall. The third was curled on the floor with her knees drawn up to her chest, rocking and singing to herself.

It was definitely not Teyla—the woman was thirty if she was a day—but Rodney still couldn’t help staring at her. The rocking motion that she made was as hypnotic as it was repellent; it looked like at any moment she might spin out of control, rock back so hard that her skull cracked against the wall. He skirted her at a careful distance. His gaze moved to the remaining two. They shifted slightly at the sound of the three men approaching; as the blanket moved, Rodney thought he caught a glimpse of a honey-brown braid swinging, swinging down.

“Teyla?” he said, hesitantly. He didn’t want, he didn’t want to scare— But Sheppard reached out and jerked the blanket away. Two girls sat before them. One, a redhead, started giggling hysterically. The other just stared. She had Genii stripes painted brightly across her arm, just below where the braid fell. But she wasn’t Teyla.

Sheppard had already turned away. The Terran officer gave him a manly slap on the back; it was only because Rodney knew Sheppard as well as he did that he recognized the flinch.

“Hard to believe they’re Lantean, isn’t it?” the officer said.

Sheppard shook his head. “They’re not Lantean anymore.”

After that the trail dried up. The Terran officer mentioned that they had found a good amount of Satedan trade goods at the Genii camp, but when Rodney suggested that they therefore go to Sateda and talk to some of the traders there, the officer had only shaken his head, chuckling. “You haven’t heard?”

“No, I’m being deliberately obtuse,” Rodney snapped. To his surprise, Sheppard grinned at him.

“We’ve been out of the world for a while,” he explained, smoothly.

The Terran nodded, looking almost excited at being the one who got to share the news. “Big Wraith attack,” he said, not near as grim as Rodney thought the situation warranted. “Localized, luckily. But Sateda got completely wiped out.”

They went anyway, just to make sure. They walked among the rubble, Sheppard tense and silent; Rodney silent, too. They didn’t stay long; there was no reason to. Afterward, Rodney dialed a planet he remembered from a long while back, a fuzzy childhood thing. They lay in the soft grass, smelling the spicy-sweet scent that permeated the air. It was warm enough that they didn’t even need to light a fire. They left room for one anyway, spreading their bedrolls several feet apart. Rodney could still hear Sheppard as he shifted and moved, see his dark shape, his head propped up on the folded pillow of his arms. Together they watched the stars.

It was a good moment, one of the few, and Rodney didn’t want to spoil it. But still he needed to ask, needed to know. “How many of them have you been to?”

Sheppard didn’t answer at first. Rodney knew he wasn’t asleep; he had grown very accustomed to the patterns of Sheppard’s breathing. Finally, Sheppard expelled a lingering gust. “A few.”

Rodney couldn’t help it: he laughed. To his surprise, Sheppard rose to the bait. “What?” he said. “What’s so funny?”

“You think I don’t remember,” Rodney said, “but I do.”

Sheppard said nothing.

“I remember your visits,” Rodney said. “Back before the war ended. Before we lost. You used to come and you’d sit down in the rocker by the fire. You’d pull Kate into your lap—she was always the lucky one, and the rest of us were all jealous. You’d pull her into your lap, and Chuck and I would settle by your feet, and Laura and Aiden if they were visiting. And you’d tell us stories. Long, complicated, wonderful stories. You’d talk and talk. It was from you that I first heard about the Ancient City. You were the first person I ever heard say the name—Atlantis.”

Sheppard still said nothing. In the dark, he was perfectly still; it was almost as if he were holding his breath.

Rodney forced another mouthful of air in and out of his lungs. “I know,” he said, “I know that bad things have happened to you. I know that bad things happen. This galaxy isn’t a good place for us right now—not for Lanteans, and not for Terrans or Genii or anybody. But it could be. It will be. Maybe it needs our bones in the ground before that day can come...”

He waited for Sheppard to interrupt, to tell him to get to the point or ask him if he even had one. But Sheppard was utterly silent, and suddenly Rodney couldn’t stand it anymore. They were silent and they had no history; they had no future.

“So the universe may have kicked you while you were down,” Rodney declared. “And maybe it keeps kicking us! But I don’t believe for a second that you don’t have stories any more, Uncle John. I think that maybe you’re just waiting for the right person to tell them to.”

There were long seconds, stretching without a sound. Then, “Don’t call me that,” Sheppard said. “I’m not your uncle. I’ve never been your uncle.”

“All right,” Rodney said. They’d had this exchange many times before, but now it seemed weightier somehow. “All right...John.”

Rodney didn’t think about it: he just reached out a hand, simple and natural as breathing. He reached out a hand and found Sheppard’s in the dark, right there, like it had been waiting for him. He squeezed.

There were a few more moments when nothing happened, when he adjusted to the feeling of Sheppard’s large, rough palm in his own. He could hear Sheppard’s breath, coming quicker and quicker, then hitching suddenly, catching in his throat.

Suddenly, Sheppard was moving, was rolling over, was on top of him. At first Rodney was frightened, but then Sheppard said his name, desperate and needy, and Sheppard touched his cheek, ran a thumb across Rodney’s cheekbone, shockingly gentle. The pieces snapped into place. Rodney’s chest felt tight with a feeling not unlike joy; he surged upward, into Sheppard’s touch, into his arms. “John,” he said, “John,” and when Sheppard kissed him, Rodney remembered what it was like to want something and actually get it; to search and to find, and to be found.

Chapter Text

They had no real plans anymore, but neither one of them gave even a thought to giving up. They caught wind of a rumor that there was a small band of Satedans who had survived the cull, and they spent the better part of a year chasing them down. There were mornings where Rodney woke up so sore it hurt to sit in the saddle, much less ride, but he still spent all day thinking of the nights.

They were back on Manaria when it happened. They’d stopped into a tavern where Sheppard, as usual, was working over the bartender, looking for information. Rodney had wandered toward the back, where a woman was dancing on a low platform. It was the middle of the day: she had an audience of one, which was apparently enough to make Rodney seem incredibly desirable. She stepped off her stage and continued her routine with Rodney as the centerpiece. A year ago, he would have been flustered and uncomfortable, shrinking into himself whenever she bent over to display her ample cleavage. Now, though, he was only amused, and when Sheppard turned and caught sight of them, his eyes narrowing in anger, Rodney threw back his head and laughed.

The girl flounced away, offended. Rodney slid from his chair and walked across the tavern, sidling up to Sheppard. Standing close enough that their shoulders brushed, Rodney ignored him completely. He spoke to the bartender. “How much for a room?”

Sheppard caught him halfway up the stairs. He grabbed Rodney’s arms and pinned them against the wall. “Where’d you get that money from?”

Rodney made a show of struggling, wiggling against Sheppard so that their thighs scraped and their cocks brushed. “Lifted it from you. Just like you taught me.”

Sheppard squeezed his wrists tighter, slammed their joined hands against the wall. He was grinning. He leaned in and roughly took Rodney’s mouth, spreading Rodney’s legs with a sharp jab of his knee.

At the foot of the stairs, someone coughed.

They turned, and Sheppard loosened his hold, though he didn’t let go. A huge man, tall as a tree, was leaning up against the wall at the bottom of the stairwell. He had a dark beard and dreads, and his impressive arms were folded over his massive chest. He looked amused.

“What?” Sheppard barked at him.

“Sorry,” the man said. “I’ll come back when you’re finished with your whore.”

“Hey!” The man was chuckling like he’d meant it as a joke, but Rodney looked at Sheppard, slowly loosening and lowering his hands, his face sunburned and lined and hair gone grey at the temples. He looked down at himself, rumbled clothes over a body firm from riding but still lanky enough to be a boy’s. They’d been out of the world for a while. Rodney flushed, realizing for the first time what they must look to those on the inside, on the outside of the two of them.

“What do you want?” Sheppard growled.

“Hear you’ve been looking for a man called Kolya.” The man raised an eyebrow, confident and smug.

“Well, you heard wrong,” Rodney snapped. “We’ve never even heard of him.”

“Shut up.” Sheppard. It took Rodney a second to realize that he was talking to him.

“What do you know?” Sheppard asked the man.

“Lots of things,” the man said. “For a price.”

“Of course,” said Sheppard.

In an entirely different tone, Rodney echoed, “Of course.”

The man was called Ronon. He was Satedan, though from the way his eyes flashed when they mentioned the other group of supposed survivors, he wasn’t one of them, hadn’t even heard of their existence. In his gruff way, he was friendlier to them after that.

Actually, he’d been pretty friendly to Sheppard from the start. Ronon explained (once Sheppard had slipped him some coin) that he’d recently done some trading with a group of Genii, a group led by a man introduced to outsiders as Scar, but known among his people as Kolya. There’d been a Lantean girl in his hut. “In his hut,” Sheppard had repeated.

“Yes.” Then Ronon and Sheppard had gone back to swapping monosyllabic war stories.

Rodney rode a little ways behind them, pinching his mount a bit too sharply with his knees. He felt out of the loop again—and the worst part was the reminder that the feeling wasn’t new. When had he been in the loop? At best he’d been caught up in Sheppard’s gravitational field, but he was still the orbiting body, the lesser. In another life he could have been something, somebody. But he’d never been meant to live in this world—nor even to survive it.

Ahead of him, Ronon raised an arm and pointed: on the horizon was a thin column of grey smoke, twisting into the sky. “We’re close.”

“Close,” Rodney said. Once again, he felt that weird surge of anticipation and disbelief. This could be it. Today could be the day he lifted Teyla up into his arms and brought her home again.

Sheppard turned in the saddle and gave him a look. It was not lengthy; it was not even all that significant. But it was an acknowledgement. Of what they’d been through together, maybe. Rodney wasn’t going to read in anything more.

The Genii camp was on top of a small hill, around two-thirds of which curled a slow-moving but far from shallow river. It was a perfect site from a defensive standpoint; Scar or Kolya or whatever he was called—he knew what he was doing. Rodney had to give him that.

Ronon lifted his hand as they approached, nodding to a pair of Genii armsmen. “Let me do the talking,” he said, under his breath.

“Yes, thank goodness we have your stunning verbal skill on our side,” Rodney muttered. Sheppard reached out and smacked his thigh. Rodney wanted the touch to linger, but it didn’t.

It was perfectly clear which tent was Scar’s. It was set apart from the rest, and was bigger, though not ostentatiously so. There were two more armsmen standing by the entrance. Ronon spoke a couple words to them, in almost absent-sounding Genii; Rodney was pleased but not surprised by how much he was now able to understand.

One of the armsmen ducked inside. Rodney’s chest felt tight. Then the tent flap parted and a large man stepped into the light. He was bare-chested, arms marked with the familiar stripes and another pair drawn down from his clavicle, disappearing into his trousers. He had dark hair and a stern, unforgiving face, marked on the left side by a sharp line. He stared at them both: unafraid, silently judging.

Rodney realized that he’d hardly spared a thought to what he’d do in this moment. To what either of them would do; Sheppard was standing behind him, perfectly silent. Rodney half expected him to lunge at the Genii chief any moment, but he didn’t move. “Scar,” he said eventually, conversationally. “Well, I can see where you got your name.”

Kolya’s lips slanted up. “And are you called Persistence? And him—” Rodney flinched but didn’t quite jerk back when he saw he was being gestured at. “—He Who Follows?”

“I’ll have you know—” Rodney started, but he bit down hard on his tongue before he started an argument with Teyla’s kidnapper over who between Rodney and Sheppard led, and who followed after.

Kolya was smirking at them, though. Rodney felt Sheppard tense, but his words were easy. “You speak pretty good Lantean for a Genii.” A pause. “Someone teach you?”

It was a leading question, but Kolya failed to rise to the bait. He turned to Ronon. “Ah-we pabbo-tie-bo ee-kee-tay?”

Ronon shrugged. “Pabbo-tie-bo kim te-moo-er.”

“That’s right,” Sheppard said. “We want to trade. Only not out here.” He waved a dismissive hand around the Genii camp. “I don’t stand talking in the wind.”

Kolya fixed them both with a contemptuous smile. Then without another word, he went back inside the muted darkness of the tent. Rodney sucked in a deep breath and moved to follow. Sheppard’s arm shot out and blocked his way. “Stay out here.”

Rodney shoved him off with a force that surprised even him. “Not likely!”

Inside it was lighter than he had expected, and not at all smoky, though there was a fire burning in a center pit, what little smoke there was drifting up through a perfectly-positioned hole in the ceiling. As Rodney stepped inside, Kolya barked an order at two shawl-draped women who had been tending to the flames. The hurried past Rodney and outside, their heads bent.

At the far end of the tent, four other women were sitting in a small cluster, their faces averted. Rodney looked at them anxiously, but Kolya passed in front of him, muscle and bulk and large, violent hands. “Ih-card!” he ordered. Rodney sat.

Sheppard sat beside him, and Ronon with him. Ronon leaned over and whispered. “His sons are all dead, so his wives sit on the honor side of the tent.”

“His wives?” Rodney squeaked.

“Shut up,” said Sheppard.

That morning Sheppard had come up behind him while Ronon was off taking a leak. He’d wrapped his arms around Rodney’s waist as Rodney stood in front of the small square of glass that was their shaving mirror. Are you trying to make me slice open my jugular? Rodney had said, and Sheppard had chuckled, low in his throat, and kissed the side of Rodney’s neck.

He’d come away with a dollop of shaving cream on the side of his nose. Rodney had met Ronon’s amused smile with a grin, and not said anything.

Sheppard’s face was clean now. He had his head held up high so that Rodney could see the tendons in his neck, the coiled, controlled rage. Kolya met the expression with a calm smirk. “My children,” he said—simple stating of fact, devoid of emotion. “My sons, killed by Terrans and shunned by Lanteans. For each son, I take something. Sometimes many things...”

His head turned slightly to the side. “Mayah-kay zee-eh!”

Rodney followed his gaze in time to see one of the women at the other end of the tent flinch. “Mayah-kay zee-eh!” Kolya said again, louder. Slowly, the woman threw back her shawl and stood up.

Rodney found he was looking down at his hands. He could sense the girl moving, see the vague, shadowing motions of her skirts. Then something dropped down into his line of sight. It was a lance, sharp and pointed at the lower end. It had things hanging from it, ratty bundles of...something in many different colors. Rodney sucked in a breath as realization dawned: they were bundles of hair. They were scalps.

His gaze snapped up to the girl’s face. Teyla stared back at him, calm and impervious. She blinked once, then turned with balletic grace, lifting the lance and its hanging horrors away.

Rodney would have cried out but the words froze on his tongue. Sheppard reached over and squeezed his thigh.

“I’ve seen scalps before,” Sheppard said. He sounded almost bored, and Rodney shuddered under the pressure of his fingers.

Kolya smiled a cool, self-deprecating smile. He drew something out of his pocket. “This before?” he asked. The object he held up spun, shimmery gold in the firelight.

It was Kate’s locket. Rodney remembered Aiden face before he’d charged wildly to his death; Rodney felt a little of that, now, too.

Sheppard’s teeth were set tight, but he still managed a grin. He rose slowly to his feet, drawing Rodney with him with a firm hand on his arm. He addressed Ronon. “I came here to trade, not admire his collection.” He turned his back on Kolya. “Tell him we’re going to pitch camp across the river... Maybe we can trade tomorrow.”

Sheppard was tugging Rodney in front of him, but Rodney chanced a glance back and saw that Kolya’s expression had darkened. “Ee-sap!” he hissed.

“Puetze,” Ronon insisted. Tomorrow.

They were almost outside when Rodney felt a hand on his arm, tight and painful just above his wrist. He turned and stared up into Kolya’s face, his heart pounding. But Kolya wasn’t looking at him. His eyes sought out Sheppard, locked there.

“You speak pretty good Genii,” he said. “For a Terran.” He let go of Rodney with a shove.

Rodney’s gaze whipped to Sheppard. “What did he mean by—” But Ronon cut him off. “Quiet,” he said. “We need to leave.”

They made it safely to the other side of the river. Once there, Ronon jumped easily off his horse. He turned to Sheppard. “You should go. He knows who you are; there’s no point in staying.”

Sheppard shook his head. “We’re not running.”

There was a deep bitterness, but also something akin to pity in Ronon’s expression. “Sometimes you have to run.”

He reached into the pocket of his duster, pulled out a leather purse. “Here,” he said, tossing it to Sheppard. “I don’t want blood money.” Without another word he remounted and rode away.

Sheppard gave Rodney a long look, then dropped down to the ground. “We’re making camp.”

Rodney nodded and started unbuckling his gear from the saddle. “Scar’s going to kill us,” he said.

Sheppard acknowledged this statement with a shrug. “He’s going to try.”

Rodney’s laugh was just shy of hysterical. “Oh, well so long as we’re both clear...”

Abruptly, he sobered. “Teyla’s alive," he said. "She’s really alive. We found her.”

He looked to Sheppard, eyes wide and almost wondrous, waiting for some sort of acknowledgement of this incredible thing that they’d done. Sheppard just grunted.

Annoying; but Rodney had other things to worry about. His mind was already racing. “I just know I can think of a plan to rescue her!” he said, and his brain was building a way to make explosives out of what they had with them when Sheppard moved abruptly, his head snapping up on his neck. “What?” Rodney said, and turned.

Teyla was standing at the top of the ridge. Rodney felt his lips move, heard himself say her name on an exhaled breath. She ran down the hill toward them and stopped on the far side of the river.

“Teyla,” Rodney said. She was older now, a young woman, but it was still so clearly her, his sister, his beautiful little sister. “Teyla!”

She held up her hand, silencing him, forbidding him to come any closer. “Unnt-meah!” she said. Rodney knew too well what that meant. Go away!

Rodney moved closer anyway—would have no matter what she said, his brain divorced from his body. There was a small bridge to his right, thin wood planks that could be hastily withdrawn. He started towards it.

“Teyla?” he said, as gently as he could and awkward in his gentleness. “Don’t you remember me? I’m Rodney.”

She pointed toward the far horizon, looking anxious. “Unnt-meah!”

“Don’t be stupid, we’re not going. We’re not going without you, Teyla. Sheppard!” he called over his shoulder. “Get the horses, I’ll try to keep her talking...”

To Rodney’s surprise, Sheppard was much closer to him—to them both—than he’d thought. “How?” he said. “She’s forgotten her own language.”

Rodney glared at him. He turned back to his sister, desperate. “Teyla, you’re coming with us, with me and,” he tripped over the word, “Uncle John. Do you hear me?”

Teyla’s hands dropped. Her eyes narrowed. “No,” she said. “Not now...not ever.”

She spoke Lantean. Rodney breathed a sigh of relief, manfully refraining from rubbing Sheppard’s face in how wrong he was. “I don’t care what they’ve done to you,” he reassured her. “Or what happened, you’re still my—”

“They have done nothing,” Teyla interrupted, a sharp cutting motion of her hand. “They are my people.”

“Your people?” Sheppard erupted at his side, a streak of barely-contained violence. “They murdered your family!”

Teyla’s mouth was set. “Ee-sap! The Wraith killed my family. The Terrans killed my family. This galaxy...”

“That’s not what happened!” Rodney said angrily. “They’ve been lying to you, Teyla. Aren’t you smart enough to see it?”

She didn’t answer him. “Teyla,” he begged, “think back. I’m Rodney, Rodney your brother. Remember how I used to read you stories? I was teaching you Ancient, remember?” His hands fell to his sides. “Ego amo te.”

Sheppard had turned away. But Teyla suddenly stepped closer. She lifted her hand but didn’t, didn’t quite touch him.

“I remember,” she said. “I remember from always. At first I prayed to the Ancestors, begged that you would come and get me, take me home. But you never came.”

Rodney’s throat was dry. “I’ve come now.”

But Teyla only shook her head. “These are my people. Unnt-meah,” she said, stepping back again. “Go. Go, please!”

“Stand aside, McKay.”

Rodney turned. Sheppard was advancing quickly, his hand moving for his pistol. “John!” Rodney shouted, even though he still couldn’t believe that Sheppard was really about to— “John, no!”

Without thinking he moved between Sheppard and Teyla, stepping right in front of the barrel of Sheppard’s gun. There was the crack of a shot, and then Sheppard tumbled back. Blood blossomed across his shoulder.

Rodney calculated the angle of the shot and realized what was happening. He fumbled for his own gun and spun around, firing at the Genii at the top of the hill. He reached for Sheppard, but he was already moving, dragging himself despite his injury behind the cover of the horses. Crouching behind Memento, Rodney paused a moment, took a breath. When he spun and aimed, the trajectory already in his mind, the shot went true. One of the armsmen tumbled down the ridge and into the river.

But there were more coming, and men on horseback. “Teyla!” Rodney shouted, watching her race up the hill toward the approaching Genii. “Teyla, wait!”

“Forget her!” John gritted his teeth and pulled himself up onto his horse. “Move! Now!”

Rodney stared at the scarlet stain and Sheppard’s limply hanging arm. He heard shouts and gunfire. Another breath and he was scrambling up onto his horse. “Where are we going?” he shouted. “Do you have a plan?”

“How’s this?” Sheppard was swaying on his mount, barely holding on. “Ride!”

“Typical!” Rodney snapped. But he pulled as close to Sheppard as he could and laid a hand on Memento’s rump, guiding her.

The Genii followed behind them. If Rodney turned, he knew he would see Kolya’s scowling face at their head.

They were tiring, especially Sheppard, when Rodney caught sight of a little outcropping of rock. “Here!” he said, and urged the horses toward it. They swung around past a pair of boulders and practically fell off their horses. They were outside the narrow entrance to a cave. Bullets whined and ricocheted off the rock face. Sheppard turned and started firing. “Stop it!” Rodney said, grabbing his uninjured arm. He shoved Sheppard into the dark narrow space, getting off a few last shots himself.

Pressed close beside him in the dark, “Why don’t you just wrap us up and tie a bow on us?” Sheppard hissed. His breath was warm and shaky on Rodney’s neck.

“Shut up and keep moving,” Rodney said.

After not too long a time (but long enough to make Rodney start getting nervous) the cave widened out. The chamber was still only a couple meters across, but Rodney still sucked air greedily into his lungs. Even better, he could see a little light filtering in from a bit further along.

“That should be the exit,” he said. “Think we’re safe to stay and rest up for a spell?”

“How should I know?” Sheppard snapped. He was holding his injured arm and his face looked tight and pained. “It’s your cave.”

“Here,” Rodney said, stepping forward. “Let me help you with that—”

“I got it!” Sheppard turned away from him. After an awkward minute or so, he succeeded in ripping off a strip of his shirt with his teeth.

“So,” he said, once his arm was tied. “How’d you know this place was here?”

Rodney grinned. “Remember that book of Ancient stories I used to have? There was a mention of a place like this. I recognized it from the shape of the rocks outside.”

“Huh.” Sheppard grunted, adjusting his make-shift bandage. “I’d’ve been more impressed if it were just dumb luck.”

“I’ll leave the dumb luck to you, thanks.” Rodney sat down, his back against the cool wall. There was a trickle of water trailing down the rock, not too far away. He thought about getting up, filling his canteen, but he didn’t, yet.

“I don’t get you,” he said.

Sheppard shrugged. Rodney could see the pale, long line of his neck. “What’s there to get?”

Rodney took a breath. There were too many questions; he didn’t even know where to start.

The water dripped. Rodney exhaled. “If you think it’s safe,” he said, “we should get some rest.”

“Sure.” Sheppard slid down the wall and arranged his legs. “If they’re waiting on the other side to kill us, it doesn’t really matter if it’s now or tomorrow morning, does it?”

His eyes fluttered closed. Rodney was tempted to get up and move next to him, to cushion his wounded arm whether Sheppard wanted him to or not. Instead he closed his eyes, and didn’t budge.

It may have been the poor light, but Sheppard looked even paler come morning. Rodney stared pointedly at the bandage. “I have to get in there and cut the poison out.”

He was already opening his knife. “No!” Sheppard barked. He lowered his voice. “Not yet. Here.” He handed Rodney a piece of paper. “Just in case.”

Rodney glared at him, but curiosity overruled. He unfolded the page. After a few seconds he began to read aloud, anger coloring his voice.

“‘I, John Sheppard, being of sound mind and without any blood kin, do hereby bequeath all my property of any kind to Rodney McKay...’” His eyes snapped up. “I don’t want your damn property, and ‘of sound mind’? You've got to be joking!”

Sheppard didn’t say anything.

“Teyla!” Rodney spat. “Remember her? Teyla’s your blood kin...”

He didn’t move or blink. “Not anymore.”

The paper crumbled in Rodney’s hands. “You can keep your damn will!” he shouted, throwing it at Sheppard. “Do you think I’ve forgotten how you were all set to shoot Teyla, to kill her yourself? Have you lost your mind? Just what kind of man are you, anyway?”

Sheppard pushed himself away from the wall, snarling. “You saw where she was sitting in that hut! She’s his now, nothing but a dirty—”

Rodney felt the motion from outside his body, his fist reeling around and connecting with Sheppard’s face. Pain rocketed up his arm. He shook it off. “Shut your dirty mouth!” he said. “You, you—”

Sheppard spat out a gob of blood. “I’m a what?” he demanded, unbending at the waist. “You go ahead and tell me what I am!”

“Nothing,” Rodney said. “You’re not a Lantean war hero or a criminal or even a Genii-hunter or Wraith-killer. And Scar may claim you’re really a Terran, but I don’t care even if that used to be true, because you’re nothing anymore! I look at you,” he said, turning away and refusing to do just that. “And I don’t see anything but hate.”

His breath was coming harshly as he stood staring down at his hands. “I wonder what that makes me. That I...”

He turned sharply, pushing forward toward the small patch of light. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here before you up and die on me.”

Sheppard snorted and stumbled forward. “That’ll be the day.”

There were no Genii lying in wait for them outside. There was, however, Sheppard’s horse, munching morosely on a pathetic patch of scrub grass. An almost giddy burble of laughter escaped Sheppard’s lips. Rodney turned to stare at him, but Sheppard was already walking stiffly over to the horse. She looked up and blinked at him; Sheppard patted her neck. “Good girl, Memento.” Rodney could tell that he was leaning on her, but he didn’t comment on it.

Instead he said, “Where’s my horse?”

Sheppard gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Guess she figured she was lucky to be rid of you. You do have a tendency to lose ‘em or get ‘em killed.”

“Shut up,” Rodney said, but his tone was almost gentle compared to where it had been at just a few minutes ago. He shoved Sheppard out of the way and swung up onto Memento’s back. “Looks like we’re going to have to share.”

They were a good hundred klicks from anywhere; there was no way Sheppard could make him walk, just out of spite. “Fine,” Sheppard said, sounding petulant and oddly young. “But she’s my mare; I’m riding in front.”

Rodney smirked and took hold of Memento’s reins. “With that arm? I don’t think so.”

Sheppard grumbled, and he stared at Rodney with dark, deadly eyes, but in the end he had no choice but to accept the hand up Rodney offered and get on behind him. Rodney slid Sheppard’s good arm tight around his waist. On another day if they’d done this, he might have waited for a soft brush of lips on the back of his neck. But Sheppard’s touch remained rigid and impersonal. They rode off, Sheppard a warm, hard weight against Rodney’s back.

It was night time and the Zelenka place was lit up like a beacon, shining light and music and the sounds of people talking and laughing, visible and audible from a good klick out. “What’s going on?” Rodney wondered aloud.

Sheppard lifted his head from where he was leaning against Rodney’s shoulder. “Looks like a party,” he slurred.

“Yes, thanks for clearing that up,” Rodney said. Then he said, “John? John?” because Sheppard’s grip had loosened, he was sliding from the saddle.

Rodney gasped and reached for him, clung, hauled him around and practically into his own lap. He urged Memento on, and as soon as he felt they were close enough, he began to yell.

Rodney had a good, loud voice. As he drew near the house, the music died off and people began to spill outside. Rodney caught sight of Radek, almost unrecognizable with his hair slicked back. “Radek!” he shouted. “Send for a doctor!” But Radek just stood there, gaping at him.

They stuttered to a halt beside the porch, and Rodney would have fallen, would have spilled him and John both, except suddenly there were strong hands on his shoulders and back, and someone was carrying John, lowering him gently to the ground.

“There, son, we’ve got him,” someone said—Captain Caldwell, Rodney realized with a start. “Now are you injured, too? Is that blood his or yours?”

“Doctor!” Rodney panted. “I tried, but he needs—”

“Aye, let me see,” someone else said. “Yes, quickly now. Laura, help me carry him inside.”

Laura. Rodney turned, looking for her... And there she was. She was wearing a white dress, bright and ethereal-looking against all the blackness. She looked like one of the Ancestors, come to save them...and with that thought, Rodney crumpled to the ground. The last few days came rushing back, and he coughed and puked the meager contents of his stomach into the sand.

Radek helped him to his feet. “Come inside,” he said, “I will get you something to drink.” He shook his head. “You have an incredible sense of timing, I am sure you know.”

Rodney looked around for Sheppard, but they must have already taken him inside. “But I made it, didn’t I?” Sheppard had to be all right. He had to be.

Radek gave him a queer look. He led Rodney over to the fire and sat him down. “Once,” he said, fetching the coffee pot, "nothing would have given me more joy. Now,” gaze lingering as he passed over the cup, “I am not so sure.”

“What?” said Rodney. “He was wrong about Teyla but that doesn’t mean—oh!”

Laura had come into the room. Her white dress was streaked with Sheppard’s blood, but that wasn’t what had made Rodney start. He felt like an idiot.

“Well, I guess the wedding’s off,” Laura said, sardonically. When Radek made a noise of protest, Laura rolled her eyes and collapsed into the other chair with an unladylike flop. “For now, papa. Carson can’t very well marry me if he’s operating on Mister Sheppard, can he? After that,” she eyed Rodney intently, “we’ll see.”

“I, ah.” Radek shifted nervously. “I should check on the other guests...”

He left, the sound of his shoes fading slowly away.

“Hello, Rodney,” Laura said.

Rodney, who so often had an overabundance, found himself struggling for words. “I, I...wrote you a letter.”

Laura stared down at the blood on her dress and sighed. “One letter in five years...! I read it ‘til the paper dried up and the ink faded away.” She rolled her eyes. “The parts I could understand, anyway.”

Rodney perked up a little, remembering. “You mean the part in Ancient? That was a poem that I fou...” He caught the look on her face and trailed off.

“I don’t read Ancient, Rodney!” Laura sounded exasperated. “You might’ve written something meaningful...might’ve asked me to wait for you. Or. Or said that you loved me?”

“I—” I still... I never... Rodney trailed off. He didn’t know what to say.

Laura was looking at him, staring. Her hand, soft and white, reached out and brushed his knee. Rodney remembered her as a little girl, beating him—beating everyone, all the boys—on her little racing pony. He remembered her as a woman, teasing and friendly and soft and warm. Safe, as anything was out here. She was home.

He leaned forward and kissed her, tilting her head back, opening her mouth. He ran a finger roughly under the line of her chin, holding her like she was his to do with as he wished, like they had all the time in the world.

She sat back, sloe-eyed and gasping. Her cheeks were flushed as she stared up at him. “You’ve changed.”

He sat back. “I know.”

He waited a few seconds, then said, “We found Teyla.”

Laura sucked in a breath. “Was she...?”

He shook his head. “She’s still alive. We ran into some trouble. Lost her again.” He took a deep breath. “I’m planning to ride out again, soon as J—soon as my horse is rested.”

Laura frowned and stood up. “What about Mister Sheppard?”

“I don’t want him looking for Teyla anymore.” Her mouth opened in shock. “No, listen to me! You have to help me keep him here. Maybe get your new—your doctor there to give him something.” Laura was looking at him like he’d been spending too much time hanging around Eldon. “Please.” He touched her arm, then quickly dropped it. Looking at the floor, “Just ‘til I find her. Just ‘til I bring Teyla home again.”

“And how many more years is that going to take?” Laura asked.

Rodney stared across the room, at Radek’s small library—the biggest Rodney had ever seen with his own two eyes. He turned away. “However long it does.”

The beds were full up, what with all the wedding guests, and now Sheppard unconscious, lying sweaty and tense across Radek’s own bed. Rodney went to check on him, stopping in the doorway and looking in. The doctor, Laura’s husband-to-be, was sitting at Sheppard’s bedside. He’d taken his suit jacket off and draped it over the back of his chair, but he was still wearing his starched formal shirt. Leaning over, he gently wiped Sheppard’s forehead with a damp cloth. “Thank you,” Rodney heard himself say.

“Ach, it’s no trouble.” The man looked up and smiled at him. “You’re Rodney, aren’t you? Laura’s told me so much about you.”

Rodney was glad he didn’t go further into that. “Sorry,” he said, gesturing vaguely. “About the...” you know, kissing the bride thing “...wedding.”

“A doctor’s duty comes first,” the man said, primly. “And never fear—your uncle’s going to be just fine.”

“He’s not my uncle.”

The man frowned. “What?”

Rodney took a breath, his fingers clenched tight to the door frame. “Never mind.” He went and slept in the barn.

Captain Caldwell was waiting for him in the parlor when he got up. Rodney gave him a bored nod and poured himself a cup of coffee. When he sat down at the table, he realized that Caldwell was carefully tracking his movements. Rodney let out a sigh. “What?”

Caldwell gave him a steady look. “Son, there are a few things you and I need to discuss.”

Rodney rolled his eyes. “Wanna skip the familial talk? You and I both know that the only one around here willing to take me in and raise me as a son was Aunt Elizabeth. She’s dead, and I’ve spent the last five years of my life hunting down her killers. I aim to keep hunting, too.” He gave Caldwell a cold look. “Anything else you’d like to discuss?”

Caldwell leaned back against the table, folding his arms. The line of his mouth looked grim. “I was going to say that I didn’t think you had anything to do with this, that it was all Sheppard, but maybe I was wrong.”

“Do with what?”

“The murder of a trader called Cowen.”

Caldwell was watching him hard, clearly waiting to see how he would react. Rodney snorted. “The man was a Genii spy!”

Caldwell raised an eyebrow. “Got any proof?”

Rodney pushed his cup away. “It was almost four years ago. What do you think?”

“I think I’m gonna have to ask you and Sheppard to come with me to the nearest outpost. Once Sheppard’s able, of course.”

“You’re gonna let that doctor fix him up just so he’ll be fit to attend a necktie party? I don’t think so.” Rodney stood. “We’re not going.”

Caldwell’s eyes narrowed and he stood as well. He was taller than Rodney; older, too. Rodney would no longer instantly jump to say stronger.

And he sure as hell wasn’t smarter.

“Now, son,” Caldwell said. “You do realize I’m asking as a Ranger.”

Rodney’s fingers twitched. “And do you realize that I’m saying no as a heavily armed man who’s faced down more than his share of this kind of crap?” Rodney had a pistol and a knife in his boot, which was a far cry from heavily armed in his mind, but he nonetheless held Caldwell’s gaze. “Now don’t worry,” he said, “Sheppard and I are going to stay out of your hair. Well,” he caught Caldwell’s frown, “if you had any, we would. But we’re not planning on sticking around. We’re going after Teyla again as soon as he’s well. We’ve seen her—we’ve sat in Chief Scar’s blasted tent. And we’re going to go back and face him again.” He shrugged. “If you’re lucky, he’ll kill us both and save your men the trip.”

Caldwell’s mouth was twisted into a funny shape; Rodney couldn’t tell if he was angry or amused or even awed. But all he did was shake his head. “Sheppard’s done a number on you.”

Rodney sighed. “Right, right—because I’m just a stupid half-breed, a dumb calf waiting to be led. Are we done here?”

Caldwell opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, there was the familiar rumble of a ship overhead. Caldwell’s shoulders stiffened. “Relax,” Rodney said. “It’s not Wraith.” Caldwell stared at him. “What? You don’t recognize the engine of a Terran ship?”

They walked out into the yard. Laura and Radek were already outside, watching the ship—a small, one-man craft—land beside their patchy field of corn. Laura had her hands on her hips. “The nerve! Fetching up all that dust, right next to our crop—”

The canopy slid away. “Howdy, folks!” said the man inside, swinging onto the ground. “I’m Lieutenant Cameron Mitchell of the TAF and I’m...” He paused, looking around. “Boy, you have a real nice place here. I gotta commend you fellas.” He bowed to Laura. “And the lady too, of course. This is my first time on Athos and—”

“Lieutenant,” Caldwell barked. “Get to the point, please. You’re disturbing these people’s breakfast.”

The Lieutenant went a little misty-eyed at the mention of breakfast, but he managed to return to the vicinity of his objective. “I’m looking for Captain Caldwell and,” he gave the man himself a once-over, taking in the stiff posture and stern demeanor, “I’d be guessing you’re him.” He smiled brightly. “Am I right?”

Caldwell’s answering smile was a lot tighter. “Unfortunately.”

“Sir,” Mitchell said, saluting, “I have some information regarding a group of Genii hostiles believed to be camped not far from here...”

“What?” Rodney elbowed Caldwell aside and stepped forward. “Have you seen them? Is there a girl with them, a Lantean—well, you might not know she’s Lantean, but is there—”

“Is their chief a man called Scar?”

As one body, they turned. Sheppard was standing in the doorway, leaning on it while trying not to look like he was leaning, or else like he was only doing so because he was that relaxed. The doctor was standing behind him, eyeing him anxiously. “Mister Sheppard, if you don’t rest that arm and let me tend to it, you will almost certainly lose mobility if not—”

“Shut up,” Sheppard told him. He walked out into the yard.

Drawing up next to them, his gaze flickered to Rodney for half a second, but its focus was Lieutenant Mitchell. “Scar,” he repeated. “Need me to explain to you how he got that name?”

Mitchell shook his head. “No, from what we’ve heard the leader of the band did match that description...”

“All right.” Sheppard inclined his head toward Rodney. “Come on, McKay.”

“Wait! Sir...” Mitchell added, tentatively. “We got a whole fleet coming your way. I just came to let you know what all the fuss was going to be about, if’n there is any. Athos is under the protection of the Terran army,” he reminded them, grinning eagerly, like a boy who’d learned his lessons well.

“Yeah,” said Sheppard, “I’ll bet it is.”

“So you don’t need to do anything,” Mitchell pressed. “We’ve got it all taken care of.”

Sheppard looked at Rodney. “McKay and I have a few things to take care of first.”

“Yes, we do,” said Rodney, and if Sheppard caught the shift in meaning, he gave no indication of it. They strode off together, toward the barn. Rodney hoped Caldwell wouldn’t mind him borrowing his horse.

If it had been up to Rodney, they would have just kept riding in the direction Lieutenant Mitchell indicated, but after a while Sheppard called for a halt. He was obviously aggrieved at having to do it. For once Rodney was tactful and didn’t say anything; he passed Sheppard his canteen and started rubbing down Caldwell’s horse.

Rodney’s hand circled and his mind moved with it. He’d gotten Sheppard away from arrest and a possible hanging, and away from a run-in with a whole fleet of Terrans, which might’ve been even worse. Now, though, he had to figure out a way to keep him away from Teyla...and not get them all killed.

They’d have been lucky to have him on Atlantis. Rodney had a feeling they were never going to get him, now, but they’d have been damn lucky.

He took a deep breath. “Sheppard,” he said, “how do you reckon we should go about this?”

Sheppard was leaning against Memento’s side, talking slow, careful breaths and the occasional swig of water. He glanced over at Rodney. “You coming up with ‘strategy’ now? Were you talking to Caldwell?”

“I was just thinking,” Rodney said. “Maybe you ought to try it sometime.”

“Very clever.” Sheppard let out a puff of air that couldn’t quite manage the transformation into a snort. “What else are you being clever about?”

“Nothing,” Rodney said. “Just—if we charge right in there, they’ll kill her, right? Not to mention there’s a good chance we’ll get ourselves killed.”

Sheppard wiped his mouth. “There’s always a chance of that.”

“This may be our last shot,” Rodney pressed. “We have to make it count...”

“How concerned are you with dying?” Sheppard shot him another infuriatingly ambiguous look.

Rodney stared. “How concerned are you with living?”

He shrugged. “Enough.”

Rodney swallowed. Sometimes, he thought, the smartest move was to lay all your cards on the table. To be blunt.

“And with Teyla living?”

Sheppard didn’t say anything. It was answer enough.

Rodney wanted to shout. He wanted to rail and scream and pound at Sheppard’s beautiful, miserable body. But this was it; they were at the end of the line. It was time to try a different tack, something radically new.

He asked nicely.

“Please. John, please. Let me fetch Teyla home. Let me bring her home, John. I’ll make it so you don’t have to see either of us again, if it offends you so much. But let me bring her home.”

Sheppard’s eyes darkened. “Bring what home? The leavings of Genii armsmen, sold again and again to the highest bidder? With savage brats of her own, most like?”

Rodney had never had a very firm handle on nice, and he quickly lost what grip he had. “Stop it!” He sucked in a breath. “You’re honestly going to tell me that we’ve been searching all this time, and for what? To kill her? Five years, Sheppard, and you’re just going to shoot her dead?”

“Yes!” Sheppard practically bellowed. “And I tell you, it’s what Elizabeth would have wanted!

“And you know it,” Sheppard added, much lower. Staring Rodney down.

It was like so many other moments. Rodney wanted to reach forward and take Sheppard’s face in his hands. He wanted to kiss the tension out of his mouth. He wanted to bash his head in with his fists.

He stayed exactly where he was. “She’s alive,” he said, as evenly as he could. “And she’s going to stay that way. You’ll have to kill me first.”

They stared at each other, less than a meter apart and as far away as they’d ever been. Then slowly—so slow, though Rodney could still see the wince—Sheppard pulled himself up onto his horse. He stared back down, looking utterly surprised that there was even a hint of confusion on Rodney’s face.

“What are you waiting for? Let’s go.”

“But—”

Sheppard’s smile was completely humorless. “I think we understand each other. Or do you want it in writing?”

Rodney felt his jaw click shut and his teeth begin to grind. But he did the only thing he could: he got on his mount.

He let Sheppard lead. There was, he realized, really no way of knowing: Sheppard might decide to get it over with, and shoot him in the back.

They came in sight of the camp just after dark. Rodney thought, Excellent! Under the cover of darkness we can— but Sheppard was already shaking his head. “No good,” he said. “They’re on full guard at night. You remember what happened to Aiden; we’d never get ten feet. No,” he inclined his head and led them back behind a small copse of trees, “we go in at dawn. First light, the camp’s in maximum confusion, and we don’t have to worry about the Terrans attacking ‘til full brightness.” His lips turned up into a bitter smirk. “They like their displays of power to be seen.”

“So we wait?” Rodney licked his lips.

Sheppard nodded. “We wait.”

He got out his canteen and a pair of foodbars. Tossing one to Rodney, he hunkered down. Casually, “And don’t think I don’t know that you’re planning on sneaking in there soon as I fall asleep.”

“I wasn’t,” Rodney lied.

Sheppard laughed. “Go ahead. It’s your funeral.”

Rodney glowered at him. “Well, I’m a dead man anyway, aren’t I?”

“It doesn’t have to be this way.”

The words took Rodney completely by surprise. Even more the tone: not bitter or sardonic, Sheppard sounded...almost wistful. Rodney looked up, but Sheppard was sitting in the exact same position he had been in before, gnawing on the corner of his foodbar. “What?”

Sheppard shook his head. “Nothing.”

Rodney swallowed. “John—”

“Forget it. It’s done.” He took out his gun and opened it up, checking it over. “Now, this minute, tomorrow morning when this is all over—this is finished. You and me are finished. You’re going back to Radek’s and to his daughter and to his books. You hear me? That’s the way it’s going to be.”

“I thought you were going to shoot me,” Rodney said.

Sheppard stopped unloading cartridges and glanced up at him. The light was dim, but Rodney could still see the look Sheppard was giving him, like he thought him an utter fool.

“I might,” Sheppard said. He gestured absently with the gun. “In the leg.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” said Rodney, sarcastically. Then, perfectly serious: “What about Teyla?”

Sheppard slid the bullets back in, one by one by one. “We’ve discussed this already. I don’t see the point in discussing it any more.”

“I won’t let you—” Rodney pressed. But he stopped himself. “John,” he said, crawling closer. “John, please...” He slid a hand down Sheppard’s arm, over his firm bicep and the smoother, more vulnerable skin on the inside of his wrist. He closed his hand over Sheppard’s hand, holding the gun, and slowly drew the fingers back, drew the weapon away, lowered it down. “I don’t want it to end,” he said, sliding into Sheppard’s lap. “I want to stay with you. I want us to stay together. We can go somewhere, all—”

“All three of us?” Sheppard asked, too knowingly.

Rodney avoided the question as easily as Sheppard had so many others, pulling him in for a kiss.

Rodney wasn’t sure how far he was going to let this go. He wasn’t sure how much was genuine want anymore, and how much a plan, a ploy, a distraction. How much had been desperation: night after night of no one else, just an endless series of alien skies and hostile planets. But kissing Sheppard, tasting the dust and the spice of the journey in his mouth, Rodney realized that he didn’t care. He wanted this, just to have it, to have had it. There wasn’t room in this world for regrets.

Sheppard seemed unusually pliant tonight. He was usually the aggressor, the initiator, pinning Rodney to the wall, to a blanket or a bed, and using his body desperately, like every touch was penance and absolution both. But now his touches were shaky and soft. He let Rodney lay the blanket out and spread him down on it, and he even let Rodney crawl on top. Let Rodney peel his clothes away, pull him free of his trousers and hold him in his hand. Rodney leaned down and licked the head of his cock, keeping his eyes raised so that he could watch Sheppard watch; that had always been one of Sheppard’s greatest pleasures, propping himself up on an elbow and watching Rodney go down on him, Rodney wrapping wide, wet lips around the head of Sheppard’s cock and sucking until they became red and swollen, all the while rubbing himself desperately against the mattress or the side of Sheppard’s leg. But Sheppard wasn’t looking at him now. He was staring off to the side, his eyes pinched tight. From the look of him, there was no absolution any longer.

“Hey,” Rodney said, letting him go with great reluctance and crawling up his body. “Do you...do you not want...?”

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay,” Rodney said, very nearly containing his sigh. “It’s really the more logical response, under the circumstances.” He started to get up.

Sheppard caught his arm, iron tight grip. “I’m sorry,” he said, like he was begging Rodney to hear him. To understand. Sheppard stared up at him, searching his face. Every word he squeezed out looked painful to him.

“I never meant—”

“Oh no,” Rodney said, suddenly getting it. “Not you, too! Look,” he said, lowering himself back down at Sheppard’s side, curling himself around his back. “I want to be here.” He kissed Sheppard’s neck, skirting carefully around his bad arm. “We want the same thing,” and he added, reluctantly, “most of the time. Point is, I never followed you anywhere I wasn’t willing to be led.”

“In another life,” Sheppard whispered.

“In another life,” Rodney said, easing their shirts away, first Sheppard’s and then his own. “Elizabeth would still be alive. And Kate and Chuck and Evan, and Aiden, and even Sora, too. And Teyla would grow up strong and free, and we’d all live together somewhere, somewhere...”

“Atlantis,” John said.

“Yes,” said Rodney. He kissed the highest point of Sheppard’s spine. “And I’d be a great thinker, who did nothing all day but study the vast wonders of the universe. And you...” He looked up for inspiration; found it. “You’d fly through the stars,” he said, “rescuing people.” He smiled to himself. He liked the sound of that.

But Sheppard just sighed, a long, drawn-out breath. “That’ll be the day...”

Rodney rested his head against Sheppard’s shoulder. “No, don’t say that. You’re an idiot, don’t say that.” He swept a hand over Sheppard’s chest. “Let me, let me...”

He reached around and took Sheppard’s dick in his hand, stroking steady but gentle, rocking his hips against Sheppard’s ass as he moved. After a moment, Sheppard relaxed into the touch; another moment, he surprised Rodney by moving again, opening his legs a little and pushing back against Rodney’s erection. Rodney’s trousers were still on, but he had to grab at Sheppard’s hips, steady himself. “John?”

“Do it,” Sheppard ground out. “Come on.”

Rodney knew better than to argue. He undid his pants and jerked them down. He spat on his fingers as he remembered Sheppard doing, time and again, then carefully parted Sheppard’s cheeks.

He could feel hair and puckered skin. He circled the hole a few times, afraid to do anything more, but then Sheppard grunted and pushed back, and Rodney slipped inside, past the tight ring of muscle. It felt incredible: hot and tight and surprisingly smooth. He moved his finger, experimentally; Sheppard squirmed and then bucked, letting out a pleased little laugh. “Another, another,” he said, and after more spit and more stretching, Rodney had two fingers inside, was holding Sheppard’s hips as Sheppard rocked himself back, fucking himself on Rodney’s fingers, making eager, intent noises as his cock leaked onto his chest.

Rodney stole what little liquid there was and used it with more spit to slick himself up as best he could. “Enough already,” Sheppard said, “you’re going to make your throat dry up. Do it. I’m ready.”

“I’m going to fuck you,” Rodney said: pleased, astonished. He licked a stripe across Sheppard’s shoulder blade, then bit down, grinning as he arched. Then he pulled his fingers out and positioned the tip of his cock against Sheppard’s opening. With a gasp, he pushed home, remembering the first time and how it had felt for him, like his whole world was opening up, like he was being cleaved in two so that something new could emerge, pulled out from between the halves like a chick from the shell.

Rodney didn’t know if Sheppard felt anything like that now. He uttered an obscene group of sounds that might have been Rodney’s name, and moved his bad arm, the one he wasn’t leaning on, so that he could touch his cock. Rodney batted his hand away, murmuring, “Idiot,” and stroked along Sheppard’s length in time to his thrusts. Sheppard was all around him, an all-encompassing warmth and tightness and pleasure, and Rodney wanted nothing more than to burrow even deeper, to mold against Sheppard’s body, stroking his back and his sides and his chest, kissing his neck, never letting go.

With effort, he kept his thrusts slow and even right up until the end; when he finally lost control and began jerking his hips desperately, Sheppard let out a low moan and came, fucking into Rodney’s fist. Rodney didn’t even wipe himself clean; he just grabbed at Sheppard’s hip and at his shoulder and finished with a few sharp jerks. Slipping out, he kissed again at Sheppard’s shoulders and at his spine; turning him over, he kissed his mouth, cradling the back of his neck, holding him and blinking down at him as he fell asleep.

As soon as Sheppard was out, Rodney tugged the blanket over him and got back into his own clothes, just like they’d both known he was going to do. And just like they’d both known he was going to do, Rodney found his gun, and with one last look at Sheppard’s sleeping form, crept off into the night.

In his head, Rodney had worked out a dozen different scenarios, plans and subterfuge, brilliant manoeuvers in which he disguised himself as a Genii armsmen or a shawl-draped woman, or created an enormous distraction, setting off explosives and sneaking in in the confusion. But in the end the simplest approach was all that was left to him: he snuck in on his belly and on his hands and knees, ducking between tents and hiding in shadows, heart racing in his chest whenever anyone drew near. If he got caught he was going to scream like an angry Wraith, give Sheppard time to get far away. And maybe Teyla, too.

He was crouched beside a small structure that from the smell he took to be an outhouse. He could see Kolya’s tent, but the material was too thick, or the fire inside too low, and he couldn’t distinguish any shadows. He was working up the courage to just go inside and take the situation as he found it (slit Kolya’s throat in the dark, watch him silently bleed out before he gathered Teyla into his arms) when he felt a sudden pressure against his jugular, something pulling him sharply up and back, and a hand closed over his mouth.

A voice whispered in his ear, steady and low. “Why are you here?”

The worst of the pressure and the pain eased up as Teyla spun him around to face her. She was still small—slim and no higher than his shoulder—but the hand on his arm, gripping him, held incredible strength. She held a lance like it was part of her, and the look in her eyes was one of almost impossible calm. Rodney shivered: she was his little sister, and she had never looked more alien.

She was his little sister.

“I told you,” he said, a rough whisper. “I’m here to take you home. I’m not leaving until I do.”

Her gaze dropped. When she looked up at him again, his breath caught: there was real emotion in her eyes once more, too deep a pain for one so young. “What home?” she asked. “Rodney...what is there left to us now?”

He wanted to tell her, Athos will always be your home. Or, We’ll find a place, I know we will. Or even, I am your home. Please.

He said, “I don’t know. But we have to try—”

Her mouth opened but she didn’t make a sound. Rodney saw the faint movement of a shadow, then whiteness, stunning and bright, shocking. He fell to the ground, only just realizing that he’d been cuffed across the head. His vision swam, but he could see enough: Kolya stood above him, wielding a wicked-looking knife. Rodney remembered the lance that Teyla had shown them in Kolya’s tent and knew exactly what that knife was for.

Teyla hadn’t moved, but she was staring up at Kolya with wide, dark eyes. He said something to her in Genii and she replied; their words no longer made sense to him. He wondered if she was going to watch him do it.

All this in the space of a second, before sound returned, and movement: Teyla like a whirlwind above him, and Kolya stumbling, tumbling back. He hit the ground as Rodney scrambled to his feet, stunned. Teyla, who Rodney had carried around on his back, stood over the Genii war chief with the point of her lance pressed tight to his throat. He stared up at her, stoic in the face of her betrayal, and Rodney saw Teyla waver. She might save Rodney from death, but could she really send Kolya to his? Rodney had to be sure.

He reached for his gun.

The shots that rang out weren’t his. He looked up in time to see Sheppard come striding toward them, his coat flapping out behind him like the wings of a great bird. His first shot had gone wide, done nothing more than make Teyla leap back, but all the rest hit home: round after round, the entire clip, until the man on the ground wasn’t even recognizable anymore. And Sheppard was already reloading.

“Are you crazy?” Rodney hissed. “You’re going to wake the whole camp!”

“That’s the idea!” Sheppard shouted back. “The Terrans have come early—let’s see these bastard Genii give them a run for their money!”

Rodney sucked in a breath. “It’s going to be a massacre,” he said, realizing it, finally voicing it.

“Whether we’re here or not,” Sheppard said. “I vote not.”

Then he turned on Teyla.

He raised his pistol. Teyla was still holding her lance, bloodied at the blunt end but not at the tip. She did not advance on him, or even move into a defensive stance. But she didn’t back down.

“John…” Rodney breathed,

Sheppard’s face was set. His eyes were angry and dark, but Rodney could look past the shadows, see the sadness there, and beneath it, still some semblance of hope. His injured arm shook from holding the gun, and then he lowered it, and he didn’t shake anymore.

Behind them, the first Terran bombs fell, blasting the night sky into brightness, rocking the earth.

Sheppard offered his hand to Teyla, and she threw down her lance and took it. “Run,” Sheppard said, and they did, to the sound of screams pained and torturous and triumphant: bombs dropping and fires burning and one of the great ships crashing down.

They ran and did not look back. They reached the horses and Sheppard passed Teyla over to Rodney before swinging up onto Memento. They paused for a second, brother and sister, before climbing up onto their mount. Teyla wrapped her arms tightly around Rodney's waist and buried her face in his neck.

They rode until the world was quiet and dark, and they were safe again.

Out here the sky seemed infinite, stretching endlessly in every direction. When Rodney woke up, he lay for a few moments just staring. So blue: like the ocean, barely remembered. Gazing out the window of a high tower, holding tight to Aunt Elizabeth’s hand…

Rodney rolled over. He could see Teyla where she slept beside him. Her braids had come undone completely, spilling her hair out around her like a fan. In her sleep, she looked peaceful.

Rodney couldn’t hear the steady rise and fall of Sheppard’s breathing, so he knew that Sheppard was no longer next to him. He sat up and looked around: there, off in the distance, somewhere between their camp and the infinite horizon. Sheppard was facing away, and as Rodney watched he walked forward, stripping off his clothes before seemingly sinking into the earth.

Rodney experienced a moment of irrational alarm before muffling the laugh that threatened to emerge with the back of his hand. Quietly, he slid out from under his blanket and walked away from the camp. Closer, his perspective changed: he could see the water rippling around Sheppard’s shoulders and back, glistening silver in the sunlight. It looked entirely unreal, like a mirage.

That didn’t make him any less willing to plunge in, however. Hurriedly, Rodney pulled off his dirt-encrusted boots and his dusty clothes. They tumbled into a musty pile of rusty red and brown. Rodney could still feel them, lingering on his skin, but the sun on his back was warm, and the water, when he reached out and touched it with his toe, cool and crystal-clear.

Sheppard didn’t say anything as Rodney slipped into the stream. He watched with curious, faintly appraising eyes, the corner of his mouth quirking up, just shy of a smile.

Rodney splashed him. Sheppard laughed and splashed back, huge arcing waves of water, crashing over Rodney’s head. Rodney retaliated, snaking an arm around Sheppard’s waist and grappling with him, wet hands on wet bodies, tangling and teasing and washing clean.

After a while they just floated, staring up at the sky, blue reflecting onto blue.

“Are you familiar with the Terran concept of baptism?” Sheppard asked, after a while.

“No,” Rodney said. There were still so many things he had left to learn.

Sheppard blinked, dark eyelashes on sunburnt cheeks. When he looked up, his eyes were clear.

“Maybe I’ll tell you about it sometime.”

“Yeah,” said Rodney, happily, hopefully. “That’ll be the day.”