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Chapter Text

The first time Teyla went to Earth, she was alone. This did not bother her; used as she was to leading her people and entering trade negotiations sight unseen. When the request came in for her to sit down to an interview with General Landry after Atlantis re-established contact with Earth, she had been expecting it.

John seemed surprised that she was so unconcerned, but she only needed to remind him once that if her people took in a refugee who became as privy to their leadership secrets as Teyla was to those of Atlantis, she would have been certain to do the same.

Besides, after so long on Atlantis, Teyla felt as if she was very well acquainted with Earth already. “I am sure if John were to come with me, I would spend the majority of my time at a football game,” Teyla said to Elizabeth one night before she left.

Elizabeth had laughed and said that she still might. “Military guys are the same everywhere,” she said. “Trust me, I know.”

So Teyla was not nervous. As she stepped through the gate, John grinned at her reassuringly. “They’re gonna love you,” he said.

“I hope so,” Teyla said, though she was not worried about the general’s reaction. Earth seemingly had always welcomed the help of those they met offworld. She had spent much time sparring with the marines who had come to Atlantis and learned from them of Teal’c and the Stargate program’s Jaffa allies. She had also listened to the scientists talk of Thor and the Asgardians and the technological advancements they had given to Earth. The Athosians, she suspected, were one more non-Earth ally and she fully expected the interview to be rather mundane.

Her first sight of Earth was, as she had been told, the massive bunker room in which they housed the Stargate. General Landry met her himself, taking her through long, twisting hallways that reminded her too strongly of the Genii underground facility. There was no way to determine which way was which unless one already knew, though Teyla did not let on that this bothered her. It would only be for a few days, and she was sure she would become used to it.

“You need anything, let me know. If you want, we can set you up with a guide to take you around the city,” Landry said with an easy-going smile. Teyla smiled back.

“Thank you, General, but I will not be here for long, so it will not be necessary.” Teyla hoped, now that contact between Earth and Atlantis had been reestablished, that she would have many opportunities to return, and on those occasions John, Elizabeth or Carson would be available to show her the sights. She would feel uncomfortable with someone she did not know seeing her first-time reaction to Earth’s many differences. "Besides, I am very interested to meet some of the Earth-based Stargate personnel." She had heard so much about Daniel Jackson, Teal'c and Samantha Carter that she was eager to meet them, if possible.

“Well, I'll see what we can do about that. Your interview’s at 2,” Landry said in response, showing her to a small guest room and leaving her to settle in. Teyla wondered how long John and Rodney and the others had spent staying in these exact guest rooms before they had set off on the expedition. They had said they stayed at the Mountain, as it was known, for several weeks as preparations for the journey were underway. Perhaps one of them had stayed in this very room.

General Landry, Teyla had gathered, was liked by the Stargate program personnel but did not command the deep respect that had been given to General Hammond, who she had never met but had heard many people talk about with open awe. Major Lorne, when she had asked, had said that Landry had “big shoes to fill”, after which Teyla asked Elizabeth if it was customary on Earth to pass one's shoes onto one’s successor. Still, Landry was easy-going and polite during her interview, offering her either coffee or tea, whichever she preferred, and asking if she would like anything else. (He promised to find her some popcorn when the interview was over).

Teyla paid attention to things like that. Whether someone was polite and considerate enough to offer refreshment to a guest was an important marker. As was following through with requests, she thought, when she found a box of several different varieties of popcorn in her room later, along with a personal note telling her that her interview had gone well and they were happy to have her onboard. Having nothing to compare, she did not see how anyone could be a better SGC commander.

Teyla made her way to the cafeteria for dinner, slightly dismayed to find it small and rather cave-like compared to Atlantis before she remembered that the SGC personnel all lived off-site. She took a seat at a corner table, listening in to the conversations around her as she ate (the food was strikingly similar to the cafeteria food on Atlantis).

“Got called in to do a night shift,” one bleary-eyed scientist was saying to his friend. “Supposedly SG-13 found some stuff written in Ancient on P3X-972, so they called Dr. Jackson in to go offworld, then they realized they didn’t have a physicist who could actually understand what he managed to translate, and here I am.” The man shook his head, though Teyla was quite surprised none of the scientists on the team could read Ancient. Most scientists on Atlantis were approaching fluency.

“Mind if I join you?” a woman’s voice asked, and Teyla looked up to see a blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman she recognized immediately as Colonel Carter, despite never having seen her before.

“Not at all,” Teyla said.

“You’re Teyla, right?” Carter said, setting her tray down and taking a seat.

Teyla nodded. “And you are Colonel Carter, correct?”

“Sam,” Carter corrected.

“Sam,” Teyla conceded. “I have read several of your mission reports.”

“Oh, uh, me too. I mean, I’ve read yours,” Sam said. “It’s not easy to surprise us here, but some of what you’ve run into is unbelievable. You’re doing a great job out there. I’d love to come see Atlantis someday. Get my hands on some of your tech.”

“You would be most welcome,” Teyla said, taking the compliment as it was meant, high praise from someone who had seen their own share of unbelievable things. Sam smiled in response and Teyla searched for something else to say, finally settling on, “I was hoping to meet Dr. Jackson while I was here, but I understand he was called offworld.” Dr. Jackson had near-mythic status across the Stargate program, as the person who had worked out how to dial the Earth gate in the first place, and she had watched many veterans of Earth’s Stargate program who were now stationed on Atlantis barter for trinkets and artifacts from the planets they visited to set aside for him.

“He was dying to meet you. He wanted to go to Atlantis, you know, but we needed him here,” Sam said. “He’ll be so jealous I got to have dinner with you. After he finishes yelling at me that I only asked you about technology.” She took a bite of her chicken and then said, “SG-13 needed someone who could read Ancient, and that’s in short supply around here, especially since the Atlantis expedition left. They don't have a physicist either so Dr. Hamburg over there is going to meet him.” She indicated the scientist Teyla had been listening in on and his dinner group. “SG-13 is all botanists and anthropologists plus a marine.”

Teyla looked up at Sam, confused. “I am surprised not every team has an expert on Ancient technology as well as a physicist.”

Sam smiled at her. “You’re on the team with McKay, right?” Teyla nodded and before Sam could continue, Dr. Hamburg from the other table broke in.

“Oh, God, you’re on the same team as McKay?” he shook his head. “They offered me a spot on Atlantis, you know. I said I wouldn’t be in the same city as that egotistical, narcissistic jerk no matter how much they paid me. I can’t even imagine being stuck on the same team with him.”

“You have my sympathy,” one of the others said, obviously only half-joking.

Teyla’s eyes narrowed. “We are very fond of Dr. McKay,” she said warningly.

The other table stared at her. “No, no, no, that’s just not possible,” one of the other scientists said. “There’s no way the words ‘fond of’ and ‘Dr. McKay’ would ever be in the same sentence unless they’re preceded by ‘not.’”

“Hey, cool it, alright?” Sam said sharply, before Teyla could say anything, and the other table fell silent, Dr Hamburg muttering something about needing to meet Dr. Jackson and hurrying out.

“Thank you,” Teyla said, and after a moment of silence, asked, “I take it Rodney did not leave many friends behind here?” That was not entirely surprising, though it had not taken more than a few months before the Atlantis expedition had grown used to him. After that…well, Rodney’s unflagging efforts during the siege of Atlantis had done much to erase any ill feelings.

Sam sighed. “Look, I’ll be honest. Rodney’s not my favorite person. The first time I ever met him, Teal’c - my teammate - was stuck in the gate’s pattern buffer, and Rodney came barreling in here, insisting that the only way to fix the problem was to shut down the gate and essentially, kill him. Refused to take no for an answer until I figured out another way.”

Teyla looked at Sam in shock. It was true that Rodney was arrogant and impatient with those less intelligent than himself, and hid nearly all his better qualities behind a protective wall of hostility that she had long ago learned to see through. It was also true that he cared about very few people, something she only saw once she realized she was one of those few. But she had never seen him be so cavalier about someone’s life or death. The Rodney McKay she knew would never do something like that. She had seen him put his own life on the line more than once. “I cannot picture him doing anything like that,” she said honestly. “We all owe Dr. McKay our lives many times over.”

“I know. I read the mission reports,” Sam said. “Took a little while to wrap my mind around, and then when he and Colonel Sheppard and Dr. Beckett were here, well...you really are fond of him there, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Teyla said. “Very much so.”

“He’s lucky he found you all there, then,” Sam said. “And, really, so are you. He’s practically a whole science team by himself. It would take probably about four or five experts in different fields to equal him.”

Teyla had been on the receiving end of several variations of Rodney’s “I’m a genius” speech, had seen enough to know there was a reason he was Head of Sciences despite his…other difficulties, but all the science was new to her and she had nothing else to compare it to. As far as she knew, every scientist on Atlantis was a genius and there were many more Rodney McKays back on Earth. “He truly is as much of a genius as he says, then?” Teyla asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Sam said. “Don’t tell him I said so; I’ll never live it down. One of the best minds in the program, probably the planet. You’re lucky.”

Teyla smiled. “He makes sure we are all aware of that. Though he will sometimes admit he is the second-best mind in the program.”

“Oh, really?” Sam said. “Who’s the first?”

“According to him, you are,” Teyla said. “Though I probably was not supposed to tell you he said so.”

It was Sam’s turn to stare at her in shock. “He really has changed out there, hasn’t he?” She smiled. “Your secret’s safe with me. Hey, tell him I said hi, though.”

“I certainly will,” Teyla said, returning her smile.

Chapter Text

It was well over a year since Ronon had joined the Atlanteans, and he thought he was pretty used to how things in the city worked. Actually, he had a good idea of how they worked in general, now that he’d been to Earth. It wasn’t always that different from Sateda, really. Just different enough.

Mostly because of how much they all talked. If there were even two Atlanteans together, the conversation took over everything until no one else could hear themselves think. Ronon didn’t know how they barely seemed to notice it. Sometimes he wondered if it was him; he’d always been unusually quiet even for a Satedan. But after a few months, he thought he’d figured out the difference. It was that nothing anybody said was actually important. When Satedans talked, it always meant something. What the Atlanteans did...Sheppard called it small talk, and Ronon called it spending too much time saying nothing. He’d caught Sheppard watching him sometimes, early on, as if wondering whether Ronon would be comfortable enough to stay. He never said anything unless it was important either (or a joke, but then jokes were important), so Ronon knew he understood. But he didn’t have to worry. Ronon got used to it pretty quickly. No one talked much when he was sparring with them anyway, and after a while, the hum of conversation everywhere else became friendlier until he didn’t mind it. Maybe the silence was more from when he was a Runner, and Sateda hadn’t been as quiet as he remembered. Ronon didn’t like thinking about things like that. As far as he was concerned, Atlantis was his place now.

But right now they weren’t on Atlantis. They’d set out from Earth on the Daedalus two weeks ago, and still had a week to go until they got back to the city. In the smaller quarters onboard ship, Ronon noticed the buzz of conversation more and more. There were people everywhere he went, always talking and usually scurrying out of his way as he approached. The Daedalus crew wasn’t as used to him as everyone from Atlantis. He grinned to himself as he headed to the mess. Good. He liked reminding them, sometimes, even though he would be relieved to get back to Atlantis. He never liked being onboard ship for that long. For now he was just hoping that the mess would either be empty or that someone he knew would be there. And that there would be some of that blue jello.

But when he got there, every table was full of Daedalus crewmen. Ronon shrugged, grabbed a tray and then made a face when he realized there was no blue jello. The Marine who was serving food didn’t seem to know whether to look scared of Ronon’s reaction or just annoyed. “Dr. McKay took the last ones,” he said, apparently deciding on annoyed. Ronon just smirked, looking around until he found his teammate sitting alone in the corner. He was hunched over a datapad, which explained why Ronon hadn’t seen him, and had three cups of blue jello in front of him. No wonder the server looked annoyed. McKay hadn’t made himself popular that way. Though popular was something Ronon doubted McKay would ever be.

When Ronon had first come to Atlantis, he thought he’d never get used to McKay, let alone survive on the same team with him. If all the Earth people talked too much, McKay was ten times worse. He never used one word where twenty would do, and most of those were in scientific jargon Ronon barely understood. He was angry about this at first, thinking everyone would think he was stupid and that McKay was doing it on purpose until Sheppard said no one else understood him when he talked either. You just kind of had to let him because it was easier than trying to get him to stop. Which turned out to be true (although not completely, because Sheppard pretty much always understood what McKay was saying).

After that, Ronon had got used to McKay pretty quickly. The key, Ronon thought, was in paying attention to everything he didn’t say, which was pretty tough considering he never stopped saying anything and everything that came into his head. But there were benefits to Ronon not talking as much as anyone else, because he did notice what McKay didn’t say.

For instance: one thing McKay never did was small talk. He hated it as much as Ronon and Sheppard did. Which had to mean that everything he did say was important, at least to him. So while Ronon may have been surprised that anyone could have that much to say, he learned to live with it. Even the long winded scientific explanations - he’d seen what McKay could do with his gadgets. Despite the small army of scientists in the city, McKay was the one who kept the whole place running almost single-handedly and could do more against the Wraith than anyone else. And while no one else may have appreciated McKay’s bluntness, Ronon was pretty blunt himself and preferred that over the polite-saying-nothing that so many other people in both galaxies did. McKay never said anything but what he meant, and Ronon could respect that, even if it meant he got snapped at every so often. It went both ways; if someone called him arrogant and pulled him down a peg in return, McKay just got on with his life with only a snappy retort. Fair was fair, after all. Besides, the guy had a good sense of humor and he was fun to mess with.

So Ronon had simply decided he’d have to adjust to dealing with someone who was actually incapable of being quiet for more than two seconds put together, and it wasn’t actually that hard. McKay, it turned out, didn’t usually need anyone to pay attention to or even understand what he was saying, just to sit there while he was saying it. Ronon figured that someone who had so much extra stuff floating around in their head might really just have more to say than everyone else. “The background noise of my life,” Sheppard had called it once, rolling his eyes.

By now, Ronon had spent more than a few late-night meals sitting there never saying a word while McKay talked at him about whatever problem he was trying to solve. Sometimes he even understood it; McKay had a knack for explaining things so people who weren’t him could grasp it. Sometimes, now that Ronon understood at least some of the science, it was even a little interesting. Not that he’d ever tell McKay that, because then he’d never stop talking. Not usually, though. Usually he sat there, until the light would go on in McKay’s eyes that said he’d figured it out and he’d run out of the room with his food unfinished, sometimes in the middle of a sentence. Ronon thought he just needed to get whatever he was thinking out of his head and put it in some kind of order, and for whatever reason he needed an audience to do it. So Ronon figured sometimes he had some kind of hand in helping solve the science problems that they ran into constantly, even if McKay would never admit it. That was another thing they had in common. Neither of them needed to say stuff like that.

So, yeah, by now Ronon liked the guy. There was something about going into certain death together that made even the most different people into friends. So he went over to McKay’s table, grabbed one of the jello cups off his tray and sat down.

“Hey, those are mine,” McKay said indignantly.

“You’ve got three,” Ronon pointed out.

“So?” McKay asked. “They were the last - never mind. OK, look, so while we’ve been stuck here with nothing else to do I’ve been looking at the power distribution of the computers in the labs on Atlantis-”

He said it as if he couldn’t wait another second to get his complaints out in the open, and Ronon started eating as he listened, figuring he’d saved Sheppard from a really boring conversation. If he wasn’t here, McKay would undoubtedly have gone to find Sheppard to tell him all of this. From what Ronon could tell, McKay was talking about the wiring system in the labs on Atlantis and how the wires didn’t make much sense because they were taking power from the labs for some room no one used. He wasn’t quite sure, because he’d half tuned McKay out in thirty seconds. Not that he noticed; he just went on pointing out diagrams on his datapad and getting more excited, or possibly more annoyed, as his voice got even louder. Ronon didn’t mind. It was better than sitting alone. He’d been alone too much for a lifetime.

“It’s a totally different design than anything we’ve encountered before, since we based all our knowledge about the Ancients from the way they designed the Stargate, and of course, the Earth gate is different from the Atlantis gate and jury-rigged like you wouldn’t believe so it’s nearly impossible to figure out from that how anything else is actually supposed to work and that’s without 10,000 years of water damage and who knows what else-”

“You can do it, though, right?” Ronon interrupted.

“What?” McKay asked, sounding annoyed. “Of course I can do it. I just haven’t had a chance to since we’re constantly getting attacked or losing power altogether. Figuring this out is like a vacation.” He pushed a button on the datapad, sighing in frustration as it did something it clearly wasn’t supposed to.

“You’ve got a weird idea about what vacations are like,” Ronon said.

“Last time I went on vacation I was fourteen and got stung by a bee. They had to airlift me to the nearest hospital,” McKay said. “You would think my dad would take into account that I’m deathly allergic to bees before dragging me to go visit his brother who’d dropped off the grid to become a beekeeper, but did he?”

“No,” Ronon said.

“No. You’re right,” McKay said, before pushing another button on the datapad and rolling his eyes. “Yes, I know that will shut off the power to the hologram room, but since we’re not using that room, shutting off the power to it won’t matter. You know the Ancients really should have designed a better power distribution system. I’m probably going to have to go in there and rewire the whole thing just to keep the computers from overtaxing the generators.”

Ronon tuned him out again, concentrating on the blue jello and wondering if he could get away with stealing another one of McKay’s jello cups. He was so lost in his explanation, which had somehow turned into him talking about holographic projection (Ronon thought, from the half an ear he was keeping on the conversation) that he probably wouldn’t notice. Ronon was about to reach over when a few Daedalus crewmen came over and sat down at the end of their table; the only empty spot in the room. Ronon studied them quietly. The instinct to survey any possible danger was impossible to break, even here among allies. A second’s glance told him these three were no threat anyway. The three men were young, almost too young to be here to Ronon’s eyes, each with the clipped haircut most of the military men from Earth had when they first arrived on Atlantis. Ronon had never understood that. Not shaving all his hair off had never changed his ability to fight.

“Are you even listening to me?”

With a start, Ronon realized McKay had been asking him something. “No,” he said bluntly.

“You do know these power conduits are the reason the lights stay on in the city? The reason the computers work? It’s a little too important to just let useless systems borrow the power for no reason.”

Ronon was about to answer when one of the young soldiers next to them shot them a quick glare. “Doesn’t he ever shut up?” he asked his neighbor quietly.

“McKay?” one of the others said with a laugh. “Not from what I’ve heard. You should hear how they talk about him at the SGC. Thank God we’ve only got a week left before we drop them all off. It’ll finally be quiet around here.”

“I know,” the third pilot said. “I hate when we have to shuttle him back and forth. The rest I don’t mind so much. I don’t know how they stand it on Atlantis. I’d go crazy in a week.”

“There’s an ocean there, isn’t there?” the first one said again. “Surprised no one’s shoved him in yet.”

They all laughed and that was when Ronon stood up. He was at the other end of the table in barely a second, glaring down at the three pilots. He knew how intimidating most of the Earthers found him, even when he wasn’t trying to be. Now he was, and the three pilots looked terrified. “You talking about McKay?” Ronon asked.

“Uh, well…” the first one said, looking him over, as if trying to figure out if they had any chance of beating him. The rest of the mess had fallen silent, watching.

“We were just…” the second young man started before trailing off as Ronon turned his gaze on him.

“Everyone on Atlantis owes him their lives dozens of times over,” Ronon said flatly. “You don’t talk about him.”

They all looked at each other, each silently trying to decide who was braver, but none of them said anything. The entire room was quiet, watching.

Ronon glared at him again for good measure and the three men quailed. “Anyone else have something to say?” he asked.

All three of them shook their heads and Ronon nodded, going back to his seat and his jello cup as if nothing had happened. The hum of conversation returned, though McKay hadn’t gone back to his explanation. He was staring at Ronon in shock, the datapad forgotten. “What?” Ronon asked.

“Did-did you mean that?” McKay asked. “About everyone owing me their lives?”

Ronon shrugged. “It’s the truth.”

“Well, yeah, it is, I mean, without me you’d all be dead a hundred times over but-” McKay changed course mid-sentence as Ronon gave him the fondly exasperated version of his glare. “People don’t usually say it. Especially guys like you. And not to guys like that.”

“Yeah, we usually don’t have to,” Ronon said. “You say it often enough.” He frowned. “What do you mean, guys like that?”

“You know,” McKay said, waving a hand as if that explained it. Ronon blinked at him. “Soldiers. Jocks. Big, scary guys who could bench press me without breaking a sweat.”

“You think they’re scary?” Ronon asked, nodding toward the three raw recruits next to them and starting to grin. They’d faced Wraith and torture and everything the galaxy could throw at them together, and McKay was scared of guys like that?

“No, not anymore. I mean, I would have, once. A long time ago. Well, not that long ago because there was this one guy in Siberia who hated me and tried to-”

“McKay!” Ronon said. “You’re welcome.”

“Oh,” McKay said. “Well, uh, thanks.” He shoved his last jello cup across the table. “Here. I’ve got to go download a new schematic. This one is missing half the components. I bet Zelenka fiddled with the blueprints…” he trailed off as he got up, still talking to himself as he typed something on the datapad. Ronon smiled to himself as he picked up the jello cup, though he saw a few people around the room look at him oddly, as if they couldn’t figure out what it was that drew him and McKay together. Wasn’t that hard to figure out, if they looked. Or listened. What Ronon hid with silences, McKay hid with words. He’d figured that out almost immediately, and surprisingly, for someone who talked constantly and paid attention to very few things outside his own domain, so had McKay.

Chapter Text

It was strange as hell to look out the windows of Atlantis and see the San Francisco skyline, and actual ships, the type that floated instead of flew, on the water surrounding them.

It was stranger to see Atlantis suddenly playing host to visiting IOA dignitaries, all of whom got Woolsey’s plastered on smile, the one Sheppard could now tell was fake, but a really good fake. Stranger to see not only Colonel Carter but Dr. Jackson and Generals O’Neill and Landry with about five other high ranking generals wandering around, looking concerned. Sheppard didn’t think he’d saluted so much since the academy. Once, he thought he caught a glimpse of a Tok’ra, and steered clear. He’d been told they weren’t Go’a’uld but it was a little too much like splitting hairs for him.

The regular Atlantis personnel looked pinched and busy. Teyla, more often than not, was stuck talking to Dr. Jackson and a few other anthropologists. Zelenka had been roped into giving the tours to visiting scientists because Rodney refused to do it. Military performance reviews and promotion ceremonies were going on nearly every day, so the Atlantis military contingent were all dressed up with medals instead of in combat gear. Ronon was in his element, weirdly enough, taking the Earth-based marines from Colorado Springs on tour and sparring with them. Showing off, Sheppard thought, but it kept him busy. The medical doctors were all bored; with no missions came no injuries, so Keller had them all inventorying and coming up with supply lists of what things needed to be replaced. Sheppard steered clear. Inventory made nobody happy.

Sheppard was actually steering clear of everything. He didn’t want to be pulled into any more debriefings than he already had been, and all he wanted was to ask someone when they could go back to Pegasus. But he didn’t, because he was afraid the answer was going to be “never.”

It made sense. If he was in charge of the fight against an enemy like the Ori, he wouldn’t let the greatest weapon in the universe go after it had dropped into his lap either.

He knew that because he was in charge of the fight against the Wraith, and he wasn’t about to let Atlantis go either.

Normally when he got like this, he’d walk the halls of the city until he calmed down. Atlantis had that effect on him, but not here on Earth when the halls were too crowded and the light streaming in was different. Nothing felt normal anymore, and he headed deeper and deeper into the city, searching for some part of it that didn’t feel like Earth.

He found it, finally, in a small utility room off the Chair Room, which he’d found only because he could hear Rodney talking to either himself or some poor engineer on the other end of his earpiece. Whatever was going on, it didn’t sound great but it didn’t sound like an emergency either. He’d learned to tell Rodney’s various irritated tones apart, and this one wasn’t “we’re going to die if this doesn’t get fixed.” It was more like “I can’t believe you haven’t been able to follow why I’m telling you this won’t work.”

“Hiding?” Sheppard asked.

“Don’t do that! I could have electrocuted myself!” Rodney snapped, his hand full of wires he’d pulled out of the wall, still faintly glowing.

Sheppard waved a hand, as if electrocution didn’t matter, just because he knew it would annoy Rodney. “Nobody’s seen you since we landed.”

“Do you know what happens to this place when we land like that? It’s a miracle any of the power couplings stayed in place. If we want to take off again, I have to make sure they won’t fry the second we turn on the hyperdrive,” Rodney answered, looking at his tablet.

That, Sheppard knew, was an excuse. Rodney was usually pushed aside by SGC higher-ups when it came to things like meetings and galaxy-level decision making. Probably because he’d managed to piss off so many of them before he came to Atlantis, Sheppard thought. They usually thought Rodney was only good for fixing codes and wires in some out of the way room where he couldn’t annoy anyone. Sheppard knew better now; though he’d also just gotten used to Rodney’s snarky comments getting him through otherwise deadly dull meetings. But now that he wanted to avoid the higher-ups too, he was happy enough to join Rodney in exile.

“If they let us leave,” Sheppard said bitterly.

That caught Rodney’s attention. “You think they’ll keep us here?” he asked, eyes wide. “Not go back to Pegasus?”

Rodney could really be so gullible, something Sheppard had had a lot of fun with over the last five years. But he hated to be the one to burst this particular hopeful bubble. “Would you let the greatest weapon in the universe go? After it just dropped into your lap?” he asked.

“Well, when you put it that way,” Rodney muttered.

“They’re fighting the Ori! They need something like this!” Sheppard said.

“And we’re fighting the Wraith! They can’t really think that it’s over, we destroyed the Wraith that came to Earth and that’s it. There are still a ton of Hives in Pegasus!” Rodney said. His voice was growing higher and faster, verging on the edge of his usual panic. “We’d be like a beacon drawing them all here, never mind that we’d be leaving Pegasus to fend for itself.”

Sheppard started to say something, then thought about what Rodney had just said. “That’s a good point.” He hurried on because the look on Rodney's face was now the one that was usually followed by him pointing to himself and saying, “genius, remember?”

“It’s better to have us keep the Wraith there than bring them here, isn’t it?” Sheppard mused.

“Yes!” Rodney said, sounding relieved. “It’ll be a huge headache for them anyway, all the IOA countries and the non-IOA countries figuring out what we have, arguing over us. No, I’m sure they’ll want us out of the way as soon as possible. Plus there’s the, you know, shipping lanes.”

“Did you just say shipping lanes?”

“Yeah,” Rodney said. “You know, all the ships coming into San Francisco, suddenly having to veer off course, bumping into us…” he trailed off.

“You think they’re gonna send us back to Pegasus so some ships don’t bump into us?” Sheppard asked, smirking. A stupid argument with Rodney, thank God some things were still normal.

“Hey, it’s important!” Rodney said. They fell silent for a moment, then he asked, “You really don’t think they’ll keep us here, do you?”

Sheppard didn’t say anything, which he should have known meant Rodney would realize that he did think they would keep Atlantis on Earth.

“You do, don’t you? You don’t think they’re going to let us leave!”

Sheppard tried to look as if he didn’t care, even though he did, too much. “I don’t know, Rodney. It’s all politics. Woolsey’s trying to convince them, I know that.”

Rodney scoffed, which was tame for him, but matched most people’s original opinions of Woolsey’s ability to command the Atlantis expedition. Though most of them had, by now, warmed up to him. He hadn’t exactly become less stiff, but he seemed slightly more comfortable and once had even mentioned to Teyla that he loved the city, sounding surprised himself. Sheppard believed him when he had said he would do whatever he could to make sure Atlantis went home.

Sheppard knew enough now to tell the difference between the people who came to Atlantis to do their tour and go back home, and the people who came to Atlantis and found their home. Woolsey, he was sure, was one of the latter. Like him. Like Rodney. Like Elizabeth had been.

Rodney’s thought process, though, had continued while Sheppard spaced out, and like always, he thought out loud. “Even if they let us leave, it won't be the same. They still have enough time to change everything, and they will. They love to stick their fingers into things that work perfectly well and change it all for no reason. They could reassign whoever they want, move people around, assign people who don't know the first thing about Pegasus as ‘oversight’. People who’ll toe their line and do nothing but get in our way,” he continued.

Sheppard grimaced. It had occurred to him that they might remove him from his command, or worse, put someone above him. Give them some military commander who didn’t know anything about Pegasus or Atlantis and would try to change everything.

He was getting more nervous by the minute. Atlantis was his home, and the thought that he could lose it now was devastating. He swallowed, trying to convince himself otherwise. He had one very good reason why they wouldn’t reassign him, at least. “They’re not gonna reassign me. They’ll need me to fly it, shoot drones.” Nobody else was as good, even though Carson had flown the city to Earth just fine. Sheppard didn’t know of anyone else in the program who had the Ancient gene expression as strongly as he did, except General O’Neill, and he wasn’t going to demote himself down from Head of Homeworld Security.

Not that he would mind it. Sheppard had a feeling O’Neill would love to be back in the saddle at Atlantis instead of sitting in meetings all the time - they were too alike. He wouldn’t have minded serving under O’Neill either. At least he knew what it was like out there. But without him, Sheppard was the only real choice for the Chair.

That was a comfort. Even if Atlantis remained in orbit or on Earth, he wouldn’t lose it. But it would be different. It wouldn’t be home.

“Yeah, you, maybe,” Rodney said. “You’ve got the genes for it. I had to prove no one else could do this job to be here. If they had someone better, you think they’d keep me here? Lucky for all of you, there isn’t.”

Sheppard thought it had more to do with how many people in the program were just happy to send Rodney on a one-way trip to another galaxy; he hadn’t been the only qualified candidate, and none of the others had made the mistake of arguing in favor of killing a member of SG-1. “They’re not gonna reassign you either,” Sheppard said instead. “I’d insist.” It slipped out before he intended it to, not because it wasn’t true, but because he tried never to let Rodney know how indispensable he really was. Nobody needed to help inflate his ego. But it was true all the same; if it came to it, he would have insisted on Rodney remaining Head of Sciences.

Fortunately, Rodney seemed to take that as his due and just scoffed. “Like they could ever find anybody else who knows the city as well,” he said dismissively. “They’ll probably give me all the idiot scientists I said I didn’t want in the first place. But if they want it to function…” he shrugged, somehow managing to make the gesture look smug. “Looks like we’re stuck here.”

At least there was that. They wouldn’t lose Atlantis, even if they did lose Pegasus. Sheppard tried to be happy about that. It was more than he had any right to expect. “Well, they can’t take the city away from us,” he said. He pictured the two of them stuck here while everyone got reassigned around them, Atlantis a pawn between the various countries of the IOA and him and Rodney trying to keep some little piece of what they'd found in Pegasus. It was depressing, but at least one thing would be the same.

It had always been him and Rodney, from the first day they’d come to Atlantis, and by now Sheppard knew he couldn't do it with anyone else. Sheppard protected the city, Rodney kept it running. Teyla had said once that they were the beating double heart of Atlantis, so intertwined with the city that it was impossible to picture it without either of them. No one had given more to Atlantis than they had, except Elizabeth. But she was gone, and they were still here. All the more reason, Sheppard thought, why they should fight for Atlantis to return to Pegasus, where they all belonged. “We’ll get back there, Rodney,” he said.

“You’re sure of that now?” Rodney asked.

“Yeah, I am,” Sheppard said. “Because we’re not gonna let them do anything else.”

“Oh, yeah, because they’ll listen to us,” Rodney said sarcastically.

“It’s not their city!” Sheppard burst out. “It’s ours. Yours and mine.” It was a lot of people’s, really. It belonged to everyone who found their places there. Radek’s and Carson’s and Jennifer’s and Teyla’s and Ronon’s. And Elizabeth’s. And Miko’s and Chuck’s and Amelia’s and Lorne’s, heck, even Woolsey’s.

But Sheppard couldn’t deny that he’d thought of the city of his since the first few days they’d been there. And he couldn’t deny either that it was Rodney’s as much as it was his. They had both earned that. “We’re not gonna let them take it away from us, are we?”

Rodney shook his head, sighed, his fire dimmed for a brief second. He searched for the words, then finally said, “It’s the only place I’ve ever belonged, you know?”

Sheppard smiled a little, nodded. “Yeah, Rodney, I know. Me too.”

Chapter Text

When the message came asking for Jeannie Miller to please come to Colorado, interspersed with mentions of wormholes and exciting new possibilities for existing tech and your skills would be a big help, she fully intended to say no. One trip across galaxies had been enough for her, and besides, she knew what this was.

It wasn’t as if her brother could do anything normal like send an email asking how she was or just respond to the ones she had sent with pictures of Madison’s ballet recital telling her how cute she looked in her dance outfit. He probably hadn’t even looked at them. No, instead, he got the US military to drag her all over the known universe and make her do advanced physics for them. If she didn’t know better she’d think it was his way of throwing her perceived lack of success in her face by flaunting his career, like she had ever wanted to be shot at by space vampires or whatever it was he was doing these days.

Fortunately, she did know better, because she knew one Meredith Rodney McKay, and she knew this was his way of trying to reconnect with her, just without the benefit of any social skills whatsoever.

Jeannie was fortunate that even their father had learned his lesson and hadn’t skipped her ahead four grades like he had with his oldest, because it at least meant one of them had some emotional intelligence in addition to the traditional kind.

Still…

It wasn’t every day that you were told you were essential to a top-secret project that happened to have the fate of the planet and possibly the galaxy as its sole responsibility. It was the sort of thing she really couldn’t turn down when she put it like that. Especially now that she knew her brother was out there, in the middle of this; she couldn’t very well refuse to help knowing it could mean life or death for him, specifically.

Besides, it wasn’t every mom at the playground who could say they’d been to another planet.

But Jeannie knew, too, what would happen if she agreed too readily, and so she agreed this time mostly because she needed to tell her brother in person that if he thought he could bypass all the other scientists in the program and keep asking for her help, likely because he knew she was smarter than them, he was unequivocally wrong. Forcefully, if necessary. Otherwise he would just keep doing it.

So she went to Colorado, found herself suited up for what looked too much like a combat situation, and facing a briefing with General Landry, who while not a scientist like Colonel Carter, still seemed too nice to be a general.

Way too nice. Like it was all just an act and he’d start shooting up aliens the second he could, but then Jeannie had probably seen too many movies about the US Army fighting alien invasions, and no, she still did not believe this is what her brother did for a living.

“Good timing,” Landry was saying. “We were lucky to get Dr. McKay out here while he was on leave to work on this.”

“Hang on, you’re on leave?” Jeannie turned to look at Mer - Rodney. She had to remember how much he hated his legal first name, and this wasn’t Atlantis where they were eager for as many embarrassing stories as she could provide. This was the military. This was the Milky Way, where they had something so important none of the other genius scientists could handle it and they needed her brother to come here while he should have been on vacation.

“What else was I going to do? Dr. Weir insisted I take the leave I’ve saved up, they had this project, I call that a win-win,” he answered. “Can we go now?”

“Anyway,” Landry said, giving Rodney a warning look that said there was a reason he’d been picked to go on what everyone had believed was a one-way trip to another galaxy. “The planet’s been vetted. There’s been a base on P28-654 for a few months while our scientists worked on this thing, until they couldn’t figure it out, but we know it’s safe. SG-14 is already there, and you’ll be going with two teams of Marines.”

That explained all the serious military guys surrounding them, carrying rifles.

“And me.” The tall, slightly menacing figure of Ronon Dex appeared next to Jeannie. He’d come with Rodney from Pegasus, though nobody really seemed sure why. Jeannie smiled though. She’d liked Ronon on Atlantis; despite what she’d been told about his abilities as a warrior. He was easy-going and liked to mess with Mer, which was enough to endear her to anybody.

“Right,” Landry said. He smiled reassuringly at Jeannie, as if all his safety precautions really meant anything out there.

“Come on,” her brother’s whine could still cut through anything, as Jeannie had ample experience of during road trips. “I don’t have weeks to waste fixing your problems, if we don’t get going now, you can forget about having my help.”

“You have a go, Dr. McKay,” Landry said, sounding all too glad to get rid of him. For her part, Jeannie was still struck by how naturally her brother had put on the Kevlar vest and slung the gun over his shoulder. For all that they’d been assured they wouldn’t need it here, this was obviously still dangerous, and he clearly was used to more dangerous scenarios than this one.

She knew that, but seeing the evidence…he was terrified of everything from bee stings to drowning in bathtubs and now he was apparently used to traveling to other planets where he was routinely getting shot at and nearly eaten and even just the plant life could kill you, never mind the weird alien diseases that could be out there.

That couldn’t be her brother.

Still, the sight of the stargate served to distract her as it roared to life and she stared into the wormhole, mesmerized. It was, oddly enough, the one thing she hadn’t done on Atlantis. It was like seeing all their work made real, and it was beautiful.

Until she realized she would have to go through it.

“It’s fine,” M-Rodney was suddenly next to her, the reassuring tone strange coming from him. “It’s actually pretty cool, even if it doesn’t take that long. I’ve toyed with the idea of slowing down a Jumper in the wormhole, see if we can take some readings, but still…it’s cool. Nothing to worry about”

Jeannie looked up at him, decided if he could do this every day then she could do it once, and nodded. There was very little that he ever termed “nothing to worry about” and he understood the physics behind this as well as anyone could so there really had to be nothing to worry about. It was probably safer than driving a car.

It was definitely cooler.

“That was amazing!” she cried as she landed on the planet. P28-654. She cleared her throat and glanced down, sure no one else would be as excited as she was, and sure enough, the marines were already fanning out, creating a perimeter and Rodney and the other scientists were already setting up, so she figured she’d better follow them.

She got one quick smile from Me-Rodney, letting her know that, yes, he did still think this was the coolest thing ever before they got down to the science, taking apart the DHD and rewiring and talking over each other about better ways to get more power through so maybe, just maybe, they could conserve their few precious ZPMs. Maybe even draw from subspace directly.

After about an hour, though, Jeannie needed a break, tired of arguing with Rodney, tired of watching him argue with the other scientists they’d brought along, all of whom were idiots according to him.

He wasn’t wrong, but he really had never learned that he didn’t always need to say it.

So Jeannie stepped away - he could handle it, really, he didn’t need her and probably didn’t need any of them to make it work - and went to find some coffee. She’d been told every SG team brought some with them.

Instead, she found Ronon, arms crossed, watching. Casually, but somehow she had a feeling that casual stance could turn deadly in a matter of seconds if it needed to. His gun was in easy reach and his eyes moved like a predator. Watching first the gate, then the forest’s edge, then the scientists. Then back again.

“Did you get ordered to take leave too?” she asked.

“Something like that,” Ronon answered. He nodded toward Rodney, currently in the middle of a spectacular rant at someone who had obviously messed up whatever he was taking apart. “You think we trust these guys with him?”

It took Jeannie a second to realize he meant the marines standing ready and SG-14 stationed in front of the gate. His protective tone had thrown her - it wasn’t what she expected, and he said it as if it should be obvious that he thought protecting her brother was some kind of worthy mission instead of a sentence one could reasonably expect in Purgatory. She gestured around at the excessive military presence. “You mean a whole military contingent isn’t enough to keep my brother out of trouble?”

“Are you kidding? He gets in trouble on his way to the mess. Sometimes in the mess,” Ronon answered, starting to grin.

“Sounds like him,” Jeannie said, though that didn’t fit with the whole going-off-on-deadly- interplanetary-missions thing. Then again, that had never fit to begin with. “So…what, are you on the team to babysit him?”

“Nope,” Ronon said. “But he’s not a fighter. None of them are. And we need them.”

It took Jeannie a second to figure it out. “The scientists, you mean?”

Ronon nodded. “I can fight the Wraith. They can fight smarter. Figuring out ways to kill more Wraith, developing weapons, Beckett and the doctors finding cures for diseases we never could do anything about.” He paused, then added, “McKay’s the best of them. Just don’t tell him I said so.”

“You’ve been listening to him too much,” Jeannie said.

“Nah, it’s true,” Ronon said. “He keeps the city going, keeps us all alive on missions, sabotaging Wraith tech. Never gives up either. We’d all be dead a hundred times if not for him.”

He always had been stubborn, Jeannie thought. “That’s where you come in,” she said.

“I told you that one connected to the ground, now we have to redo the whole thing!” God, you could still hear him across a planet, Jeannie was willing to bet, and the poor scientist who’d made the mistake was practically cowering. Ronon chuckled, watching.

“Not used to him here, I guess.”

“So that’s what makes it worth it? You put up with him and save him on missions so he can keep doing what he does best?” Jeannie asked.

Ronon shrugged. “I’d do it anyway.”

That was a surprise. Jeannie got that Rodney was useful, could see the use in keeping someone alive who could save them all from the Wraith regardless of how irritating they could get - from what she’d heard, that was the entire justification for why he was still in the Stargate program at all. What little she’d seen of Ronon on Atlantis had told her he enjoyed all the embarrassing stories about her brother that she had told and liked his alternate universe counterpart better. Nothing to suggest this intense loyalty that obviously, somehow, existed. “You would?”

“Sure,” Ronon said, as if it was obvious. “He’d do the same for me. If you're his friend, he'll go through hell for you.” He grinned now. “Besides, he's funny. Good to mess with.”

Some of that, Jeannie got. Sure, intelligence was worth its weight in gold in the Stargate program, and sure, her brother could be funny, if also cutting. Good to mess with, definitely. Prone to panic, arrogant, borderline obnoxious even to her and just plain obnoxious to anyone else…that was Mer.

But this other person Ronon described, the one who never gave up, who would go through hell for a friend, who saved their lives over and over again and spent apparently all his time making sure they stayed alive…Jeannie didn’t know him. Rodney McKay was obviously a very different person out there (mostly).

She thought, maybe, that she would like to get to know that version of her brother, someday.