All These Places We Have Met by Toft (dating challenge)

[toft_froggy]

Title: All These Places We Have Met
Author: toft_froggy
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay
Rating: NC-17
Notes: This is monanotlisa's fault - not what she asked for, but, um, she told me to write. So I did. Thanks to lim and wychwood for help along the way, and mecurtin and frostfire_17 for beta. I initially meant this to be something a lot more lighthearted along the lines of a 'Groundhog Day'-type setup, a funny take on the challenge, but, um, I ended up with this, which really couldn't be said to be light-hearted or funny. Nor does it bear much resemblance to the challenge, but dammit, I wrote it for it, and if you squint at the word 'courting' rather than 'dating' it works.
Warnings: Uh, made one of my betas cry? Just so you know. Although that might have been the typos. No particular warnings, though. No spoilers either.
Word Count: 9,910
Summary: "You take me to the nicest places, McKay."

Cover by slodwick




*

The harsh, strong coffee washes through the sleep-fog in Rodney’s head, sweeps it away like a tidal wave, along with the pain between his eyes. God, that’s good. It burns in his empty stomach, and he takes a bite of his muffin, which is waxy and too sweet. In his newfound wakefulness, he blinks and looks around the Starbucks, and realizes there’s someone staring at him. Actually staring, standing in the middle of the coffee shop, holding a paper cup like he doesn’t know it’s there, messy black hair, stubble growing in, staring like a lunatic. Rodney glares back, while rummaging in the fog of his still-really-pre-coffee-mind for the faces of vengeful rivals, jealous ex-colleagues, dropped-out graduate students, long-lost family, but he’s finally forced to conclude that he has no idea who this guy is. And yet - and yet -

“Excuse me,” a pissed-off sounding woman in a suit says finally, pushing past the staring guy, and he hisses and breaks his stare as hot coffee slops onto his hand. “Sorry,” she says, not sounding sorry, and Rodney quickly looks back at his newspaper. By the time he’s finished his coffee, has bundled on his multiple layers and is walking down University Street to his department, kicking the snow, breathing damp into his scarf and the Toronto December cold making the bones of his face ache, he’s mostly forgotten about it.

*

The Sibelius is poor, the Shostakovich mangled, the Beethoven embarrassing. Rodney gulps his champagne at the intermission and mutters, “Yes, yes,” at everyone who asks him if he’s having a good time. He hates these stupid functions, he could be working. Someone taps him on the shoulder.

“What?”

“You’re a hard man to get to see,” the guy smiles, showing teeth. Rodney’s heart sinks.

“Look,” he says, “Henman sent you, right? It’s not going to happen. Just tell him that, okay? Just - no. I don’t care what he says, the merger’s out of the window, Brytech is going to float.”

“It’s not about that,” the man says, stepping into Rodney’s space in a way that makes Rodney nervous, and he’s getting increasingly confused, here. Now that he actually looks at the guy, of course he’s not from Henman. He’s got his hands in his pockets - the pockets of his suit - and he’s slouching down, hips tilted, hair messed up, looking around shiftily like he’d rather be anywhere else. “Look, could we go somewhere? To talk? I really need to talk to you. Believe me, you’ll want to hear this.”

“Oh my god,” Rodney hisses, “Are you wired? You’re wired, aren’t you. This is some sort of entrapment scheme. Or, or kidnapping. You’re trying to get me outside on my own so you can kidnap me. You think I haven’t got plainclothes security?”

The guy blinks, raises an eyebrow.

“You want me for something legitimate, contact me through my office,” Rodney snaps. The guy sighs in frustration, then suddenly grabs Rodney’s shoulder.

“Hey, hey!” Rodney yells, then suddenly people are shouting, Rory and Steven are holding the guy back.

“I just want to talk to you, for fuck’s sake, I wasn’t - let me go!” the guy yells. “Rodney!”

Steven looks up. “You know this man, Mr. McKay?”

“No,” Rodney says, then he’s rooted to the ground, suddenly, by the way sheer, raw hurt flashes across the guy’s face. But Rodney doesn’t know him. He doesn’t.

“We’ll get rid of this asshole, sir, you get back to the party,” Rory rumbles, and the guy goes without a murmur. Rodney almost, for a second, calls them back, says maybe it’s been a misunderstanding, hears the guy out, but then the bell goes, and he’s caught in the stream of people heading back into the auditorium. At least it gives him something to distract him from the dire second half.

*

Rodney sits at his usual place in Blue Heaven, next to the fishtank, and eats chicken soup noodles and crispy dumplings with beansprouts. He found it in his first week in Beijing, and he keeps coming back, despite having the same food every night and the reek of cigarette smoke. They know him now, so he doesn’t have to shuffle through his embarrassing, three-sentence repertoire of Chinese, and in his cubby-hole behind the fishtank he’s mostly hidden from the door and the window, so for a blissful hour nobody stares at him. Even he can’t be oblivious to that, here, the way he stands a head taller than everyone else, broader and noisier and whiter. You’d think they’d be used to laowai in this neighbourhood, so near the university. But then, even the students he’s had for months still flinch then smile embarrassedly when he waves his arms to demonstrate a point. He tries to remember to keep his arms by his sides.

Rodney likes it here, though, the way the light ripples over his plate, and the soft hum of the filter. It means he can work through dinner, scratching away in a notebook while he manoeuvres food into his mouth with chopsticks with the other. He’s never regretted that summer he spent learning to be ambidextrous. He’s absently watching the turtle attempt to climb the wall of the tank, thinking about the snag he’s hit in his equations, when suddenly a white shadow appears on the other side of the fishtank, a watery apparition of a face with pitch-black hair above it. Someone stooping to look through the tank, too tall to be Chinese. Rodney puts down his pen with a sigh and waits to be approached by some American businessman, desperate for company, who’ll probably try to get him to take him to a strip joint later. They’re all the same.

He looks down fiercely at his soup and shovels another piece of chicken into his mouth, winces when the door chimes, but it’s a party of businessmen, sweating through their shirts, chattering away with their nasal vowels and sing-song tones which Rodney can’t ever imagine understanding, shouting something to make the waiters laugh. The carp open and close their mouths and look bored, and nobody else comes in. Rodney picks up his pen, and tells himself he doesn’t feel disappointed.

Sitting by himself on the subway next to a teenager with spiked up hair and blaring earphones, around on the blue looped line to Bu Bao Shen, Rodney notices a tall, lanky westerner with a shock of black hair step onto the next carriage along from his. At the next station, the guy gets into Rodney’s carriage. He blinks at Rodney and twitches, like he wants to say something, and part of Rodney is blaring red sirens, wary and waiting, running through contingency plans: is there anything at his apartment? Would Sheng think to check on him before their next contact? But part of him is wondering why this guy is looking at Rodney like he’s seen him before - not like he’s just sizing Rodney up and comparing him to the memory of a photo, Rodney knows that look - but like they know each other. Like he’s happy to see him.

Rodney ignores the way the guy makes his way along the carriage, looking impossibly clumsy and disproportioned next to the fragile-boned commuters. The guy sits down next to Rodney abruptly, caught a little off balance by a judder of the train, then grins sheepishly at Rodney. Rodney thinks, MIT? then rejects it. This guy’s too old to have been his student.

“Hi,” the guy says.

“Hi,” Rodney says, and goes back to reading his article. The guy fiddles with his watch. It’s big and clumsy-looking, made of some sort of blue metal. Rodney’s never understood fashion.

“You been here long?”

“Seven hellish months,” Rodney snaps. The guy’s mouth twists, but he doesn’t say anything, just scans the ads above the seats like he can actually read them.

Finally Rodney can’t stand it anymore, and he slaps his article down on his knees and says, “Did you follow me? I saw you, looking through the fishtank. That was you, right? Do we know each other?”

The guy winces a little, but at the same time he’s sizing Rodney up, and Rodney’s suddenly, irrationally sure that the guy’s carrying a gun, and thinks maybe his first instinct was correct after all. Then the guy shrugs a little and smiles, and he looks harmless again. A little stupid, actually.

“Guess not,” he drawls. American. “You want to have a drink? I know a good place.”

“I don’t think so,” Rodney says, and pushes past several fish-eyed, sweating men in suits to get off the train.

That night, for no reason he can think of, he dreams about the sea.

*

“Okay, okay, wait,” Rodney snaps as Fermion tugs him down the steps to the street. “Did you smell that cat again? You’ve really got to leave it alone, you know, or Mrs. Fry’s going to -”

He’s rummaging in his pocket to check he’s got the shopping list when he nearly crashes into a guy who’s stopped outside his house.

“Sorry, sorry,” Rodney says, harassed, then, “Oh, shit, sorry,” again when he realizes he’s made the guy drop a bunch of papers. He tries to keep a hold of Fermion’s lead with one hand while he helps the guy pick up the sheets, which mostly seem to be maps. Actually, they’re all maps, printed out on regular printer paper, directions to houses, it looks like, from Streetmap.com.

“What are you, an assassin?” Rodney says. The guy freezes, then narrows his eyes and looks at Rodney hard, folding the maps with one hand and putting them in his pocket.

“Not the last time I looked at my payslip.”

“Rodney!” Sam yells from the upstairs window. He’s only wearing boxers, and Rodney winces for the neighbours. “Don’t forget the potatoes!”

“Yes, yes, potatoes, okay!” Rodney yells back.

The guy looks way more bewildered than the exchange warrants, his eyes suddenly flickering down to the gold band on Rodney’s finger, then up to the window, and back to Rodney’s face.

“What?” Rodney snaps. “You’re not in Bugfuck, Iowa now, asshole - get used to it. Oh, for god’s sake, Fermion,” and Fermion whuffles and tugs on the lead even harder.

The guy laughs a little. “Hey, hey, buddy, give McKay some time to catch up.”

There’s a moment where they stare at each other, then Rodney finally tries, with a weak laugh, “Are you really an assassin? Or, look, do we know each other? Because I’ve always been really, really bad at faces.”

The guy looks at his wedding band again, and makes an odd, deflecting little gesture which makes something spark with familiarity in Rodney’s mind, but he can’t place it. Maybe he dated the guy’s sister? That would explain the weirdness.

“I thought we did. When did you, uh,” and gestures up to the window. It’s a complete non-sequitur, but the whole thing is so surreal anyway that Rodney’s transfixed, like with a movie that’s so awful that you have to keep watching, so he says,

“Oh, we were, um, co-workers. Office romance, you know, ha ha.”

“Co-workers,” the guy echoes, fiddling with his maps again.

“Yes,” Rodney says slowly, in case the guy’s stupid or, or brain damaged or something, and he’s wondering if he should be dialling 911 with one hand while he keeps the guy talking. “When Sam got offered the professorship up here, we moved together.”

“Sam? Sam Carter?”

Rodney blinks, and says, somewhat desperately, still trying to rein Fermion in, “What? No, Sam Watson, who’s Sam Carter? - Fermy - I, look, this really isn’t a great time -”

The guy winces and nods, already backing away, looking relieved.

“Uh, see you,” Rodney says, and the guy nods, then he’s gone, striding down the street, and Rodney ignores the way Fermion’s whining and gnawing at Rodney’s shoelaces to watch him go, hunched over himself, hands in his pockets, skinny, crunching the auburn leaves.

“Well,” Rodney says out loud, “That was strange.”

Later, he finds a crumpled up piece of paper in his pocket. It’s a single sheet of printout, blank except for a series of numbers along the top. In neat, tightly looping handwriting, it says, If you recognise these numbers, come to the central memorial before 17:00. Rodney wanders into the kitchen, puzzling over the groups of numbers at the top. They look kind of like an IP address, but longer.

“What’s that?” says Sam, resting his chin on Rodney’s shoulder to read it. He smells of pasta sauce. “Looks like an IP address.”

“That’s what I thought,” Rodney says, and Sam kisses the side of his neck and slides his palms into Rodney’s back pockets. “It's probably some marketing scam, or - you know, never mind.”

*

The guy’s a first-timer, Rodney thinks at first - he’s got that wild-eyed look as he pretends not to stare at the couple making out next to them - but his grin’s practised enough as he slaps a credit chip down on the bar and says, “Get you another?”

Rodney doesn’t have to think twice about it, and he probably sounds a little too enthusiastic as he says, “Um, yeah.” He isn’t expecting the guy to look as shocked as he does, but he likes the way the guy’s eyes narrow speculatively. Rodney sits back a little, turns his head into the light so guy sees the silver hoop in the cartilage halfway up his ear, just so there are no misunderstandings whatsoever. The guy’s eyes do flicker, but he barely looks at the earring - he looks at Rodney’s shoulders, his chest. Rodney preens a little. He knew the blue shirt was a good idea. And, yes, hello, the guy is definitely on board.

“Rodney Jackson,” he says. “Architect.”

The guy raises an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“Am I supposed to guess your name?” Rodney says, a little archly. The eyebrow goes higher. “Sue me,” Rodney says, “I’m no good at flirting.”

“You surprise me,” Mr Interested says, dry as vermouth. Possibly not stupid, Rodney thinks, and this is looking better every minute. But wait, there it is again, the tension in the guy’s jaw, his shoulder, that makes Rodney think he’s dealing with a newbie. He’s had a few tequilas, though, and a long, slow week to burn off, and this is looking like a good bet. The guy slouches back against the bar, shows his nice, even teeth. “Why don’t you give it a try, Rodney Jackson?”

Rodney pops an olive into his mouth, and flings out the first name he thinks of. “John,” he says, then laughs when he sees he’s hit the mark. “Seriously? Ha, what are the odds?”

There’s something complicated going on John’s face. When he leans in and says, “You want to go somewhere quieter?” Rodney’s mouth goes dry.

“Yeah,” he says. “There are rooms back here. Follow me.”

He expects the guy to want to go fast and impersonal, pants down, wham, bam, thank you ma’am, but John puts his hands on Rodney’s shoulders and rubs his hands up and down Rodney’s biceps, then up the back of Rodney’s neck, running through his buzzed hair.

“You look pretty good like this,” John says quietly, and he looks - hungry, god, as hungry as Rodney is, suddenly, and now wham, bam seems like a much better idea. He grabs John by the hair and kisses him, loving the way John stiffens before going pliant and aggressive, rubbing his thumb through Rodney’s hair behind his ear, sucking on Rodney’s tongue and rubbing up against him like a cat. Yeah, he’s new at this, and Rodney’s making him want it. Rodney’s perfectly willing to admit that he likes having his ego stroked almost as much as his cock.

“Jesus,” John gasps, breaking away, mouth red and soft, “Okay, this wasn’t the plan, I just want to - I really need to talk to you, Rodney, I really really -”

“Yes, yes, later,” Rodney says, almost frantic, and goes for broke, cupping John through his jeans and squeezing. John breaks off with a grunt and shuts his eyes. Rodney takes that as a yes, and starts taking off John’s shirt.

“I never,” John whispers, “I had no goddamned idea you were - god, I shouldn’t be doing this, Rodney, this isn’t - oh, fuck!” as Rodney slides a hand down into John’s pants, cups his ass and licks his nipple at the same time in a move he calls ‘Co-ordination: The Only Reason I Don’t Regret My Wasted Years As A Pianist’, not really listening. After that, John doesn’t say a word, just breathes harshly and lets Rodney tug him down onto the bed, shove a pillow under his hips and blow him. Rodney makes it as slow as he can, watching John the whole time, the curve of his throat when he throws his head back, the way his arms cord and flex as he fists the sheets. Once, John’s mouth falls open in a soundless moan as he thrusts mindlessly, and Rodney has to stop himself from just rubbing off against the sheets, he’s so close to coming just from this. His terrible week melts away until there’s nothing left but salt heavy on his tongue, smooth skin against his lips, John arched out on the bed, writhing and gasping like Rodney’s taking his mind to pieces bit by bit. Rodney likes being good at his work. John reaches up and bites at his own knuckle, and still makes a harsh, high noise around it when he comes. He nearly lifts off the bed when Rodney slips a finger inside him and crooks it.

“Jesus, jesus, fuck, Rodney,” John pants, trying to raise up on his elbows and failing, still thrusting up against Rodney drunkenly, “don’t, don’t, I have to, oh, oh fuck, that feels so good.”

His head falls back onto the pillow when Rodney lets him slide out of his mouth and licks his lips. “God, you’re hot, you’re so hot,” Rodney says, mostly just to enjoy the sound of his own voice, the way it’s gone so husky, the way it always does. “I’m going to fuck you now, okay?”

“No,” John says, trying to sit up again, but Rodney’s already manoeuvring John’s knees up over his shoulders and sliding in another finger, easy, with John so boneless he can hardly lift his head, then it’s three fingers, and John arches up with a whine.

“It’ll be good,” Rodney says, breathlessly. “You’ll like it, I swear.”

Rodney’s shaking as he lines himself up and pushes in slowly, and he has to stop a couple of times and take a breath, it feels so fantastic. “God, I needed this,” he groans.

“Yeah,” John slurs, “Rodney, Rodney, fuck me, do me, I don’t care, jesus fuck -”

Rodney grits out, “Yes, wait,” then gets himself together enough that he can thrust, makes himself go slowly, the way he doesn’t like so much, until his thighs are aching.

“Harder,” John says hoarsely, “Faster,” so Rodney stops holding back, slams into John until they’ve slid up the bed and John has to brace himself against the wall with his forearms, until John’s gasping with every thrust and Rodney can hear himself babbling, “God, you’re so beautiful, can you see yourself, I could do this to you every day.”

John makes a strangled noise in his throat, shoves up slightly so he can brace with arm and reaches down between them, wraps his hand around his own cock and comes almost immediately, his whole body convulsing, face screwed up like it hurts him, and Rodney’s there and over the edge just like that, shudders racking him over and over, seeing white.

“God, that was good,” Rodney says to the ceiling, after he’s disentangled himself from John and dropped the condom in the handily placed disposal unit.

“I can’t believe we did that,” John says, sounding dazed. “That was the best sex I’ve ever had. Who knew, McKay?”

“Hm. Well, I am an excellent lover,” Rodney says, interrupting himself with a yawn, “If I do say so myself.”

“Yeah, you do,” John says, and Rodney can hear the grin in his voice. He’s filled with unexpected warmth, suddenly, and he’s on the brink of asking John if he’d like to do this again, breaking one of his rules, when his post-orgasm glow plummets into controlled panic all at once.

“I didn’t tell you my name.”

There’s silence for a minute. Rodney can almost hear John’s brain working.

“You did.”

“I didn’t, I have perfect recall, oh my god, you’re, you’re a honey trap. Are we being taped?”

John folds an arm over his face, big, ugly watch pressing into his cheek. Rodney can see its face, and it’s like nothing he’s ever seen before: there are weird symbols and numbers on it, flicking by at a fast rate, with the ones furthest to the left looking a lot like zeroes. John mutters, “There isn’t time to explain now, shit, shit.”

“Isn’t time?” Rodney says, voice cracking, sitting up and tugging on his boxers with clumsy hands. “Are you - are you police? What the hell is going on?”

“It’s not for you,” John says into his arm tonelessly, and Rodney keeps looking for his pants, uncomprehending. “I have to go.”

John hauls himself up off the bed and pulls his pants on. He’s got a red suck-mark on his neck.

“Still,” he says, with a mirthless smile, when he’s fully zipped and buttoned again. “At least I know what it takes to get your attention, now, right? See you round, Rodney.”

“You really, really won’t,” Rodney snaps, still shaky. He bends down to tug his shirt from under the bed, and when he turns back, John’s gone. He’s left the tab for the messed-up bed and the full two hours to Rodney, too. Rodney waits, paranoid, for something in the press, blackmail videos, but nothing happens. Eventually, all that’s left is a vague sense of being cheated, and a tendency to look for John whenever he goes out, to that bar and others. He never sees him, though.

*

It’s the morning showing at the Movie Magic Café, and there’s only Rodney in there; even at ten a.m. there are usually bleary-eyed backpackers filling the place, dreadlocked hair and piercings in stupid places and tan lines on their shoulders from their backpack straps, but the latest bunch of explosions over near the palace have scared off even the most suicidally easygoing travellers. Rodney’s waiting for a delivery of sample cases for his next expedition up the Bhote Kosi, collecting water ferns, this time, for the botanical laboratory in Darjeeling, and they’re late, of course. Problems with papers, bribes that didn’t go through, a truck with a puncture, a cow on the road, the usual suspects aggravated by the insurrectionists in the countryside, so Rodney’s got a week to kill in Kathmandu.

The city’s eerily still, even over the constant blaring car horns and the smell and the clamouring of the street kids; hostels are shut, half the record shops have their wire grilles down, the guys selling buddhas on the street stalls are subdued, even the beggars look more listless. In the streets behind Thamal Chowk, the traveller district, the street vegetable markets are about twice as small as usual. There are barricades around the eastern part of the city. The Magic is still open, though, a favourite with hardened ex-pats like Rodney. It’s a cheerful, tacky hybrid, where you can get crappy omelettes and decent Tibetan dumpling soups and watch pirated DVDs on the TV installed in brackets on the wall. The speakers are so bad that they always play the DVDs with English subtitles too, but because they’re pirated, the subtitles are usually hack jobs by locals and bear very little resemblance to the actual dialogue, though they’re always entertaining. They put a chalk billboard out on the street advertising the day’s ‘showing’. Today it’s The Matrix.

About half an hour in, when Rodney’s happily digging into his dumplings, a guy older than the usual crowd comes in and sits down beside him, scraping back his plastic chair. Rodney spares him a glance - a few days stubble, good looking, hair that’s younger than the rest of him, obviously in shape - and decides he’s an affluent American businessman here on some sort of extreme sports thing, too arrogant or too stupid to ignore the embassy’s warnings. Probably white water rafting, since most of the mountains are Maoist territory, now.

“Dr. McKay? Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard,” Apparently-Not-Extreme-Sports-Guy mutters, in a ridiculously secretive way. “We need to talk.”

“You don’t look very military,” Rodney says around a dumpling. The man looks slightly stricken, then narrows his eyes and looks pointedly at the crappy quality TV, the plastic chairs, the bored, stoned chef smoking by the door.

He leans close to Rodney. “Could we go somewhere a little more private?”

“I like this movie,” Rodney points out. “We can talk here. Does the army have a problem with ferns?”

“Ferns?”

“Because that’s really all I’m qualified to help with, although I am very, very qualified, if ferns are your problem. I recommend the Chicken Thukpa, it’s really nice.”

Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard looks in consternation at the menu, then back at Rodney. Then he squares his shoulders.

“How would you like to go to another universe?”

“Oh, Jesus, that is so lame,” Rodney says, “Look, whatever you’re selling, I can get it at a tenth of the price here, and if you’re interested in using me as a pony, or whatever you people call it, you can forget it. I am in a very privileged position of trust with the government, and I am not about to jeopardize that for a little extra pocket money.”

Sheppard opens and closes his mouth a few times, then slumps in his chair and looks at the screen. “Those subtitles don’t match the film,” he observes, after a few minutes.

“No,” Rodney says, “They’re from a film about a young man who gets mixed up with the mafia.”

They sit in companionable silence for a while.

“So,” Sheppard says, as they watch Neo take the jump off the city block, and the subtitles read, why do you do this to me Peter? I thout you love me?!, “This is somewhere in East Asia, right? And you already think I’m selling drugs. So I’m thinking my chances of convincing you that I’m from another galaxy in another universe, and that you’re actually my scientist friend who’s accidentally sliding from universe to universe, and I’ve come to try and get you back, are pretty low.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Rodney shrugs, “Sounds plausible.”

Sheppard turns to look at him. “Really?”

“No.”

They watch the film for a little while longer. Neo fights some agents. There are lots of guns. Suddenly the picture shivers and cuts out. Someone yells something in the street.

“Power cut,” Rodney says, pulling himself up out of his chair and stretching. “You want to come back to my place? I’ve got some pot.”

Rodney waves dismissively at Sheppard’s raised eyebrow. “I represent the last scientific institution willing to fund expeditions here, they don’t want to piss me off.”

Sheppard shrugs. “Cool.”

Rodney blows smoke rings up into the ceiling fan, which goes round and round. John winds his fingers in Rodney’s ponytail, which he seems weirdly fascinated with. Rodney doesn’t mind.

“Wow, this version of you is pretty chilled out,” says John.

“I’ve been working here for eight years,” Rodney says, “If I hadn’t kicked back, I would have had an aneurism.”

“I really am from another universe.”

Rodney snorts. “I’m not sure you should be mixing pot with whatever you’ve taken, but okay, tell me about it.”

“Weell,” John says, drawing the word out slowly, like he likes the taste of it, “There’s this city in another galaxy, and we all went there.”

“Why?”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time. But they we woke up this alien race that likes to suck out people’s souls, and now we kind of have to stay and help the rest of the galaxy fight them.”

“Wow, that sucks.”

“Yeah.”

“What the hell am I doing there? Fighting killer plants?”

John sighs, a warm gust against Rodney’s ear, and tugs another strand of Rodney’s hair free to play with.

“You do physics. You fix stuff.”

“I don’t do physics,” Rodney says firmly. “I like plants.”

“You like physics. You think math is cool. Do they have Sliders in this universe? We made an Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky Bridge. Well, you made it. And Zelenka. Only, turns out it’s more like a continuum.”

“Sounds boring,” Rodney says. He’s spacey and calm from the dope, enjoying the feel of John’s finger tips brushing against the side of his head as he winds Rodney’s hair around his fingers. “I don’t do that.”

“Plants are boring.”

“Plants are nice,” Rodney says. “They don’t play loud music, they don’t, don’t kill people, they don’t leave you for their hot graduate supervisor…”

“Aliens kill people,” John points out. “You help us fight the aliens.”

“I don’t know what you want me to do about it,” Rodney says, actually starting to get irritated. “I’m a biologist.”

“You could come back with me,” John says, and he sounds perfectly reasonable, if a little whiny. “It won’t even be you, just - it’s kind of complicated, but you’re our Rodney and this Rodney at the same time, except our Rodney’s kind of sulb - sublib - subliminated.”

Rodney yawns. “See if you can get him out, then.”

John rolls over onto his stomach, gets up on his elbows and shuffles so he’s looking down into Rodney’s eyes.

“Hey, buddy, you in there?”

Rodney stares up at him. His eyes are pretty, kind of green.

“Rodney?” John says softly, then slowly, hesitantly leans down and kisses Rodney’s lips, eyes crossing as he stares down at Rodney.

“Mm,” Rodney says, pleased, and tangles his hand in John’s hair, opens his mouth. They kiss for what feels like hours, time running slow and syrupy around them. John tastes sweet, like pot smoke and coconut rice. After a while they stop to roll another joint, and John lies curled around Rodney, staring at the ceiling.

“You like Atlantis,” he says, “It’s really cool.”

“Even with the killer aliens?”

“Yeah! There are…” John waves his hands in the air, sketching out something Rodney can’t see, “wormholes. And singularities. Space stuff. And technology. You really like all the technology.”

“I have responsibilities,” Rodney says, “I can’t just go to another universe.”

“But I keep telling you,” insists John, poking Rodney in the shoulder, “You’ll still be here. It’s just my Rodney. He has responsibilities, too. In Atlantis. He has to stop the killer aliens.”

Rodney shakes his head, carefully tapping the brown strands into a long, even line. “I can’t take that chance. The botanical gardens at Darjeeling are relying on me. And my wife, obviously.”

Sheppard goes very still. “Your wife?”

Rodney licks down the edge of the Rizla and rolls the paper cylinder between his fingers to make it stick, then fumbles for the lighter. “Pooja. Very nice girl. Nineteen. Funny story, actually, I was up near Pokhara collecting samples, and there’s this incredible rainstorm, I mean, really incredible, and I end up taking shelter in this village, and by the time the rain lets up I’m engaged. I only wanted some dhal. It all worked out pretty well, though - she gets set up for life, healthcare and education for her family, I get someone to keep house, make the meals, that kind of stuff. Don’t look at me like that! I don’t insist on her being faithful, obviously, it’s a mutually satisfying business arrangement. She’s even having a kid, although I’m pretty sure it isn’t mine. It’s funny,” Rodney muses, drawing deep on the new joint and holding it, enjoying the uncoiling sensation in the back of his mind as the bitter smoke drifts out of his mouth as he speaks, “you’d think I’d be more upset about it, but I don’t actually care. I don’t think my genes are really worth passing on. I have a terrible digestive system. But I’ll make sure it gets a good education. There’s a good American school in Darjeeling... oh, wow, this one’s strong.”

He finds that he’s lying flat on his back and John’s looming above him, staring at him. There’s something strange in his expression, but Rodney can’t put his finger on it.

“You’re not Rodney,” he says. “I don’t think you’re Rodney.”

“Haven’t really got the hang of this alternate universe thing, have you?” Rodney says amicably, taking another puff. Suddenly there’s a noise like a dull, very loud thud, and the floor trembles. Far off - or maybe it only sounds far off in Rodney’s head - the sound of shouting starts up, then some screaming. A car horn starts and doesn’t stop.

“What the hell was that?” Sheppard says, looking around. He’s standing up, now, and it’s making Rodney dizzy. He lets his eyes drift closed.

“That’ll be another car bomb,” he mumbles, “Don’t worry, sounds like it was several blocks away.”

“Jesus,” Sheppard says. “What the hell happened to you?”

“I know… I know it maybe sounds bad,” Rodney says, very slowly, watching the words drift up with the smoke towards the ceiling, “But you have to understand… it’s all different here. Everyone’s dying… everyone’s… anyway… the healthcare system, and, did you see the street kids?… and… you know… my, our kid, it won’t… ”

It’s a few minutes before he realizes he’s talking to himself, that the room’s empty, apart from him, but it seems important to make the point, so he keeps talking. The ceiling fan goes round and round. “Family… s’so important…”

*

“Are you insane?” Rodney hisses, and shoves Sheppard (although that’s probably not his real name), who has grabbed his ass while they’re still in full view of the corridor, through the door to his quarters. “There are cameras.”

Sheppard ignores him, buries his face in Rodney’s neck and mumbles something that sounds like, “It’s you.”

Rodney is beginning to have second thoughts about having brought this lunatic back to his apartment, but he could hardly believe his luck when Sheppard caught his eye from across the street, all lean lines and shadows, and he seemed remarkably eager, kissing and groping Rodney and whispering, “How about we take this somewhere more comfortable?” so here they are.

Now, Sheppard’s muttering, “This was not supposed to happen again,” and Rodney doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about, but he’s reaching for Rodney’s fly, so Rodney doesn’t care. Even better, Sheppard goes with only a little resistance when Rodney pushes him down onto his knees, and sucks Rodney off inexpertly but enthusiastically, and obeys without protest when Rodney can’t hold off giving him instructions, “Shallower, yes, god, use your tongue on the base, like that, oh.”

Rodney’s feeling generous, and he doesn’t normally do this with pick-ups but Sheppard’s really, really hot and clearly inexperienced and let him come in his mouth, so he says, “Do you want to fuck me? I’ll let you, you know.” Sheppard, to his surprise, hisses through his teeth, presses his palm to his groin and groans.

“No, no, bad idea.”

“Okay,” Rodney says, a little offended. Sheppard shimmies off his pants willingly enough, though, and Rodney kisses his way down his chest, pausing to lick his nipple, which makes Sheppard sigh. Then he tugs Sheppard until he lifts his hips, and shoves a pillow under them.

“Rodney, no, wait,” Sheppard says weakly, but Rodney ignores him, licks a stripe up his dick. “Oh, god,” Sheppard says.

After, Sheppard’s practically comatose. Rodney shuffles up beside him on the bed, pleased, then notices a nasty scar on the side of his chest, running down to his abdomen. He runs his finger along it.

“Huh, where did you get that?” he murmurs.

“Some war. Doesn’t matter.”

Rodney jerks up. “You’re army?”

Sheppard blinks slowly, unfocused arousal fading away to dangerous awareness. “Not anymore,” he says.

“And you’re still alive?”

Sheppard narrows his eyes. “Well, yeah.”

“I didn’t mean anything,” Rodney babbles, “It’s just, you know, you hear things, and I didn’t think it was possible to - I mean, you can’t escape the state co-opt, and once you’re state, you’re state, you know? Not that there’s anything wrong with that.” He projects that a little louder, instinctively. His whole office has been wired for years, it’s become second nature, now. Although obviously, he’s already pretty fucking compromised, but state overlooks the uncitizenlike proclivities of its more valued workers. “I just didn’t think -”

“I was injured,” Sheppard says. “Honourable discharge.”

“Oh,” Rodney says, standing up slowly, trying to look casual. He works hard to keep his voice light. “You want a drink?”

“Yeah, you got any water?” Sheppard says. He’s propped up on one elbow, watching Rodney warily, and Rodney crosses to the kitchen area, naked, reaches up to the cupboard, reaches behind the cups and pulls out the gun. He turns around so quickly he catches one of them with the barrel, and it flies out of the cupboard and smashes on the floor.

“Okay,” Sheppard says, eyes never leaving the gun in Rodney’s hand. “Don’t freak out, Rodney.”

“You need to leave right now,” Rodney says, trying not to shake. “Put your clothes on. Get out.”

“McKay,” Sheppard says, fast and low. “You want to get out of here? Listen to me. I’m from another galaxy. You’re from another galaxy. You don’t belong here.”

“Look, just, just get dressed and get out. Or I’ll turn you in. I swear.”

Sheppard dresses slowly, despite the gun, and keeps looking up at Rodney like he wants to say something. He takes a look at his watch, breathes out through his nose and rubs his hand over his face.

“Carson Beckett. Radek Zelenka. Elizabeth Weir. Ronon. Teyla. Ringing any bells, here?”

“No, no, I’m not listening, I don’t know any of them,” Rodney says again, backing up until his ass is pressed against the cold counter, running through his options if Sheppard doesn’t play ball. The gun’s black market, but maybe he could make a deal, gloss over the compromising circumstances. He’s an important man.

“Atleintis,” Sheppard says, looking at Rodney intently. At least, that’s what the word sounds like. And suddenly, Rodney does remember something. Maybe from childhood. Something blue. He pushes it away.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says.

“You could come with me,” Sheppard says, suddenly looking very tired. “You need to come with me.”

Rodney starts edging towards the ‘comm, still keeping the gun steady. “No, I think you should leave. Right now.”

“Okay. Okay. Going.”

Rodney waits for the hiss and click of the door closing before letting out his breath and sagging against the counter. Shit. Shit. He can’t believe he was so stupid.

*

Mer’s swearing at the printer when there’s a knock on the door.

“Okay. This is different,” the guy says, and it’s John fucking Sheppard, staring at her like he’s never seen her before. As if this day couldn’t get any worse. Four reports due in the middle of a spell of brownouts, Amy sick again from the meds, and now this.

“What are you doing here?” Mer hisses. “You swore, you swore you’d never come back here, you bastard, get out of here right now, I don’t want her to see you, we’re doing fine, you can’t just - just show up out of nowhere and expect to - you haven’t got a leg to stand on, and don’t expect that I’ll just roll over and beg, I am done with you, and so is Amy.”

“Amy?” Sheppard blinks, with that stupid who, me? look on his face that Mer used to actually like.

“Stay the fuck away from my child,” Meredith says, and slams the door in his face. When it rings again and again, she ignores it. She sits on her bed until she’s stopped crying, so that Amy doesn’t see. When she’s cleaned her face up, she goes and makes herself a cup of caff with the paralighter and gulps at it while it’s still too hot, feeling less shaky by the second, and as the initial shock passes, she can think more rationally about the whole thing. It’s coming up to eleven a.m., when the heat curfew will kick in; if Sheppard isn’t gone by then, a patrol will pick him up, and if the electricity comes back up, she can call Larry in the afternoon. Sheppard looked terrible, she thinks, with a certain amount of satisfaction. She hopes he’s got a wasting disease. Asshole.

*

“Oh, it’s you,” Rodney says. It seems the thing to say. John Sheppard stiffens, freezes at the doorway. Rodney frowns. He remembers Sheppard being a lot more laid back.

“You know me?”

“Well, knew, technically.”

“Where did we meet?”

Rodney sighs and lies back on the bed. He really doesn’t know why he has to explain this all again. It isn’t like he doesn’t already know it, so he has no idea why his subconscious demands this every time. “McMurdo. You flew helicopters. What are you here for? I mean, not that it isn’t nice to see you, it makes a change, anyway, but I was really expecting somebody else. I mean, we only slept together a couple of times, I don’t think you have that deep an emotional significance for me. Besides, you look much worse than I remember you.”

This doesn’t seem to reassure Sheppard. In fact, he looks even more freaked out. Maybe more than the first time Rodney hit on him, actually. That was hilarious.

“We did, huh.”

“You want to do it now?” Rodney says hopefully, not expecting much. It stopped bothering him that it was basically masturbation a long time ago. After all, that’s all he’d be doing anyway.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Sheppard says, finally coming in and closing the door. He pulls out the uncomfortable chair that Rodney never sits in, spins it around - of course - and straddles it.

“I don’t mean to seem ungrateful. I mean, obviously, I brought you here, but, still, it’s nice to see you. I did like you a lot. Although in retrospect I don’t think it would have worked out, because we really didn’t have much in common, I think you’ll agree.”

“You brought me here?”

Rodney snorts. He’d have figured that a version of Sheppard created by himself would be a better conversationalist than the real one had been, but apparently not.

“Well, yes. I’m imagining you, I don’t understand why I have to explain this every time. I know it, you know it, let’s just get past it and have sex, already. Or, or, play chess, or cards, or, I have some movies, although I’ve seen them all a billion times. Anything, seriously, you would not believe how lonely I am. That’s why you’re here, of course. God, I hate it here. I can’t believe they sent me back. All things considered, it would have been kinder just to kill me, but I suppose I’m still doing valuable work for humanity. Or something.”

“I’m really -”

“Just, please, don’t start,” Rodney says sharply, holding up a hand. “I’m really, really tired of going through all this. You are clearly not really here, we are hundreds of miles of freezing wasteland from anywhere, this is a secure facility with only a handful of staff on a six month rotation, and we don’t have an air drop coming for another two months at least. It is completely impossible for you to be really here, and anyway, you’re dead.”

Ha. That takes the wind out of his sails.

“I’m dead?”

“You’re all dead. In the explosion. I saw your name on the roster before they sent me back here. Is this what this is about? Is today a guilt day? Look, seriously, just cut the crap, I’m really not in the mood.”

When Sheppard doesn’t say anything, Rodney opens one eye cautiously. He’s still there, though, just sitting on the chair and rubbing the back of his head like he always used to, and for a second Rodney feels stricken, lost, like he’s in the wrong place. He shuts his eyes again.

“You were probably my favourite person I met there, you know,” Rodney says softly. “I really did like you. I’m sorry, for what it’s worth. Although, actually, now I think about it, it could conceivably be your fault that my calculations were off. You were probably distracting me with your stupid hikes and movies and your, your dumb hair…” Rodney hears his voice start to thicken and swallows furiously. “Oh, guilt day, yes, great. Just, just go away, leave me alone.”

He rolls over to face the wall. After a moment, the mattress dips as Sheppard sits down on it beside him, and Rodney rolls back over to press his face into Sheppard’s thigh, because he might as well enjoy it while he thinks he’s got it. He smiles when Sheppard pats his head.

“Probably was my fault,” Sheppard says, “’cause in my universe, we never met at McMurdo, and your calculations were fine. We never met until I sat in the chair.”

Rodney smiles at the memory, Sheppard’s astonished face as the chair folded out, lit up, then blinks. That never happened.

“Wait,” he says, “Wait, what?”

It takes a fairly long time for Sheppard to explain, slowly and patiently, like Rodney’s an idiot, about the quantum mirror, the rift, the Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky Bridge - no, sorry, Continuum. His subconscious has rarely been so entertaining. By the end of it he’s laughing so much his stomach hurts.

“That,” he wheezes, “Is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Really. Can you, can you pass me that notepad on the table? I want to write this down. Oh, god. I can’t believe I even remember that name, I amaze myself, really. You had the gene… and… and I was a, oh, a stoner botanist, ha ha ha…”

He wipes his eyes, still chuckling. “Out of interest, are we fucking in your universe?”

Sheppard’s not laughing at all. In fact, he looks really pissed. “Not really.”

That sets Rodney off again, and he pats Sheppard on the knee, trying to keep a straight face, “Don’t - don’t worry… you thought you were straight, ah, ha, in my universe too…”

“Okay,” Sheppard says, after Rodney’s finally calmed down, “Just - treat this as a hypothetical situation, okay? Because I'm doing really, really badly here. If you were me, how would you make you believe me?”

“I am you,” Rodney repeats patiently. “I - am - imagining - you. You are not really here.”

“You want to bet on that?” Sheppard says, eyes narrowing, and suddenly he’s straddling Rodney, wrenching his wrists above his head and bending to kiss him, hard. Their teeth clack together and Rodney tastes blood. He licks his lips, eyeing Sheppard, who’s breathing hard and looking mad, bad and dangerous to know.

“Ow. I could have done that myself, that doesn’t prove anything.”

For a second, Rodney thinks Sheppard’s going to headbutt him, but instead he puts his mouth on Rodney’s neck, kissing and licking and biting - ow, biting - but it’s good, it’s so good, better than it’s ever been, and Rodney grabs him by the hair, pulls his head up and kisses him, kisses him, rolls him off the low bed to get on top of him and grind against him on the floor. Sheppard’s as grabby and twisty as Rodney remembers, more, panting into Rodney’s mouth and wrapping one leg around his, and it feels so fantastic he can almost forget it’s all in his mind. He realizes Sheppard’s trying to say something, and he’s really not interested, but, unfairly, he can’t even hold his own hallucination down, and John flips them over and hisses into his face, “Look at my watch.”

Rodney stares at the little screen inches from his face, and is intrigued, despite himself. “Oh, huh, is that Ancient?”

“That’s the time I have left before they pull me out,” Sheppard says, stabbing at the numbers with his stupid hairy finger. “That’s the set of Ancient seven-dimensional co-ordinates for where we are in the continuum. Zelenka thinks there’s a whole spectrum of universes you can access using a particular entrance point, which in our case was our Rodney. But you don’t exist in them all. So I’m getting kind of worried, here, because I was nearly picked up by the goddamned Stazi in the last one, and I’m thinking, maybe soon I’m going to run out of universes where you’re still alive. I'm kind of out of ideas, Rodney, so what's the plan?”

Rodney frowns. “You really are worked up about this. You were always telling me to relax. And you never called me Rodney.”

“There are a bunch of aliens out there who want to destroy humanity and probably the only guy who can help us is sliding through parallel versions of himself!” Sheppard almost yells, a vein throbbing in his forehead. “Sorry for being a little concerned!”

An ache is starting in Rodney’s neck and lower back, and he can feel the burning sensation that means his ulcer is playing up again. He suddenly feels cold and very, very tired. He catches Sheppard off guard when he shoves him off, maybe a little harder than is entirely warranted, and Sheppard falls flat on his back on the floor. Rodney picks himself up and sits back on the bed to put his shoes on while Sheppard gets up, looking disgruntled.

“If that’s your problem, I suggest you hurry up and try another universe,” Rodney snaps. “I have a number of very complicated but very menial calculations to double-check, and then I think we’re having fish soup for dinner, or, hm, maybe it’ll be fish soup. But there is no chance that I will blow anyone up in the next twenty-four hours, or the twenty-four hours after that, and I am really, really fine with that part of it. Go get Zelenka to fix it. You’ve still got Zelenka, right? Or Grodin. He’s smart.”

“Yeah, we’ve got Zelenka, but he’s not as smart as you,” Sheppard says. “Grodin died.”

“Hm. My fault?”

“No! No, Rodney.”

“But I was there, couldn’t stop it, nothing I could do, blah blah blah.”

Rodney realizes he’s reached a hysterical shriek, but he hates this, hates the way Sheppard’s looking at him and the way Rodney just wants to reach out and touch Sheppard but can’t, because he doesn’t think he could bear it if his own hallucination flinched the way Sheppard used to. He waves his hands in the air, wiggles his fingers in front of Sheppard’s face. “Weapons of mass destruction! Dangerous! Keep away!”

“Rodney.”

“Don’t call me that!”

Rodney shuts his eyes, takes a few deep breaths.

“Just - just go, okay? I’m sorry. I’m sorry for killing you. I’m sorry for not - for not being what you wanted. I’m sorry for everything.”

“Rodney - Rodney, I -” Sheppard says, then, “Oh, shit, Radek, no, wait -”

When Rodney opens his eyes, Sheppard’s gone, right on cue. It’s funny, he’d almost had himself fooled for a little while, there. The human mind is an amazing thing. He lies down on the floor in the corridor. His back’s hurting. He’ll get up in a little while.

*

When Rodney wakes up, it’s still pitch black and the door’s shut, but there’s someone in his cell.

“Who’s that?” he whispers into the dark, holding himself frozen still. He nearly retches from terror when someone whispers, “You take me to the nicest places, McKay.”

Rodney’s found it doesn’t make any difference to the way he’s treated, so he doesn’t try to resist his natural impulse to babble anymore.

“Oh, great, I should have known one of you sick bastards would try this eventually, do you really think that I wouldn’t have told you by now, if I knew where Zelenka was? I’d give him up in a second, do you really think I care about, about whatever he’s trying to do? I don’t know, I’m loyal, I’m the best scientist you have, this is idiocy, you -”

“Rodney,” the person whispers, and Rodney flinches as a hand falls on his arm and feels its way up to his shoulder. He tries to edge away from it, but the wall’s in the way. “Rodney, it’s me, John.”

“I don’t know any of your names,” Rodney says, powerless to stop the hand pressing against his face through the beard - they shave him at random intervals, but it’s pretty long, now - and tracing up over his forehead, the thumb brushing the corner of his eye, devastatingly gentle, and it’s maybe the cruellest thing they’ve done to him yet. Rodney shuts his eyes, not that it makes any difference, and a tear squeezes out. He’s been crying a lot, lately. He hardly notices anymore.

“Please don’t,” he says. “I can’t - just, do whatever you’re going to do.”

“Rodney,” the voice says, fast and urgent, “Rodney, Rodney, those bastards, I’m going to - fuck, fuck, could you just remember me, just this one time?”

“I don’t,” Rodney says, tears trickling down his face easily, now, as the man in his cell rubs his shoulder, touches him carefully in strange places, the base of his spine, his stomach, like the doctor does after they’ve had Rodney in the white room for a while. “I don’t know who you are.”

“I’m John Sheppard, Rodney, you know me.”

“Go away,” Rodney says, shuddering, trying to push his hand off. He’s so warm. “Go away.”

“Atlantis,” John says. “Do you remember Atlantis? Please, Rodney, remember it, please, you have to be able to see it for this to work.”

“I can’t.”

“You can, buddy, trust me, I know you’re in there.” John’s rubbing his back over and over, long, soothing strokes. Maybe he’s gone mad, Rodney thinks hysterically, or maybe they want him to think he’s gone mad, or maybe this is a dream.

“I’m real, I’m really here,” John is saying steadily above him, “You used the quantum mirror to form a rift to destroy the Wraith fleet, and it worked, but you got stuck. I've been looking all over for you.”

Rodney starts to giggle. “I thought they had me on the good drugs before. These are the really good ones.”

“Rodney,” John says, “Towers. You remember the towers? That’s what I’d remember. ZPMs. Big, soul-sucking aliens with white dreads. You can hit a target with eighty five percent accuracy. You like MREs. You yell at your scientists.”

Rodney tries to smile. His voice sounds hoarse. “I have scientists?”

“Sure,” John says, “Tons. Hundreds. Radek Zelenka. Funny little guy, Czech, wears glasses.”

“I used to know a Zelenka,” Rodney says, “He ran away.”

“That’s not him,” John says. “It’s not real, you don’t belong to these universes, you belong to us, okay, just - I’m sorry, I’m sorry I didn’t - this is the last one, Rodney, we’re nearly out of time, please -”

He sounds genuinely upset, and Rodney pats him on the knee. John grabs his hand and interlaces their fingers.

“Come home with me,” he says urgently. “Maybe it doesn’t matter if you can’t remember. Just - think of towers. And the sea. There’s sea all around. We raised the city out of the sea, you and me - if we can do that, we can do this.”

“Clear blue skies,” Rodney whispers. He can remember what they looked like.

“Good,” John says, sounding choked, “Good, Rodney, here, hold this,” and he pushes his wrist with something hard and plastic wrapped around it into Rodney’s hand. “Concentrate.”

If he thinks really hard, Rodney thinks he can almost see towers. He thinks maybe they’re beautiful.

“Come on, come on,” John grits out into Rodney’s ear, but nothing happens. John hoists Rodney over so he’s lying in John’s lap.

“I remember you,” Rodney hears himself say, and suddenly he sees it for a second, blurred. A face on a train. “I was going to Bu Bao Shen.” The words sound strange in his mouth, he doesn’t know what they mean. “I thought you were from the CIA.”

“You’re the most paranoid asshole I’ve ever met, McKay,” John says. He sounds almost fond, and Rodney can almost - he can almost believe -

“It’s not working,” John says, “Concentrate harder.”

“Trying.”

“Do you remember the numbers?” John says quickly. “I put the paper with the numbers in your jacket pocket while you were fighting with your dog, do you remember? You had a big house with a yellow door. It was the fall, and you were married.”

Digits swim before Rodney’s eyes, even though it’s too dark to see, resolving themselves into a neat line of numbers, points on a grid. “It was an address,” he breathes.

“Yeah, way to go, Rodney,” John says. “Try concentrating on that.”

Rodney does, thinks about them hard, think of where we are in the solar system, and a word floats into his mind, Pegasus, but everything’s still dark around him.

“I’m not leaving, I’m not leaving without you,” John mutters, “Fuck, this isn’t working. Do you remember what it was like to step through the wormhole? Into another galaxy? You were so happy.”

“I don’t remember,” Rodney says, panic rising up in his throat. “John, don’t leave me. I don’t remember that.”

“Fuck, I can't think,” John says, his breath coming hot and fast on Rodney’s forehead. “The game. Do you remember our game? We played it for years. You and me.”

“You wore jeans.”

“Yeah!” John says, with a laugh that’s more like a gasp, “yeah, I wore jeans. And - Teyla. She’s our friend. You remember her?”

Rodney smiles, feels the curve of his own mouth against the fabric of John’s pants. “She’s pretty.”

“Really pretty.”

“And the big guy.”

“Ronon. Yeah, he’s pretty damn big. Think about them, okay? They want to see you, they want to see you so much, they’re waiting for us back there, we’ve been looking for you so hard.”

Rodney feels tired, suddenly, and his focus slips. He could almost see Teyla for a second, there, but now he can’t remember her face. “What do you need me for? Because I’m really tired, so if you need me to fix stuff -”

John’s leaning over Rodney, rocking him, and his voice is messy and cracked as he says, “What? No, Rodney, we - we miss you, we just want you to, to come home with me, come on, last stop, we have to go now -”

“Okay,” Rodney whispers, and holds John’s hand, wraps his fingers around the teleportation device, and for a moment, in the piercing light that nearly blinds him, coming from him, from John, taking them away, he remembers everything.

When he wakes up again, the rough prison mattress is wet underneath his face, and he keeps his eyes shut tight against the dark, pulls his arms up around himself to keep in the feeling of being held, being cared for, warm, just for a few seconds. He doesn’t remember what he was dreaming, but he remembers that. Just a few more seconds.

*

End