Nothing of Anything Part 5
Part 1 ~ Part 2 ~ Part 3 ~ Part 4
One day, not a week into what he was starting to think of as a prolonged stay as a mental patient, his morning pills and breakfast arrived via a very different carrier than usual. Jennifer Keller set the tray down on his bedside table and smiled politely.
“Where’s Carson?”
She handed him a glass of milk and a handful of pills and he swallowed them dutifully, knowing she wouldn’t leave until he did.
“Oh, well, he’s a bit busy at the moment. Off-world emergency.”
“What? Is everyone all right?” Rodney asked, nearly jumping up, but Jennifer caught him and managed to keep him sitting.
“Everyone’s fine, just a broken ankle. Carson’s meeting them in the jumper bay.”
“Oh. Okay. I guess--” He so often forgot that this Atlantis really didn’t have the kind of emergencies he was always being called in for.
“What’s for breakfast, then?” Rodney said, trying to cover up his momentary confusion. He really wasn’t in the mood for an extra hour with Heightmeyer today.
“Veggie omelet and fruit. No citrus, of course, but the mess used a bunch of those apple things from M3X-949, and an apple a day--”
“--makes the doctor happy.” Rodney smiled, a little sadly. Their break-up was amicable, but break-ups were always a little sad. “Thanks, Jen.”
Jennifer smiled, “Right. I guess I’ll just be going then, Mer.” And she gave him a little wave on the way out.
~*~
“Hey, Carson?”
“Mmm?” Carson paused on his way out of the room.
“I, um,” Rodney stuttered, “I need, you know, uh, pads.”
Carson looked confused for a moment. Then his eyes darted and he looked more embarrassed than Rodney knew he was because, regardless of what reality they were in, Rodney, given the option, would have always chosen Carson over anyone else for his annuals. “Oh, yes, of course.”
Carson motioned toward his ear, already closing the door on the way out.
John showed up ten minutes later and pulled a pack of Always out of his bag. “Hey, Carson called. Figured you’d be more comfortable with your own than his generic crap.”
Rodney blinked at John, standing there expectantly and holding out a pack of maxi pads. He reached out and tentatively took them. “Thanks.”
John smiled. “No problem. So, I have to get back to work, but I’ll come by later.”
And with that John swooped in for a little peck, smiling happily at him, and left.
Rodney found he was smiling a little dopily, as well, and wiped it off his face with a frown. That was… positively domestic. He busied himself in the bathroom for a moment, then returned to sit on his bed. John had smiled, like running little domestic errands was normal. Like he wanted to do things like that for Rodney. For Mer.
The thing he’d been trying not to think about lately was how familiar this all seemed. There was something, a sort of muscle memory that had to belong with this body and not with his old one.
He cut off the thought that there might not have been an old one.
Dealing with the everyday maintenance of his body only caused him a momentary pause. It hadn’t been anything to freak out over, and that more than anything concerned him. And now this, with the pads, was a nuisance, perhaps, but really hadn’t merited any freaking.
Rodney wasn’t sure sometimes if the pills were really doing what they were supposed to do. The disorienting confusion had all but disappeared but instead of feeling completely like Rodney again he was becoming more familiar with being Mer. He wasn’t sure of his past anymore and everyone around him was the same as they had always been. It was getting so hard to see the dividing line between universes.
~*~
Not letting Rodney work wasn't really conducive to helping anyone, so Radek came by every few days. They had Rodney designing simulations and checking equations, mostly, but at least he had a computer and a purpose. Without anything to do, he really would have felt like he was in a mental institution.
Radek pushed the door open, walking backwards so he could hold onto the tray he carried. “Carson said you had not eaten. I thought a working lunch sounds good, yes?”
“Ohh, is that meatloaf? Did you bring some of that mashed potato stuff they always serve with it?”
“Yes, yes, how could I forget?”
“Good, great.” Rodney helped him portion the meal between them and dug in. “So, the simulation on variant space-time, for the hyperspace drives, I was thinking, what if we changed the interval. Going larger instead of smaller would give us more data on--”
“--our proposed constant. Yes, and the data would still be relevant for Gunderson’s work.”
“Kill two birds with one stone.” Rodney smirked.
“We would need to re-calculate for the curve--”
Rodney waved his fork dismissively. “Naturally, I’ve already started on the new equations.”
“Good, good.”
It was probably a little pathetic how much Radek’s visits were starting to mean to Rodney. They’d worked together for five years, and it wasn’t until he was away from the lab that he started to miss his obstinate friend.
Well, not five years with this particular Radek. At least that’s what he was still sticking to. It was getting hard to tell some times, especially when it was so easy to fall into the same patterns he’d had with his Radek for years.
~*~
“Hello, Meredith.”
“Oh, Elizabeth, hi. I haven’t seen you for a while.”
Elizabeth sat down gracefully on the edge of Rodney’s bed and looked curiously at the bits strewn about him where he sat on the floor. He still couldn’t bring himself to move back in with John and this had slowly become his sanctuary. “No, sorry, I’ve been doing a lot of running between the peoples of Nwonta and Carn -- you know, P3K-3C9 and P3R-MH8.” Rodney nodded absently and grabbed a screwdriver as she added, “but I think they’re done needing our help for the moment. What are you up to?”
“It’s nothing special,” Rodney said, sighing sadly, “just repairing a spectrophotometer for the chemists. Apparently everyone else is busy, so why not give it to the crazy person with too much time on their hands!”
He was sorely tempted to throw the part he was holding across the room but, like so many things he wanted to do these days, he didn’t think it would help his case any.
“Oh, Mer.” Elizabeth slid down so she was sitting on the floor across from him. “It’s going to get better, from what I hear it already has. Kate says you’re doing so well. I know you must be frustrated. Why don’t you join Teyla and me tomorrow morning for yoga? Burn off some of energy.”
It wasn’t as though it was especially unusual for him to leave his room in the infirmary, but they were still being careful not to leave him alone out there.
“You still do that? Yoga with Teyla?”
“Of course, you know that.”
She was right, he knew Elizabeth had enjoyed teaching Teyla yoga, that they had as much of a standing arrangement as was possible, but there were so many things he was unsure of these days. It really wasn’t different here at all, it felt like. Each day brought the new realization that he did know these people. This whole reality thing, well, he’d certainly had stranger dreams.
“Okay, sure.”
She stood. “I’ll let you get on with this but I’ll talk to Carson, pick you up tomorrow?”
“Sounds good.” Rodney smiled. “Bye, Elizabeth.”
“Meredith.” She nodded a good-bye.
~*~
“You haven’t taken off your wedding ring.”
Rodney frowned at Heightmeyer and looked down at her fingers. Her right hand made a move toward the ring but faltered. She hadn’t really noticed it before, like wearing it was already an ingrained habit. She couldn’t bring herself to remove it. That gold ring meant something, it was precious, and her heart clenched at even the thought of taking it off.
~*~
“Mer?” John was practically skipping into the room.
Rodney smiled. “Hi.”
“Carson hinted you had some big news.” John teased.
“Yeah. I wanna go home.” Rodney really did love him, but knowing that and going home with John had been two different things. She could accept and had accepted the female form because resistance wouldn’t have changed anything and her inherent sense of comfort had to mean something, but it wasn’t quite the same when she still couldn’t remember much of the life she’d had with John -- still didn’t even know where they lived. But the feelings were there, in the familiarity with which they interacted and in how much it had hurt to see John's reaction to Rodney's rejection. She had to try. The other reality was still clear in her mind, but the people she’d known there were the same ones she knew here and she couldn’t reject them.
“Mer.” John sat down on the bed next to her and leaned down to see into her eyes.
“Home?”
John nodded, “Yeah. That sounds good.”
One of John’s hands found its way into her hair as he leaned in to press a kiss to her forehead.
~*~
As she followed John home, with him carrying the duffel bag of things that had accumulated in her room and her holding her laptop, it was obvious why she hadn’t found it that night she’d escaped. Their quarters where farther from the central tower than she would have expected to be open, back then, back when this version of Atlantis seemed unfamiliar to her. They had a nice place with an open floor plan not quite close enough to be where most of the single soldiers were living but not quite inside the little suburb where most of the Athosians spent their time while on Atlantis. It was as near rural as was possible within Atlantis, a small settlement between colonies, with a view that wasn’t hindered by the surrounding buildings.
John walked straight through the little living area and into the bedroom, where he dropped the duffel bag on the bed and turned to smile at her where she lingered in the doorway.
“I, uh, don’t know--” Rodney gulped. “I don’t think I’m ready for this yet.”
John’s eyes flashed between her and the bed and he made a little sympathetic grimace. “That’s okay. Really.” He moved closer and ran his hand down her arm to hold onto her fingers for a moment. “I’m just glad you’re home. I can sleep on the couch. Wouldn’t be the first time.”
When Rodney looked up she caught the hint of a teasing smirk before he made his way back into the living area. Yeah, she could picture that. They snarked all the time, even with John being extra thoughtful lately, and it was easy to imagine that the snarking would occasionally give way to bickering, even yelling. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that she loved him, and he her, but it was all too easy to picture herself locking John out of the bedroom, refusing to let Atlantis let him in, just because she could. Could almost hear the harsh knocks on the door, maybe John trying to apologize for whatever thing he’d done without thinking first. She’d make him sleep on the couch without any pity whatsoever, just to be a bitch. It was so clear in her mind it could almost be a memory.
She followed him, leaning over the side of the couch and curling a hand over the back of his neck as he sat looking up at her. “I’m trying.”
“I know, Mer.”
“I really, really am.”
“I know.”
She leaned forward tentatively, almost hoping John would take the lead here because she was feeling exposed, but he didn’t. John stayed still under her fingers and let her take her own time, moving in hesitantly and placing a chaste kiss against his lips before reeling backward quickly. She left the room knowing John had the biggest smile on his face that she could remember seeing in a long time, and that made her want to try even harder.
~*~
She was still on a lot of meds and she still had to see Heightmeyer nearly every day but being home made a whole world of difference. Getting to wake up in her own bed, running into John when he left the door open to the bathroom, getting grumbles for leaving the toothpaste uncapped -- all of it made her feel like her life was falling back into place. This was somewhere she belonged.
Radek was slowly handing the reins back to her, increasing her workload and stress as much as Heightmeyer would let him, and Mer loved it. Burrowing in the lab for hours on end had never seemed so appealing. And there was the added bonus that John would come and make her leave when she’d been at it too long, holding a cup of coffee in front of him like a peace offering. There was a routine to her life that felt natural, especially compared to those long weeks spent mostly in a private room in the infirmary. Some days she forgot that there was still the possibility, however small it might seem now, that she didn’t actually belong here.
~*~
It wasn’t that she’d given up on her earlier quest to find the thing that had caused all this to come about. It was more that she wasn’t sure any longer just what it had done. She knew it had to be out there, that whatever had happened hadn’t happened on its own, but the prospect that it transported a person’s mind across realities was significantly less likely than that it scrambled your brain a bit. It often seemed that all the information she knew then and now were the same, it had all just been mixed up here and there. That was much more likely, and she was a scientist who had no evidence to the contrary.
Still, she spent a portion of every day checking programs she’d set up to do a more thorough run through the database than she could ever accomplish in a hundred lifetimes. It hadn’t turned anything up yet but she wasn’t ready to give up on finding whatever had done this to her.
~*~
The months went by and the bustle of everyday had started to seem more important than her secret side project. Eventually she realized she hadn’t checked the programs in over a week. It just didn’t seem that important when she had yoga two days a week with Elizabeth and Teyla, and Ladies' Poker Night, a standing double-date with Teyla and Kanaan once a month, and picnics on the pier where she got to watch John play with Torren or play beach volleyball with the marines, and then a full time job on top of all that. Somewhere along the line sleeping on the couch hadn’t mattered anymore, though they really didn’t do more than sleep. Every now and then John would slip unexpectedly into the bathroom and she was tempted to tell him to come back out, but Mer liked it the way it was, just like they were. And to be honest, she wasn’t sure she was ready when, though she might feel she belonged here, she still had no actual memory of them together like that. She didn’t want to embarrass herself.
~*~
Nearly eight months after Mer had woken confused and hysterical, she woke up to John pressing gentle kisses to the back of her neck.
“Hmmm. Coffee.”
She could feel John smile against her skin for a moment. Then he shifted and a mug of coffee appeared in her vision.
“Wow, you’re good,” Mer mumbled, pushing around and sitting up so she could grab the coffee.
“Yeah.” John was entirely too awake for the time of day.
“You went running already, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.” He smiled, leaning forward to bury his nose in her hair while she sipped at the coffee.
“You’re being weird again.”
John chuckled, and then grabbed the coffee from her hands so he could press his lips to hers for a moment. “Happy anniversary.”
Mer blinked, confused. “Oh, I mean--”
“Don’t worry.” John gave her back her coffee. “I didn’t really expect you to remember it.” The ‘even before’ was implied but unspoken, the way so many of the things that had happened back then were.
“Well, then.” Mer fit her hand behind his neck and tugged him in for another kiss, letting this one linger, pressing her tongue to the seam of his lips and feeling him open for her. He ducked his head and worked wet kisses down her neck, then pulled away.
“God, I miss you,” she heard him whisper before he backed away, as always, letting her have her space. “I should get ready for work.”
“Oh, yeah. Right.” Mer was left on the bed, sipping absentmindedly at her coffee, while John ducked into the bathroom for his morning routine -- which, honestly, some days was longer than hers. She wanted him to stay; she usually did when he backed off. It worked well enough while they were getting back into their routines for them to take care of themselves mostly, but this morning it was more than a longing to keep him there with her in their bed. John was hers and she was going to make this right.
~*~
When Meredith finally made it home she’d almost forgotten that morning but seeing John there, dressed in his softest white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to show off his forearms and tight black jeans that made his hips look nearly nonexistent, she was abruptly reminded just what she’d wanted to do with him that morning.
“Hey, long day?”
“Oh, uh, yeah,” she stuttered, dropping the armful of papers and tablets on a side table.
“I have dinner.”
“That’s nice,” Mer murmured as she drew near John. Then she cut off anything else he might have said by tugging him down with a hand on his collar and capturing his sweet lower lip.
Part 6 ~ Part 7
One day, not a week into what he was starting to think of as a prolonged stay as a mental patient, his morning pills and breakfast arrived via a very different carrier than usual. Jennifer Keller set the tray down on his bedside table and smiled politely.
“Where’s Carson?”
She handed him a glass of milk and a handful of pills and he swallowed them dutifully, knowing she wouldn’t leave until he did.
“Oh, well, he’s a bit busy at the moment. Off-world emergency.”
“What? Is everyone all right?” Rodney asked, nearly jumping up, but Jennifer caught him and managed to keep him sitting.
“Everyone’s fine, just a broken ankle. Carson’s meeting them in the jumper bay.”
“Oh. Okay. I guess--” He so often forgot that this Atlantis really didn’t have the kind of emergencies he was always being called in for.
“What’s for breakfast, then?” Rodney said, trying to cover up his momentary confusion. He really wasn’t in the mood for an extra hour with Heightmeyer today.
“Veggie omelet and fruit. No citrus, of course, but the mess used a bunch of those apple things from M3X-949, and an apple a day--”
“--makes the doctor happy.” Rodney smiled, a little sadly. Their break-up was amicable, but break-ups were always a little sad. “Thanks, Jen.”
Jennifer smiled, “Right. I guess I’ll just be going then, Mer.” And she gave him a little wave on the way out.
~*~
“Hey, Carson?”
“Mmm?” Carson paused on his way out of the room.
“I, um,” Rodney stuttered, “I need, you know, uh, pads.”
Carson looked confused for a moment. Then his eyes darted and he looked more embarrassed than Rodney knew he was because, regardless of what reality they were in, Rodney, given the option, would have always chosen Carson over anyone else for his annuals. “Oh, yes, of course.”
Carson motioned toward his ear, already closing the door on the way out.
John showed up ten minutes later and pulled a pack of Always out of his bag. “Hey, Carson called. Figured you’d be more comfortable with your own than his generic crap.”
Rodney blinked at John, standing there expectantly and holding out a pack of maxi pads. He reached out and tentatively took them. “Thanks.”
John smiled. “No problem. So, I have to get back to work, but I’ll come by later.”
And with that John swooped in for a little peck, smiling happily at him, and left.
Rodney found he was smiling a little dopily, as well, and wiped it off his face with a frown. That was… positively domestic. He busied himself in the bathroom for a moment, then returned to sit on his bed. John had smiled, like running little domestic errands was normal. Like he wanted to do things like that for Rodney. For Mer.
The thing he’d been trying not to think about lately was how familiar this all seemed. There was something, a sort of muscle memory that had to belong with this body and not with his old one.
He cut off the thought that there might not have been an old one.
Dealing with the everyday maintenance of his body only caused him a momentary pause. It hadn’t been anything to freak out over, and that more than anything concerned him. And now this, with the pads, was a nuisance, perhaps, but really hadn’t merited any freaking.
Rodney wasn’t sure sometimes if the pills were really doing what they were supposed to do. The disorienting confusion had all but disappeared but instead of feeling completely like Rodney again he was becoming more familiar with being Mer. He wasn’t sure of his past anymore and everyone around him was the same as they had always been. It was getting so hard to see the dividing line between universes.
~*~
Not letting Rodney work wasn't really conducive to helping anyone, so Radek came by every few days. They had Rodney designing simulations and checking equations, mostly, but at least he had a computer and a purpose. Without anything to do, he really would have felt like he was in a mental institution.
Radek pushed the door open, walking backwards so he could hold onto the tray he carried. “Carson said you had not eaten. I thought a working lunch sounds good, yes?”
“Ohh, is that meatloaf? Did you bring some of that mashed potato stuff they always serve with it?”
“Yes, yes, how could I forget?”
“Good, great.” Rodney helped him portion the meal between them and dug in. “So, the simulation on variant space-time, for the hyperspace drives, I was thinking, what if we changed the interval. Going larger instead of smaller would give us more data on--”
“--our proposed constant. Yes, and the data would still be relevant for Gunderson’s work.”
“Kill two birds with one stone.” Rodney smirked.
“We would need to re-calculate for the curve--”
Rodney waved his fork dismissively. “Naturally, I’ve already started on the new equations.”
“Good, good.”
It was probably a little pathetic how much Radek’s visits were starting to mean to Rodney. They’d worked together for five years, and it wasn’t until he was away from the lab that he started to miss his obstinate friend.
Well, not five years with this particular Radek. At least that’s what he was still sticking to. It was getting hard to tell some times, especially when it was so easy to fall into the same patterns he’d had with his Radek for years.
~*~
“Hello, Meredith.”
“Oh, Elizabeth, hi. I haven’t seen you for a while.”
Elizabeth sat down gracefully on the edge of Rodney’s bed and looked curiously at the bits strewn about him where he sat on the floor. He still couldn’t bring himself to move back in with John and this had slowly become his sanctuary. “No, sorry, I’ve been doing a lot of running between the peoples of Nwonta and Carn -- you know, P3K-3C9 and P3R-MH8.” Rodney nodded absently and grabbed a screwdriver as she added, “but I think they’re done needing our help for the moment. What are you up to?”
“It’s nothing special,” Rodney said, sighing sadly, “just repairing a spectrophotometer for the chemists. Apparently everyone else is busy, so why not give it to the crazy person with too much time on their hands!”
He was sorely tempted to throw the part he was holding across the room but, like so many things he wanted to do these days, he didn’t think it would help his case any.
“Oh, Mer.” Elizabeth slid down so she was sitting on the floor across from him. “It’s going to get better, from what I hear it already has. Kate says you’re doing so well. I know you must be frustrated. Why don’t you join Teyla and me tomorrow morning for yoga? Burn off some of energy.”
It wasn’t as though it was especially unusual for him to leave his room in the infirmary, but they were still being careful not to leave him alone out there.
“You still do that? Yoga with Teyla?”
“Of course, you know that.”
She was right, he knew Elizabeth had enjoyed teaching Teyla yoga, that they had as much of a standing arrangement as was possible, but there were so many things he was unsure of these days. It really wasn’t different here at all, it felt like. Each day brought the new realization that he did know these people. This whole reality thing, well, he’d certainly had stranger dreams.
“Okay, sure.”
She stood. “I’ll let you get on with this but I’ll talk to Carson, pick you up tomorrow?”
“Sounds good.” Rodney smiled. “Bye, Elizabeth.”
“Meredith.” She nodded a good-bye.
~*~
“You haven’t taken off your wedding ring.”
Rodney frowned at Heightmeyer and looked down at her fingers. Her right hand made a move toward the ring but faltered. She hadn’t really noticed it before, like wearing it was already an ingrained habit. She couldn’t bring herself to remove it. That gold ring meant something, it was precious, and her heart clenched at even the thought of taking it off.
~*~
“Mer?” John was practically skipping into the room.
Rodney smiled. “Hi.”
“Carson hinted you had some big news.” John teased.
“Yeah. I wanna go home.” Rodney really did love him, but knowing that and going home with John had been two different things. She could accept and had accepted the female form because resistance wouldn’t have changed anything and her inherent sense of comfort had to mean something, but it wasn’t quite the same when she still couldn’t remember much of the life she’d had with John -- still didn’t even know where they lived. But the feelings were there, in the familiarity with which they interacted and in how much it had hurt to see John's reaction to Rodney's rejection. She had to try. The other reality was still clear in her mind, but the people she’d known there were the same ones she knew here and she couldn’t reject them.
“Mer.” John sat down on the bed next to her and leaned down to see into her eyes.
“Home?”
John nodded, “Yeah. That sounds good.”
One of John’s hands found its way into her hair as he leaned in to press a kiss to her forehead.
~*~
As she followed John home, with him carrying the duffel bag of things that had accumulated in her room and her holding her laptop, it was obvious why she hadn’t found it that night she’d escaped. Their quarters where farther from the central tower than she would have expected to be open, back then, back when this version of Atlantis seemed unfamiliar to her. They had a nice place with an open floor plan not quite close enough to be where most of the single soldiers were living but not quite inside the little suburb where most of the Athosians spent their time while on Atlantis. It was as near rural as was possible within Atlantis, a small settlement between colonies, with a view that wasn’t hindered by the surrounding buildings.
John walked straight through the little living area and into the bedroom, where he dropped the duffel bag on the bed and turned to smile at her where she lingered in the doorway.
“I, uh, don’t know--” Rodney gulped. “I don’t think I’m ready for this yet.”
John’s eyes flashed between her and the bed and he made a little sympathetic grimace. “That’s okay. Really.” He moved closer and ran his hand down her arm to hold onto her fingers for a moment. “I’m just glad you’re home. I can sleep on the couch. Wouldn’t be the first time.”
When Rodney looked up she caught the hint of a teasing smirk before he made his way back into the living area. Yeah, she could picture that. They snarked all the time, even with John being extra thoughtful lately, and it was easy to imagine that the snarking would occasionally give way to bickering, even yelling. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that she loved him, and he her, but it was all too easy to picture herself locking John out of the bedroom, refusing to let Atlantis let him in, just because she could. Could almost hear the harsh knocks on the door, maybe John trying to apologize for whatever thing he’d done without thinking first. She’d make him sleep on the couch without any pity whatsoever, just to be a bitch. It was so clear in her mind it could almost be a memory.
She followed him, leaning over the side of the couch and curling a hand over the back of his neck as he sat looking up at her. “I’m trying.”
“I know, Mer.”
“I really, really am.”
“I know.”
She leaned forward tentatively, almost hoping John would take the lead here because she was feeling exposed, but he didn’t. John stayed still under her fingers and let her take her own time, moving in hesitantly and placing a chaste kiss against his lips before reeling backward quickly. She left the room knowing John had the biggest smile on his face that she could remember seeing in a long time, and that made her want to try even harder.
~*~
She was still on a lot of meds and she still had to see Heightmeyer nearly every day but being home made a whole world of difference. Getting to wake up in her own bed, running into John when he left the door open to the bathroom, getting grumbles for leaving the toothpaste uncapped -- all of it made her feel like her life was falling back into place. This was somewhere she belonged.
Radek was slowly handing the reins back to her, increasing her workload and stress as much as Heightmeyer would let him, and Mer loved it. Burrowing in the lab for hours on end had never seemed so appealing. And there was the added bonus that John would come and make her leave when she’d been at it too long, holding a cup of coffee in front of him like a peace offering. There was a routine to her life that felt natural, especially compared to those long weeks spent mostly in a private room in the infirmary. Some days she forgot that there was still the possibility, however small it might seem now, that she didn’t actually belong here.
~*~
It wasn’t that she’d given up on her earlier quest to find the thing that had caused all this to come about. It was more that she wasn’t sure any longer just what it had done. She knew it had to be out there, that whatever had happened hadn’t happened on its own, but the prospect that it transported a person’s mind across realities was significantly less likely than that it scrambled your brain a bit. It often seemed that all the information she knew then and now were the same, it had all just been mixed up here and there. That was much more likely, and she was a scientist who had no evidence to the contrary.
Still, she spent a portion of every day checking programs she’d set up to do a more thorough run through the database than she could ever accomplish in a hundred lifetimes. It hadn’t turned anything up yet but she wasn’t ready to give up on finding whatever had done this to her.
~*~
The months went by and the bustle of everyday had started to seem more important than her secret side project. Eventually she realized she hadn’t checked the programs in over a week. It just didn’t seem that important when she had yoga two days a week with Elizabeth and Teyla, and Ladies' Poker Night, a standing double-date with Teyla and Kanaan once a month, and picnics on the pier where she got to watch John play with Torren or play beach volleyball with the marines, and then a full time job on top of all that. Somewhere along the line sleeping on the couch hadn’t mattered anymore, though they really didn’t do more than sleep. Every now and then John would slip unexpectedly into the bathroom and she was tempted to tell him to come back out, but Mer liked it the way it was, just like they were. And to be honest, she wasn’t sure she was ready when, though she might feel she belonged here, she still had no actual memory of them together like that. She didn’t want to embarrass herself.
~*~
Nearly eight months after Mer had woken confused and hysterical, she woke up to John pressing gentle kisses to the back of her neck.
“Hmmm. Coffee.”
She could feel John smile against her skin for a moment. Then he shifted and a mug of coffee appeared in her vision.
“Wow, you’re good,” Mer mumbled, pushing around and sitting up so she could grab the coffee.
“Yeah.” John was entirely too awake for the time of day.
“You went running already, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.” He smiled, leaning forward to bury his nose in her hair while she sipped at the coffee.
“You’re being weird again.”
John chuckled, and then grabbed the coffee from her hands so he could press his lips to hers for a moment. “Happy anniversary.”
Mer blinked, confused. “Oh, I mean--”
“Don’t worry.” John gave her back her coffee. “I didn’t really expect you to remember it.” The ‘even before’ was implied but unspoken, the way so many of the things that had happened back then were.
“Well, then.” Mer fit her hand behind his neck and tugged him in for another kiss, letting this one linger, pressing her tongue to the seam of his lips and feeling him open for her. He ducked his head and worked wet kisses down her neck, then pulled away.
“God, I miss you,” she heard him whisper before he backed away, as always, letting her have her space. “I should get ready for work.”
“Oh, yeah. Right.” Mer was left on the bed, sipping absentmindedly at her coffee, while John ducked into the bathroom for his morning routine -- which, honestly, some days was longer than hers. She wanted him to stay; she usually did when he backed off. It worked well enough while they were getting back into their routines for them to take care of themselves mostly, but this morning it was more than a longing to keep him there with her in their bed. John was hers and she was going to make this right.
~*~
When Meredith finally made it home she’d almost forgotten that morning but seeing John there, dressed in his softest white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to show off his forearms and tight black jeans that made his hips look nearly nonexistent, she was abruptly reminded just what she’d wanted to do with him that morning.
“Hey, long day?”
“Oh, uh, yeah,” she stuttered, dropping the armful of papers and tablets on a side table.
“I have dinner.”
“That’s nice,” Mer murmured as she drew near John. Then she cut off anything else he might have said by tugging him down with a hand on his collar and capturing his sweet lower lip.
Part 6 ~ Part 7