Angst, Week 3: The End is Near, But So Am I

[sholio]

Title: The End Is Near, but So Am I
Author: agriope23
Prompt: Endings and beginnings
Rating: PG
Word Count: 7700
Warnings/Spoilers: Nothing special. Think early S3, references to episodes in S1, S2 etc.
Summary: A routine ambush on an unknown planet has each member of Team Sheppard facing old ghosts.
Author's Note: Huge thanks to madjm for the excellent and speedy beta.



At first, Teyla thought of it every time she walked through the gate. Her heart would seize before her eyes could establish reality and the planet actually before her. She was her people’s leader and this apprehension was not a weakness she could indulge. Later on, she joined Col. Sheppard’s team and gate travel became an everyday occurrence. It’s now been many years since Teyla set foot on another planet, the event horizon lingering behind her, the events of many moons ago fresh in her mind. Until today.

“Teyla?”

Colonel Sheppard turns back to her and the question in his eyes is clear.

“No, no Wraith. Nothing really.”

Only ghosts of memories.

The Great Market has been a custom for hundreds of years and she has finally been deemed old enough to come along. Dozens of world meet on neutral ground to exchange goods and merchandise, everything ranging from vegetables to the finest linen Teyla has ever seen. She rushes from booth to booth, running her hands over the glossy materials, dreaming of dresses or scarves, if only Charin would allow it.

Her mentor’s eye is vigilant on foreign worlds, always trained on Teyla, aware of every move the girl makes. Perhaps in the same way a parent would act, but Teyla hasn’t known hers in a long time and can only guess from what she’s seen among her own people. She smiles and thinks of Kanaan and all the others who may have parents, but were not permitted to join the delegation. Being the next Athosian leader does have its perks.

And also its duties.

“Teyla!”

Charin reins her in quietly, her soft call enough to remind Teyla of both purpose and responsibility. Much depends on what the Athosians will be able to trade for their crops and craftsmanship. By last count, what is most needed is oil for the lamps, medea plants to make spring-fever medicine and unfortunately, not amiyah nor any other fine fabrics.

She takes her place by Charin’s side just in time to greet the Genii representative. Behind him, Sora smiles, waving sweetly at her friend and both girls regret that this time around, there will be little time to exchange gossip or race in the fields. However, the next visit to the Genii homeworld is not for many months so Teyla makes time to talk to her friend. Discreetly, while looking at gold earrings, before Halling comes to take her away, quietly chiding her for her childish ways.

On the way home, he nevertheless offers her a scarf. He doesn’t wrap it or bother to present it in any special way, but Teyla recognizes the value of the gift. She swirls it all the way to the gate and waits as everyone steps through her fingers playing with the soft blue fabric, having the delicate texture cascade through the fingers, over and over again.

When she holds it up to her face, it smells of the flowers sold in the next booth, of the warm sun that heated this day and she steps through the ring, twirling and grinning, her senses utterly beguiled by the azure haze.

To find night on the other side… and cold. Not in Athos’ warm spring air but in the pit of her stomach, where it blends with fear and anxiety along with the painful realization that someone she knows has just died or been taken, never to be seen again.

Halling grabs her and pulls her to the side, to run after all the others who’ve already set out for the forest. Teyla knows she has to hide, they all do. Not move, not make a sound and hope no Wraith will come their way. Halling lets go of her arm to help Charin along and Teyla barely takes a few steps before her feet get tangled up in her lovely blue scarf, and she thinks of how ruined it’ll be as she feels her foot slide on the mud and grind it into the ground.

She turns onto her back and in the darkness she sees her friends’ backs as they hurry and reach the tree line. Before her, the sky is lit by the fires consuming the tents, the air is ripped apart by continuous screaming at the horror that’s ravaging their homes. The gate then comes alive, as it has just a few moments ago. Several darts fly through and as Teyla is about to get up and run to safety, the cold deepens and she has to struggle to breathe.

Silhouettes are moving, walking from the village to the gate. They step through, one after the other until there is only one left, illuminated by them passage that brought him here and now, would take him away. He looks straight at her, though probably not able to see her but somehow, Teyla knows that he can sense her. She wonders if it makes him struggle for breath too but then again, the answer seems obvious. He steps through and as she gets up to run to the village, her feet slipping in the mud, she feels the cold recede little by little, taking with it the face with no eyes.

Fire lights up the settlement and people rush left and right to put them out. A chain is formed to bring water from the nearby river and Teyla thinks that maybe that’s why, everywhere they camp, they settle near water. Maybe it’s always been like this, just as the Wraith have always come.

Charin steps out of the darkness and seizes her hand. Her grip is strong and a little grateful, and only then does Teyla realizes that she must have taken a while to return and her friends may have feared her lost. She offers her forehead as Charin bends her head towards her and whispers:

“You are young but it cannot be helped. It has always been like this Teyla, and this burden was always yours to bear some day. I am afraid, that day has come.”

The old woman steps aside and for the first time Teyla can hear a sound rising over the commotion: a persistent cry, a child’s wail. She steps forward to find Halling cradling his son, his home on fire and his wife nowhere to be seen. Noreen would not abandon her child, there is only one conclusion to be drawn.

He doesn’t react to Teyla’s hand on his shoulder, doesn’t move as she settles down next to him. A few hours later, Halling releases Jinto into her care, allows her to change and feed the child. By the time he speaks, Teyla is near to listen and be once again baffled:

“Teyla… where is your pretty scarf?”

She thinks of it lying in the mud, of the cold gripping her inside and smiles:

“It does not matter. Not anymore.”

“I am telling you it’s this way!”

Rodney energetically points towards the forest, the life sign display typically cradled in his hand. Ronon stands aloof, one hand on his hip, the other on the butt of his gun. Another familiar view.

“And I’m telling you that forest’s not safe. Better go around.”

“Just because you were here, a thousand years ago, doesn’t mean…”

“Four years ago.”

“Whatever. Energy signal is this way.”

They all turn to look at the trees and somehow Teyla understands what Ronon means. Energy readings are one way to look at the world, instincts are quite another.

“Teyla? You’ve been awfully quiet. What do you think?”

Cold in the pit of her stomach isn’t the only way to feel dread. Her own history has taught her that. But what’s brought her here, given her a chance to finally fight back, whether it be fate or the Wraith, is the one lesson she tries to live by. You can’t escape your destiny.

On the day the Wraith came, with Jinto in her arms, she’d thought she understood what that meant. It took an escape from the Wraith and one first glance at Atlantis to realize her mistake. When becoming her people’s leader, Teyla surrendered to the exigency of duty. But becoming their warrior and defender was her own choice, one she has never regretted.

Her finger points in the direction of their mission objective. The energy reading that’s lead them here, that might prove to be a weapon in their fight.

“If we hurry colonel, we will be clear of the forest by nightfall.”

She leads the way.

The forest has eyes. Not just its animal life, but Ronon senses another presence, other eyes with their own intent. He senses movement behind the trees, just elusive enough to remain nothing more than a feeling, an instinct, and if he’s really honest, a fear.

“I know, I feel it too.”

He doesn’t need to ask what she means, only what her choice meant.

“Then why are we here?”

He sees her eyebrow lift without even looking at her, hears the question in her voice.

“I have never known you to shy away from danger. Quite the contrary.”

“And I’ve never known you to run to it. Guess we all have our ghosts.”

She turns to look at him, her P-90 in hand, her alert mind distracted by his remark. Ahead of them Sheppard’s walking in a would-be casual way, gun in hand, his eyes raking their surroundings. Only Rodney seems unaware of the ambient tension. He’s muttering at his screen, looking up once in a while, his attention focused on calculations. Ronon moves closer to him.

Ronon slides out of the gate on his back, still firing behind him, praying the wormhole will close and leave his pursuers behind. He’s timed it pretty closely and sure enough, the gate shuts down and he’s alone, on the floor of another alien world with no Wraith in sight.

He sits up slowly, trying to get his bearings while assessing his wounds. His back aches and his skin feels very exposed to the cold air. His clothing was starting to show signs of wear and probably got ripped apart as he dragged across the ground. He stands up calmly and feels that yes, his right ankle is still sore and the burn he just got by pushing the Wraith into the lava hurts like hell. Either way, he’s been worse off and for now he’s in a new place.

He looks around, trying to get a sense of where he is, but all these planets look alike. He gated to one of the dozens of addresses he’s catalogued over the years, place he thinks of as safe. He’s not sure exactly how the Wraith device works, but experience has taught him he can stay here for at least three days before the hive shows up again. No more than that. He’s never dared to stay anywhere longer than that.

It’s cold and his coat and most of his supplies stayed on Vernia. It’d been stupid to go hunting so far away from his camp, but there comes a time when a man needs more than bread and roots to get by. Survival dictates that. He’d gone looking for meat, the Wraith came and now he has to start all over again in a cold place. Good thing he never goes anywhere, does anything, even bathing, without his gun or his knives.

He thinks for a moment to gate to a warmer world but then this place will be wasted for a long while. He’s got three days, needs to get patched up and the good news is: he knows where to find a dry cave that also offers shelter from the wind.

Ronon’s barely into the forest when he hears voices, a man and a woman a few feet away. He moves behind some bushes, careful to spare his ankle and hisses through is teeth at the pain in his back as he ducks down. Guess that’s what happens when you jump through the stargate and land on your back, mere days after you tried, yet again, to unsuccessfully remove the Wraith tracking device from your back.

Sometimes it makes him want to laugh, madly and uncontrollably, at how routine it’s all become, hiding and eschewing the sight of other humans. These days, he only interacts with Wraith. And when that starts to bother him too much, he takes out a knife and scrapes and yelps as he tries to claw the device out of his back. That kind of momentary madness has become routine too.

“It was not, husband!”

The woman laughs and smacks the man on the arm making his basket titter and some of the mushrooms it held fall to the ground.

“Look what you did! No matter, I still have enough to show you that my soup is much better than yours.”

“You have more than enough!”

“They are in the forest! Who else needs them?! You know, sometimes, …”

Their voices fade and Ronon stays where he is, listening to her laughter die away, ignoring the burn on his back. After a while, when he’s sure there’s no one else, when he knows he won’t try to follow them, to the warmth of their home or the comfort of a good meal, he crawls out and picks up the mushrooms the man dropped. He needs them.

All in all, the forest is a good place and the cave is pretty comfortable. Sateda was a technologically advanced world at war with the Wraith and he grew up learning about weapons and strategic warfare. Looking back at the way his life turned out, he sometimes thinks the first years would have been easier if he’d known which plants hold the most moisture, how to track game and most importantly how to get some sleep when you haven’t slept in days and any minute now, Wraith could be closing in.

The first years were all about hardship and nightmares. The moments where he actually fought the Wraith were the best times, full of adrenaline and purpose. That’s when his old life seemed the closest, when he was Specialist Ronon Dex, a soldier, and not Ronon Dex, prey, runner.

And that’s perhaps the biggest change since the first years, when he thought he could make it end. He thought he could kill the whole hive or remove the tracking device from his back. It only returns in bouts of lunacy, what he’s come to think of as a delusion: the desire to be free, to return to some semblance of a life, with other humans.

When it gets hardest, he thinks of Sateda and what it means to be the last of his people. He draws the will he needs from the memories and it gets him by until next time. This time around, he’ll need to venture into the village and try to work for what he needs. A new pot, a new shirt and maybe new pants too. Most villages are weary of beat-up strangers coming into town, but he’s stolen very little, has worked for most of what he’s had over the years and he’s never begged.

But mostly, in these quiet moments before and after the storm, he’s grateful he’s still alive. Patches himself up the best way he can and plans his next move. The next gate address is always decided upon before the mad dash to the gate, firing behind him. The next part of his plan of surviving is always settled upon and that’s the hardest thing to bear: that’s he’s settled in for the long haul. He’s resigned himself to the fact that this will be his life until he’s too old, or too tired, or too broken to keep running.

He senses movement outside the cave and moves quickly so he won’t be caught inside. Sprints out, careful not to put too much strain on his ankle, but really, escape is his main concern. He ducks in and out of trees, shadows moving at every corner of his eye, his finger on the trigger, ready if need be.

As usual, he’s never too far from the gate. He always tries to settle close enough, where he can make it there without tiring, even in a weakened state. The shadows keep whipping about him and he feels their presence, their intent bearing down on him. They’re coming for him, seeking him out.

As soon as he reaches the clearing around the stargate he stops running in a straight line. In case they brought darts, in case the hunt is bigger and well organized. He dials the gate, weapon raised at the shadows coming closer, exiting the forest and soundlessly making their way towards him. The wormhole engages and he turns his back and steps through, relief coursing through him and the adrenaline dying down, opening his ears to the cries he hasn’t heard so far.

“Wait! We want to help you!”

“What?”

He drags his eyes away from the trees and down to Rodney’s face. They both look down at Ronon’s hand clutching his sleeve and for a moment, Ronon doesn’t know who or where he is. A runner, hunted by the forest’s shadows and bigger fears beyond.

Once in a while, the sense of being alone in the world, in his head, for the rest of his days comes back and engulfs him like it used to, it owns him. Trusting Sheppard and his people, settling in Atlantis were the first steps in ridding himself of it. But sometimes, his mind re-enters the silence and this is the only scar he considers disfiguring.

“I said can I help you?!”

Rodney’s voice snaps him out of it. What took months when he first arrived in Atlantis is now a matter of seconds. They both look at his fingers’ firm grip on Rodney’s arm and instinct reasserts itself with roaring clarity.

“Run!”

He drags McKay behind a huge tree as the firing begins, bullets raining down around them. Teyla and Sheppard are diving for cover before firing back, their P-90’s clattering in unison, at the men taking refuge behind the trees.

McKay looks out the other side of their tree and adds his own weapon’s clattering to the battle. Ronon’s a soldier of Atlantis now, with teammates by his side and as such, he waits for a lull and moves out to aim with deadly clarity at the nearest Genii uniform.

It figures, it really does, that the Genii are here. After all, it’s not like the Ancients invented detecting power sources. But as most of the Genii are their allies, and the ones that aren’t are on the run, if Rodney cared exactly which one of them was trying to kill him and his team, he’d bet it was Kolya and his men. And then he’d feel even more afraid.

He turns to see Sheppard signaling at him, wagging his thumbs and making faces as if Rodney’s supposed to know exactly what it means. That wiggle means cover fire and… he barely has time to focus on the rest before Ronon yanks at his collar dragging him along farther into the forest.

Rodney runs alongside him, trying to keep up, but experience has taught him that’s impossible. Instead, he does what works, what Sheppard and all the others seem to do with annoying ease. He makes himself not panic as he focuses on the next few steps, the next thing to do instead of the gigantic pile of crap they’re in, getting shot at in an unknown forest. A forest he insisted they enter, all this in his search for scientific glory.

He protests for good measure but still signs it. The non-disclosure agreement that basically means the US military has the right to kill him if he tells anyone what he learns. He sits back in his chair, content at being solicited by all the big wigs in the room until the smile is wiped from his face.

A stargate. Myriads of worlds, the whole galaxy within reach. Forget the Mars program, he heads out to Nellis Air Force Base and settles into his lab at Area 51 before he’s even found lodgings.

He remembers it that as a boy, learning about time dilation and length contraction had been fascinating. Everything from general relativity theory to chaos theory, coming together in his mind, falling together like millions of pieces of a puzzle forming a picture. Working on the stargate is nothing like that. It’s fascinating yes, but also darn confusing, the science so advanced it feels ridiculous to ever hope to understand any of it, let alone master it.

But then the breakthrough comes. The briefs start arriving from Cheyenne Mountain signed SC. Physics briefs, theorems, logarithms written by what even Rodney has to admit, is a clever mind. He enters into a game with SC, each challenging the other, helping him advance. The two of them decoding the stargate, peeling away its layers until the mechanism becomes bare and manageable.

It’s around the same time that Rodney’s focus changes. He sees more and more artifacts coming in. Mirrors that lead to alternate realities, brooches that change your outward appearance… He studies most of it, as much as he can, falling for this new avenue of science harder than he ever will for anyone in his life. He accepts the items with selfish joy, never straying to think about how they came to be in Earth’s possession, or of the lives possibly spilled to retrieve them.

It takes a disastrous trip to Cheyenne Mountain to change his perspective. His is a world of numbers and theorems, abstract truth others test out and report back on. He doesn’t quite understand what it means to have a teammate in danger, how it feels to be helpless and the horror at the thought that you might fail him and leave him to die. Personally, he thinks the whole debacle can be explained by him finally discovering that SC is a pretty blonde, it was bound to affect his performance.

Russia is pure punishment and he takes it as well as he can, settling back into the science, allowing it to shelter and maintain him like it always has. Until he gets called back and stands across from SC, their ideas bouncing back and forth as they literally save the planet.

There’s no describing that feeling. He feels it building inside him, the knowledge that six billion souls get to live on thanks to, well in part, thanks to him. SC turns away casually and even though he knows she felt it just as hard, it’s just a little more common for her, a place where she dwells and resides in the company of two men Rodney avoids like the plague.

Dr Weir herself calls him and he has dinner with her. She strokes his ego, goes through all the motions of attempting to convince him to move to a barren icy continent and study the newly discovered Ancient outpost. He already has a dozen drafted letters seeking admittance into the program but he eats his dinner and talks to this intelligent and passionate woman and feels himself won over.

It’s about so much more than he imagined, the possibility of actually finding Atlantis, of meeting Ancients and gaining an insight into their science. Her passion startles him at first, Rodney being the first to consider science a body of facts and himself utterly dispassionate about it.

He doesn’t find it unbecoming though, and soon his old dream comes back to life: scientific discoveries that will change life as we know it, save the world and finally move him out of the shadow of the ubiquitous SC. He packs up his life, privately wonders that there’s so little of it, and heads off to Antarctica.

He stops in front of the base, his mind on the gate so many levels down, poised to send them to another galaxy.

“Cheyenne Mountain is always impressive the first time you see it, sir.”

“Well, that really depends on where you’re been.”

The marine gives him the sullen look Rodney’s come to associate with all military men in the face of genius and shrugs. It’s a mountain, with vegetation on it. What’s more important is the facility underneath. The tons of earth dug out to accommodate the most genius scientific discovery ever. Well until Rodney gets started that is.

Part of him never believed they’d make it, at least not in his lifetime. He likes to think it a credit to his skills but really it feels like a cruel joke is being played on him. The marines, even Elizabeth and that major she’s so intent on bringing, have a steely resolve, a habit of high risk situation and their ability to handle them.

Rodney’s Canadian. He saved his own ass along with everyone else’s the last time he did anything heroic and to be absolutely honest: he only did that one time. It takes something else for a civilian to pass the point of no return, another kind of resolve, a quiet brand of courage.

He steps through the gate along with everybody else. No one will ever know, or believe it, but he steps through fearlessly. The gate dematerializes matter, sends it through the wormhole where it rematerializes on the other side. Rodney has done the math himself; this is physics and something he trusts in. What will happen to him once he rematerializes is another matter. But for the second time in his life, Rodney feels called upon by destiny or whatever makes all great men. He chooses to answer the call.

Ronon skids to a halt behind some trees and Rodney stops too. He knows this part. It’s the one where Sheppard and Teyla run towards them and they have to try and shoot at the people behind them and not at them. It has a name…

“Cover fire!”

Sheppard runs out on the path, Teyla slightly ahead of him, yelling to Rodney as if he’d forget. As if the civilian he is would forget the actions that keep them all alive.

His P-90 clatters next to his ear and he knows he hit something. His two teammates are still running so it’s not them. His aim’s improved greatly. Once his mind was able to not freeze up in fear and concentrate on the physics of firing a weapon, he got better. Nothing near Ronon’s expertise, he muses as another Genii falls victim to the Satedan’s energy blasts, but he holds his own. At the very least, he knows how to protect his teammates.

Sheppard and Teyla settle behind his tree, Teyla firing back where they came from while Sheppard reloads his clip.

“We need to get moving, now!”

“They have cut us off from the gate Colonel.”

“Yeah, I noticed that.”

Teyla then takes the time to reload and Rodney follows her lead. The drone of Ronon’s gun has never stopped. Sheppard fires at the Genii soldiers, almost absent-mindedly, his mind already churning away in a way Rodney’s never could. But apparently, in a way Teyla’s does.

“It will be night soon.”

“Gotta make it to the river.”

“Yes.”

“It’s hard to keep a straight line at night while being pursued.”

Their conversation is hushed but concise, just loud enough to be heard over the rattle of all their weapons.

“I can do it.”

“We’ll be right behind you. I doubt they’re too eager to go at it at night but don’t let that slow you down. Find us a place to dig in and wait it out.”

Sheppard nods, and Teyla jerks her head at Ronon who also nods. They’ve all understood and seem to speak the same language. As Rodney joins in their cover fire for Teyla, he finds he understands too. At debriefing, the areal photos had shown a river running through the forest, circling back and running barely a few hundred yards south of the gate.

If they make it to the river, they might get out of it alive. Sheppard signals him to take off behind Teyla and he runs off, keeping his eyes on her well aware of the physical effort ahead and of what would happen should he lose Teyla. He’d endanger his team and really, that’s not an option anymore. He locks the fear away in some recess of his mind and keeps his legs moving as he silently recites prime numbers.

John fidgets and tries to make himself a little more comfortable at his watch post. As comfortable as rock embedded in your back will get. He listens to the sounds of the forest around them. Night has fallen and as far as wildlife goes, the animals that haven’t run away at the sounds of their weapons seem to all have settled down for the night.

He glances around and is unable to see make out any Genii uniforms perhaps lying in wait for them. It makes sense: it’s night and they must be as tired as he feels, traipsing through this forest all day long. He figures they’re looking for the same energy signature that brought them here. He also thinks what no one is saying, that these aren’t Ladon’s men and that encountering one of Atlantis’ teams here will make them contact their leader and the last thing they need, in their current situation, is Kolya on their trail.

Their status call wasn’t very reassuring. They’d set out for a routine ‘check the energy sign’ mission. No one has packed munitions or rations to fight a small war. As it is, they all dined on energy bars after establishing that between the four, well three, of them, they had a little over two full clips left and a handful of rounds.

“I say we stay put. Atlantis will know something is wrong and send backup.”

“In six hours Rodney, and the sun will be up in about four hours, give or take. Besides the precious energy source is frying communications so we can’t count on a speedy rescue.”

Some conversations are best had, your eyes focused on the forest outside, looking for danger. Some conversations, he’d just rather not have.

“Well, we can hold them off till then, can’t we?”

“No, we can’t.”

Ronon’s rumble is definite, unwavering, certain. Kinda like the trouble they’re in.

“We’ve got almost no ammunition, a tiny vantage point, barely large enough for two people to fire from and a hole in the wall on the other side.”

John turns his head, a fraction of a second, to join his teammates in looking at their dead end, literally. Teyla’d headed straight for the river all right. While following her path, John felt the terrain going up, he saw how she turned to correct it and but this was the best that she could do. A cave, with a three foot hole in the wall and a fifty foot-drop into the river, whirling below.

“I am sorry.”

“It’s not your fault Teyla. At least, you got us here.”

“I tried to go lower but…”

“Never mind that, we’re here now. It’s nobody’s fault.”

Here John would have liked silence. Instead, he gets more Rodney

“Besides, I’m the one who insisted we check out the readings and head into the forest no one wanted to go into.”

Ronon beats him to the punch.

“That’s true.”

But it’s always hard to resist baiting McKay.

“See Teyla, Rodney’s to blame.”

And Rodney, naturally, can’t not bite.

“But you just said…”

“It is not your fault Rodney, none of us are to blame.”

“Right Teyla…right.”

One of the best things about Rodney is that sometimes you don’t need to reassure him. He does it himself.

“Right. Besides, we’ve all faced worse right. Cullings, runner, you in Afghanistan…”

“Thanks McKay.”

“I’m just saying… that we’ve all face worse. And we’re here, still here.”

What exactly Rodney’s lived through that’s worse than this situation he doesn’t say. And in a way, it doesn’t matter. Like he said, they’re all here. A team, getting ready to die together.

“We should get some rest. Colonel…”

He should be the one to say that and he knows what she’ll suggest but can’t let her.

“I’ll keep watch. You guys rest, we’ve got a hell of a morning to look forward to.”

He hears Rodney squirm as he tries to get more comfortable, hears Ronon hesitate and then do the same, the sound of his snore always mere minutes away from the time he closes his eyes. The man can sleep at the drop of a dime, would sleep in hell and through Armageddon if he chose to. Only he never would. It’d be like missing his party of the year.

Only Teyla remains static, and maybe it’s the leader in her that hesitates. She must sense the weight on his shoulders in a time like this.

“Get some rest Teyla.”

His voice comes out firm, while reassuring. He’s had enough practice at being in this kind of situation that he doesn’t panic or give in to fear. Not really. If there’s worry, it’s for the three people behind him who depend on him. He takes the first watch because it’s his job. His eyes search the night.

“Are you sure you want to join this unit, son?”

The funny thing in the Air Force is you’re always someone’s son. Sometimes these people can be ten, fifteen years older than you, but you’re still their ‘son’. It served mostly as an uncomfortable reminder that he stopped being Patrick Sheppard’s son the day he enlisted.

“Absolutely, sir.”

The colonel looks up at him from his desk, content to leave him at attention and gives him the once over. The one he gets every time he sticks his head out in the Air Force and says ‘I want this.’ Never mind that you don’t fly someone 2,000 miles to a secret army base to tell him you’re rejecting his application.

“Your recent tests show you’re an excellent pilot. You show great promise.”

A statement that’s almost like a challenge.

“Thank you sir.”

The colonel takes a moment to look him over again, seemingly under the impression that this is the first time John has had this conversation, heard these reservations and been judged by a few words on a piece of paper.

“A millionaire’s son. Out of college, with a degree in advanced mathematics.”

A blanket term every flyboy applies to the degree whose heading they barely understand. The message comes across loud and clear though: egghead.

“Yes, sir.”

Another pointed look.

“You’re married. Not for long if you join this unit. Your family? Kiss it goodbye, once you join this unit.”

Right on cue, the folder gets dropped dramatically on the desk as the colonel stands up and gets in his face. Apparently, in most of the military, this is what makes a man a man: the ability to stand idly by while another man, usually older, screams and yells in your face.

“This unit becomes your whole life. You go where we tell you to! You don’t ask questions and you don’t tell! Not your wife, not your millionaire daddy and not the reporter on the six o’clock news! Sometimes, you don’t even tell your teammates!”

John doesn’t understand what the big deal is. The USAF is an organization based on rules. He’s a subordinate, they’re his superiors. They bark, he asks ‘How high?’. On a bad day, he questions his choice to get out from under his father’s shadow by joining an organization dependent on such a rigid command structure. But there aren’t many of those when he’s spending most of his time in the air. Push comes to shove, the Air Force has the fastest birds on Earth.

“You’re still here Sheppard?!”

“I signed up, didn’t I?”

Regardless of his parentage, his marital status or his level of education, he chose to be an USAF officer, a pilot and to join this unit. He looks over to his demand for transfer on the colonel’s desk, the ink still fresh, letting him in.

“You should also rest.”

Teyla voice exits out of the darkness and his tired body aches to take her up on her offer.

“She’s right.”

Ronon pipes up, seamlessly passing from sleep to wakefulness. John knows his team well enough to know not to refuse, they’re all of them too stubborn. Besides, his body’s worn out and morning is only two hours away. He needs to rest.

He lets Ronon and Teyla duke it out for the sentry position and Ronon’s purring snore a few minutes later tell him she won. What a team.

The first thing to go is his marriage to Nancy. It’s not possible to stay close to someone, to consider yourself someone’s husband when you can’t tell her where you were last night and most importantly what you did. It’s the first thing to fall away and in a way it’s a relief, full acceptance of what he signed up for. He gives himself completely to his work.

He flies everywhere on Earth, mostly in the dark and generally with as few people knowing about it as possible. There are fun times, moments amidst all the grime, friendships forged. But mostly, it turns out to be a whole lot harder to do as told with your friends’ lives in your hands. It ends up being too hard to put a damper on his own sense of right and wrong, and of what he’s willing to accept. His team, his friends die and he’s disgraced and shipped to Antarctica so that everyone left, including himself, can forget.

He ferries Dr Weir and the arrogant Dr. McKay to and from the base. All the other scientists whose conversations either stop abruptly in his presence or suffer elaborate attempts at disguising the truth. He doesn’t wonder what they’re up to, doesn’t try to crack their codes but common sense you can’t turn off. He quickly gathers that they’re looking for something and take great pride in their work, considering it the most important thing since the invention of the wheel. He keeps to himself, recognizes the air of common purpose that binds all these people together and tries even harder to stay out of their way.

Then General O’Neill comes and John sits down in the chair. The explanations he gets surpass anything he could ever have imagined but in the end, O’Neill calls it: this isn’t about John: who he was, who is, what he’ll do. It’s about something so much bigger. And for the first time in a long time, maybe ever, he finds something he can give himself wholly to, something to believe in.

The clatter of Teyla’s gun gets him up. John startles awake to find Teyla on the floor, firing away with Ronon right behind her, his gun at the ready.

“No room.”

“Yeah, I get that.”

It’s barely daybreak, but the Genii are at it again. They can’t have gotten reinforcements yet, they wouldn’t have had time to go and make it back here so all in all, John feels optimistic. Must be that one hour of sleep. He shakes off the remnants, the need to close his eyes again and forget the whole world. It’s not Sunday morning though and there’s no one to beg for a few more minutes.

“Okay, you guys ready? Ronon.”

The Satedan reluctantly moves away from the hole and takes Rodney’s P-90. He pulls out the clip and hands it to Teyla. She tucks in her pants, right over her stomach and keeps shooting.

“What’s going on? What are you doing?”

“We have to jump Rodney.”

“Wha…”

McKay looks up at both men, his features at once boyish and hurt.

“You guys knew all along, didn’t you? That we would jump?! That’s why you went to sleep all calm! You want us to jump!”

From the moment they entered the cave, it had seemed obvious to the three of them that they were fresh out of options. One look and the decision was made. In life and death situations, John prefers not to make these things about rank and orders. So he takes the time as the cadence of Teyla’s shot speeds up to convince Rodney.

“Look Rodney, we don’t have a choice. How did you think we were gonna get out of here?”

“I thought you were just exaggerating, so you could pull off another one of your impossible heroics!”

John’s mantra since joining Atlantis has always been that what doesn’t break you, makes you stronger. He reminds himself of it a lot when dealing with Rodney McKay.

“We’d have gone last night except jumping in at night would be suicide.”

“That would be… what about now?! We’ll die! No! No… we wait for Atlantis to send backup, they should be here any minute.”

“Teyla!”

She sprays bullets in a wide arc and tosses grenades with her other before getting up in one fluid move.

“A few minutes, probably not more.”

“Good job. See you down there.”

She takes the time to smile at each of them. They’ve faced death together more times than would be healthy to count but one of the reasons John thinks they always make it, is because they treat each of those times as if it could be the last.

Teyla was never one to give in to fear, never to shy away from doing what has to be done. She takes a few steps back, runs to the hole and jumps out, feet first, her hands on the nape of her neck, her elbows tucked in in front of her face. John sees mostly a flurry of grace and sheer willpower.

Ronon looks down and seems to approve of what he sees. His smile is roguish and part of him seems to be enjoying it. If he survives this, it’ll be another notch on his belt. Another story that awes and terrifies the Athosian children. If John didn’t know better, he’d say Ronon has a cavalier attitude towards dying. Luckily, he knows better.

The Satedan gives them both a manly tap on the shoulder, unable to quench his smile and jumps in as Teyla did. A whirl of resilience and determination.

“We gotta go Rodney. They won’t wonder long why we’re not shooting anymore.”

“There has to be another way…”

There’s some panic but also definite reluctance, something keeping him from accepting the inevitable.

“Teyla jumped. You’re not going to let a girl outdo you, are you?”

“She’s Teyla, she outdoes all of us!”

“Good point. All right…”

John takes up Teyla’s former position and surprises the men running towards the opening. He picks off a few of them and sends another spray of bullets before turning back to Rodney with the only advice he’s ever received that made sense.

“This is about something bigger than you Rodney! You have to jump!”

“What the hell does that mean?!”

Rodney’s panic starts to fray the edges of John’s own composure. He can’t throw him in, Rodney has to jump. Cause he needs momentum to get clear of the cliffside, cause he needs to protect himself when hitting the water.

“It means that if you don’t jump, I don’t jump!”

A good leader brings everyone home alive. He inspires his men to believe in him and trust him. Mostly John just settles for the first part.

“Protect you neck like this or it’ll break when you hit the water. Your jacket willl take some pain off the fall, but dump it as soon as you can, or it’ll drag you down. I can’t throw you in Rodney, you have to go yourself!”

The scientist takes a few steps back and runs to the edge, eyes wide open, his face set in a mask of terror. His first running steps are accompanied by mindless screaming but without hesitation, Rodney disappears through the hole in the wall. Courage does come in all shapes and sizes, especially in physicists.

The remaining Genii soldiers seem hesitant to come any closer. They think his team outgunned and outmanned and in a normal situation that would be enough. But his people are… less than normal. He shoots off another salve for good measure and stands up to ditch his jacket. Taking the pain off is good and well, but Rodney doesn’t have a weapon and has both arms free. The last thing John needs is drowning while trying to shed clothing.

The water will be cold. It’ll hurt like hell. Hopefully the others will be okay and they’ll get out of this alive. And go through the same damned thing all over again next week. He taught himself very early on to remain wary of the high, the adrenaline kick and the rush of satisfaction and pleasure at making your way back home against all odds.

Over the years, he’s met enough people who thought that thrill the real attraction, the reason why people like him committed to this kind of life.

He’d never known what he could do till he sat in that chair. Teyla’d never known how much she could take until she watched Athos scorched bare. Ronon had never known how long and how hard he could run till he got chased across the galaxy. Rodney never knew the man he could be until he blew up a solar system. John himself hadn’t really known why he stepped through till Wraith hiveships appeared in orbit around the planet that housed the city that talked to him, the people who trusted him and counted on him.

Life on the edge isn’t all blood and misery, there’s self-reliance and constantly pushing back your own boundaries. That’s why people like them lead this life. And if there’s an end, ever, then he’ll imagine it not with a whimper or in a rain of fire. It’ll end just as it began, a big bang and four people who took a chance and all found a new home.

He hears hurried footsteps nearby and rushes to make his own leap of faith.