SG_rareparings fic: This To Me Is How to Leave Matters Unresolved, PG-13 "run" 2/2
He never got to say goodbye. Not to Atlantis, not to anyone on it.
The doctors on Daedalus did exactly what Keller had warned, and the next time Sheppard woke up his mouth was dry and empty while the ventilator puffed directly into his neck. The chief medical officer was a guy, Dr. David O’Donovan, who wasn’t nearly as pretty as Keller. He didn’t have a computer set up for Sheppard to communicate, and he didn’t talk at length about the whole ‘deathly allergic to the Stargate’ diagnosis.
Instead he talked about recovery from coma, about regaining respiratory independence, about physical therapy, about rebuilding muscle mass loss.
He also said they wouldn’t be doing any of that on board the Daedalus because it wasn’t equipped and that would be the treatment plan when they got Sheppard to the Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland.
The only thing Sheppard liked about the man was that he decided Sheppard shouldn’t have to endure or remember two weeks in hyperspace on a gurney, and jabbed a needle into his IV-line that knocked him out cold.
~
Sheppard knew immediately that Keller had been right. Various doctors - well, actually it was generally the same ones since only six in the whole hospital had the security clearance to be told the whole story - stood over his bedside and espoused thousands of other possibilities. He could have cancer, an auto-immune disorder, epilepsy, multi-organ failure, or some kind of combo with fries and a drink. They all sucked, but they were other possibilities.
Except that he was getting better. The doctors were visibly disappointed. Evidently they’d been expecting some phenomenally mysterious alien disease and a patient that would ultimately end up in the pathology labs. Instead they had a very weak, very medicated dude whose only risk of expiring was if he managed to pull his respirator out and strangle himself with it. (It was a joke that the poor respiratory therapist didn’t appreciate, at all.)
He had a respiratory therapist, now. Thus far she hadn’t done anything besides describe all the invasive oxygen-producing machines they were going to hook him up to while they gradually weaned him into breathing on his own. There was also a physical therapist, who for now was just kind of rearranging him in bed.
Sheppard still felt like crap. It wasn’t intense or painful, just a generalized sense of exhaustion and weakness. He was, he suspected, severely overmedicated. They were gradually reducing dosages of pretty much everything, waiting for a relapse on any front. Or waiting for any kind of challenge. His main doctor said most of Sheppard’s remaining symptoms were side affects from the medications and from being confined to bed for so long.
Five months later, they’d cured everything but what he wanted the most. He was still in the hospital, mostly because the Air Force had expected that he’d be dead at this point and hadn’t bothered to set up any other arrangements. Sheppard didn’t really mind. He’d made friends with the nurses and scored the freshest dinners and best desserts. Being inside the hospital meant he didn’t have to deal with being back in the world - the real world, the world of Earth - and no longer being on Atlantis.
He hadn’t thought about the city or its people in months. He was busy relearning how to breathe and walk on his own, and then putting back muscle on his emaciated frame. Very, very busy.
A couple of times he’d gone outside of the hospital. His physical therapist said he needed fresh air - his psychologist said he needed to see that he was home. Sheppard disagreed with both of them, because the air outside the hospital was choked with pollution and crowded with suburban sprawl and Maryland had never been his home. He was a little surprised how used he was to open, empty spaces and how weird it was not see water. In an attempt to cooperate with both doctors (the shrink was actually kind of cute), he gave a real effort to obey. He tried to go for regular runs. It made him think about his daily runs with Ronon, though. That made him run faster, until he overdid it and twisted up his knee. Then, he tried not to think about anything and it nearly got him hit by a car. After that, he went back to the gym track and lied happily about just how much fresh air he was getting.
His ability to ignore the Stargate program was compromised when one of its architects came to see him. Up to now, no one had contacted him except the basic Air Force offices locating its service members. He’d been placed on some out-of-commission list, probably shafted towards the future honorable discharge list. There should be a bunch more confidentiality documents to sign, and that’d be it.
“Heard you were up and around,” General Jack O’Neill said, having made himself comfortable in the plastic chair by Sheppard’s bed.
He must have arrived while Sheppard was at the gym. The general wasn’t in uniform, just jeans and a leather jacket. It was kind of weird, since most brass put on their dress blues to step inside hospitals with active-duty military patients. Sheppard wasn’t sure if he should be put-out.
“Sir,” he said, anyway, and half-heartedly tried to snap to attention. It was stupid, since he was in sweats and sneakers.
O’Neill gave him a wave to stand down. “You’re much less dead than I was told to expect.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I think.”
“I stole your lunch,” O’Neill said, then, pointing at the empty tray Sheppard hadn’t even noticed sitting on the swing-table. “There was jello, I did what I had to do.”
“Okay,” Sheppard said. And people had the nerve to call him weird. He wished O’Neill hadn’t taken the only seat in the room. The only people who talked to him from that chair were doctors telling him he wasn’t better yet. Grudgingly, he dropped down on to the edge of the bed, anyway. “What brings you here, sir?”
“Oh,” O’Neill said. “Closing old accounts, I guess.” He grimaced, and looked back at the empty tray.
“I figured,” Sheppard said.
“They took you to the SGC before you got here,” O’Neill said. “I don’t know you if you knew that.”
Sheppard hadn’t. “Why?” he asked.
“See what happened if they put you next to the ‘Gate,” O’Neill said. “I didn’t really buy that some Pegasus farmers could do that to you.”
“What happened?” Sheppard asked.
“I got yelled at for a very, very long time by every doctor on base, all the doctors on the Daedalus, and also all the doctors with clearance once you got here.”
“Oh?”
“You were very polite, though, with the silently nearly dying. I like that about you.”
“Thanks for trying,” Sheppard said, genuinely. He probably would have asked to try it, too.
O’Neill nodded his head. “Yeah.”
Silenced reigned for a few awkward seconds. Then, O’Neill reached into his jacket packet and produced a tiny silver digital camcorder. He slid it on to the plastic tabletop towards Sheppard. “I thought you might want to send a message back on the next data burst. I know you weren’t in a condition to say many goodbyes.”
Sheppard immediately shoved the camera back towards O’Neill. “You can just let ‘em know I’m up and around. You know, not dead.”
The general paused for a second, but he took the camera back and put it away without comment. There were some things Sheppard did like about the man. “Okay then,” he said, reaching down a pulling a black briefcase into view. “Down to business.” He cracked open the case and spread a thick pile of papers next to the empty lunch tray. “I don’t know why they sent me to do this. Fortunately, there’s little red flags next to everything you have to sign, so it should be pretty clear.”
“Discharge?” Sheppard asked, even though he already knew.
O’Neill looked up, a little surprised. “Well, yeah.”
“Sir, I have six years left. I just re-upped.”
“Well, yeah,” O’Neill said again, now just confused. “Colonel, you can’t get near the ‘Gate without going into a coma.”
Sheppard straightened up. “General, I was in the Air Force for two decades before I knew the ‘Gate existed.”
O’Neill put down the cover sheet and folded his hands on top of it. He tilted his head to the left. “Oh.”
~
It was a lot easier than he thought it would be. Maybe O’Neill greased the gears a little, or maybe the newspapers piling up in his room screaming out about diminishing recruitment success had more to do with it. Either way, the Air Force was okay with keeping him.
It felt different. He had to get recertified in everything, after nine doctors signed off on letting him get back to active duty. Orders came in sending him to Moody. It wasn’t actually anything new. It was just…typical. There wasn’t anything special about an Air Force pilot getting some refreshers in flying.
Before he was discharged from the hospital, three crates showed up in his room with a ‘lost in transit’ note from the Personnel department. His stuff from Atlantis. Or some of it, since he’d had more than would fit in just those boxes. Either it’d been stolen while languishing in transit, or it hadn’t all been packed. Maybe Rodney had decided to help himself. Or Ronon. Teyla probably was too good to scavenge. It didn’t really matter. He didn’t open anything, just found the proper forms to send it all to the storage facility that was still holding everything he’d owned from his last deployment. He hadn’t seen any of it in, geez, a very long time now.
Moody was okay. It was somewhere in Georgia, and it was hot as ever-loving fuck. He had officer’s housing on base and he kept the AC blasting so high fuses kept blowing. He only tried to adjust the temperature with his mind a couple of times. Mostly, he’d gotten over trying to do that in the hospital. It never worked. Also, it made him feel crazy.
He thought it might happen in the air, and then he really would be crazy and also probably dead. But it was pretty hard to mistake any of the aircraft he was relearning with the puddlejumpers. He kind of missed the effortless connection, but at the same time flying without internal dampeners was awesome. The feeling of speed was the whole reason he’d ever joined the Air Force. He focused on that. Besides, while maybe not up to Ancient standards, aircraft technology had gotten much cooler in recent years. Some of that was probably R & D from Pegasus technology. And then he had to stop thinking along those lines.
It turned out Sheppard probably would have been more successful in the Air Force if they’d made him a colonel immediately. He seemed to get along a lot better now that he didn’t quite have so many superiors. It did take a little bit of getting used to the stricter military structure, but then again he’d never been very good at it. Still, since it seemed pretty unlikely that he’d be assigned to another top secret project based solely on genetic qualifications, he put a lot of effort into not being a dick.
Evidently he managed not to piss anyone in charge off, because he passed the training and got orders to ship out of Moody with the 347th Rescue Group when they deployed to Afghanistan.
He’d known it was coming. There really hadn’t been too many options. Either he’d be drummed out for being the obnoxious weirdo who’d nearly died from circumstances that were top secret - and sounded really dubious to people who did know about the Stargate program, actually - or he’d actually get a real assignment. Maybe there was a third option where he got a cushy desk job at Hickham in Hawaii, but he wasn’t well-behaved enough to get that kind of prize and he didn’t want to fly a desk.
They gave him a bunch of kids - no, seriously kids that were younger than Ford had ever been. Ramirez, Jones, Bartlett, and Dexter. Ramirez was about five and a half-feet tall with red hair and red freckles. Sheppard had a hell of a time remembering his name because he looked like he should trade surnames with Dexter, who had three Mexican grandparents and totally looked like a “Ramirez”. Jones was tall and dark, and kind of reminded Sheppard of Ronon, if Ronon had grown up in the bayou and could be held down while his hair was chopped off. Sheppard might have been a dick to Jones, and he felt bad about that.
Bartlett was a major and this was his third trip to Afghanistan. He took one look at Sheppard, wanted to know if he’d ever been there before, and then more or less directly asked if he was going to have some old man PTSD freak out when he saw sand. Sheppard could appreciate his honesty and promised that wasn’t likely. He did, however, continue to be a complete and irrational asshole to Jones because he had no right to look so familiar. Jones took it well, which did not help.
Afghanistan was still Afghanistan. Sheppard didn’t know if that said more about the country or more about the continuity of U.S. military operations in the region. The multinational force was kind of comforting. He mostly saw British troops, and he even heard rumors one of the princes had been secretly deployed. He asked one of the female medics with the Royal Marines and she said yes, but it wasn’t the cute one.
Her name was Mary, she had red hair, and she was, actually, the cute one. They totally weren’t supposed to hook up, but Sheppard took a page from the old book where he didn’t care what the military did to him, and let her seduce him in the back of her barracks.
He stopped thinking about Atlantis. As much as he’d ever allowed himself to, he stopped completely now. He couldn’t think about people he would never see again if it distracted him from his squad. Bartlett said the missions were nothing compared to the ones from his first two deployments, which Sheppard believed. There was a lot of down time, and in between ops he would covertly track Mary down.
There might have been fewer Taliban, but the ones that were left were still assholes. One got a hold of a rocket launcher and took Sheppard’s Apache out of the sky. They’d been trying to rescue four Marines cornered in a village that had suddenly turned into Taliban-palooza.
Sheppard saw Bartlett haul Ramirez up and jump free, and Dexter followed. He didn’t see Jones, and the next thing he knew he was lying on the ground and Jones was sitting on him. He was pressing down with both hands, right above his hip bone, and it really hurt. Sheppard could feel the liquid heat coating his belly, knew what Jones was trying to do.
“Sorry I was a dick,” he said, and Jones grunted. He probably couldn’t hear Sheppard over the weapons fire.
Mary showed up with her Royal Marines and took over for Jones. Sheppard smiled up at her, and passed out.
He woke up a couple of times in the Army hospital near Kandahar. His gut was full of staples. Bartlett stuck around long enough to tell him everyone else was intact and breathing, and say Sheppard was on his way to Germany. The hospital in Heidelburg was really nice. Sheppard had been there once before, the last time he’d left Afghanistan. He could appreciate symmetry, but he’d also spent the majority of the last years in some kind of hospital, and the thought of another one absolutely sucked.
There was no expectation that’d he’d die this time. It meant the doctors were brusquer and less attentive. All he had was a through and through bullet wound that hadn’t nicked anything all that important. He’d also broken his leg, something no one had even noticed ‘til they tried to get him up after surgery. They slapped some plaster on it and went to deal with soldiers who no longer had legs.
There was also no reason to mourn this time. He’d liked his squad well enough, even if Bartlett had too much attitude, and even if Jones had an unhealthy tolerance for being treated like crap. He’d be sent stateside to heal up and then he could go back. He was lucky the gut shot wasn’t worse, lucky the Apache hadn’t landed on top of him. Sheppard missed Mary. He missed her, and he felt vaguely guilty that he seemed to be missing the distraction she provided maybe a little bit more than the actual woman.
He stayed in the hospital a few weeks, then got kicked once he could get up and handle crutches. They put him up in temporary quarters on base. He didn’t have anything to do besides hobble around and spend money on German beer. They had him scheduled on a flight out at the end of the month. Unfortunately, before that month was up, he got a roommate. Roger was a Texan captain going home because of undiagnosed gastrointestinal problems. Among other things, he had to have his gallbladder removed. As consequence, he wasn’t allowed to drink and he was really, really pissed off about it. Sheppard started staying out more and avoiding his quarters. He only had a few weeks left, anyway.
One night when Sheppard got back, Roger said he’d missed a visitor. Since Sheppard wasn’t sure he even knew anyone on this continent, that was odd.
“Guy was kind of round,” Roger said. “Definitely a civilian, I don’t know how he got on base. He was a dick. Asked for you and when I said you weren’t here he started yelling.”
“Get a name?” asked Sheppard, since that description was utterly unhelpful.
“Yeah,” Roger said. “He made me write it down, made sure I got his title, too. Dr. Rodney McKay. You know him?”
Roger flipped a post-it note at him, and Sheppard was so stunned it bounced right off his chest and dropped to the floor.
The post-it note had the name, a telephone number, and the name of a hotel near the base. Sheppard had looked into staying there when Roger had first shown up, but it was too pricey.
Sheppard almost didn’t call. His impulse was to crumple the paper up and go to bed. He hadn’t seen Rodney McKay in as long as he’d been dedicating himself to not thinking about Atlantis.
“He said he’d come back tomorrow,” Roger added.
That made Sheppard call. He didn’t know what Rodney wanted, but he didn’t want to have the conversation in the stupid cramped quarters with Roger sitting right there. He didn’t know what he was going to say, but he locked himself in the bathroom and dialed the number.
Rodney didn’t answer. The voicemail picked up and Rodney’s voice recording blared loudly. The message was typically Rodney: harried, self-important, and so long-winded the system cut him off in the middle of a sentence. It was strange to hear him again.
“This is Sheppard,” he said. “I can meet you in the hotel bar tomorrow at four o’clock.” He hung up, aware that his message had probably sounded terse and unfriendly. There wasn’t really anything he could do about that, so he just went to bed. He didn’t sleep well, and for the first time in ages he dreamt of going through the ‘Gate wormhole.
Getting to the hotel turned out to be a giant pain in the ass. He had to catch a cab from the base, and crutching to the taxi stand made his entire torso ache. The hotel, of course, had a huge set of stairs leading up to the door. So by the time he actually made it to the bar, the only thing on his mind was how much he hated the crutches and stupid stair-loving architects.
McKay was already there, seated in a booth and nursing a beer. He made an aborted move to rise, but then sat back down and waited for Sheppard to make his way over to the table. He slid in across from McKay, propping his crutches up against the nearest wall.
“Hi,” he said.
McKay looked the same. Maybe a little less hair, but totally the same.
“Do you not know how to use a computer?” McKay growled. He did it softly, which showed some development of restraint. “Do you not know how to use the U.S. Postal service? What about carrier pigeons? Huh? Do you have any idea how hard it was to contact you? I have been e-mailing you for two fucking years - ” his voice was rising to a much more familiar decibel level.
“Shhh,” Sheppard interrupted, as one of the barmaids looked up sharply. He gave her a peaceful wave. “I don’t even have an e-mail address, McKay, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Immediately, McKay opened his mouth again. “Wait! Look…I’m sorry I didn’t keep in touch. I was out of it for a really long time and then I was kind of too pissed off to want to deal with any of it. Okay?”
McKay paused. He squinted for a second. “I didn’t think you were going to apologize,” he said, finally. “I had lots more to say about that.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Sheppard admitted, “but I did. So drop it, okay?”
“Maybe,” McKay said. He looked a little deflated. Sheppard thought maybe he’d thwarted a really long, prepared speech. “What’s with the crutches?”
“I fell out of a helicopter and landed on a bullet,” Sheppard said, more or less truthfully.
“Where?”
“Afghanistan,” Sheppard said, and McKay’s mouth fell open.
“What?”
“There’s a war,” Sheppard said. “Here, too, McKay. Actually, the Canadians are in it, too.”
“I know that,” McKay snapped. “I just…didn’t think they’d…” Sheppard must have gone stiff, because abruptly McKay shut up. “Nevermind,” he said. “I don’t want to fight about stupi-…about anything, okay? There’s more important stuff.” His lips sealed into a thin, serious line.
McKay censoring himself, McKay backing down from starting a completely unwinnable argument. That was new and different. “What?” Sheppard asked.
“How much do you know?” McKay asked. “About what happened after you left?” He sounded downright suspicious.
“Nothing,” Sheppard said. “I wasn’t told anything. I didn’t ask. Why?” A vague sense of worry was filling his belly. “Did someone -”
“Elizabeth died,” McKay interrupted. “Replicators.”
“Oh.” The worry turned into a gut punch.
“I’m sorry,” McKay said, shifting in his seat. “It was maybe half a year after you left.”
“Oh,” Sheppard said, again.
“Yeah.” McKay looked at the tabletop. “Want a drink?”
“No,” he said. That wasn’t going to help.
“You don’t know anything that’s happened?” McKay continued.
“No.”
“Okay,” McKay said. “Well, it’s all bad news. I’m sorry. I did try to tell you. Speaking of which, I violated the non-disclosure clause to someone in the Air Force named J. Sheppard.”
“Rodney-”
“The project was scrapped,” McKay said. He leaned closer. “After Elizabeth, we had Sam Carter and then an IOA guy in charge. Everything was going to hell and the IOA decided that rather than protecting their interests we were only going around the galaxy poking angry things with sticks. They recalled the entire mission about a year ago.”
“Atlantis,” Sheppard whispered.
“Sunk,” McKay replied. “Not destroyed. I wouldn’t let them. It’s sunk. Just like we found her, more or less.” He sounded as pained as Sheppard felt.
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” McKay said. “Me too.”
“That’s why you’re here?” Sheppard said. “To tell me that?”
“No,” McKay said. “I’m here because I need your help.”
“Rodney,” Sheppard said, raising a hand to his temple like the man had any idea what kind of headaches he’d had. “I can’t go near the ‘Gate…”
“No,” McKay said. “It’s not that. I resigned, by the way. I can’t go near the ‘Gate either.”
“You resigned? Why?”
“The IOA are fascist bastards,” McKay said, crisply. “I didn’t want them to be able to touch me and I sure as hell won’t work for them. I work for an independent contractor now. I make lots more money.”
“Rodney, what happened?”
McKay took a deep breath. He picked up his beer and drank some. He looked angrier than Sheppard had ever seen him. “The IOA took Teyla and Ronon back with us.”
“They came with?” Sheppard said. He almost started to look around the room, half expecting Teyla to pop up from behind the bar.
“No,” Rodney said. “I said took. They didn’t want to come. The IOA judged them both security risks and brought them back as prisoners.”
Shock streaked through Sheppard. “You’re kidding.”
“I wish I was.” McKay rested his head in his hands. “You have no idea.”
“Yeah, I’ll help.” Sheppard said. “Whatever it takes. Whenever. Wherever.”
McKay let out a soft breath. “Okay. Good.”
“Where are they being held?”
“Story’s not done,” McKay said. “I have Teyla. I got her out. It wasn’t that hard. She’s - you know how she is.”
Of course Sheppard knew. It’s Teyla.
“It wasn’t that hard.” McKay gestured with his left hand, something glittering under the dim booth’s light. “We said we were married.”
Sheppard’s mouth went open involuntarily.
“Said the records were, obviously, a little wet. But that made her a Canadian national at least, and a U.S. permanent resident at most, so I got her out.”
“Good,” Sheppard said, ignoring the shock. “Good thinking. That was smart.”
“We did it, actually,” McKay said. “Legally, with all the paperwork so no one can ever touch her again.”
“Good,” Sheppard said.
“You were invited to the wedding,” McKay said. “I don’t know where it went, but she sent one.”
“P.O. Box I haven't checked in six years,” Sheppard answered.
“We tried to do the same thing with Ronon,” McKay continued. “Not me, obviously. We tried Keller. It didn’t work. Ronon probably didn’t cooperate. Keller’s a shitty actress. The IOA…he…they…I…”
McKay became so flustered he had to stop talking. He took a deep drink of his beer and scratched at his neck. “Last I heard they had him locked up in Cheyenne.”
“We’ll get him out.” Sheppard said, flatly.
“He got himself out.” McKay retorted. “I think Sam might have helped. I don’t know.”
“I don’t understand.”
McKay stared at him over the rim of his glass. “Ronon Dex has been at large on this planet for about three months. John, he’s running again.” He threw one hand out helplessly into the air. “He hasn’t tried to contact me or Teyla. He’s out there, somewhere, and he won’t come in for us. But I think he will for you.”
They scheduled their flight back to the United States for three days later. Sheppard could have gone on the military plane at the end of the month, but that was weeks away. McKay had the cash, and he was insistent that he and Sheppard stay together.
“Last time you went some place by yourself,” he griped, “I didn’t see you for two years.”
“I’m sorry, Rodney.”
McKay continued to grumble, even as he put one arm around Sheppard’s back in the guise of helping him to his crutches. “Just don’t do it again, okay?”
Sheppard learned more on the flight home. McKay wouldn’t stop twisting his wedding band, and finally the rest came out.
Ronon hadn’t taken it well when Sheppard had to leave Atlantis. It was kind of flattering, but not that surprising. He’d suspected for a while that Ronon’s loyalty lay in specific people - himself and Teyla, chiefly. That was why Teyla had stayed behind. She didn’t want to be gone, across the planet if Ronon came looking for her.
He’d hurt the security team that had taken him and Teyla into custody - duh. No one should have been surprised by that. He hadn’t gotten any better behaved while in custody.
“They put a subdermal transmitter in him,” McKay said, scowling.
Rage boiled steadily in Sheppard’s gut. He knew why the IOA wouldn’t consider it a big deal, because they didn’t know Ronon. Weir had never insisted on that protocol with Ronon. No one would have, if they knew the story.
“They also shaved his head,” McKay said. “Because he was hiding knives in his hair, I guess.” Sheppard thought he could see his eyes glittering.
“We’ll find him,” he said.
Getting off the plane with the crutches and luggage was something of an ordeal. McKay was cranky and uncaffeinated, and Sheppard was sore and stiff. They’d arranged to land in Texas, right outside the radius in which the distance to an active Stargate might send Sheppard into seizures. He asked McKay how Teyla would be able to reach them at the airport on such short notice.
“We live here,” McKay said. “She just has to drive to the airport and not kill anyone on her way. She’s a terrible driver.”
“Why do you live here and not Colorado?” Sheppard asked.
McKay shrugged. “No reason. Wouldn’t want you to go comatose in my house.”
The airport was crowded. McKay cleared a path for Sheppard with lots of blatant shoving as they disembarked. He started peering around the families gathered in baggage claim, looking for Teyla.
Sheppard didn’t recognize her at first. He’d never looked for her like this, in a building that had more people than most Pegasus planets had populace. He felt stifled by all the bodies; he couldn’t imagine what she thought of it. He’d also never seen her dressed like an American. Of course she wouldn’t be wearing BDU’s or Athosian garments. He looked right past the petite woman in jeans and an orange sweater. She looked too small, too unobtrusive.
“Teyla!” Rodney called, and then she was moving forwards.
Sheppard went towards her. The noisy airport slipped away; he dropped one of his crutches and might have fallen if she hadn’t been there. Her hands were around his shoulders and head, pulling his face to hers. He didn’t even notice if anyone stared at the Athosian greeting. Teyla’s forehead was warm against his. He let her stay there for as long as she needed, and then he did what he needed and pulled her into a complete embrace, burying his head on her shoulder.
“Teyla,” he said into her hair, and his voice sounded thick. “I’m sorry.”
“We are together now,” she said. “That is what matters.”
“Ronon,” he said, and his breathing actually hitched.
“We will all be together,” she said. “I know it.”
He held her tighter, until McKay moved in to slip the crutch back under Sheppard’s arm. And then he grabbed him too, ignoring his squeal, and held them both.
Sequel
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The doctors on Daedalus did exactly what Keller had warned, and the next time Sheppard woke up his mouth was dry and empty while the ventilator puffed directly into his neck. The chief medical officer was a guy, Dr. David O’Donovan, who wasn’t nearly as pretty as Keller. He didn’t have a computer set up for Sheppard to communicate, and he didn’t talk at length about the whole ‘deathly allergic to the Stargate’ diagnosis.
Instead he talked about recovery from coma, about regaining respiratory independence, about physical therapy, about rebuilding muscle mass loss.
He also said they wouldn’t be doing any of that on board the Daedalus because it wasn’t equipped and that would be the treatment plan when they got Sheppard to the Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland.
The only thing Sheppard liked about the man was that he decided Sheppard shouldn’t have to endure or remember two weeks in hyperspace on a gurney, and jabbed a needle into his IV-line that knocked him out cold.
~
Sheppard knew immediately that Keller had been right. Various doctors - well, actually it was generally the same ones since only six in the whole hospital had the security clearance to be told the whole story - stood over his bedside and espoused thousands of other possibilities. He could have cancer, an auto-immune disorder, epilepsy, multi-organ failure, or some kind of combo with fries and a drink. They all sucked, but they were other possibilities.
Except that he was getting better. The doctors were visibly disappointed. Evidently they’d been expecting some phenomenally mysterious alien disease and a patient that would ultimately end up in the pathology labs. Instead they had a very weak, very medicated dude whose only risk of expiring was if he managed to pull his respirator out and strangle himself with it. (It was a joke that the poor respiratory therapist didn’t appreciate, at all.)
He had a respiratory therapist, now. Thus far she hadn’t done anything besides describe all the invasive oxygen-producing machines they were going to hook him up to while they gradually weaned him into breathing on his own. There was also a physical therapist, who for now was just kind of rearranging him in bed.
Sheppard still felt like crap. It wasn’t intense or painful, just a generalized sense of exhaustion and weakness. He was, he suspected, severely overmedicated. They were gradually reducing dosages of pretty much everything, waiting for a relapse on any front. Or waiting for any kind of challenge. His main doctor said most of Sheppard’s remaining symptoms were side affects from the medications and from being confined to bed for so long.
Five months later, they’d cured everything but what he wanted the most. He was still in the hospital, mostly because the Air Force had expected that he’d be dead at this point and hadn’t bothered to set up any other arrangements. Sheppard didn’t really mind. He’d made friends with the nurses and scored the freshest dinners and best desserts. Being inside the hospital meant he didn’t have to deal with being back in the world - the real world, the world of Earth - and no longer being on Atlantis.
He hadn’t thought about the city or its people in months. He was busy relearning how to breathe and walk on his own, and then putting back muscle on his emaciated frame. Very, very busy.
A couple of times he’d gone outside of the hospital. His physical therapist said he needed fresh air - his psychologist said he needed to see that he was home. Sheppard disagreed with both of them, because the air outside the hospital was choked with pollution and crowded with suburban sprawl and Maryland had never been his home. He was a little surprised how used he was to open, empty spaces and how weird it was not see water. In an attempt to cooperate with both doctors (the shrink was actually kind of cute), he gave a real effort to obey. He tried to go for regular runs. It made him think about his daily runs with Ronon, though. That made him run faster, until he overdid it and twisted up his knee. Then, he tried not to think about anything and it nearly got him hit by a car. After that, he went back to the gym track and lied happily about just how much fresh air he was getting.
His ability to ignore the Stargate program was compromised when one of its architects came to see him. Up to now, no one had contacted him except the basic Air Force offices locating its service members. He’d been placed on some out-of-commission list, probably shafted towards the future honorable discharge list. There should be a bunch more confidentiality documents to sign, and that’d be it.
“Heard you were up and around,” General Jack O’Neill said, having made himself comfortable in the plastic chair by Sheppard’s bed.
He must have arrived while Sheppard was at the gym. The general wasn’t in uniform, just jeans and a leather jacket. It was kind of weird, since most brass put on their dress blues to step inside hospitals with active-duty military patients. Sheppard wasn’t sure if he should be put-out.
“Sir,” he said, anyway, and half-heartedly tried to snap to attention. It was stupid, since he was in sweats and sneakers.
O’Neill gave him a wave to stand down. “You’re much less dead than I was told to expect.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I think.”
“I stole your lunch,” O’Neill said, then, pointing at the empty tray Sheppard hadn’t even noticed sitting on the swing-table. “There was jello, I did what I had to do.”
“Okay,” Sheppard said. And people had the nerve to call him weird. He wished O’Neill hadn’t taken the only seat in the room. The only people who talked to him from that chair were doctors telling him he wasn’t better yet. Grudgingly, he dropped down on to the edge of the bed, anyway. “What brings you here, sir?”
“Oh,” O’Neill said. “Closing old accounts, I guess.” He grimaced, and looked back at the empty tray.
“I figured,” Sheppard said.
“They took you to the SGC before you got here,” O’Neill said. “I don’t know you if you knew that.”
Sheppard hadn’t. “Why?” he asked.
“See what happened if they put you next to the ‘Gate,” O’Neill said. “I didn’t really buy that some Pegasus farmers could do that to you.”
“What happened?” Sheppard asked.
“I got yelled at for a very, very long time by every doctor on base, all the doctors on the Daedalus, and also all the doctors with clearance once you got here.”
“Oh?”
“You were very polite, though, with the silently nearly dying. I like that about you.”
“Thanks for trying,” Sheppard said, genuinely. He probably would have asked to try it, too.
O’Neill nodded his head. “Yeah.”
Silenced reigned for a few awkward seconds. Then, O’Neill reached into his jacket packet and produced a tiny silver digital camcorder. He slid it on to the plastic tabletop towards Sheppard. “I thought you might want to send a message back on the next data burst. I know you weren’t in a condition to say many goodbyes.”
Sheppard immediately shoved the camera back towards O’Neill. “You can just let ‘em know I’m up and around. You know, not dead.”
The general paused for a second, but he took the camera back and put it away without comment. There were some things Sheppard did like about the man. “Okay then,” he said, reaching down a pulling a black briefcase into view. “Down to business.” He cracked open the case and spread a thick pile of papers next to the empty lunch tray. “I don’t know why they sent me to do this. Fortunately, there’s little red flags next to everything you have to sign, so it should be pretty clear.”
“Discharge?” Sheppard asked, even though he already knew.
O’Neill looked up, a little surprised. “Well, yeah.”
“Sir, I have six years left. I just re-upped.”
“Well, yeah,” O’Neill said again, now just confused. “Colonel, you can’t get near the ‘Gate without going into a coma.”
Sheppard straightened up. “General, I was in the Air Force for two decades before I knew the ‘Gate existed.”
O’Neill put down the cover sheet and folded his hands on top of it. He tilted his head to the left. “Oh.”
~
It was a lot easier than he thought it would be. Maybe O’Neill greased the gears a little, or maybe the newspapers piling up in his room screaming out about diminishing recruitment success had more to do with it. Either way, the Air Force was okay with keeping him.
It felt different. He had to get recertified in everything, after nine doctors signed off on letting him get back to active duty. Orders came in sending him to Moody. It wasn’t actually anything new. It was just…typical. There wasn’t anything special about an Air Force pilot getting some refreshers in flying.
Before he was discharged from the hospital, three crates showed up in his room with a ‘lost in transit’ note from the Personnel department. His stuff from Atlantis. Or some of it, since he’d had more than would fit in just those boxes. Either it’d been stolen while languishing in transit, or it hadn’t all been packed. Maybe Rodney had decided to help himself. Or Ronon. Teyla probably was too good to scavenge. It didn’t really matter. He didn’t open anything, just found the proper forms to send it all to the storage facility that was still holding everything he’d owned from his last deployment. He hadn’t seen any of it in, geez, a very long time now.
Moody was okay. It was somewhere in Georgia, and it was hot as ever-loving fuck. He had officer’s housing on base and he kept the AC blasting so high fuses kept blowing. He only tried to adjust the temperature with his mind a couple of times. Mostly, he’d gotten over trying to do that in the hospital. It never worked. Also, it made him feel crazy.
He thought it might happen in the air, and then he really would be crazy and also probably dead. But it was pretty hard to mistake any of the aircraft he was relearning with the puddlejumpers. He kind of missed the effortless connection, but at the same time flying without internal dampeners was awesome. The feeling of speed was the whole reason he’d ever joined the Air Force. He focused on that. Besides, while maybe not up to Ancient standards, aircraft technology had gotten much cooler in recent years. Some of that was probably R & D from Pegasus technology. And then he had to stop thinking along those lines.
It turned out Sheppard probably would have been more successful in the Air Force if they’d made him a colonel immediately. He seemed to get along a lot better now that he didn’t quite have so many superiors. It did take a little bit of getting used to the stricter military structure, but then again he’d never been very good at it. Still, since it seemed pretty unlikely that he’d be assigned to another top secret project based solely on genetic qualifications, he put a lot of effort into not being a dick.
Evidently he managed not to piss anyone in charge off, because he passed the training and got orders to ship out of Moody with the 347th Rescue Group when they deployed to Afghanistan.
He’d known it was coming. There really hadn’t been too many options. Either he’d be drummed out for being the obnoxious weirdo who’d nearly died from circumstances that were top secret - and sounded really dubious to people who did know about the Stargate program, actually - or he’d actually get a real assignment. Maybe there was a third option where he got a cushy desk job at Hickham in Hawaii, but he wasn’t well-behaved enough to get that kind of prize and he didn’t want to fly a desk.
They gave him a bunch of kids - no, seriously kids that were younger than Ford had ever been. Ramirez, Jones, Bartlett, and Dexter. Ramirez was about five and a half-feet tall with red hair and red freckles. Sheppard had a hell of a time remembering his name because he looked like he should trade surnames with Dexter, who had three Mexican grandparents and totally looked like a “Ramirez”. Jones was tall and dark, and kind of reminded Sheppard of Ronon, if Ronon had grown up in the bayou and could be held down while his hair was chopped off. Sheppard might have been a dick to Jones, and he felt bad about that.
Bartlett was a major and this was his third trip to Afghanistan. He took one look at Sheppard, wanted to know if he’d ever been there before, and then more or less directly asked if he was going to have some old man PTSD freak out when he saw sand. Sheppard could appreciate his honesty and promised that wasn’t likely. He did, however, continue to be a complete and irrational asshole to Jones because he had no right to look so familiar. Jones took it well, which did not help.
Afghanistan was still Afghanistan. Sheppard didn’t know if that said more about the country or more about the continuity of U.S. military operations in the region. The multinational force was kind of comforting. He mostly saw British troops, and he even heard rumors one of the princes had been secretly deployed. He asked one of the female medics with the Royal Marines and she said yes, but it wasn’t the cute one.
Her name was Mary, she had red hair, and she was, actually, the cute one. They totally weren’t supposed to hook up, but Sheppard took a page from the old book where he didn’t care what the military did to him, and let her seduce him in the back of her barracks.
He stopped thinking about Atlantis. As much as he’d ever allowed himself to, he stopped completely now. He couldn’t think about people he would never see again if it distracted him from his squad. Bartlett said the missions were nothing compared to the ones from his first two deployments, which Sheppard believed. There was a lot of down time, and in between ops he would covertly track Mary down.
There might have been fewer Taliban, but the ones that were left were still assholes. One got a hold of a rocket launcher and took Sheppard’s Apache out of the sky. They’d been trying to rescue four Marines cornered in a village that had suddenly turned into Taliban-palooza.
Sheppard saw Bartlett haul Ramirez up and jump free, and Dexter followed. He didn’t see Jones, and the next thing he knew he was lying on the ground and Jones was sitting on him. He was pressing down with both hands, right above his hip bone, and it really hurt. Sheppard could feel the liquid heat coating his belly, knew what Jones was trying to do.
“Sorry I was a dick,” he said, and Jones grunted. He probably couldn’t hear Sheppard over the weapons fire.
Mary showed up with her Royal Marines and took over for Jones. Sheppard smiled up at her, and passed out.
He woke up a couple of times in the Army hospital near Kandahar. His gut was full of staples. Bartlett stuck around long enough to tell him everyone else was intact and breathing, and say Sheppard was on his way to Germany. The hospital in Heidelburg was really nice. Sheppard had been there once before, the last time he’d left Afghanistan. He could appreciate symmetry, but he’d also spent the majority of the last years in some kind of hospital, and the thought of another one absolutely sucked.
There was no expectation that’d he’d die this time. It meant the doctors were brusquer and less attentive. All he had was a through and through bullet wound that hadn’t nicked anything all that important. He’d also broken his leg, something no one had even noticed ‘til they tried to get him up after surgery. They slapped some plaster on it and went to deal with soldiers who no longer had legs.
There was also no reason to mourn this time. He’d liked his squad well enough, even if Bartlett had too much attitude, and even if Jones had an unhealthy tolerance for being treated like crap. He’d be sent stateside to heal up and then he could go back. He was lucky the gut shot wasn’t worse, lucky the Apache hadn’t landed on top of him. Sheppard missed Mary. He missed her, and he felt vaguely guilty that he seemed to be missing the distraction she provided maybe a little bit more than the actual woman.
He stayed in the hospital a few weeks, then got kicked once he could get up and handle crutches. They put him up in temporary quarters on base. He didn’t have anything to do besides hobble around and spend money on German beer. They had him scheduled on a flight out at the end of the month. Unfortunately, before that month was up, he got a roommate. Roger was a Texan captain going home because of undiagnosed gastrointestinal problems. Among other things, he had to have his gallbladder removed. As consequence, he wasn’t allowed to drink and he was really, really pissed off about it. Sheppard started staying out more and avoiding his quarters. He only had a few weeks left, anyway.
One night when Sheppard got back, Roger said he’d missed a visitor. Since Sheppard wasn’t sure he even knew anyone on this continent, that was odd.
“Guy was kind of round,” Roger said. “Definitely a civilian, I don’t know how he got on base. He was a dick. Asked for you and when I said you weren’t here he started yelling.”
“Get a name?” asked Sheppard, since that description was utterly unhelpful.
“Yeah,” Roger said. “He made me write it down, made sure I got his title, too. Dr. Rodney McKay. You know him?”
Roger flipped a post-it note at him, and Sheppard was so stunned it bounced right off his chest and dropped to the floor.
The post-it note had the name, a telephone number, and the name of a hotel near the base. Sheppard had looked into staying there when Roger had first shown up, but it was too pricey.
Sheppard almost didn’t call. His impulse was to crumple the paper up and go to bed. He hadn’t seen Rodney McKay in as long as he’d been dedicating himself to not thinking about Atlantis.
“He said he’d come back tomorrow,” Roger added.
That made Sheppard call. He didn’t know what Rodney wanted, but he didn’t want to have the conversation in the stupid cramped quarters with Roger sitting right there. He didn’t know what he was going to say, but he locked himself in the bathroom and dialed the number.
Rodney didn’t answer. The voicemail picked up and Rodney’s voice recording blared loudly. The message was typically Rodney: harried, self-important, and so long-winded the system cut him off in the middle of a sentence. It was strange to hear him again.
“This is Sheppard,” he said. “I can meet you in the hotel bar tomorrow at four o’clock.” He hung up, aware that his message had probably sounded terse and unfriendly. There wasn’t really anything he could do about that, so he just went to bed. He didn’t sleep well, and for the first time in ages he dreamt of going through the ‘Gate wormhole.
Getting to the hotel turned out to be a giant pain in the ass. He had to catch a cab from the base, and crutching to the taxi stand made his entire torso ache. The hotel, of course, had a huge set of stairs leading up to the door. So by the time he actually made it to the bar, the only thing on his mind was how much he hated the crutches and stupid stair-loving architects.
McKay was already there, seated in a booth and nursing a beer. He made an aborted move to rise, but then sat back down and waited for Sheppard to make his way over to the table. He slid in across from McKay, propping his crutches up against the nearest wall.
“Hi,” he said.
McKay looked the same. Maybe a little less hair, but totally the same.
“Do you not know how to use a computer?” McKay growled. He did it softly, which showed some development of restraint. “Do you not know how to use the U.S. Postal service? What about carrier pigeons? Huh? Do you have any idea how hard it was to contact you? I have been e-mailing you for two fucking years - ” his voice was rising to a much more familiar decibel level.
“Shhh,” Sheppard interrupted, as one of the barmaids looked up sharply. He gave her a peaceful wave. “I don’t even have an e-mail address, McKay, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Immediately, McKay opened his mouth again. “Wait! Look…I’m sorry I didn’t keep in touch. I was out of it for a really long time and then I was kind of too pissed off to want to deal with any of it. Okay?”
McKay paused. He squinted for a second. “I didn’t think you were going to apologize,” he said, finally. “I had lots more to say about that.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Sheppard admitted, “but I did. So drop it, okay?”
“Maybe,” McKay said. He looked a little deflated. Sheppard thought maybe he’d thwarted a really long, prepared speech. “What’s with the crutches?”
“I fell out of a helicopter and landed on a bullet,” Sheppard said, more or less truthfully.
“Where?”
“Afghanistan,” Sheppard said, and McKay’s mouth fell open.
“What?”
“There’s a war,” Sheppard said. “Here, too, McKay. Actually, the Canadians are in it, too.”
“I know that,” McKay snapped. “I just…didn’t think they’d…” Sheppard must have gone stiff, because abruptly McKay shut up. “Nevermind,” he said. “I don’t want to fight about stupi-…about anything, okay? There’s more important stuff.” His lips sealed into a thin, serious line.
McKay censoring himself, McKay backing down from starting a completely unwinnable argument. That was new and different. “What?” Sheppard asked.
“How much do you know?” McKay asked. “About what happened after you left?” He sounded downright suspicious.
“Nothing,” Sheppard said. “I wasn’t told anything. I didn’t ask. Why?” A vague sense of worry was filling his belly. “Did someone -”
“Elizabeth died,” McKay interrupted. “Replicators.”
“Oh.” The worry turned into a gut punch.
“I’m sorry,” McKay said, shifting in his seat. “It was maybe half a year after you left.”
“Oh,” Sheppard said, again.
“Yeah.” McKay looked at the tabletop. “Want a drink?”
“No,” he said. That wasn’t going to help.
“You don’t know anything that’s happened?” McKay continued.
“No.”
“Okay,” McKay said. “Well, it’s all bad news. I’m sorry. I did try to tell you. Speaking of which, I violated the non-disclosure clause to someone in the Air Force named J. Sheppard.”
“Rodney-”
“The project was scrapped,” McKay said. He leaned closer. “After Elizabeth, we had Sam Carter and then an IOA guy in charge. Everything was going to hell and the IOA decided that rather than protecting their interests we were only going around the galaxy poking angry things with sticks. They recalled the entire mission about a year ago.”
“Atlantis,” Sheppard whispered.
“Sunk,” McKay replied. “Not destroyed. I wouldn’t let them. It’s sunk. Just like we found her, more or less.” He sounded as pained as Sheppard felt.
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” McKay said. “Me too.”
“That’s why you’re here?” Sheppard said. “To tell me that?”
“No,” McKay said. “I’m here because I need your help.”
“Rodney,” Sheppard said, raising a hand to his temple like the man had any idea what kind of headaches he’d had. “I can’t go near the ‘Gate…”
“No,” McKay said. “It’s not that. I resigned, by the way. I can’t go near the ‘Gate either.”
“You resigned? Why?”
“The IOA are fascist bastards,” McKay said, crisply. “I didn’t want them to be able to touch me and I sure as hell won’t work for them. I work for an independent contractor now. I make lots more money.”
“Rodney, what happened?”
McKay took a deep breath. He picked up his beer and drank some. He looked angrier than Sheppard had ever seen him. “The IOA took Teyla and Ronon back with us.”
“They came with?” Sheppard said. He almost started to look around the room, half expecting Teyla to pop up from behind the bar.
“No,” Rodney said. “I said took. They didn’t want to come. The IOA judged them both security risks and brought them back as prisoners.”
Shock streaked through Sheppard. “You’re kidding.”
“I wish I was.” McKay rested his head in his hands. “You have no idea.”
“Yeah, I’ll help.” Sheppard said. “Whatever it takes. Whenever. Wherever.”
McKay let out a soft breath. “Okay. Good.”
“Where are they being held?”
“Story’s not done,” McKay said. “I have Teyla. I got her out. It wasn’t that hard. She’s - you know how she is.”
Of course Sheppard knew. It’s Teyla.
“It wasn’t that hard.” McKay gestured with his left hand, something glittering under the dim booth’s light. “We said we were married.”
Sheppard’s mouth went open involuntarily.
“Said the records were, obviously, a little wet. But that made her a Canadian national at least, and a U.S. permanent resident at most, so I got her out.”
“Good,” Sheppard said, ignoring the shock. “Good thinking. That was smart.”
“We did it, actually,” McKay said. “Legally, with all the paperwork so no one can ever touch her again.”
“Good,” Sheppard said.
“You were invited to the wedding,” McKay said. “I don’t know where it went, but she sent one.”
“P.O. Box I haven't checked in six years,” Sheppard answered.
“We tried to do the same thing with Ronon,” McKay continued. “Not me, obviously. We tried Keller. It didn’t work. Ronon probably didn’t cooperate. Keller’s a shitty actress. The IOA…he…they…I…”
McKay became so flustered he had to stop talking. He took a deep drink of his beer and scratched at his neck. “Last I heard they had him locked up in Cheyenne.”
“We’ll get him out.” Sheppard said, flatly.
“He got himself out.” McKay retorted. “I think Sam might have helped. I don’t know.”
“I don’t understand.”
McKay stared at him over the rim of his glass. “Ronon Dex has been at large on this planet for about three months. John, he’s running again.” He threw one hand out helplessly into the air. “He hasn’t tried to contact me or Teyla. He’s out there, somewhere, and he won’t come in for us. But I think he will for you.”
They scheduled their flight back to the United States for three days later. Sheppard could have gone on the military plane at the end of the month, but that was weeks away. McKay had the cash, and he was insistent that he and Sheppard stay together.
“Last time you went some place by yourself,” he griped, “I didn’t see you for two years.”
“I’m sorry, Rodney.”
McKay continued to grumble, even as he put one arm around Sheppard’s back in the guise of helping him to his crutches. “Just don’t do it again, okay?”
Sheppard learned more on the flight home. McKay wouldn’t stop twisting his wedding band, and finally the rest came out.
Ronon hadn’t taken it well when Sheppard had to leave Atlantis. It was kind of flattering, but not that surprising. He’d suspected for a while that Ronon’s loyalty lay in specific people - himself and Teyla, chiefly. That was why Teyla had stayed behind. She didn’t want to be gone, across the planet if Ronon came looking for her.
He’d hurt the security team that had taken him and Teyla into custody - duh. No one should have been surprised by that. He hadn’t gotten any better behaved while in custody.
“They put a subdermal transmitter in him,” McKay said, scowling.
Rage boiled steadily in Sheppard’s gut. He knew why the IOA wouldn’t consider it a big deal, because they didn’t know Ronon. Weir had never insisted on that protocol with Ronon. No one would have, if they knew the story.
“They also shaved his head,” McKay said. “Because he was hiding knives in his hair, I guess.” Sheppard thought he could see his eyes glittering.
“We’ll find him,” he said.
Getting off the plane with the crutches and luggage was something of an ordeal. McKay was cranky and uncaffeinated, and Sheppard was sore and stiff. They’d arranged to land in Texas, right outside the radius in which the distance to an active Stargate might send Sheppard into seizures. He asked McKay how Teyla would be able to reach them at the airport on such short notice.
“We live here,” McKay said. “She just has to drive to the airport and not kill anyone on her way. She’s a terrible driver.”
“Why do you live here and not Colorado?” Sheppard asked.
McKay shrugged. “No reason. Wouldn’t want you to go comatose in my house.”
The airport was crowded. McKay cleared a path for Sheppard with lots of blatant shoving as they disembarked. He started peering around the families gathered in baggage claim, looking for Teyla.
Sheppard didn’t recognize her at first. He’d never looked for her like this, in a building that had more people than most Pegasus planets had populace. He felt stifled by all the bodies; he couldn’t imagine what she thought of it. He’d also never seen her dressed like an American. Of course she wouldn’t be wearing BDU’s or Athosian garments. He looked right past the petite woman in jeans and an orange sweater. She looked too small, too unobtrusive.
“Teyla!” Rodney called, and then she was moving forwards.
Sheppard went towards her. The noisy airport slipped away; he dropped one of his crutches and might have fallen if she hadn’t been there. Her hands were around his shoulders and head, pulling his face to hers. He didn’t even notice if anyone stared at the Athosian greeting. Teyla’s forehead was warm against his. He let her stay there for as long as she needed, and then he did what he needed and pulled her into a complete embrace, burying his head on her shoulder.
“Teyla,” he said into her hair, and his voice sounded thick. “I’m sorry.”
“We are together now,” she said. “That is what matters.”
“Ronon,” he said, and his breathing actually hitched.
“We will all be together,” she said. “I know it.”
He held her tighter, until McKay moved in to slip the crutch back under Sheppard’s arm. And then he grabbed him too, ignoring his squeal, and held them both.
Sequel
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