It was the same every time.

He supposed it was one of those inevitable patterns of life, like death, taxes, elections generally being farcical, and the leadership of anything accidentally undermining the people who were on the ground trying to get work done. It was something that happened. Shit happened. Sickos yanking him around for their pleasure happened, but the inevitability of it never made him feel any better. It had just made him a nervous wreck in the prelude, and torn between hysteria and angry defiance, fueled mostly by the memory of the act from the last time, less than the actual reality. It worked out the same in his head, and came out yelling, resisting, fueling the inescapable fight that he inevitably lost.

Facts of life like that were bullshit, and miserable, and Kolya had laughed his head off again, squeezed Rodney's ass cheeks and spewed derision. If he could go the rest of his life without feeling that bastard's moonshine-belly pressing against his ass, he'd be a happy man. There were no words for the amount of sheer hatred Rodney felt for him, for the way that he jerked Rodney around, the way he...

But that was something he'd always hated, really, and he was honestly afraid to say anything, afraid to protest. If he did... if he said anything about what was going on, then--

"What would you do, Dr. McKay, if I told your precious Colonel? Would you like to see the expression of disgust in his eyes before he succumbs to the death I plan for him?

"You're not going to get to him to kill him, so the, fuck, point is moot." And it kept him from thinking, thinking about John or anyone else finding out because he had gone to hysterical lengths not to be found out and he'd done it for so long that it was second perfectly paranoid nature, all part of maintaining who he was.

Never mind what Kolya knew. Never mind when Kolya might say something, might tell everyone, and oh, God. God. Rodney didn't know if he could bear for that to happen.

"I'll kill him and then maybe I'll keep... ungh. You. You're quite the oddity, Dr. McKay." The way he panted in Rodney's ear was damp and hot and fucking uncomfortable.

He shifted, and his dick shifted, and Rodney hated it, but he was seriously to the point where there was nowhere to go. There were hands on his ass and he was over the bed, and his thighs were pinned against the side of the bed. "Just finish it. Just get off and put me back in the fucking cell."

"Not until it's over, doctor." Kolya grunted, and pushed, pushed, pushed, wet and slippery, and Rodney couldn't help gagging. Just thinking about it made him, made him...

The fact that he was heaving seemed to be a turn-on for the man, because he came, a heated sticky wash deep in Rodney. And he had to struggle not to throw up over some poor retarded villager's bed, because that was disgusting in ways he didn't have the adjectives to describe, and the feel of Kolya pulling out, slipping out, and slipping fingers down to replace his dick for a moment made Rodney try to get footing to struggle again.

"It's over, damn you! Stop, jesus, stop fucking around!"

"I like feeling myself in you. Wondering..."

What, he didn't say, but Rodney could imagine. He'd heard most of it before, the once or twice he'd actually been stupid enough to tell someone.

Love someone.

Motherfucker.

"There's nothing to wonder." And he was going to demand that Kolya stop fiddling around down there, stop sliding his fingers in and out, but he was pretty sure that if he did, then Kolya would keep doing it to spite him. He'd do it because he knew it bothered Rodney and that was what rape was about it. Taking because he could, because he had Rodney at a disadvantage again, but it was the 'relishing in the freakshow' aspect that made him feel sick.

Oh, god, Kolya was trying to get him off.

Fucker.

"Isn't there?" His thumb reached down, found that place, that one fucking place, and Rodney felt his teeth grind together. Fury, nausea, shame. They were familiar emotions when it came to that motion, that teasing. John didn't do that to him. He knew. He knew that Rodney didn't like being touched, even if he didn't know why.

That was fine because it worked, but this was just hell. Thick fingers moved in and out, and Kolya probably thought he was a master at what he was doing. Maybe, maybe he was, because Rodney caught himself making a faint motion of hip against the pressure, because the sooner it was over the sooner he might get back to the cage, and maybe a rescue and yes to a really long shower.

It wasn't like Carson wasn't there to look after him, in case...

In case.

Carson knew, after all, and the distraction that provided kept him from moving any more. He could think about it, about why that had been a necessity, about the very necessary drugs Carson provided. He could think about anything except this, and the disgusted sound Kolya made when he gave up and pulled his hand away.

"Not worth the effort." Rodney declared it grimly, and started to move, pulling up his pants while he could because there was going to be no clean up, and hardly any chance to get moving before he was going to be returned. To the hunt for the Brotherhood's ZPM, to the command room, to... to the jail cell.

"No. Not, in all honesty, worth much more than my curiosity." The curl of Kolya's lip was half-amusement, half-disgust. "And, of course, an excellent opportunity to draw out Colonel Sheppard. After all, if I shoot you first...."

"The last time you tried that stunt on him, he slaughtered the team you came with. I know taking his brakes off is the best, most advantageous plan of action." Rodney stopped, used the edge of the bedding to wipe himself up a little before he finished pulling his pants on. There seemed to be enough time to adjust himself, get himself back together.

To make sure no one would notice, at least not until he was dead, if it came to that. Not that he wanted any of them to know then.

Ever.

"Yes, well. This time, I have men who are loyal to me, and not someone else. I believe that will make all the difference in the world." Kolya reached out and took his arm. "You've had all the time you need, doctor."

"I suppose I have." Enough time being molested, fucked, and he started forwards, maybe trying to throw off Kolya's walking rhythm, keep himself from being shot just a little longer. Long enough for John to... whatever. He'd work it out; anyway, he'd manage, just like he had before. And the time before that, too.

Kolya wrenched his arm with each step, pulling him into line with what he wanted, with getting him back to the cell whether Rodney wanted to go or not. He did, honestly, but he didn't want the others to know. Not what happened, not that it had happened before, not any of it.

None of it, from the start of Kolya's obsession to the end of it, because yes; he could trust Carson. The moment what had happened went down in a file, though, it would have to be reported to Elizabeth in a mission report and she'd tell Heightmeyer, and god, he didn't need any of that, any talking to anyone, anything. He'd had enough of that for a lifetime.

At least Cadman had kept quiet. That was one person too many who knew.

When they finally came back in view of the cell, Rodney found himself relaxing, caught himself doing a quick headcount.

They were there, just as many and just as few as there had been when Kolya had come and taken him out of the cell. Carson looked like an avenging angel, blue eyes practically made out of fire. "Enjoy the rest of your short stay here, Doctor McKay. I'll be seeing you again." There was too much leer thrown on that for his comfort, and Rodney could only enter the cell, going all the way to the back and staying there because it was better than being shot.

Except the other three people were looking at him. Oh. God. He hadn't left something undone or done up wrong or...

"Rodney." Teyla was looking at him, and why they had decided it would be Teyla instead of Carson or Ronon, he had no idea. "If you would like to come with me, we could perhaps rest for a period of time."

Jail cells did have cots, usually.

Not that one, though. It would have been too convenient, and Rodney had no idea what Teyla meant by 'come with me' because there was nowhere to go but, oh, the other side of the little space they were sharing, where they had maybe six square feet each, and most of that space was the open front of the cell.

It probably wasn't even a real cell. It was probably the town's place to lock up flowerpots and things in storms. Storage. General storage, generally things to be stored, that was them.

"Sure."

Sure, and six feet wasn't enough when Teyla turned to him, expression grim. She didn't say anything. She just started fastening and re-fastening buttons, saying absolutely nothing about... anything. She didn't touch him in any manner that implied he was... But he still wanted to whine, and he was uncomfortable, completely miserable.

"There."

"I, uh... thanks." He swallowed, and wasn't sure whether to move away or sit down or start clawing at the walls because they were waiting for John, and they needed to try to get themselves out instead of being the bait.

"You are welcome." Teyla patted him down gently and straightened his jacket. Whatever she might think about things, obviously she had nothing to say about it in particular. It wasn't something they addressed. "Now, let us rest. The floor is..." Definitely too firm, dirty, with bricks scattered along. "...perhaps not pleasant for resting but I will offer my jacket."

"Mine, too," Carson said. He and Ronon were still facing in the other direction.

Oh, God. Did they all know?

"It's all right. I'm fine. It's not like we're going to be here for long." He didn't want to sit down, didn't want to feel it any more then he already was, that he'd been fucked, that he wasn't clean, and as long as he was there and dressed and not in a shower, it wasn't going to happen.

Teyla's hand was on him, and he hated that. He hated that they'd assigned her to look after him, even though it was probably out of kindness. He hated that it wasn't Ronon there, telling him to get his shit together and buck up under the pressure.

Because that was what he needed. He needed to get his shit together and pretend it hadn't happened and move on like it was nothing, which was what John would do and there was no way he could look John in the eye for a while, and god, he seriously needed a shower. "What?"

"Nothing," Ronon answered in a low rumble. "Just. We were, uh..."

"Worried." Carson turned to look at him. "We were worried. It's nothing, Rodney, no one's..."

No one was what, Rodney wasn't sure, because Kolya was back again, talking about exchanging them for supplies, and he couldn't even begin to know what to say or how to take that. He knew Kolya would probably just kill all of them anyway.

He could only try to move out of the way, keep low, and maybe sitting down and out of the way was a good idea. Rodney clenched his teeth, pretending that possibly they could get out of it. It was a shame none of them had weapons. Nothing to pry the bars up with.

No way just to go ahead and commit hari kari or something.

They'd get out of it. They always did. It just might not be without complete humiliation and a lot more pain, which he could live without, personally.

Things just never seemed to work out that way for him.

---

He'd ducked out. Carson had given him a hasty examination, and Rodney didn't want to think about it, didn't want to think about putting himself together again or that he'd skipped the after-the-staff-meeting-meeting to hide in his quarters and wash himself madly. It wouldn't get rid of the memory, which was the real problem, but he could at least get rid of the bastard's semen, which was sort of satisfying.

The last remaining living remnants of the son of a bitch. He could get rid of it, and get rid of him and replace it was something much, much better.

Something he could face. Especially if John skipped the after-the-staff-meeting-meeting, too, which was highly likely. Sheppard had probably spent half of high school in detention for skipping. He looked like it. It was just John being John as far as Rodney was concerned. Rodney didn't usually miss the meetings, but after that show in the jail, well. He could only hope that they'd just followed the obvious and not that Carson had said anything in specific to Teyla and Ronon. Rodney just wanted to shake the memories off, and John was the best way to do that.

John was the best way to do a lot of things, actually, and that was just the start. John didn't ask a lot of questions. He took for gospel the fact that Rodney didn't like to be touched. He let Rodney do the touching and the preparation and... everything necessary for what needed doing.

He let Rodney take control, and that was what Rodney needed just then. He let Rodney pick and choose what he wanted, and he wanted to feel John underneath him, wanted to fuck John, wanted to feel him groan and, and arch, and just hear him.

He wanted John slipping into him, pushing past the outer ring and into his ass, and he wanted John's arms around him, wanted... wanted a lot of things.

Wanted not to have this thing he had, because none of that, nothing about it, was right.

It all felt wrong, never felt right, made him feel sick, and that was proof right there that there was something wrong with it. He wanted it all, from John, and he wanted to pick. It was just a matter of getting John there, and Rodney had to wonder just what was taking him so long and maybe it was a paranoid twinge that it might be about him, that he was talking to Carson while Rodney was pulling sweatpants on, looking for a t-shirt.

Looking for the last very necessary items to make his outfit.... work.

To make what he had with John work, because seriously. It was bad enough, keeping the secret, not telling John because he already knew exactly how people tended to take these things. Rodney did what he had to do, and if that meant making something himself, working with anything called cyberskin, well. He'd do it.

He'd do anything he had to do to keep what he had.

What he wanted.

What he needed.

Because John was gay. He had an ex-wife for a reason, and Rodney understood the sometimes hysterically funny worshipping at the altar of cock, and Rodney couldn't blame John. It was all the more reason to stretch things out, never tell, because if John had known things never would have started. And when it all fell apart for him, he'd handle it. He'd, he'd, well, it couldn't be worse than Doranda.

He handled the carefully crafted article, and reached down to pull his pants open, working it in and okay, okay, he was sore. He was sore and that hurt, Jesus, but it was necessary.

He was doing what he had to do. That was all.

It was something Rodney had learned to do a long time ago, even if the rest of them never would have thought it. This was something he had to do, whether he was sore and achy or not. He needed John, so he geared himself up and adjusted position, trying not to groan.

It just hurt. It would have been nice not to have to try so hard for once, but the moment he stopped trying was the moment it all fell apart. It was the moment of 'I wonder', as Kolya had so blandly put it.

It wasn't all that surprising when his door opened on him with no damn warning, and John slipped in.

Bingo on that one.

"Hey, Rodney." John was shifting, looking at him in that way, the one that was simultaneously charming and flirtatious, the one he'd first seen directed at somebody else.

The one he'd never expected to see directed at him at all.

"You weren't around. I was getting worried so...."

"There was no reason for me to be at the meeting, and I didn't want to be there. I didn't miss anything, did I?" He shifted, crossed his arms over his chest. "Just the report of another horrifying run-in with Lucius and the Genii."

"Yeah, yanno, there's just something about the way you've said that." John grimaced, strolling closer to Rodney. "You okay? I was, uh. Kinda worried. You and Carson wandered off pretty quick."

He was so caught, so caught, so caught... "Uh." If it was nothing, nothing at all, John would get suspicious and if it was a lot, then he'd want to see and oh god there was no winning, no winning at all, and maybe he was concentrating too hard on not getting caught when it was normally just as easy as breathing. "Kolya took me out of the prison for a little while, and Carson overreacted."

"Overreacted." He could hear the doubt without ever having to look John in the eye. Oh, God, why did he have to be such a miserable liar? "Carson hardly ever overreacts where you're concerned, Rodney."

"Look, I, uh..." Rodney waved one hand slightly. Half a truth, maybe, would be enough. "He made me suck him off. So the fact that you killed him was completely fine by me."

The way Sheppard's mouth moved, tightening... it made Rodney grimace. "I wish I could have killed him twice." John moved forward, and he cupped Rodney's face, fingers scraping against the light prick of facial hair. "I'm sorry it didn't last longer. Him dying." His thumb gently stroked one corner of Rodney's mouth.

"I'm not going to claim to be a sadist, but at least he's gone." Rodney clenched his jaw, and then leaned in, turned his head and kissed John's thumb. "I think I've brushed my teeth ten times."

"Anything I can do?" God. This. This was why he loved John. This was why he couldn't ever let him know.

"Are the chances high that anyone's going to call you tonight?" He would have loved to suck John off, but it wasn't going to happen. "I want to..."

"Of course. Whatever you want," John promised him, that thumb stroking him still. "Lorne's got Atlantis for now."

Good. Good, it meant he had John time, and he didn't have much John time in life. Not when the city was in someone else's hands to handle for a while. "This doesn't happen often. Should I offer a list of things I want to do, or get right to it?" He leaned in close, moved to kiss John hard.

"Whatever you want." John said it again, the sound of his promise making Rodney's skin tighten, his hands reach for slim hips, tug to pull John close against him.

He always worried that John would know; that he'd feel the falseness of his cock against the cloth and know, but he had never said anything one way or the other.

Rodney always very carefully made it about John, and that was probably the trick to it. He kissed John, tasting his lips, the vague chapped feeling, the taste of salt on John's skin despite that he'd showered. Or hadn't. Rodney didn't care much either way, because it was John. "I have some ideas. Most of them start with you naked..."

"Oh, hey, well. Me naked is always a pretty good start to any ideas you happen to be having." John as smiling at him, and his hands were on Rodney's arms. They were ridiculously gentle, but then, John thought he'd been violated, and he had been. It just hadn't been anything like John believed it was. It wasn't anything like John would believe. So what if Rodney knew he was in a weird head-place to be doing that, to want to be doing that with John so soon, because they did a lot of things from weird head-places, the rush of Almost Dying Again, the rush of achieving the unbelievable, there were so many things they did that were headlong and into the act without thinking.

Rodney pulled at the bottom hem of John's t-shirt, displacing John's hands on his arms so he could see John's chest, feel familiar skin and hair against his own, and displace less pleasant but still tangible memories.

"Hey, you know, Rodney... maybe you ought to see Heightmeyer first this time. Seriously." This time, because it wasn't the first nor would it be the last time that they did things this way, out of order and out of sanity, if Rodney was honest about it.

If Meredith was honest about it.

"You sound like Carson." Because what was he supposed to say to that suggestion? No? Yes? If he said no, John would ask why and if he said yes, then that meant stopping. "After. I'll think about it later." And if he did go, what would he say to her? She was a couples counselor, a therapist. He was out of her league when it came to mixed up.

He always had been.

"Promise."

Like John even knew where to start looking for that promise or what Rodney really needed.

"I want you to promise me, McKay. Things are messed up enough without adding all of that into the mix." John really had no idea. Rodney's fingers faltered, and one hand pressed against John's belly.

"Fine. Fine. I'll go, I promise. I don't think it'll do any good, but I'll go. If you don't want to do this, you just have to say so. We don't have to..." But he wanted to. He wanted to feel John a lot more than he wanted to sit around and watch bad movies with John just then. He wanted John to fuck him the right way, wanted to feel that instead of what Kolya had done.

He wanted...

"Okay. No, no. It's okay. I mean, when we're... we can do whatever you..."

John sucked at this, he really sucked. It was bad enough that Rodney was pretty sure his avowals of never seeing it coming were infinitely true. He obviously didn't see it coming, and didn't know what to do about it when it did. It was a miracle there weren't knocked up alien princesses galaxy-wide, except for the part where cock vs. pussy had one amazingly obvious winner.

"Yeah." And he wasn't much better. Together they had the relationship skills of, oh, house cats, but at least they were in the same boat together. Rodney leaned in, kissed John for the taste of mouth against chapped lips, and then leaned back to pull off John's t-shirt. This time, John let him, making no protests, giving no ultimatums, asking for no promises.

Thank God. Thank God, because getting him naked was good, lowering the lights was better, making sure he was too busy to notice the surgical scarring? Even better than that. He'd had a good surgeon, but there was still a little, still enough that he worried that one day, John might ask where that mark came from that curved under his pectoral, since Rodney was as phobic about injury to his body as was humanly possible.

So of course Rodney was the one who got shot in the ass.

John liked the lights low. It let them pretend that it was night instead of early evening and that they weren't in quarters. He didn't mind when Rodney maneuvered him to sit on the bed, and he definitely didn't mind when Rodney got John's pants down and then off, leaning in to taste John's dick.

"Oh, Jesus." He said it in a way that was so deliberately worshipful it made Rodney shudder and do it again. "Should you be... I mean, do you really think this is a..." Yeah, probably not the best idea ever, but he could. He could, and so he licked one more time.

Ngh. "Let me. The fact that you, that I'm..." He made a vague circular gesture. "Running the show makes the differences so clear. This..." He leaned down, and gave the head of John's cock another taste, a base scrape of tongue against the underside. "Is something I want to do."

"So long..." John stopped, and when he swallowed, it was so obvious. "'s long as you stop when... when you don't..."

"Don't worry." When he didn't something, and Rodney didn't know what and couldn't guess at what, but he could kiss the head of John's dick, and then suck it into his mouth just to enjoy it, the feeling of what he was doing. He wasn't going to get John off.

Not when he'd already slid the pony into himself, settled the fake hard-on it had taken forever to create just so he could pretend.

Just so he didn't have to tell John.

Anything so he didn't have to tell John. He couldn't stand it. Telling him the truth about Meredith, about everything he'd been once upon a time, all the things that didn't work, didn't fit. The truth about the difficulties between him and Jeannie, and he'd been afraid that she'd tell all of those secrets. Instead, she'd made up dozens of them, and that had been weird and not quite right but... better.

Better than them knowing.

Better knowing too, that there was another him with either the same problem or who'd been born the right way to start with, which was sort of... justifying, Rodney supposed as he closed his eyes and gave John a hard suck. He could feel John's fingers tentatively in his hair, and he loved that feeling. John clutching at him, wanting him.

Touching him only as much as Rodney would allow.

"God, I love it when you do that. It's... fucking...." Obviously getting words out became harder the further along things went. John's fingers stayed tentative and his words clogged up somewhere in his throat. "Jesus."

He loved it, too, the feel of John's dick against his tongue, the faintest of flutters that was his pulse along that big vein underneath... Rodney sucked again, and pulled back with a vague slurp. "I want you to fuck me."

"Oh my God." Yeah. Oh, he recognized that sound, the pure lustfulness of it that made Rodney's teeth ache to hear it. "Jesus fuck, yes."

John must not have ever had someone who let him fuck them, not the way Rodney did. He'd never said as much, but most days, Rodney figured that he was John's first. He might be gay, but it had probably all been sucking and fingering before Atlantis. Teasing and toying, and probably a lot of blowjobs. "I'll, uh, get the lube, then. Hold on." He gave John's cock another stroke, another kiss. It would have been nice for John to do the preparing, but then his fingers would have found out.

Would have found everything. Rodney was aware that he wasn't tracking the way he should have been. Most days, he didn't have to think so much about things, about what he had and what he should have had, and... yeah. He wasn't, and that was enough.

"I'll be waiting."

He was slightly off, slightly unsettled, and there was no wondering why. So John wouldn't question it, not after what he'd told John had supposedly happened, which was a close enough explanation to keep John from completely shutting down on him. It would explain why he wasn't flying, why he was taking time to find the lube, to slick himself up just out of sight.

Close enough for Rodney to feel comfortable, close enough that John could not quite see, close enough that he could see some of what he might want to see. It was enough, anyway, at least Rodney thought it was, and John never complained. That was one thing that he loved, the way that John always let him do what he wanted in this, even if he had plenty of other times that Rodney wanted to strangle him for being too damned bossy.

In this... John acceded. Rodney came back, dick jutting hard, the lube held in one hand as he squeezed it into the other so he could slick John up, too.

"God I love it when you do that." John was panting, eyes dilated so that even in the near dark, Rodney could tell. There was just enough light to see one another, and not enough for John to see his secrets.

"I know." And next time he'd fuck John, yeah, god, because John liked that, too, and Rodney definitely liked it, but this... This was nice, this was stroking John fully hard and upright and urging him backwards on the bed so Rodney could lower himself onto John.

Easy.

Perfect.

Filled.

This was filled right, filled the way he wanted to be, and it made him feel happier, made him give sounds that he hadn't ever known he could make. John's hands were held tightly by his side, balled into fists because Rodney was afraid if he let John touch, he'd realize and know.

He flexed his thighs, and ignored that they were sore and that there was probably a flat strike of a bruise that crossed both of them from that morning, because it got him that up and down motion he wanted, got John's cock sliding in and out of him until John reached one hand to his waist, clutched, tried to steady him or steer him, Rodney was never sure.

He gave a warning sound, and that hand dropped back to John's side, fist balling up again, covers held tightly. "Oh God, Rodney." His voice shook and he reached for the edge of the mattress itself, arching his back so that he pushed deeper.

That was fine, that was fantastic, fuck, fuck, he liked that feeling, John's dick in his ass, sliding in and out. He liked that he could squeeze hard against John and John's shaking voice twisted in his chest.

"Let me. Let me." John's hands stayed where they were, but he kept pushing, and Rodney kept taking. It was good, so good, pressing against the thin wall and the pony, which in turn pressed against all of the sore spots. He didn't care. God, he didn't care, because it was John, John in him, John in the right place, nothing between them.

He reached down, grasped one of John's hands in his, leaned forwards and tried to ride him harder, just that extra pressure, just a little more, because John was so close.

So close. And if John came, that was enough. That was perfect, that was what Rodney wanted. "Ungh!" Oh. Oh. Hot, wet, deep. It was what Rodney wanted, and he shuddered, clenching tight around John to hold it in. To hold everything in. Rodney smiled, smirked, and leaned in against John, hitching his hips back against John's ass a little until John started to soften, started to slip out.

"Oh, yeah." The lethargy in John's voice was sweet, hot. It was good to have been the one who did that, the one who made John do that. "Did you...?"

"Yeah." Yeah, he was pretty sure he'd smacked into an orgasm, at least a little one. It had felt good, and he felt loose and relaxed. "God."

"Yeah." John was loose-limbed and smiling in a way that Rodney usually loved to see, loved to do something about. Suck him some more, maybe. Something. He needed to get up, needed to change. Needed to put on underwear and get packing again. Get dressed enough to curl into bed behind John and just rest. Rodney leaned forwards again, stole another kiss. It always felt like he was taking them, like John didn't see that coming, either, that Rodney would want to eat at his mouth the way he did.

"I'll be right back."

"Bring a cloth?" John asked, reaching up and rubbing sleepily at an eye. It made Rodney feel gushy somewhere in the pit of his belly. The little kid joy of it was way too good, but it was real, and it was John, and even when he wanted to strangle John, he wanted to reach up and kiss him.

Ducking into the bathroom, wiping up, and taking the carefully crafted dick out was a quick affair, and so was getting boxer briefs on and packing. Everything was right where he wanted, and tucked away out of sight as soon as he was done. Coming back with a washcloth for John was easy, because they could just dump it on the floor after the fact.

Everything with John was easy now. They were... they were in the right place. A good place. He could keep this going, this time. He wouldn't lie about anything else, just this one thing. That was all. Just the one thing. He wouldn't do anything that might result in sacrificing what he had with John.

Ever.

Settling in with him was easy, being affectionate, enjoying John for John. John probably wouldn't spend the night, but he'd nap for a couple of hours, and that was more than Rodney had ever really dreamed of having, right there.

"Hey." John was sleepy-eyed, reaching for him. It was everything he had ever wanted.

And he'd do whatever he had to do to keep it.

---

He was too fucking calm.

John was too calm, and Rodney had waffled between mechanically trying to save the day, and sitting with John while he meditated, and nothing had worked. There was no solution sitting at the tip of his tongue, lurking in his brain to supply the way to save the day. To Save the John. He was either going to Ascend, or he was going to die, and his body was shutting down already which made it all Carson's purview. All they could do was stand there, and watch, and watch John's mild expression as he lay on the infirmary's crisp stark sheets. No way to reverse engineer it, no way to, to fix it, to...

Rodney clenched his teeth and jaw so hard that he could almost feel himself choking. Because he was watching a human brain fail a human body, as it lost connection to those, those lesser attributes. Like breathing.

"Hey, buddy." John's voice was a wheezing drawl. "You need to kinda take a deep breath here. 'm gonna be okay. I'll just... turn around and come home again. You guys'll find me naked on the mainland in a day or two. It'll be okay."

Fuck. What had he been thinking, turning on the machine with John in the room, right beside him, that bright spark of genetic miracle so close?

He wouldn't come back. He'd already had the preconditioning, and even Jackson hadn't come back until he was kicked out. "Sure, sure. We'll keep an eye out for you. Just... focus on not-dying." Stilted words, trying to keep back most of the emotion in his voice. Elizabeth looked like she was going to cry, and Carson didn't seem much better. Teyla... Teyla was all stiff upper lip, but Rodney could see it in her eyes.

Ronon's, too.

"Just focus, John." Elizabeth patted John's hand gently. "You're so close. You'll make it."

"Don' wanna make it without you guys." His voice was slurring, eyes closing to drop back into meditation, and oh. God. There it went. Down, down, down...

Down.

There wasn't any surprise in Rodney when John stopped being John and started being nothing more than tendrils of light, soft and glowing and golden. He'd be able to fly now, really fly, be part of the sky itself if he wanted to.

He had no real reason to come back at all.

The human body was confining, and John had that kind of mentality, the one that was required to appreciate and choose Ascension. Sort of. He was a little more action oriented when Rodney thought about it, but he was there in light tendrils, and then he was gone, disappearing up through the ceiling and the city, and fuck. Fuck.

Once he started to fly, he wouldn't come back. There was too much out there for him to explore, too much for him to see and touch on for him to come back to them. He'd get caught up in it, flying and seeing the universe, and by the time he remembered, they'd all be dead. Atlantis would be back in the sea, or generations would have passed.

"He's gone." Elizabeth sounded as if she couldn't believe it, couldn't believe that John had actually Ascended, or maybe that he'd left them. One way or the other. He wasn't sure which.

"Yes. We must..." Teyla's shoulders stiffened as if bearing up under the heavy weight of her grief and reaching for some sort of difficult to find joy. "We must be happy for him. As best we can."

Ronon's silence summed up how Rodney felt about the matter, because without anything good to say it seemed like a bad point in time to snap things out. "He's not going to pull a Daniel Jackson. He's going to get out there and... Never come back."

"That's... that's part of Ascension, Rodney. He's making his own choices. They're... we have to be happy for him." Elizabeth was smiling, ridiculously, stupidly brave.

No one had to be happy for anyone. That was a stupid, stupid thing that only a diplomat or a politician would think of. He looked at her, and then at Teyla and her tight bearing, and then at Carson. "Well, be happy. Throw a party -- hell, invite Caldwell. I'll be sealing up that lab if you need me."

"Rodney..." Elizabeth was just beginning, he didn't doubt. He didn't want to hear it. At all.

It was easier just to walk away. He could do that, he could turn on his heel and walk out of the infirmary, leave the rest of them assembled around an empty bed. It wasn't as if John was wasting time standing around, no, he was off and Ascended, and Rodney hadn't been able to stop it, hadn't been able to fix the Ascend-or-die clause that left John just one pretty obvious choice. Death was permanent, but so was Ascension, and just thinking about it made his throat knot up, his stomach twist.

John wasn't coming back. The team was dissolved, because there was no John to lead them into fieldwork. The base's military commander had moved on to a higher plane of existence, and that meant everything was going to change. It meant that John was gone, and he couldn't quite wrap his mind around it. John was gone.

He was going to puke.

There was no holding it back, so side-tracking wasn't even much of an option. There was one of those stupid plant-things Elizabeth had re-filled with stuff from the mainland near enough, and he chose that to use. Better than vomiting all over the floor, anyway.

Easier to clean up, and no one liked the damn plants, anyway. At least, none of the scientists did. A lot of the Marines apparently had nightmares about the plantlife becoming sentient and killing them in their sleep, or so John had told him, and it was just interference in firefights, which also happened too often.

And now John wasn't going to be there.

The feel of a hand on his back made him jump, hunch forward, throw up again. "Rodney..." Teyla. Teyla was there, touching him, and when he was done throwing up, a big hand washed off his face with a damp cloth. Great. Ronon was in on it, too.

"Didn't expect you to follow me. Tried to find an off the beaten path plant..." Because he was going to lock that room, seal it up so no one else made John's stupid mistake.

His mistake.

"Yeah, well. Sometimes you're kind of stupid like that," Ronon said, nudging him. "C'mon. You heading down to the pier?" When had he become someone who could be read that easily?

Yes, no, he... "I was going to seal that lab. There's nothing else to do but seal it up, and..." Teyla probably had a healthier way of mourning than Rodney did, but throwing himself into work meant he didn't have to think. Thinking had been his enemy on rare occasion, but when it was... it was pretty evil.

"We will accompany you." Teyla was petting him, and he would have hated that before Atlantis. The whole world seemed to have ground to a halt around them, or maybe it was just the city itself, mourning with him.

There wasn't much to do, no special missions to plan, no trouble to get into when the military commander was dead. Ascended. Whatever.

"Fine." It was better than Radek and his babble, who was probably busy corralling the labs. Elizabeth had to be making the announcements, or sending out the message. He wondered if she'd bother including a 'please be on the lookout for a hot naked Colonel' part or not. Rodney would give a lot to have a naked colonel on his hands.

"C'mon." Like it was easy, and the world went kind of vague for a minute when he stood up, but then it resolved and they were on their way out to close down that lab for the final time. He'd put big warning symbols on that one, the kind that couldn't be ignored in ten thousand years' time.

He hated the Ancients with a bloody passion at that moment. He hated their idea of what was safe to leave undocumented and what wasn't, he hated their idiocy about Ascension, he hated them. It was just a shame that they were all dead or Ascended, because he couldn't tell them how much he hated them.

He worked fast, by himself, and just maybe he lost track of time in there, but Rodney managed to take it off of the city's power grid. No power, no accidental Ascensions. Ronon and Teyla were there, he knew, watching him, helping him when he needed it, whatever. He still felt sick, nauseated to the core, but that wasn't unexpected. Who wouldn't, considering everything that had happened? It was too much, and keeping it together probably wasn't helping.

When it was done, he stood up from behind the gutted control panel, holding a handful of crystals that he and Radek could reprogram later. The city always needed control crystals, and growing them was barely practical -- plus, they were always misshapen when they did it.

It was a silly thing to concentrate on, but, well, life had to go on. Sort of.

"Let's go."

He'd find some way to keep busy. So would they. Things would get better. They'd... okay, not get over it, but they'd manage. That was what they did, after all. They managed.

And maybe, sooner or later, they'd get John back.

Maybe.

---

Two weeks of nausea, Rodney guessed, was a sign of something bad.

He was pretty sure that it wasn't some sign of mourning that he'd wanted to throw up for two weeks, even if they happened to be the two weeks that followed John Ascending and not coming back.

Either way, it was getting worse, and the expression on Carson's face didn't exactly make him feel confident that there was nothing wrong with him. Just the opposite, actually, and it felt like a punch in the belly.

"Rodney." No. Whatever it was, just no.

"C'mon, get to it, I have things to do." He didn't have time or the desire to sit through Carson's dramatic windup -- after all, he'd seen Carson get wound up like that over the most bizarre things. Maybe he was a little abrupt, but it was justified. More or less.

"I'm afraid this is going to come as quite a shock to you, Rodney. Physically and emotionally." Carson kicked over one of the rolling stools and settled on it, reaching out to touch Rodney's hand. That was enough to freak him out entirely, never mind whatever the news was.

"Then can you get to it already? Because prepping me for a heart attack first is only a quick way to get me dead, Beckett. Oh, god, it's cancer, isn't it? I knew when we flew that close to a star that I was going to end up diagnosed with cancer, it was just a matter of time, between that and the Genii idea of radioactive shielding..."

"No, no, nothing quite so serious as that. Well, it's. Rodney. I don't know how to tell you, so I'll just... You're pregnant."

...No.

"No, no, you have to be kidding. I'm not, there's no way I'm pregnant. I'm on the insert, and..." And he didn't have sex that way, except oh, oh, fuck. "Oh, no."

"Now, Rodney..."

"No, no, no, you said there was no way, and that his mutant sperm wasn't getting anywhere anyway, and that's it, that's, oh, god, no." And Carson was just standing there with his white coat and his little authoritative lap-top-cum-clipboard, looking down like he was making sure that he hadn't screwed it up. But, no. Carson's mouth compressed, and oh hell. "No, no, this is insane. I can't be."

"I'm sorry but you are, Rodney. I hate to ask," oh, yeah, sure, right, "but is there any chance that it was... that is to say, the colonel. John. I was thinking perhaps..."

"No!" God, no, because John didn't know, but if he, well... "I don't know. Maybe. We didn't usually bother with condoms and if you give me a speech about how stupid that was, fine, yes, it probably was."

"Well, I wouldn't have said it was exactly bright, but... better that than.. Look." Carson drew in a deep breath. "You've not a lot of options here, Rodney. I'm barely set up to do deliveries on the mainland, and they do 'em often enough without me. They've their own midwives. I'm not... The other options aren't options for you. Not on Atlantis, my friend. We don't have the medical necessities."

With his luck, the systems would try to kill them all if he even tried it. Rodney clenched his jaw, and looked down at his hands. No, no, he couldn't cope with it, period, full stop, because he was a man, and it wasn't supposed to happen to him! "Someone has to have a clothes hanger..."

"Rodney! Don't even joke about a thing like that!" And okay, yes, saying that was, it was ill-advised, but with his hormones, with everything that he'd done and had done despite the fact that he'd never had the final surgery, there should never have been a baby.

Not ever.

It wasn't in any plan, it wasn't anything he wanted, and maybe it was John's. Maybe some stray semen had meandered while he wiped or showered, who knew, or maybe much more obviously, it was Kolya's, because he'd stuck it in and fiddled around and that was a hell of a lot more direct because Rodney hadn't been able to clean well enough fast enough. "I'm sorry." He cut his eyes away from Carson, and rubbed at his face. "What do you... you thought I was fine after what happened with Kolya. What do you think the chances are that it's, that it's not. Not him."

"Well." The nervous way Carson licked his lips made Rodney steel himself. "I think that Kolya's sperm motility was practically zero, and I know that the colonel's was, ah." He cleared his throat. "Well, it's one of those things I like to keep an eye on in you lot that keep exposing yourself to radiation. John's were doing just fine, last I checked. Percentage wise, you've got a much larger chance of it being John's if those are the only considerations made."

Okay.

Okay, he could process that. Weigh the options. Either Carson meant that or Carson was telling him that because he was afraid that Rodney would flip out if he didn't think it was John's. And he, if it was John's, if it was John's he could almost bear it. Handle the horrifying changes the he knew he'd have coming at him very soon. Pregnancy meant stretching and breast-swelling, even though, well, he'd had the tissue well excised as possible, but any swelling was pretty unacceptable. It meant that particular form that there was no avoiding, and there was no way he was going to be able to be himself, no explanation needed, any longer. "What do you recommend?"

"Well, there aren't very many options, Rodney. You'll have to go back to Earth if you aren't going to... carry to term. And if you decide to take that option..." Carson shifted. "Then there are other problems to face."

He didn't think he would. If there was even a freak, freak chance that it was John's, then. Then it would be John's. And John was gone, and as bad-movie as it struck Rodney, he wanted to keep a part of John. Because it was John. But he wondered what Carson was going on about. "Go on."

"We'll have to find a way to tell everyone." Oh. Oh. That would be... Just. That would destroy his professional life. It would completely...

No way. He couldn't. Even if they came up with a mysterious Ancients-made-me-pregnant story, he wasn't sure he could pull that one off.

He was damned if he did and damned if he didn't, wasn't he? If he aborted, he'd have to go home to do it and there'd be a medical record, and someone would find it and put the pieces together. And if he had it, if it went to term, well, he'd have to explain a child, wouldn't he? And he'd have to raise it, and that was kind of hard to hide, though Rodney supposed there were people who did. "I, uh, oh shit."

"Aye." Carson was looking at him, all gentle-eyed and stupidly cow-like, and really. The man should go back to dealing with sheep. "Either way, I expect you'll find it necessary to go back to Earth for a while, Rodney."

He'd have to give it up, even if he carried it to term, at least if he wanted to go back to work in the Pegasus galaxy. He'd have to take leave, and God, how much leave did a guy actually get when he was working around the clock for months on end? Rodney had no idea.

"When should I... I mean..." Oh, god. "How far in am I?"

"Not more than a month. If it wasn't for doing regular bloodwork, I'd never have noticed it at all since it isn't as if you have a more biologic manner of discovery."

Not more than a month, okay. "So... so, I have a month to make a decision about this. You're going to say nothing to Elizabeth. I'll tell her when I'm ready, if I have to. A lot of these things go wrong all on their own, right?"

Carson nodded again, slowly, as if being deliberate and mild and amiable would somehow make this easier to bear. Make this workable.

Christ.

"Most of the time, if there are going to be problems, it'll be within the first three months. That much is true. In your case, Rodney, we'll have to do away with the hormones altogether if you make the decision to go through with it, and it's nigh on an immediate decision to make if that's the case. There'll be a lot of changes in your physiology that you aren't going to like."

"But I can go back on the hormones afterwards." He stated it more than he asked it, because there was no logical reason why he wouldn't be able to do it that way. Because it might be John's and it was the stupidest reason, and if his sister had been telling him that he would have slapped the stupid out of her, which made it such a double standard.

"Rodney. Your body's gonna be shifting through a world of changes. To get the right kind of hormone balance and vitamin balance for you to carry to three months will be a small miracle, never mind carrying to term." Carson sat back and nodded at him. "Aye. You can go back on the hormones again afterwards. In the mean time, things are gonna be more than a bit of a mess. You're going to need to sit down and make a solid decision about what it is you want so that we can sort all of that out, starting rather quickly. And that's going to mean a very slow shift to get back to where y'are now. A lot slower than I expect you'd like," he told Rodney. "So the answer is yes, but I'm going to want you to go back to seeing Kate again on a very regular schedule, at least twice a week, and you'll be seeing me even more often than that."

He looked at Carson, and then away for a moment, down to his hands. Well, he'd tried passing for years before the T, through his teenage years, and he'd been fine. Hated his body, but as long as he knew it was temporary and it was his decision, and he'd be able to go back to being comfortable with his body, with himself, after... "I, uh. Want to carry this through."

"All right." Obviously Carson had figured that would be his answer, because he had a ton of pills and vitamins neatly laid out on a tray. "All of these have instructions by them. I want you to follow them closely and come to me the second you have any cramping or spotting. I'll talk to Kate and arrange the first session. Now. Let's talk about diet and nutrition..."

Diet and nutrition was going to drive him up a fucking wall, and so was the hormone drop, in another week. So was Carson micromanaging him, but at least Carson wasn't freaking out about off world missions since Caldwell had grounded Rodney, Ronon and Teyla until they'd had 'sufficient time to mourn'. More like 'When another military commander came who needed a pre-formed team, because I'm too chickenshit to lead like John Sheppard did', but that was a little too honest to come out of Caldwell.

Not that Rodney's opinion of the man wavered and waffled much. He wasn't John, and he was very much one of those run of the mill people who did everything from his desk when he could by way of comparison.

It left Teyla time to oversee some of the building projects on the mainland. It left Ronon time to run the paths of the mainland looking for a hunt. It left Rodney time for things like therapy. Exactly what he wanted out of life. More time spent in therapy, talking to people who made that face-of-understanding that was really a face of so-sorry-for-your-freakshow-life. What he wanted was John alive, himself not pregnant, to be out on a mission. Something. Anything but what he had.

He would have infinitely preferred to be trapped in a cave by some five legged spider bear creature on MXP-497, with the vague promise of a ZPM in the rubble behind him, than to be walking into Kate's office after knocking on the door. "Carson recommended I see you," he said, instead of 'hi' or 'was I interrupting your Freudian fantasies?'.

"Hello, Rodney. I was just about to water my plants." Heightmeyer gave him that ridiculous false counselor's smile she had that made him want to shriek and rip out his hair. "Come in and get comfortable, okay?"

Comfortable, sure, he was really planning on doing that. Rodney sat down on that weird Atlantean couch construction that they'd all learned to cope with, the kind that made Deco era and Star Trek designs seem fashionable by comparison, watching her. "I'm pregnant."

Watching her fumble that small water can was worth the horror of saying those words aloud.

"I'm sorry. I thought I heard you say...."

He managed to pull up some kind of smile when he repeated it. "I'm pregnant. You haven't lost your hearing."

It was good to watch her pull herself together; mostly because it was good to see someone else feeling completely thrown by what was going on. "All right. I think my plants can probably wait a little longer."

"They're not going anywhere," Rodney said agreeably, watching her move to sit down across from him. That was why she probably thought Carson had referred him to her, and Rodney halfway wished it were a sign of some kind of psychotic break. It would be better than the actual truth of things.

"So. Why don't you tell me about why you believe you're pregnant?" Loaded question, that one. It was full of opportunities to really make this something wrong and comedic and quite possibly even lunatic. After all, only a crazy man would think he was pregnant.

He might as well enjoy it for a few minutes. "I've had morning sickness for about three weeks." He offered it in a quiet deadpan, watching Kate. He could see the calendar flicking back in her head to John's death and the complete disaster that had been.

She leaned back and took a deep breath. "Rodney... you're aware that men aren't actually physically capable of bearing children?"

"No, really? It hadn't crossed my mind. Except where I am." Rodney crossed his arms over his chest. "And Carson thinks I need therapy."

He could see the agreement she didn't give. "Well..." He really ought to put her out of her misery. "It would be difficult to argue with that."

Rodney re-crossed his legs at the ankle, watching her pre-agonized facial expression. "I should have probably mentioned that I'm a, uh. Transexual."

Oh, yeah. That was the look. "Rodney. Mentioning this before now would have quite possibly made counseling you a lot more effective."

He waved one hand slightly, before re-crossing his arms. "I'm not sure why. Until recently, it's never been something I put much thought into." Not that it was true. Rodney had gone through counseling before his surgical procedure, had suffered the psych evaluation with his jaw clenched to keep back sarcastic remarks. He just didn't need any counseling in reference to it from Kate. Hello, couples counselor?

"So. How do you feel about this sudden change in what you recognize as your gender, Rodney?"

"Miserable and confused." The first sarcastic remark out of her mouth, and he'd take her apart verbally. It was just a matter of waiting for it to happen. It was always a matter of waiting for it to happen. Everyone made them.

"I'm guessing that you haven't had genital redefinition surgery, so... I feel that I need to ask you. I'm guessing that you've been having sexual relations in this manner instead of... another?"

"In what manner?"

Yeah. Watching her try to say that was good. Maybe vicious but good. "Vaginally." She was flushed a little, her eyes slightly wider than usual. "Considering your probable hormone regimen, I would think that pregnancy would be unlikely, even under those circumstances."

"I'm not actually on much anymore. I, uh, don't have sex that way, I haven't in years." Rodney looked down to his knees for a moment. "Willingly. Uh, things have happened on missions..."

The fact that he hadn't mentioned those things obviously made her twitch. "Of a sexually violent nature?"

"Right." And the sinking feeling in his stomach was completely unrelated to the topic at hand. It was indigestion because there was a little parasite shifting his organs around. It was anything but related to what had happened.

"Which missions are we talking about? Specifically." Kate would need to know, because obviously it meant he had left things out of reports, but Christ. He didn't want to talk about it.

"Uh, the... Certain missions that involved the Genii. It happened three times all total. I couldn't exactly report it without, uh, outing myself." And then hysterically his body had done it for him. No matter what he did now, it was going to come out. "That didn't work out that well for me, did it?"

Kate's sympathetic smile was just one of many things Rodney could honestly say he hated about being a woman. He'd never understood how to deal with sympathy or, or the way other women did things, the camaraderie they seemed to have, and that he could never really share, even as Meredith. He just couldn't make sense of it. "It doesn't seem to have. You've kept it to yourself all this time, even though you needed help. That must have hurt."

"I didn't think there was much to be done. If I'd reported what had happened to me when the Genii took over the city..." Rodney rolled his shoulders slightly, a tight shrug. "I don't know. I couldn't. I still cracked under pressure. Everyone seemed to hold it against me. I told Carson a few days later." Carson had been injured, after all, and he'd had to take care of his own arm, and that had been back when they'd thought they were trapped in Pegasus by themselves forever, no support, no nothing. He didn't want anyone else to know for fear that they'd think different of him, think things he didn't want them thinking. Ever.

"You know, cracking under torture isn't anything to be ashamed of." Kate was gentle and easy, stupidly counselor-like. It made him want to yell.

"Yes. Yes it is. Imagine being in my position -- highest ranking scientist on this mission, the city hours from collapsing, a hell of a lot of work to do, and some alien commander fucking your cunt and going on about what a freakshow you are after playing mumbly peg with your arm didn't get a rise out of you. It changed the whole dynamics of what he was planning to do, when he found out the city was in peril."

The fact that he could say that, flat and cold, without screaming or yelling, was testament to the fact that he had managed to get hold of himself. He was dealing with it, even if it wasn't in a way Heightmeyer would approve. "So that made you feel ashamed for very different reasons, then."

He clenched his jaw, and gave a tight nod. "I suppose it did." Kate just gave him an encouraging look and a hum, as if that was supposed to push him in the right direction. Maybe, for once, it did. "I'm not a freakshow," Rodney reiterated, because he was a pregnant man. And maybe he could admit to himself that was a little freakish, sure. "What he did wasn't even really a... I've had partners and people who knew, that I was with, and it was really like being with them. Eventually, they all wanted to do that and it... And I don't like it, because there's always been that same feeling."

"What kind of feeling would you call it?" Kate asked. They always wanted to know that, wanted to know why it felt wrong. No one ever just accepted that it was.

"Disgust." It was the quickest, most sufficient word for it. "I feel sick, and detached, and they always expect me to react and enjoy it, and I tell them that, no, it's not a pleasurable experience for me, but... And it's after that, that whatever relationship I had with the other person dissolves." Or was dissolved by him. After all, once someone showed that sort of interest in his cunt, the interest for him to them sort of died. A lot. A big huge lot. By the time that happened, Rodney was usually three states away.

"And now you're pregnant from that last encounter?"

"... I hope not." He shifted, rubbed at his face for a minute. "I'm not sure. Carson says that Kolya had no sperm motility -- and I'd warned them about their nuclear reactors, but I doubt they listened -- and, uh, I guess don't ask, don't tell doesn't matter if they're dead, does it? I had regular relations with Colonel Sheppard, which seems to surprise no one at all."

It certainly didn't seem to surprise Kate. "So you've had a lot of trauma to deal with in this short period of time. I wish you had come to me sooner." Yes, yes, well, if wishes were Ascended beings, as the saying went. Or something like that. Wishes probably were Ascended beings, given that they seemed to do nothing at all but 'tsk-tsk' at mere mortals from afar.

"I didn't want to have to explain it to you and then have you tell people."

"Rodney, what we say here is confidential. You know that the only time I'm obligated to discuss something outside of our meetings are times when someone might be apt to cause harm to themselves or someone else." Yes, yes, and if there was a true medical emergency, but he still wasn't comfortable about the entire thing.

Not after Teyla and the whales.

"So, for instance, you're not going to tell Elizabeth about this. Because I need to figure out what I'm going to do next before I tell her anything." He needed his head on straight, and he needed a plan to follow, and he wanted to have the baby because of that chance it could be John's. And that meant, meant, well, either going native for a few months, which wouldn't happen because they'd pull him back to the city every time there was the equivalent of a mechanical sneeze, or going to Earth, where he could face all the fun things Earth had to offer. Like hate crimes.

"You've been referred to me by Dr. Beckett, so I think it would be safe to assume that all of the medical necessities are being attended to. That being the case, I believe that it would be better to let you tell Dr. Weir in your own time and your own way." She seemed so earnest.

That meant he just had to figure out what his own time and his own way was. "All right. The medical... necessities are being attended to. I have no idea if I can stay sane and go through with this, but I'm going to try, and that's half the problem, and Carson knows it."

Kate nodded at him in that way that was probably meant to be encouraging but really wasn't. "So you've decided to keep the child despite the way that it will change the perception of your gender."

"It... yes." He kept the answer short, just to see if she'd nod at him again. She did, encouraging him to speak, pen and paper in hand so that he'd feel productive or, or something, as if she was a real doctor with real credentials and not some kind of cracked up counselor they'd shoved off on Atlantis.

"It... could be John's. And it's not really possible to do a DNA test right now, at this stage, so I'm not... focusing on that. It could be John's. And after, I am, I am so completely going to have the bottom surgery done. I put it off because of the risks and the inconvenience, and the horror stories I've heard, because it's not like having a real dick at all, but after this? I'm doing it."

"Do you think making that decision now is wise, while you're under such emotional stress?"

"Which decision? Because there was more than one decision that I was stating in that." He was trying not to move much, fidget much, because he knew Kate would read into anything. Into everything.

"Any of them. While there are a few decisions needing to be made that have time constraints, thinking about the others for a while longer wouldn't be a bad thing."

"I don't really need to think long and hard about the fact that having a cunt still freaks me out and I've been coping with it, but this is the final straw. It's like... what would make you finally decide to have some disfigurement removed? When it interfered with your day to day life."

That seemed to light up a fair number of empty crystals in her head. "So it's a decision that's been a long time coming instead of something brought on by trauma."

"Trauma would have been if I decided to get it done in light of what Kolya did to me when he tried to take over the city. This is, this is it interfering with my life. I'm pregnant. That's a problem. I was fine procrastinating as long as having a vagina wasn't overly inconveniencing me, but now it is, and I can't believe I'm actually having this conversation with you." But he was, and it was the first time he'd really talked it out in years.

"Do you think it was time to talk about it, and being forced into facing the issues you've been having is something that had to happen before you could do that?"

"Possibly. I don't usually, I don't ever put this much thought into it. I'm me, and I'm usually far too busy, but we haven't had any off world missions to handle since Colonel Caldwell took over, so I've suddenly been less busy."

Kate nodded and hummed again, and seriously, wasn't his hour up yet?

"And, and, John isn't coming back so..." He gestured vaguely with one hand. So, he was going to have to leave the city because of what he was choosing, because he knew what Caldwell was going to say, and maybe if he rushed into things before his head was on straight he could overtake by sheer speed the nervous breakdown that might've been heading his way.

"So maybe you feel like it would help to move on?"

Move on.

Leave Atlantis behind.

Leave John behind. Oh. God.

"Maybe. I don't know. What if he comes back? But on the other hand, what if he doesn't ever come back, which is forty times more likely. I wouldn't be leaving the SGC. Just... going back to Earth." He could work from anywhere, fly if he needed to, because he'd done that once upon a time and it was easier to do that sometimes. Then he wouldn't be in Atlantis, but there was no living in a grass hut going out of his mind option, either, was there? The SGC probably wouldn't allow him to have a baby on an alien planet.

Or they'd want him to sign a bajillion papers saying that they weren't at fault if he and the baby got lifesucked by a Wraith. Either way, it just wasn't an option.

"That sounds like a pretty solid decision."

It was something in her tone, something in the way her voice modulated that made him want to smack the bland observationalism out of her. "What would you suggest I do?"

"I'm not here to make suggestions, Rodney. I'm just here to help you, to be your sounding board." The way her mouth tilted into a smile was probably reassuring to everyone else. Rodney hadn't been reassured since the whole the 'Haunting of Atlantis'. "I'm here to help you say and do the things that you feel need to be said and done."

"I can't work with Caldwell the way I did Sheppard. Or Lorne, I could work with Lorne. Can, still do, no problem. Caldwell doesn't listen to the scientists until it's too late, and I'm sure he's trying, but... I think that's going to be Radek's fight."

He was going to go home, back to Earth. For all of the things he'd been afraid of, all of the things he hadn't wanted to say to himself or anyone else, he'd thought them. He'd said them.

He'd made his decision. That was how it would have to be.

---

The decision that he'd made in very short order had taken another four weeks to share. He'd been planning on doing it the next day, but then the long range sensors had picked up Wraith ships and even though they'd just skirted past the city, he'd sat on it, gotten distracted from his general plan of laying out his pet projects for Radek. And then, then Caldwell had actually sent them to investigate that abandoned moon base, and the thrill of doing a mission, and, and...

And one thing had led to another, and then Carson had died. Carson was dead and John was gone, and Teyla and Ronon seemed to have the same sense of it that he did.

Change was going to happen whether they wanted it or not. The inevitability of it nearly slapped them, stole away their breath; not just Rodney's, but Teyla's and Ronon's as well.

No one should be all that surprised by his decision, in the long run. Teyla and Ronon wouldn't be, in any case. He got the feeling that they both knew already.

"Rodney." Elizabeth looked up from her paperwork, and she seemed almost surprised to see him. "Come in."

If they knew, that was fine. They knew and they respected him enough not to ask about it.

He gave her a tight, polite smile, and stepped in, wishing that the door he closed behind him wasn't glass. But it was and there was no way he could stop anyone who wanted to from walking by. "I came by to tender my resignation. I'd like it to be effective the day the Daedalus next arrives, so I can leave with any other outgoing crew from the usual rotation."

God. He hadn't counted on the way that her face fell, or the way she seemed to expect it. "You know that we don't want you to leave us, Rodney. Atlantis needs you. We all need you."

"I need to transfer back to Earth due to a medical complication. It's not that I don't think I'm needed here. I... have other things I need to do. Maybe I'll come back some day." Assuming the city continued to survive, which was the whole problem and reason why he couldn't hide on the mainland for a few months.

"Oh. Rodney..." And yes, he was sure that Keller was nice enough, but she wasn't Carson. She didn't know his secrets, and Rodney wasn't willing to tell them to her. "I'm... is there anything that I can do?"

"No. It's... pretty cut and dry." He swallowed, placed a hand on the desk. Part of him felt bad for leaving, and the other part of him was still mourning Carson and John, and missions and experiences and experiments that would never be.

Elizabeth hadn't looked so tired since John had... yeah. "If you find that there's anything you need, anything at all, you'll get in touch with me, won't you? You know we'll do whatever we can."

We. Elizabeth. Atlantis, or at least the part of it that had been there before the siege, before there was a way to go back and forth to Earth with anything resembling ease.

"I know. I'll still be around. Maybe I can have some time to do research in a... quieter environment for a while. Radek's more than capable of doing my job, not that I'm going to tell him that."

Ah. At least that made her smile, even if Rodney seriously wanted to point out that they'd be a lot better off with him at the helm. Radek was brilliant, but Rodney was a genius of astronomical proportions. "He won't be you."

Radek was afraid of the field. He was getting better but he was still afraid and half of his ideas needed a better half to make them functional. "No, he won't be me. But you'll be fine. Uh, is there anything you want me to do before I go...?"

"You're the head of the science department, Rodney. You know what needs to be done." Elizabeth leaned back in her chair and gave him that sad, slow smile, the one that ached, the one he'd seen after John Ascended, and after Carson had died. "Just try and get everybody up to speed and get everything where it needs to be before...."

"Right. Right. Do I need to tell Caldwell this, or...?" Because they seemed to be running parallel systems and Rodney hadn't bothered working out how their little power struggle was going. He was having enough trouble managing his diet and vitamins.

She shook her head, though, still giving him that funny sad smile. "Don't worry about it. I'll make sure that it goes through all of the right channels. You just... worry about getting Radek up to speed, and worry about yourself."

He glanced at her, wondered if she knew, and then nodded slightly. "All right. I will. Thank you, Elizabeth. I've certainly enjoyed working with you. More than... well, more than most people."

"We've had our moments, but you've been amazing, Rodney. You've worked above and beyond any call or job description, and... we'll be glad to have you back on Atlantis whenever you're ready to return."

Good, great. That was the kind of note on which he wanted to leave the city. He wasn't disgraced and he wasn't explaining himself. He nodded slightly. "I'll keep that in mind. And I'm going to find Radek now, if you need anything." The Daedalus would be there in another eleven days, and he could manage that without anything going wrong for him, he hoped.

Never mind that just by thinking it, Rodney knew as he let himself out of Elizabeth's office, he'd doomed himself. Because there was Caldwell, coming towards him.

"Dr. McKay." The man was civil enough, but he wasn't Sheppard. Atlantis didn't feel him the way it did John, and its people didn't, either. "I was just looking for you."

"Yes?" He didn't much care what Caldwell wanted to discuss, but it was maybe, possibly, interesting.

"I was hoping to discuss some slight rearrangements of the offworld teams. The idea of getting a few more members of the science team into the rotation seemed like something you and Dr. Weir would appreciate."

"I think now would actually be an appropriate time to take me off of the offworld teams," Rodney offered, folding his hands behind his back.

"Excuse me, Doctor?" The stiff way that he said that and then leaned forward as if that would get him to spill everything he'd ever known made Rodney vaguely cranky. That? That was why he had loved John. Why all of Atlantis had loved John.

Because John didn't do it that way. John did it so much better, and John would have simply asked why. No posturing, no annoying military jackassery. Just that slouch and that smirk and all of the quieter ways to handle a situation. "I agree that the off world teams need to be rearranged, and would like to be taken off of them." For the remainder of his time at Atlantis.

"Is there something that I need to know, Dr. McKay?" Caldwell probably didn't mean to be an intimidating asshole. For the most part, Rodney actually quite liked him. He just. He wasn't Sheppard. That was all.

That was more than enough.

Rodney glanced over his shoulder, back towards Elizabeth's office. Not that he could see her, but. "I just tendered my resignation to Doctor Weir, due to medical reasons."

He saw the faint stiffening of Caldwell's back, the way he consciously didn't ask any questions. "Well. I'm sure that you'll be missed. I assume that Dr. Zelenka will be filling in for you or....?"

"Yes, he will. I was actually just going to brief him on some of my side projects." Rodney shifted, stepped, waiting to break away and head down to the labs.

"Of course. Then I'll discuss the matter with him after I speak with Dr. Weir. Good luck, Dr. McKay."

He'd need it. He needed it for himself and he needed it to handle Radek, because they'd worked together for a long time.

He was one of the few people left in Atlantis that Rodney was really going to miss.

---

On the fifth anniversary of John's Ascension, Rodney woke up with an elbow in his left kidney, a knee in a very uncomfortable position near his groin, and a wild head of black hair tufting somewhere in his covers. He had to blink several times to be sure that position was even physically possible.

After four years, three of which had been spent with a small child smart enough to escape his baby bed, and then fully capable of crawling out of his toddler bed, he was accustomed to waking up exactly like that.

The last time he hadn't woken up to something like that, that small boy had been nursing a case of the flu that had scared the hell out of Rodney, and even worried Jeannie, which had just proven that he wasn't overreacting to the fever and the shiver and the vague drifty listlessness of Zane when he'd pulled him from his bed.

Well, and there was that time about two months back when Zane had tried to make a bowl of corn flakes with sugar for himself, but that was because he'd had been busy trying to improvise a replacement for the paper towels he couldn't reach. The fact that they were his father's dirty underwear really had no bearing on anything at all, except maybe the great levels of vague trauma Rodney felt about the whole thing. He'd gone ahead and tossed out his underpants just because he'd never be able to look at that pair or the others that were like them and not wonder which one had been coated in corn flakes.

It was weird, but it was his underwear, dammit. He wasn't about to continue worrying about something like that when it was as simple as throwing them out.

"Zane." Rodney nudged the four year old gently and watched him curl into a less-tortured pretzel. This one poked at the other kidney, and Rodney really had to pee. "Zane. You've got a soccer game this afternoon. Time to get up."

The fact that Zane mumbled against the pillow, a sing-song denial of that fact, made Rodney smile as he started to try to sit up. "C'mon, you're the one who keeps telling me you love soccer. Time to get up. I'll let you have Cocoa Puffs." Never mind that it was probably ten. Maybe later. He had the blinds pulled, and it was a weekend. None of his communicators were beeping mad angry signals demanding that he attend to something, and there was no way that they'd slept to three.

"Daddyyyyyy," Zane whined, and then shuffled his way into Rodney's side, curling around him. "Sleepy."

"You wouldn't be so sleepy if you had actually gone to bed last night instead of insisting that you were a big boy so you could watch more tv." At least it wasn't the Baby Channel anymore. Rodney had been so relieved not to have to watch tiny cartoons for short attention spans, or people making balloon animals anymore.

One of those funny gold-green eyes opened up. "Can I have pancakes?"

"Mmm, you seriously want daddy to cook?" That was usually the sign of a weird mood from Zane. He was passing up Cocoa Puffs, and Rodney was never sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, or if he just wanted to spend time with Rodney. His sister had pointed out that kids grew out of that open, wide, accepting love stage and moved on to the irksome 'I hate my parents' stage too fast for anyone's taste, so maybe he indulged Zane. A lot.

It was Rodney's right. He'd almost lost him in the fourth month, and then spent the next five on enforced bed rest in a small and very expensive nursing home being waited on hand and foot by people who were well-paid not to look at him funny. Rodney hadn't even realized how much he wanted Zane until that moment, and he'd been desperate.

Afterwards, Jeannie had been almost a miracle, helping him through the first sleepless weeks and then the gender reassignment surgeries that he'd had done before Zane had been old enough to walk. That had become something that was as much about Zane as it was about Rodney himself, in the end. He had wanted everything to be clear for Zane. He hadn't wanted the weird ambiguity of Daddy and sanitary napkins in the bathroom, or for him to see something and think that perhaps there was something wrong with himself. He'd probably have enough psychological damage just from being without a second parent.

"Yeah." Zane seemed pretty decisive about it. "And juice."

Not orange juice. Zane had gotten his allergies, unfortunately, although not quite so severely.

To keep Zane from wondering what was so awesome about the orange juice he couldn't have despite that Rodney had told him that it would make him sick, make both of them sick, Rodney went out of his way to find interesting juices for Zane that were citrus free. The recent organic and simple trend in foods was helpful, so Zane got banana strawberry, and carrot, and apple, and cranberry, and grape, and mango, and anything else that caught his eyes.

"Juice we can do, too. Pancakes and juice for my little soccer star." He sat up quick, then, and caught Zane off guard by hefting him under the armpits. "Let's go! Otherwise we'll sleep all day, and your aunt'll throw a fit when she finds out because she wants us to go visit her after the game."

The feel of those skinny arms sliding around his neck and hugging him tight made something in the center of Rodney's chest tie in a knot. "So long as Maddie's not there. Maddie's mean."

Madison was ten, and exceedingly intelligent. Zane had driven her crazy when he was two and wanted to play with Madison to the point of standing outside her locked room and screaming to be let in. Rodney couldn't blame her for her miniature displays of evil.

Much.

No one had gotten hurt, and Rodney figured by the time Zane developed his own mean and sneaky streak, she'd be old enough to handle his pranks and tricks. There was no question that he was going to end up with a mean and sneaky streak. The sun rose and set, time passed, and most McKays plotted things from a very early age.

"Maddie has dance practice until six." Actually, she had dance until three, and then she went to a party, but Rodney wasn't going to say that. Any mention of parties, and Zane wanted to be there despite that he knew no one there and disliked tinsel. Glitter was okay, but tinsel, no.

One day, Rodney figured Zane would tell him why.

Carting Zane to the kitchen after they'd visited the bathroom and washed their hands was easy, and he plopped down really well on one of the bar stools. "Okay, you want anything interesting in your pancakes, or do you want pancake pancakes?"

"Appleses and cimmanon!" Zane was already squirming, reaching out for the tiny electronic math game on the island. "And milk. And juice. And not that syrup. I want the other stuff."

The other stuff was a lavender raspberry jam that Jeannie had learned to make after Madison fell in love with it on a trip to some hippie English major kind of place a couple of years ago. It was that or spend phenomenal amounts of money having it shipped to the house, and that wasn't Jeannie's style.

"Apple cinnamon and that other stuff. Got it." Milk and juice first, because it would get something in Zane's stomach, plus he needed milk for the pancakes. Rodney had never really expected to be cooking or doing the domestic thing, but it worked pretty well, and Jeannie was always willing to point out that her husband cooked -- even if it was tofu, which she still refused to admit wasn't real food.

He set two small cups down in front of Zane, milk and strawberry-apple-banana, and then measured out a cup of milk for the batter. "Who're you playing today?"

"The Flames." At their age, everyone had a team named after a hockey team. Rodney would like for Zane to have a chance at playing hockey sometime. When he was older, and could wear a great deal more protective gear. For now, he honestly preferred soccer. There were fewer chances that there would be blade-to-neck injury, considering. "Andi from school plays for them. I don't know why. She's way too nice to play onna mean team." The fact that he had a baby crush on Andi probably didn't hurt.

"Maybe she'll switch teams when you both move to the next age division. Maybe her mom didn't know it was a mean team when she signed her up for it." Flour, eggs, cinnamon, okay, there was the jar of chunky applesauce.

John's legs kicked the kitchen island idly, and he was peering down at his game while he sipped juice and milk alternatively. There was really no question who his father was, Rodney had decided a few years ago. He had scruffy black hair, and ears that were ever so slightly sharp at the tips, and John's mouth. And math. He wasn't much for physics, but he had an interest in science in general, and math came to him as easy as breathing. He was probably going to struggle with some bizarre subject when he got older, out of the baby-step stages of learning. Rodney's pitfall had been English lit, even if he'd eventually, well, gotten to a level of schooling where they stopped requiring him to care about long dead writers.

Hopefully whatever Zane eventually had trouble with would be equally unimportant for him.

His four year old stopped playing with his game long enough to frown seriously at him. "Moms and Dads are supposed to know things like that." Yes, yes, Rodney had spoiled him for exposure to all other parent-types ever. He knew that. Jeannie had helped, for God's sake. Between the two of them, both of their kids were forever spoiled in their belief that parents were terrifyingly competent, if not perfect.

It helped that Jeannie and Kaleb -- and seriously, who named a kid that, and then frowned at him ending up an English major? He'd met Jeannie's in-laws once, and they were unbelievable -- didn't argue in front of Madison or much at all. (Except for that one argument where it had started with missing pretzels for a recipe and escalated to divorce threats, but Rodney was willing to write that one off as holiday and in-law related stress.) It also helped that there was no one around to contradict his decisions. Together, the three of them presented a deific parental front to Madison and Zane.

"Maybe they slacked on their research. Or maybe the team started out good, but turned mean after the fact. These things happen." The ingredients ended up in a bowl, and Rodney whisked it quickly, trying to get enough air into the batter for it not to sit like rocks, the way his pancakes usually did.

Not that four year olds noticed.

No, Zane just ate them and yummed, and when they were heavy, he didn't eat as much. His pediatrician had told Rodney that it was best to leave his plate instead of making him eat, that he'd come back to it when he was hungry enough to notice. His son was still rail-thin, so Rodney didn't mind doing that. Zane always knew where to find his plate on the lower shelf of the refrigerator, just like he knew where to find his juice and milk cups.

"Maybe they're morons," Zane mumbled around a drink, and that let Rodney know that he knew that was Not A Word For Zane To Use. In fact, Rodney wasn't entirely certain where Zane had even gotten that word since it was one of the words that had officially been Struck From Vocabulary on Jeannie's insistence.

"Where did you hear that?" he asked, gaze narrowing. He could see the uncomfortable shift, faintly sneaky, and the fact that Zane knew it was a bad word was confirmed.

"Um." Rodney waited, trying not to tap his foot. "You said it. When Uncle Radek was here a while ago."

"That's a grown-up word. I shouldn't have said it, and you definitely shouldn't call people that." Not until he was older and learned when it was appropriate and when it wasn't appropriate, because so far Zane was proof that someone could be smart and not a complete pariah the way Rodney had been. "It can hurt their feelings. And people act irrationally when their feelings have been hurt, so it's better just not to start down that path." He dug around in the drawer for a ladle, and then remembered to put margarine on the bottom of the frying pan he used.

The first ladle-full went down with a pretty satisfying sizzle noise.

"Then why did you say it if it could hurt somebody's feelings?" Zane looked at Rodney, and something unpleasant twisted in his chest. The hard part about being a parent wasn't so much all the wasted time in which he could have been doing world-shaking important things. The hard part was being nice even when he didn't want to be.

He'd saved hundreds of lives. He'd saved planets, saved people on doomed planets, done fantastic things, but explaining that to his son was hard and a lot less intuitive than starting up engines or rebuilding the internals of a spaceship. "Because it was a mistake. I shouldn't have. But Uncle Radek was telling me about something that happened where I used to work, and I didn't think much of what they did."

"So you said it but you said it so they couldn't hear you, and Uncle Radek wouldn't tell?" Zane seemed to get what he said about that and then nodded. "What I just did. But it's a grown-up word. Why is it a grown-up word? Those usually just have four letters, and morons 's got six."

Rodney flipped that first pancake over and pondered that for a second. Bastard had seven, bitch had five, cunt was four, fuck was a definite four... "There are also grown-up words that have seven letters and five letters, too. Four is just the modal length."

His tiny son considered that one for a minute. "But they're all bad," he said finally, looking to Rodney for corroboration. "And we shouldn't say them."

We. Which included Rodney, and meant striking 'morons' from his vocabulary. Again.

"That's right. Which means I shouldn't say them, either, so. I guess you can blackmail me if you catch me using any of them, huh? You could always tell Aunt Jeannie." He reached up to get Zane a plate, and ducked into the fridge to get the jam out for that first pancake. He always made Zane two, and whether he ate them both or not was completely up to Zane. He certainly wasn't going to give Zane a food complex the way his mother had with Jeannie and him.

"Aunt Jeannie'd make you put money in Maddie's jar. Or..." Zane's eyes went comically wide, and Rodney could see it coming from a mile away. "She'd make you make me a jar of money!"

"Aha, now I see your master plan. You~u just want your daddy to make you a money jar. Now, remember how that jar works. If Maddie uses any of those words, she loses money, so you would, too." He hooked the stool on the other side of the island for himself, and slid Zane's first pancake carefully onto a plate.

His son sniffed, head tilting back in a way that was so frighteningly McKay-like that it was always a shock to see it. "I'm smarter'n Maddie. I wouldn't say none of 'em." Zane picked up his fork and cut into the pancake, already yumming and happy about it.

"I'll hold you to that." The fact that he'd made it a competition between two pint sized McKays, well. Jeannie would forgive him. Rodney turned his attention back to the frying pan, and pretty quickly knocked out three more pancakes, scooting one onto Zane's plate. "Gotten much further into your game?"

"There's another level." Zane poked at the hot pancake now on top of his cooler one and frowned until Rodney added more of the lavender raspberry spread. "This one's gotta times itself."

"Multiply."

"Multiply itself." That mischievous grin was undeniably sweet.

"Doing okay with it, or do you want help?" He offered it just to offer, because Zane was going to say no. That's what Zane did when Rodney offered to help with games like that. He sat down, and on a second thought remembered to pour himself a cup of coffee. The autodrip had probably gone off hours before.

"No!" The automatic refusal was accompanied with angry black brows. "It's my math game! You finish them too soon," Zane complained, poking at his pancakes. He was eating them; slowly, true, but eating them.

Rodney sagged back on his bar stool once he had a cup of coffee in hand, and started to work on his own pancakes. There was a sudoku page in the Saturday newspaper that he could fiddle through, but he liked to sit with Zane after dinner and explain it, see how far Zane got, so that page was going to sit. And wait. "It's true, I do. It takes all the fun out of it, rushing through a game like that."

His son gave a noise of agreement and went back to eating his pancakes for a while. It was just the quiet before the storm, Rodney was pretty sure. He had a feeling about it, and usually his feelings were pretty spot on. "Daddy?"

Zane always managed to catch him when he had a mouthful of coffee sogged pancake, too. Or something, some food-type. "Mm?"

He watched as Zane's fork dragged through his pancake, making pictures in the jam. "Maddie's got Aunt Jeannie and Uncle Kaleb."

Death. Taxes.

Questions About the Other Parent that Rodney Wasn't Ready To Answer.

"She does," Rodney agreed, cutting another spear-shaped piece of two pancakes at once out from his own plate. "She's very lucky, and they both love her very much."

More dawdling in jam. "Why don't I have a mom?"

Jeannie was going to pull the world's biggest 'I told you so' and Kaleb was going to smirk in the background. He'd stalled, never really worked out how to explain it because he wanted to be honest but he didn't want to confuse Zane at the same time. And if he pulled the 'your mother is dead' card then he'd just give Zane a complex and Zane would eventually hate him when he grew up and worked out the truth.

Staring at Zane, though, probably wasn't the best stall tactic in the world. "Uh."

"Because you're the best daddy. Even when you're mean." Mean meant making Zane pick up toys or take baths or other things that he didn't like to do. "So. I just. I wondered. Was she a moron? 'cause you don't like those. You said."

It was hard not to smirk a little. "No, no, that wasn't the problem. It... I'm not sure how to explain it. You never really had a mom. You had..." Terms he could understand without making a weird bizarre mess out of it inside of his head. "You had a second daddy."

Yeah. He'd seen that look before. He was going to be explaining penises and vaginas again sometime this week, and the teachers at school would give him that look, and he'd be invited not to tell Zane things like that. Ever again.

"So. Two daddies." Zane considered this fairly seriously. "So maybe he was then?"

"Sometimes... I would have called him that, yes." He cut another spear of pancake. Nice and fluffy, and that probably explained why Zane had almost eaten both. "But he had to go away."

"Was it... Did I do something that made him....."

Oh. God. "No, no, no, Zane, no. No. It had nothing at all to do with you, and everything to do with a place we used to work together. Something happened to him, and they made him... move on. He's still there, and we're here, which isn't there, and if he could be here, I know he would be." And if that made sense, then it was something only a child could really follow.

"So... I have another daddy. Except something happened to him and he's there, and we're here." Well, yes, that was more or less it, except it didn't seem to be registering with Zane the way Rodney wished it would. "Okay."

"Right." And he had no idea how to intervene and clarify, but he eyeballed Zane, watched him drizzle spread over his pancakes in slow patterns from his fork.

"So was it my fault? Why he had to be there instead of here?" Zane wasn't looking at him. His tongue was poked out in concentration and he was obviously thinking.

"No." It was John's fault, if Rodney wanted to phrase it that way, why he was 'here' instead of there, but it still didn't bring back John. "No, he has to be there because it's... it's his job. He took the job before he knew there was a you even coming, and I never got a chance to tell him."

"So how come there's two daddies? I thought there had to be one each of daddies and mommas." Right. On to the easier difficult questions.

Great.

Just great.

"I, uh..." He gestured vaguely with one hand. Hell. "I used to be a mommy, I guess is how I can explain this best, and your Aunt Jeannie is going to laugh like heck at me."

That was not an expression Rodney hoped to see again anytime soon. "But you have a penis, like I have."

"But I didn't used to. I should have, but I didn't, so I went to a doctor to have it fixed after you were born." And why not just explain it as best as he could? Four was probably a fine time to start a kid in therapy.

Zane just looked at him, blinking at Rodney for a long moment. "Okay," he said finally, and Rodney could tell that wasn't the last of any of this. It would be the last for a day or so, though, most likely. "I gotta peepee. Be back, Daddy!"

Rodney sipped at his coffee, and counted to ten.

Zane was probably making sure he still had a penis.

---

~"I told you that you needed to be prepared, didn't I? But no. No. The great Meredith McKay, father for four years, knows more than me, his baby sister. Never mind that I've had more experience, that Madison is nine and Ben is on the way...."~

Rodney grimaced, and kept the phone close to his ear, volume down. "Okay, well, it's happened. I've given him the talk and now I don't know what to do next, and he's been spending an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom today. I think he's worried it's going to fall off." Rodney kept pacing the space where they kept the parents, trying to keep his eyes on Zane. He wasn't ever going to be one of those crazy soccer parents who actually cared about the game, but if someone ever hurt Zane? He was going to be there.

~"Oh my God, what did you say to him, Meredith!?"~

Well, okay, he'd said a lot of things, but nothing to make Zane think his penis would fall off, for God's sake!

"I just told him that I used to be a mommy, but I wasn't supposed to have been one, and that I had it fixed by a doctor after he was born! That shouldn't have made him think that!" One of the mothers twisted, eyed him, and Rodney shot her a dirty look. It was none of her business. She was probably American or something, anyway.

~"Oh, Mer. You... Drop by with him later, after the game. I'll talk to him and try to help you sort things out. And don't take him by for pepperoni. It's not good for him, and we're having a nice dinner."~

At least the morning had been a little too busy for him to make his usual promise of pizza after the game. "Sure, right. I'll do that. He wants a swear jar, anyway, and at the rate we've been borrowing Maddie's blue and red glitter pens, I need to buy him his own for decorating things like... swear jars. I'll let you go. Good luck with the party."

~"Right. Fifteen nine-year-old girls. Luck doesn't ever help in those situations. You just wait until Zane is old enough for single sex skating parties and you'll know that one personally."~ Jeannie sighed. ~"Thanks, Mer. We'll... work things out with Zane when you get home."~

"Thanks. Do you want me to stop and bring dessert or anything? Salad?" He offered it, because he never knew if she'd say yes or no.

~"Why don't you bring something dessert-y. Not too sweet, though. Maddie'll already be hyped up after that party."~

"Okay." Right, that was going to be a random wander through a grocery store, then. On the bright side, Zane liked grocery stores and the small one or two dollar packs of toys that they held in random aisles. And sweets. "I'll see you at dinner, Jeannie. Thanks." And then he hung up, because he knew she was already going to be at her wit's end with the girls. She didn't need to be at wit's end with him, too.

Today was already rough enough.

"Hi, Daddy!" Zane yelled from the middle of the soccer field. He was muddy and grinning and completely missing the ball. He was also having fun, and that was pretty much all that mattered to Rodney.

The creepy competitive parents probably hated him. "Hi, Zane!" He waved back, and then contented himself with slinking behind the other parents with his hands in his pockets, watching the 'game' progress. No one could kick and no one could block the ball, as far as he could tell, so it mostly worked out. There was mud and a ball and kids who went home and tumbled into the bathtub to leave behind a layer of silt. If they were anything like his kid that was probably followed up by running around naked and still drippy, laughing like a loon while he did it.

But that was why Zane was his. Maybe other parents concentrated too hard on getting the kids to be serious. There was one little boy out there who did a frightfully good job of crying when the team lost, and that always made Rodney wonder.

He watched Zane catch the ball with one foot, dribble it for about four paces, and then kick it wobbly and to the left, and he couldn't help but grin, and let his eyes wander the sidelines again. Zane was doing just fine.

"He's a cute kid."

That was his imagination. There wasn't any other explanation. The only times he heard that voice anymore was when he went back and watched the video 'letter' they'd sent back from Pegasus, afraid that they had reached the end of their metaphoric rope. That was all the morbidity he could handle.

It hadn't even been a personal note from John, it had been a command letter, an opening word and a closing word and some edits he shouldn't have had but did because he was Rodney McKay and he knew how to get things he wanted, if they didn't endanger national security. So he turned, maybe a little slowly, maybe a little afraid to see to whom that voice belonged. "Uh, yeah, he..."

"Looks just like me," the real John Sheppard said, and Rodney could feel all of the blood in his body leaving his brain and pooling in his feet with shock. "Which is funny. Nobody actually mentioned this part."

"You, you're..." Dead, Ascended, oh, god, John was back and no one had thought to tell him? "You're, you, I, uh, you were gone, you were gone and why did no one tell me you were back?!" He was used to John Being Dead, John being somewhere in the sky, flying around, gone, doing whatever Ascended beings did in their free time. He was all ready for that forever, and now...

John just kept frowning out onto the field, and oh. God. John. "Maybe they figured that it was better if I found out about the cloning experiments myself."

Cloning? No, nonono, no, his Zane was not a clone, and Rodney could only glare at John, and that was not exactly what he expected to be doing when he finally saw John again, if he finally saw him again which he'd expected to be never. His heart was hammering out of his chest. "He is not a cloning experiment! I haven't ever even dealt in cloning!"

"Well, from all the rumors, you could probably do it if you wanted to. Hell, half of the base thinks you walk on water and you haven't even been there in the last five years!" John was still scowling at John, and that was going to get old fast. Great. "Seriously. I looked just like that when I was a kid. There are pictures. And besides, there's no other way for you to have a kid that looks like me unless..." His eyes opened comically wide. "McKay! Did you harvest semen before I...."

"What? No! No!" He stepped closer to John, and pushed him backwards, away from the other parents. "Can we have this stupid argument away from the people who already think I'm crazy? How did you even know we were here?" And what happened, why was he back now, and not when he'd needed John back.

"Why do they think you're crazy?" It seemed like honest curiosity, even if Sheppard was eyeballing John again. "Histrionic, maybe, but it's a soccer game. Pretty much all the parents are."

"Possibly because I'm the only parent here who doesn't care if they win or lose, but can we...?" He gestured John back, shooing him angrily backwards, away from the other parents, and Rodney moved to follow him. "Seriously, what part of your brain was damaged that you'd even openly mention that?"

That look was the are-you-really-that-stupid look. Rodney was pretty sure that he wasn't the poorly socialized one in this situation. "Because there's a tiny John Sheppard out there! What am I supposed to assume, McKay? You don't exactly have a vagina. And I would have noticed."

Yeah. Not so much, with the noticing.

"No, no, you really don't. This is one of those 'you didn't see it coming' moments, Sheppard." He frowned at John, because he would have preferred the idealized reunion to this, and then looked over his shoulder. "Look, the game is almost over, and I'm going to have to take him home and make sure he bathes before we go find something for dessert and go to dinner at my sister's. You and I can sit down and argue about this at a time that is not now and a place that is not here, because he's going to come running up any minute now."

Wow. Rodney had seen that deer in the headlights look before, usually when some alien princess wanted a piece of John. Seeing it now was just... well, it was pretty weird, actually. "I. You. Wait. No! I'd have... seriously, there was something there..."

"Yes, and it was made out of a very interesting silicon-based compound, and we can discuss methodology some other time." He kept his eyes on the field, crossing his arms over his chest. One group of small kids was swarming their coach, and that was usually the sign that they'd won. Zane wasn't in that group, and Rodney watched to see whether he was going to listen to his coach blither on and on, or whether he was just going to come over to Rodney.

"McKay, I..."

"Daddy Daddy Daddy!" The latter, apparently, and Zane was happy, still excited by the whole thing. "Did you see? Didja? I kicked it!"

"You did kick it!" Rodney crouched down, and caught himself an armful of grubby son when Zane ran full tilt at him. "You did real good out there today, Zane. I bet you're tired."

"Nooo!" It was a howl, but it was gleeful, full of laughter, and Rodney let himself blow air against Zane's neck. He was sweaty and muddy and he smelled like a small wet hound. Rodney loved him immensely. "Not tired! Want pizza! With pepperoni, Daddy!"

Of course.

"How about we do dinner with your Aunt Jeannie instead?" At least Jeannie knew Zane well enough to have seen that coming, that preference from Zane when it came to food. "She wants us to come over, and..."

And John was still standing there.

"Hi. I'm Zane." Rodney's son thrust his hand out to Sheppard with a crooked grin that, thank God, actually came from the McKay genes and not Sheppard's. "Aunt Jeannie makes us eat tofurkey. Daddy doesn't like it."

He'd never seen Sheppard so still before. "Yeah, well. Tofurkey, uh. It just kind of sounds like it'd taste bad."

Zane's little frown mirrored Sheppard's, dark brows knitted even if his mouth didn't. "You didn't say your name. You're supposed to say your name when somebody makes inter... intra..."

"Introductions," Rodney corrected.

"I know that! Interductions," Zane finished, giving Rodney a Look. This was so not his afternoon.

They were both working against him, from the depth of that glance he got from his son. That was Zane trying to puff up to impress strangers. "John, this is... Zane." He shifted, peering over at Zane. "Remember what I was telling you about this morning?"

"I got two daddies," Zane replied, and glanced down worriedly. "An' you had your penis put on."

Right. Of course that would be the part that stuck.

Rodney looked down for a moment, and then started to stand up, reaching to snag Zane 's hand. "Right. Don't worry, yours isn't going anywhere. Uh, do you want to do dinner with us, John? Or do you feel a need to go call 'work' about suspected science experiments?"

Yeah. That was a familiar expression. It was disturbing, really, to realize he'd been looking at Zane for years and seeing little bits of Sheppard. "Uh...."

"Don't worry," Zane reassured him, leaning away from Rodney to whisper loudly. "Your penis won't fall off, neither."

The 'uh' was worth it, the way that John's eyebrows flared up on his forehead. Rodney squeezed his son's hand, looking at John. "Well?" He almost said 'unless you have somewhere better to be' but apparently just having one daddy had given Zane enough of a complex all by itself.

"Yeah. Sure. We'll... It's been a while since I saw Jeannie," he finally said.

Zane shook his head. "You gotta say your whole name first," he insisted. "'cause you didn't inerduce yourself, and strangers don't get talked to or go places with you."

"You don't go places with them," Rodney corrected.

"Yeah. You don't go places with strangers." The expecting way Zane waited was tinged with demands.

Sheppard cleared his throat. "Uh. Colonel John Sheppard." He shifted uncomfortably.

Turnabout. Rodney was going to enjoy John's discomfort while it lasted, before the topic shifted back to him. And it would, as quickly as John could shuffle attention off of himself. He glanced to Zane and asked, "Is that good enough for you?"

"Why have you got such a funny first name? Like popcorn. Did your daddy not like you?" Zane asked, earnest and sweet and it was so hard not to laugh.

"It's, uh, a title. Like mister or doctor." Sheppard was still practically twitching. That was good for Rodney. He'd twitched for a while when the whole pregnant thing had come up.

For a long while. He'd gone through all stages of denial and mourning, and John hadn't been there. And now he was back? "It's a military rank. Just like, because I have so many degrees, people call me 'doctor'. " He tugged at Zane's hand gently, starting towards the gravel parking lot. "Where'd you park, John?"

"I, uh. Didn't drive." Daedalus, then, or one of the new ships that Rodney could never remember by name. That was good enough. "I didn't know..." He waved a hand. "You know. About your son."

"I'm Zane." Zane nodded informatively, as if John might have forgotten in the last few minutes.

"I didn't think you did. Then again, I thought you were, well, still gone." He gestured for John to follow them, wondering if John had arranged to be beamed back up at a set time, or whether they'd just leave him be.

"Yeah, about that...." Yes, yes. Storytime to be had for all, but preferably not in public. The other soccer parents were giving them looks again, as if they were figuring things out, except for the part where, oh, none of them actually had the brains to do that. Who knew what strange stories they were knitting together. Probably that Rodney had run away from his wife to be with a hot thing like John, who was probably after him for money, or....

"We'll talk later," Rodney murmured, squeezing Zane's hand and letting go for a moment before he clicked the car door open.

"Can I talk, too?" Zane asked. He ran ahead of Rodney and opened the door, scrambled into the toddler seat and then waited impatiently to be buckled into it. "I wanna talk, too."

Sheppard was going to twitch to death if he kept that up.

"You can talk, just not the same talk. I think we're going to have different talks," Rodney noted, buckling him carefully in. Once upon a time, there had been an argument over that, and then Rodney had explicitly explained car accidents to Zane and while Jeannie had insisted that that was a horrible way to do it, Zane now expected to be buckled in. That was how Rodney liked it. "Get in, John."

"I could just get a hotel roo..."

"Get in. John."

Okay, apparently the Big Bad Daddy Voice worked pretty well on Sheppard, too. That was disturbing to know. Then again, he at least went around the car and climbed into it without putting up any further protest.

Passenger seat. The last time John had rode shotgun to him, he'd been criticizing Rodney's flying skills, and that memory made Rodney's stomach lurch a little. He was so far removed from that world that it was hysterical, as far as someone could be and still work for the SGC. "Homeward bound. How long are you around, John?"

"Three, four weeks. They wanted an update on the Descension and... stuff and things."

Three, four weeks. That was it. That was, that was insane. John had been missing for years, and they graciously gave him a month off. "How much of your memory's come back? Enough, I guess, if you came here..."

"Most of it came back within the first six months. It's been a while since I actually, uh...."

A while? How long was a while? Trust Sheppard to put things that way instead of making sense out of things and giving Rodney a time-period to deal with.

He started the car up, and glanced in the rear view mirror at John before he moved to pull out. "Can we try specifics, John? It's been five years. I, you were... Completely written off as dead." And Rodney had missed him. Mourned him, fallen apart over him, and John just sat there dumbfounded, still in the act of putting his seatbelt on.

"Daddy! I can't find my book!" Rodney had refused to go the way of so many parents. He didn't care how much Zane whined or how many other kids at school and soccer had portable DVD players for the car. Zane got books, and math puzzles, and learning tools. Period. Full stop.

If he got bored, he could pretend space aliens were chasing the car.

"Daddy's driving. Is it in the pouch in front of you?" He didn't look or turn around, he just drove forwards, pulling out into traffic. John hadn't responded, but. It wasn't something they could actually discuss as long as Zane was in the car. How did normal people even try to pick up a relationship after five years? Did they even bother?

"Noooo." Zane was whining a little, but he'd stop that soon enough. Well, that or Rodney's paternal ears would shut off. It was one of the joys of having had a kid for a while. "It's not there. And I didn't bring my math game, either."

"Geeze, McKay. You've already got him started on Prime-Not Prime?"

"What? No, no, it's a hand-held thing. He has a few of them, and what's wrong with that? He likes them. You're the one who studied for a masters in mathematics. Try the other pocket, Zane. Maybe it's in there?" It was actually probably on the living room floor, because Rodney didn't try very hard to keep Zane 's things confined to his bedroom.

"I can't reach it." That was definitely a little more whiny. "Colonel could maybe look, Daddy? I know I had it on the way..."

"Yeah, uh." Sheppard turned around and seemed to be searching the floor -- anything, apparently, so long as he didn't have to actually look at Zane too carefully. "Let me... is this the book?"

"That one!" Zane reached for it and clutched at it, already opening it to the first page. "Want me to read it to you, Colonel? Daddy?"

Rodney caught himself smiling, and had to concentrate not to look in the rear mirror just to peek at Zane. "Sure. Why don't you read to us, huh? We'll be home soon."

Sheppard didn't protest or groan, but he probably could have. Zane read to them, all the same, starting his Babar book carefully even though he knew it by heart. "In. In the grrreat f, f, forest, a little el, elephant is born. His name is Babar," Zane read. "His mmmmother loves him very much." He paused. "Like you love me, Daddy, right?"

"Right," Rodney agreed, pulling into traffic and listening as Zane read to them, right through the mother getting shot and about eleven traffic lights.

"Seriously. You let him read stuff where the mom dies?" Sheppard asked him through clenched teeth.

"Given that he's being raised by, oh, a single parent, and I thought you were dead, sure, why not?" Rodney hissed back quietly, while he coasted into his driveway. The house was small, and nicely close to his sister, and that was all he needed in life. The first place he'd looked at had a pool, and all Rodney could think of was Ford's body floating on the sea before they fished him out, and that was right out. Even if it had been next door to Jeannie. Getting it filled in would've cost more than all the gas he used driving back and forth.

"Yeah, but you don't give kids stuff like that! It'll traumatize them or... something," Sheppard muttered. "Seriously, McKay. Even if I was dead, just doesn't... yeah. Well. Never mind."

"It was written for kids," Rodney pointed out, putting the car into park, and turning off the engine. "Okay, John. We're here. Why don't you get little Zane out of his car seat while I get the house unlocked? Because someone needs a bath."

"'m not little!" Zane yelled from the back seat, already twisting around to look for the seatbelt latch. He wasn't allowed to press anything unless the car was at a full stop, and even then, Rodney preferred that he wait for a grown-up. "I can get myself out!"

"Uh-huh. You're little compared to John," Rodney said, and left the two of them that as food for thought while he went to open the front door. If John thought he could just show up and... And not interact with Zane, he had another thing coming.

He could hear Zane talking behind him, discussing his book with Sheppard whether he wanted to talk about it or not. "Whycome you don't like Babar? Did your momma die? I don't have a momma. My cousin Maddie says that's why I'm weird. I told her I'm not weird, I don't wear a big sequiny tutu and stuff."

"Zane, you have two daddys. It's just as good." Rodney held the door open for them, as Sheppard herded Zane into the house. He was sort of glad it was clean, not that he had any urge to hone his domestic skills for John. Just because it seemed like there'd be one less thing for Rodney to be given questioning looks over. "Shoes off."

"Daddy doesn't like it when I track dirt," Zane informed Sheppard, and he was working on his soccer cleats steadily by the door. The fact that he was covered in mud and it wouldn't make any difference didn't occur to him. "So he's gonna make your shoes go off."

"Yeah, I noticed that," Sheppard drawled, leaning down to work on the laces of his boots. They were disturbingly alike, Zane a little mirror image that made Rodney feel funny to see.

Three or four weeks, and then back into the fray. Rodney set his own shoes down, and backed up a little, watching the doorway frame both of them. "I'll be in the bathroom running the water." Because maybe if he kept leaving them together for a few minutes at a time, maybe John would man up and say 'I'm your other father' without Rodney having to say it for him. Because Zane was funny about things like that, and he was as liable to take brief offense as Rodney had been at that age.

"Don't forget Allie," Zane reminded him sternly, as if he could ever forget. Zane had a ridiculous amount of love for the battery-powered light up alligator, and Rodney had ended up going online to buy three replacements. He kept them stored in the closet so that Zane wouldn't know Allie had died more than one battery-related death.

The one had been fairly traumatic.

Setting up his bath was pretty predictable. No-tears soap and shampoo, water just the right shade of warm so his skin wouldn't scald, and enough hypoallergenic bubble-bath to make for good splashing fun. He set Allie to lurking under a mound of suds, and stood up carefully to get Zane, who had apparently decided that getting lost in the house with a near-stranger was okay since his father approved.

One thing was true. His son had the predictability (and unpredictability, for that matter) of a four year old. When his room yielded no results, Rodney sidetracked to the home office that also held all of Zane's awards and his not-really-a-laptop laptop.

One day, in a couple of years, he'd get him a real laptop-laptop. Six or seven was a good age for that. Until then, it was laptops that were actually educational games, but it made him feel grown up and like his father, and Zane could sit beside him on the sofa and pretend to be doing deep work. "Hey. Time for your washing, Zane. C'mon. Aunt Jeannie is going to have to put up with ice cream for dessert, or we'll be late." He glanced towards John.

"But I was just showing Colonel my laptop!" Yes, yes. Whine time again. Soccer always made Zane whiny and grumpy, but it was worth it for the opportunity of running off excess energy.

Jeannie had been right about that one, all right. That was why Maddie did dance. "It's okay, you have time to show him your laptop later. Plenty of time, Zane." Rodney took a back step, and that was usually a sign to Zane that moving was a good idea.

"I don't want to! I wanna stay here and show Colonel the rest!"

Great. It was going to be one of those days.

Rodney looked at Zane for a minute, and then leaned down to scoop him up under the armpits. One day, Zane was going to be too big to do that to, and that day was going to be miserably soon. "Sorry, you're coming with me. It's bath time, and you're hungrier than you think if you're throwing a fit like this."

Zane wailed all the way to the bathtub, angry and wanting to show Sheppard other things. He was tired and he was hungry and Rodney couldn't kill him. One, he loved his son, and two, murder was illegal. For the most part, Zane was ridiculously well-behaved, but he had his days. Most kids did, or so Rodney was told.

He was pretty sure he'd had a lot of those days. He knew he'd had a lot of those days. He'd built a nuclear warhead prototype for a science fair. He had very possibly been one of those days, walking incarnate.

Once he'd stripped Zane off, though, and hefted him into the water, Zane stopped wailing and settled to miserable snotty-faced hiccups, while Rodney crouched in front of the tub. "Hey, it's okay. He's here for a while, and you can show him a lot while he's here, okay? I promise."

Zane mumbled something, but he wiped at his face, anyway, smearing snot across his cheek. Rodney wet a cloth and wrung it out, wiping his face despite muttered protests, and Zane was mostly okay then. He found his Allie, and he was dive-bombing a rubber ducky in short order.

"You're pretty good with him," Sheppard said from the doorway.

"I fancy myself a pretty good parent." Rodney twisted, still keeping an eye on Zane. Half of him wanted to go talk to John in private and the other half of him was not leaving Zane alone with enough water that he could easily drown. "Are you, uh. You could be, too."

"Yeah, well, I..."

"OH." Zane was looking up, and sometimes it was amazing to see that little spark of understanding light his face that way. Today it was just... "OH. You're my other Daddy!"

Water splashed everywhere as he scrambled to the edge of the tub, Allie firmly gripped in one hand, a washcloth in another. Between watching that and seeing the utter terror on Sheppard's face, Rodney didn't even know what to do.

But he knew he would have preferred to have had it all go... better. "Yes. He is." He cut Sheppard a look, a look that he hoped conveyed that now was the time to speak up and say or do something, because if he crushed Zane's heart, Rodney was going to crush a few other things.

And it was going to hurt.

The tub squeaked wildly as Zane shifted to get out, giving Rodney a wide-eyed look of excitement. "But he's so cool!"

"Like cool people don't get to be dads?" Sheppard offered feebly. "McKay, seriously, do you think this is a good...." Covered in wet bubbly Zane was a good look on him. "...idea?"

"It's true," Rodney pointed out quietly."So it doesn't matter if it's a good idea or not."

"Are you gonna be around all the time?" Zane was climbing Sheppard like a tree. Kids were like that sometimes. Madison had been a feet-on-the-ground kind of girl, according to Jeannie. Zane was the kid Rodney had caught climbing the shelves in the hallway because he thought he'd fit just fine on the top shelf. As it was, he was sopping wet and soapy and clutching John, who looked about fifteen seconds from an attack of hysteria. "You could be! Mitzy, next door, her dad only comes on the weekends and they go away and I don't wanna leave Daddy. What's your name? He can't be Daddy, too," Zane protested, looking at Rodney.

"We'll figure that out, later." Rodney decided to take pity on John, and got close to peel his son off of him. "You need to finish your bath so we can go eat dinner at Aunt Jeannie's."

"But I don't want tooooo!" Zane was up and down like a yo-yo, but it had been a rough day. He started it with one daddy and wound up with two and a pathological fear of his penis falling off. In Rodney's books, it was justification for the behavior. Too bad that he had already been down that slippery slope.

"In the tub." Rodney plopped him in carefully, despite Zane 's flailing protests. "Or we can go to bed after this, because I'm not afraid to call Aunt Jeannie."

"Nooo!"

Sheppard cleared his throat. "I'll, uh. Just. I'll be in the kitchen."

"Sure." And if he wasn't in the kitchen when he was done getting Zane clean, well. Rodney knew where he worked. He knew how to find him, now that he wasn't dead.

---

If he had known about this, he sure as hell wouldn't have bothered pissing the Ancients off so they'd plop him back down as a human.

John had been happy on the backwater planet he'd been on after that part. What wasn't to like, after all? There was fishing, and harvest. And planting. And... harvest, because the parts in between involving the tending kind of sucked. John didn't have a lot of patience.

Also, he hadn't remembered anything until about six months ago, and it had been a real bitch contacting Atlantis when the planet he was on had just a space gate and a mostly dead outpost.

He'd figured Rodney would be waiting for him. He just hadn't figured on Rodney actually having been, well. Meredith Meredith as opposed to Burgess Meredith. Or on Rodney having a little John clone that climbed things faster than a kitten.

Actually, he was kind of traumatized.

He'd almost been okay with it when he'd thought Rodney was involved in cloning experiments. Well, not actually, so he'd meant to say 'hi' in a completely non-hostile manner, but he had been hostile and Rodney had bitten right back, and that kid was his son, according to Rodney. Which meant that Rodney was really Meredith, and John had never seen that coming because he'd always sworn that Rodney had a dick. Rodney seemed like as much of a guy as he had then, but. There was a kid. And it was his. And his brain kept circling back there, because he had a son.

And John definitely knew the difference between fucking somebody's ass and their pussy. So, logically....

He'd seen an episode of some kind of crime show once that detailed the way people harvested sperm from the recently dead or the dying. Frankly, that was all he could see in between the vague kicks logic kept trying to deliver to his mind.

He doubted Rodney had done that, because ethically Carson wouldn't allow it. But, that didn't mean that Rodney hadn't pulled some kind of weird turkey baster trick, because they hadn't used condoms, and he really just needed to talk to Rodney about it. Without the kid there. It probably wasn't the best foot to start out on between them, but John didn't know what other foot they had.

Frankly, he was too busy freaking the fuck right out. Because. BABY. Not even baby, four year old with a name, and the kid was barreling right down the hardwood floor of the hallway in socks and not much else.

"COLONEL COLONEL COLONEL!"

Yeah, and that was freaky, too.

Socks and spiderman underwear. Okay, that was an improvement over soap-suds, but John was still wet. A little time to work around the fact that he was a father would've been nice. "Zane, hey, you need to wear pants!"

"I don't want pants!"

"You have to wear pants!"

"I gots UNDERPANTS!"

Fatherhood, except... His head was still not wrapping around this part. "Underpants are not the same thing as pants. If you're gonna go out, then people like it when you wear pants. And shoes. And shirts, for that matter." John cleared his throat. "So, uh. Your dad's right about that part."

The kid tilted his head for a second, peering at John before he looked back to Rodney and the bundle of clothes he was carrying. "Why?"

"Because if an older person goes out of the house wearing only socks and underwear, they get taken to jail. Because it scares other people, that's why."

Jail. Great. Had McKay been reading 1,001 Ways To Terrorize Your Four Year Old or something? The kid was just grinning, though, wriggling his way around in John's lap like it was the nature of things, just how every day went. "Nuh-uh! They wouldn't take me to jail! They'd just bring me back. You always say."

Rodney laughed, and shot a guilty look up at John. "Well, there is that. But, they might just keep you, you know?" He thrust the pants out again. "Now, or you're going to bed with no spaghetti and ice cream, and you won't get a swear jar like your cousin Maddie has."

Whatever that last part meant, it was obviously a pretty big incentive. The kid was scrambling into clothes like nobody's business, and John didn't even know what the hell that was all about. It was probably best that he didn't, actually.

He cleared his throat. "Uh. Yeah. I guess I should get someplace to stay or something...."

"Stay here. We... at least need to talk." Rodney stood up, stood back, while the kid squirmed into a long sleeved t-shirt.

"I'd just be intruding..."

"But it's good spasghetti! Uncle Kaleb doesn't get to cook the spasghetti. I promise." That messy head was frighteningly familiar, and the hopeful face was completely impossible to say no to.

"It's tofu free. Meat free, too, but he tried cooking whole grain blah blah hippy spaghetti for a while and it was met with vast disapproval by everyone. So, we have real pasta now at Aunt Jeannie's." Rodney crouched down to pat at the kid's shoulders. "C'mon, go get your shoes on. We'll be there in a second."

"Okay! Promise?" And the kid had Rodney's expressions, had his eyes, even if they were the color of John's. They were big and pleading and just trying to say no made John a little queasy.

"Yeah," he managed to croak out, clearing his throat again. What was it about McKay's house that made him all... yeah, okay. McKay. "We'll be there."

Rodney was always kind of intimidating and preferred to be completely in control of his surroundings, and it was hard to imagine that he'd made room in his house for a kid when he'd had trouble sharing a desk with someone else's laptop. He waited until the kid was around the corner to turn on John, squaring his shoulders. "If you break his heart, I will make you wish you'd never Descended."

Rodney was officially Wraith scary when it came to the kid. John was going to remember that. "I wasn't planning on it, McKay. He's a kid."

"He's your son. Yours. And he was a complete accident, so whatever you were thinking about, I don't know, some strange conspiracy or cloning or sperm stealing, no, that isn't what happened. I spent nine months wondering if he was yours or that damn Genii's, and I and the rest of Earth got very lucky that it was you and not, well." Rodney crossed his arms over his chest, and leaned, peering out into the hallway like he was checking that John was still out there.

Holy shit.

Kolya.

The urge to dig him up and shoot him again, and make it last way fucking longer was just. Insane and immediate and the whole thing sent a shudder through him. Rodney didn't see it, thank God, or he'd probably seriously misinterpret the issue.

"Kolya fucked you? And you didn't tell anybody?!"

"What was I supposed to say? There wasn't any way I could... I mean, if I said anything it ended up in a report and I didn't want anything reported. I spent too long very carefully passing to let that man ruin my life on top of assaulting me." Rodney's cheeks started to turn a high red, and he tucked his hands in on top of having his arms crossed over his chest.

"Jesus Christ, Rodney!" John couldn't decide what pissed him off the most... that Rodney hadn't told him about Kolya, or that he hadn't confessed that Meredith meant Not Rodney. "How am I even supposed to respond to any of this!?"

"I don't know!" He expected more hand gestures, Rodney style, but Rodney's arms were still folded, hands pinned still. "You Ascended on me! I thought you were dead, and now you're back and I'm supposed to, what, pretend that five years didn't pass in the interim? I found out I was pregnant after we'd given up searching for you. So you can respond however you want to."

"I just think.....!"

"Daddy! We're gonna be late!" Zane yelled, and he was coming back in their direction. John could only imagine how non-romantic life with a kid could be, and the fact that he felt a little grateful for that was... well, it was really fucked up of him was what.

"Ice cream," Rodney declared, tone a little short, and he turned to pull open the freezer door on the refrigerator. "Okay, we're going!" We being implicit and including John, he guessed. The short tone was probably his fault entirely, and Rodney seemed as angry at him as he seemed happy to see him again.

Well. There was confusion and then there was... whatever this was. John was so far past confused that he didn't even know how best to register any of it, if he was honest about it. "Yeah, uh...."

"Come help put me in my seat?" Zane asked hopefully.

Shock, maybe. That was probably it, he was in shock. He'd just found out that Rodney had quietly tolerated sexual assault where he hadn't tolerated paper cuts, that he had a son, and that Rodney had used to be a woman. Or possibly still was. Kinda. On top of the shock of being back in his own culture after so damn long. He had every reason to feel kind of shocky.

But Zane had those big pleading eyes, and Rodney was rushing past John to the front door, holding it like he was waiting for John. "Well?"

"Coming," he said finally, shaking his head. What the hell else was he supposed to say? John couldn't even guess. He'd just go along with it, and somewhere in there he'd muddle through it or not. Maybe Rodney wanted to drop him into it hard and fast, like immersion in a foreign language.

Maybe he should have called first and said he was coming. That he was alive. Maybe that would have worked better.

Zane was waiting in his toddler seat when John got there, kicking his feet restlessly, while Rodney looked on in amusement. "I think I'm being usurped. He wants you to strap him in."

"What's you-surped?" Zane asked brightly, before making a face. "I forgot my math game!"

"I'll go get it," Rodney promised, and left him alone with the kid.

Definitely the immersion treatment, then.

"Uh. Usurped means... it's like when somebody tries to take a king's throne," John explained, trying to make it something a four year old would understand.

"Oh! Like Mordred." Of course Zane would be smart. John just didn't think Rodney would let him be exposed to stuff that was not math.

Zane kicked his legs again, and reached hands to pet at John's hair while he tried to buckle the chest belt. "If you're daddy but not Daddy, what should I call you?"

"Uh..." Yeah, that was the scariest thing he'd heard in his entire life. That was... Fuck. Just-- "Why don't you just call me John until we're more..." Comfortable. Or he managed to get away. And the thing with the hair and the hands was just... He was glad Zane had taken a bath. It was a guarantee that they weren't sticky.

Probably.

"John. I have a John." Zane sat back, grinning happily. "I have a John!" He told Rodney that when Rodney leaned past John to hand him the Math Game.

"Yeah, you do." Rodney's mouth cracked into a grin, and he moved to get into the driver's seat. "Onwards."

The trip was.... interesting, to say the least. A couple of times, John wanted to clasp his hands over his eyes. A couple more times, he was grateful they were in a ten year old Volvo built like a tank. The fact that Zane talked happily to himself in the back seat and missed the whole thing was probably something to be grateful for, all things considered, but Rodney parked the car efficiently, and that was about the only thing he'd done well with the puddlejumpers, too. He didn't wait for John to get Zane out of the seat; he just grabbed the ice cream and sprang the kid, moving fast, like they were seriously late, and maybe. Maybe they were.

Like John would know.

The door of the house they'd stopped in front of came open and Jeannie stepped out, McKay mouth already on the move. "Mer, you're seriously late. Maddie is starving and.... eeee!" Dolphins had nothing on that sound. Hell. Atlantis whales. "John! John!"

Having an armload of girly squealing Jeannie actually didn't seem like such a bad thing.

That was the kind of welcome he'd kind of been expecting from Rodney, but maybe not so high pitched. It was hard not to oof and pat her on the back, and Rodney just watched them, mouth kind of crooked, Zane at his side. "Showed up out of nowhere during the soccer game. Uh, I brought ice cream, and I'm sorry we're late, and uh..."

"And you brought John! Oh, we were so, Mer was so completely distraught for the longest time, and we thought you were never coming back and here you are and..."

"And I gots two daddies!" Zane crowed, and flung himself at both of them. John caught, half out of self-defense.

"Well, uh." He had no idea of what to say.

"Yeah, you've got two daddies. Uh, let's, can we eat? And maybe, uh, I'd like to talk to John in private for a while, so would it be imposing if we, oh, hid in your backyard for a while?" Rodney shifted, and lifted Zane up, hefting him off of the ground while simultaneously thrusting the container of ice cream at Jeannie.

She took it, nodding enthusiastically all the while. "Of course you can do that! I'll watch Zane and tuck him in if it looks like it'll be needed. Oh, John!" One more hug. Yeah. Maybe that'd do it, then.

"It's definitely me," he drawled, and managed a smile despite the freaky weirdness of everything.

He should have come back sooner, maybe, or not at all. Either direction, but not then, right in the middle of family chaos on a Saturday afternoon. "Okay, let's get you some spaghetti, Zane. And you can plot with your cousin different ways to get me to cuss." Rodney kept Zane hugged close and hefted up, swinging the kid's feet a little as he entered Jeannie's house. "John, if you were going to make a break for it, you should have done it already. Just come in."

"Maddie's a meanie-face, but there's spasghetti." Zane was looking at him again, and John had absolutely no refusal mechanism in place for dealing with that look. It was the look Rodney had when he wanted something, and when he was pleading with him not to leave, to come back as soon as he could, and just that one simple look was enough to throw him for a loop.

Rodney groaned. "Maddie is not a meanie face."

"Is so!"

"Right, down you go." There was no taking off the shoes at the doorway here, and Rodney put Zane down on the carpeting with a light thump. He twisted, watched John come into the house behind him, and there was a hint of that look, the one Rodney had given him when he expected him to launch himself off to his death. It didn't stop until the door was shut behind him and he was safely inside. That seemed to be enough to reassure the kid, so he took off towards what John assumed was the kitchen.

"Come on. We have dinner ready to start," Jeannie invited.

Dinner and kids and family, and Rodney wound up and distant and strained. The last time John could remember Rodney being that ever so slightly off had been that night after the mission where Kolya died. Emotion and Rodney apparently didn't mix well, and John sort of knew that feeling. "I'm famished," Rodney declared, meandering his way into what John figured was the dining room. "Oh, you made the white sauce? That's fantastic..."

"I know how you like it, and it seemed like a pretty tough day." Jeannie looked back and gave John the sweetest smile. "I didn't realize that it would turn out to be such a great day, Mer."

Great. Just... great. Jeannie was looking at him like he was the answer to everything, and he wasn't. But on the other hand, she was going to feed him, and he was pretty famished. The table was already set and there was a dark haired man grabbing an extra chair and shifting things around.

"We're glad to have you here, uh, Colonel Sheppard."

Had to be Kaleb Miller. "Mr. Miller," he drawled. "Nice to meet you at last. I've heard a lot about you." Mostly about how Jeanie had married an English major. He'd bet good money that Zane's knowledge about Arthurian legend, and probably his name, for that matter, had its root in Jeannie's husband.

"We've heard quite a bit about you. I, uh, never actually expected to meet you in person..." Because he was supposed to be dead. Being dead had to be easier than sitting beside a silent Rodney McKay at a stranger's dinner table.

Probably by a power of ten.

"Yeah, uh. I've heard a lot about you, too. Well. Some."

"Some of it good, I hope." Kaleb gave him a nervous smile and then Jeannie was there with what looked like whole wheat pasta and alfredo sauce.

"Of course good! I have vegetables steamed to be added to the pasta in the kitchen, Mer. Why don't you go get them?" Jeannie asked.

Rodney hesitated, and then stood up. He stopped to scuff Zane's hair as he passed him. "Sure. Anything else?"

"Broccoli!"

Kids who liked broccoli couldn't be natural. There was just no way that was right. Not even close. "Um..."

"Sorry." Jeannie gave him a dimpled grin. "We try not to make faces at any food. It took Rodney a while to learn, but he's always been a tad slow."

"Oh, thank you very much, Jeannie!"

With that, Rodney was gone, into the kitchen and out of sight for the moment, and John leaned back in his chair, watching Zane watch him more than he was watching his uncle divvy up the pasta. "We should play cars. Maddie, we should play cars. With my John! I gots a John."

Kaleb smothered a smile, and plopped pasta down on both their plates. "Is that enough, Maddie?"

"It's good," she agreed, and she was watching John openly, watching even harder than Zane was.

"So! John. I hope you're going to be here for a little while. Zane and Rodney get a little too involved in their routines, so it's good to have you here," Jeannie offered brightly.

"Zane's a dork," Maddie offered.

"I am not! Daddy, is dork a swears?! Maddie said a swears!" Zane leaned back in his chair, peering towards the kitchen.

"Ask your aunt!"

Caught up in their routines, no, John would never have guessed it from having known and worked with and slept with Rodney for years. That was probably the least surprising revelation he'd had since arriving there -- that Rodney was three shades past neurotic.

And he'd been a woman.

And John hadn't noticed.

Yeah, there were some traumatic events a guy just didn't move past so quickly. Being regurgitated by a Wraith? Only slightly more disturbing than realizing exactly how much he didn't see it coming. He should have seen it coming, that Rodney was a woman, though he wasn't sure what if anything it actually changed. Rodney was still Rodney and pretty intent on passing as male, hairy arms, receding hairline and all. But his thighs had always been a little soft and he'd always preferred to have sex in as dark a room as possible. He never let John suck him off, and he never paraded around casually naked in front of John, but John had always thought he was a prude.

And maybe he was, but he was a sneaky prude.

"How long are you staying?" Jeannie asked, while Rodney came back with the vegetables.

Yeah, that was a great question. He'd only planned to stay long enough to talk Rodney into going back to Pegasus. It had never really occurred to him that he would have anything this complicated to deal with.

"My John's gonna stay," Zane said decisively. "'cause I gots two daddies and one's my John."

That logic would be difficult to argue against, considering. Not that there was much intellectual weight behind it, but it was one of those solid, air tight statements that was hard to knock down. It was how he usually won arguments with Rodney, back on Atlantis. 'Because I said so' was a powerful tool.

"Mm, wow, Zane, uh, wow, I haven't heard that used in a sentence since the last time Jeannie made me watch Cops." Rodney mumbled that around a mouthful of pasta.

"Is that the TV thing I'm not 'llowed to see?"

"Yes, completely low-brow, plebian, and ow, hey, you shouldn't kick me under the table like that!"

"Rodney." Jeannie had the forced smile that meant Rodney was in big trouble and John was going to enjoy it. "Ixnay on the Opscay."

John tried not to snicker. "Uh, Jeannie? I don't think your code's secure."

"No, and it's also completely unsubtle." Rodney bent over, clearly rubbing at his leg beneath the table. "The abuse I get in this house. I don't know why I keep coming back. Might be the free food."

"Or it might be the occasional bout of adult conversation. When we can manage," Kaleb suggested, and then gently reached to touch Madison's arm. "Honey, stop picking on Zane. He's much younger than you are."

"He tries to pick on me," Maddie complained, peering at John. "Are you really his daddy?"

How was he supposed to answer that? "Uh...."

"Madison!" Jeannie scolded. "That isn't a very nice question!"

"But...."

"Just look at him. You're smart enough to be able to tell."

"Nuh-uh! Looks don't mean anything. He could be, be, John's twin brother's son!"

Rodney grimaced, "Okay, other than the insinuation that I got around a lot, which I, wow, Jeannie, has she been into your romance novels?"

"I know who my second daddy is, and that's John!" As if by being louder Zane could be more right, which had to have been a McKay trait, and John wanted to crawl under the table.

"You two can both be quiet, and eat dinner, or no one's getting any dessert," Kaleb declared calmly. There were cries of dismay at that, but it was getting to be pretty obvious that the English major was the real boss at the dinner table. The whole thing made John grin despite himself.

"Well. In any case, the, uh, the alfredo's really good. Especially with the broccoli," John offered, trying not to laugh at them too hard.

"Oh, yes, thank you, colonel. Beat me to complimenting dinner."

"I live to serve."

Rodney smirked a little, and waved his fork. "We'll see about that. So, uhm, Jeannie, did you look over that enormous file set I sent you last night, or are you pretending it doesn't exist until Monday? Because if you're pretending it doesn't exist, then I'm completely willing to put it to the back of my mind until then."

"You have bigger things to think about, Mer, so I think you can stand to wait until Monday for everything else." The way Jeannie looked at him implied that he'd better get to work, too. Considering the fact that they were borrowing her back yard to talk after dinner, it was no wonder she was shooting that look at him.

"Mmm, because science waits for Mondays." It was less sarcastic than John would have expected. So, Rodney was still working with the SGC, in some capacity, and he was probably idea bouncing at his sister who might or might not have been working for the SGC, still, and maybe they knew what they were doing when they dropped John into their midst to try and recruit Rodney back.

The brass were sneaky bastards.

"That's absolutely right. Theoretical physics and astrophysics will wait... at least until after Maddie's had a bath and Zane's put to bed which," her voice raised, "will be sooner than they think if it doesn't quiet down in here."

Impressive. Maybe the brass was hoping that John would actually be some kind of force against which the will of the McKays would fall.

"I'm being quiet," Zane mumbled, waving his fork before scraping it through his pasta and a few pieces of broccoli. He was slowly working away at his plate, and Rodney had, okay, decimated his plate but John was used to that. He watched Zane out of the corner of his eyes for a while, seeing him fiddle with his pasta and watch John a lot more obviously.

It was pretty obvious that the kid was his, one way or another. He couldn't look more like a Sheppard if he tried, and Rodney wasn't one to outright lie, at least when he was cornered. He was pretty much cornered in this case, so he wasn't going to tell John anything he didn't already know.

Dinner passed a little more quietly, and everyone just ate for a few more minutes, until Zane set his fork down and leaned his elbows on the table, now outright gawking at John while Kaleb talked to Jeannie about some lesson plan or something he needed for Monday's class. It was disturbing in a way that made him twitch a little, because he'd never been good with kids. He'd wanted them, sure. What guy didn't, a little? But he wasn't all that good with them, beyond the playing stuff. Maybe that was something a guy was supposed to learn. Obviously Rodney had, except that was just. Yeah. No. He'd think about that later.

"Are you done, Zane?" Rodney asked him, and the kid squirmed to look at his dad, shaking his head.

"I want ice cream."

"And what do you say?"

"May I have ice cream PLEASE!" Ow. Those had been his ears.

Rodney cocked his eyebrows at Jeannie, when Madison joined the chorus. If they both stopped arguing, they could probably join up to conquer the world. "Okay. I'll get the ice cream, and I can look after Zane, Rodney, if you..."

"Right, right." Rodney shifted his chair back, quietly, and glanced at John. "We should probably take the opportunity while it presents itself."

He should have eaten less of the pasta. It would have been better for his stomach, since everything felt weird and unsettled inside as he got up, nodding at Kaleb as he rose. "I'll, uh...." Yeah. "It was nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you, too," Kaleb offered, not bothering to speak over the kids. Zane was scrambling down to run into the kitchen, and yeah. The time was ripe.

Time to make a break for it.

Rodney led the way, winding towards a sliding glass door that required three locks and a solid steel stop pole at the bottom to get open. He stepped out, waiting for John.

"That's, uh."

"Mm. An experience, yes."

That was one way to put it. "So."

John couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so awkward. He was pretty sure it was the day that his ex-wife had told him what a complete asshole he was on her way out the door, while he had roses and champagne in the bedroom.

It was sort of that doomed feeling, because he'd come into things badly and he knew he had, and Rodney could nurse a grudge like nothing John had ever seen. He'd probably had years to work on whatever speech he was about to give John, while he shoved his hands into his pants pockets. "I, uh. Know all of this has to be a shock for you, and it's probably a lot to deal with."

"Geez, McKay, that's kind of the understatement of the year. Seriously, did they know about this back at the SGC?" He waved his hand in the general direction of inside. "Because if they did, I'm starting to think they hate me more than I thought they did."

"They know. I mean, yes, there was a period in time where I lied about why I needed to go Earthside. But I still work for them, and when I couldn't make it out to Colorado because I was under enforced bed rest, it sort of... came to the surface." He turned around, meandered past a plastic safety slide. "He's listed on my health insurance. Sam kids me about Zane, so I think it's a conspiracy at this point."

"Yeah. Well. I just didn't know they were out to get me, too." John shifted awkwardly. he was watching the back of Rodney's head, and there was a whole lot of nothing between them, and a whole lot of everything, too. "So. Um. You were, not... except -- I'm kind of confused," he confessed.

"Right, well, that's why I spent so much time trying to, uh... Why I've never really been honest about." Rodney turned around and gestured vaguely to himself, eyes focused just on John. "It never goes well. Still doesn't, apparently."

"I just don't. I mean. For Christ's sake, Rodney, we were sleeping together! We spent most of our time together, whether it was working or..." John flailed. "I don't even know what to say!"

"There's never any appropriate time to broach the topic! What would you have preferred -- when we got to Atlantis, I told you 'Hi, I used to be a woman, but I'm really a man, even though I haven't had the bottom surgery'? Or if I waited until we were headed towards sleeping together? Because that's never worked well for me. Gay men freak out, and the first thing out of most bisexual men is that they wanted to fuck my cunt and that was kind of not what I ever wanted to do. So, I went to amazing lengths to keep it from you, and we actually... worked out. Hey, and now that you know, you're completely freaking out, which is why I went to those lengths in the first place!" And while he talked, he gestured, waved his hands vaguely, pacing the patio. The fact that John was just as attracted to Rodney's hand-waving now as he had been before didn't escape him in the least.

"Look, just... I don't know! You could have at least told me what Kolya did to you! I'd have killed him a hell of a lot sooner!"

"I tried, but with the storm, and getting the grounding stations back on, I..." He crossed his arms over his chest. "I don't know. It seemed unimportant. I thought if I told anyone, you'd write it off as McKay not having slept lately, as some kind of histrionics, and yes, I know that you wouldn't have actually done that, I know that intellectually, but, at the time, it seemed.... reasonable. I did a very bizarre job of patching up my own arm, and that seemed written off, so I just didn't see the point of saying anything."

Christ. It was true, too. That was the worst part. They had let Rodney patch himself up, they'd just kind of figured he could take care of himself, and the fact of it made John seize up a little inside because seriously. What kind of total asshole did that? He had no idea. "Rodney. I would never just write something off like that. Not if you told me about it."

Rodney lifted his chin a little, arms still crossed over his chest. "Given that Kolya's dead, and I'm here, it's not really a problem, John. It was just... something that happened. And after the first time, I decided that if I hadn't reported it the first time, then I couldn't really report it the second time, and the third time, well, Carson knew. I vaguely told you. It didn't matter, because he was dead."

Yeah. He definitely should have made it last longer. "So. Um. You had the..." He waved his hand in the general direction of Rodney's crotch. "But seriously! I swear there was... you know. Something there!"

"Dildo." At least Rodney smiled when he said that. "And I packed. It was actually pretty complicated and I still have it all somewhere, under lock and key at the house."

How the hell had he missed that? Sure, he was pretty oblivious about some things, but he'd been sleeping with Rodney. And okay, there had always been the low lights and no nudity and he wouldn't let John touch him, but... "That's the reason."

"The reason?" No, Rodney hadn't been privy to his internal dialogue, but Rodney's reluctance to be touched made all sorts of sense now. It passed just fine pressing against his hip or his thigh or his stomach, but hands were a lot more picky, and John just hadn't pressured. Figured it was some weird issue Rodney had.

"The reason you never let me touch you. The reason you made me keep my hands to myself all the time, even when it was driving me crazy!" Yeah. It really had, too, because he had wanted to touch Rodney, had wanted to feel the stretch of his skin and the way his thighs moved and what was he supposed to feel about that?

"Right. Because I thought that if you knew, you'd..." He crossed his arms over his chest again, and his mouth twitched up and then down again. "It seemed reasonable to me at the time. I'm sorry for lying to you."

"Yeah. Well." John cleared his throat and sat down on what looked like a plastic mushroom. "Is it okay if I freak out a little?"

"Sure." Rodney stayed standing, and John found himself staring right at Rodney's crotch. "So, uh, Zane. Was an accident. I was afraid he was Kolya's for a while, but Carson reminded me that not using condoms was stupid, because accidental transfer was... pretty stupidly easy, actually." It was a relief when Rodney sat down beside him on a little plastic bench. "According to Carson, most teenage girls had that one figured out when they had anal sex, but the great genius Rodney McKay? Not so much."

"Everybody was supposed to be on the pill or... or that implant thing." He carefully didn't look at Rodney when he said that. "I'm guessing it, uh. Didn't work? Or did you just not get it, or...?"

"Yeah, that implant thing was bullshit. I found out that quite a few women were trying to sue the company that produced it because it didn't work. This happened while we were over there." Rodney was close, almost shoulder-to-shoulder with John, close enough to feel in the cool evening air.

The fact that it wasn't freaking him out was freaking him out even worse.

"So." Rodney said finally after a fairly intense silence. "You, um. You Descended?"

John nodded. "Almost five years ago. I spent a lot of time fishing and didn't remember much until about six months back. Then it was trying to figure out how to get back."

"Did you try dialing and saying, 'Hi, it's John'?" Rodney asked a little pointedly. "Because we probably lowered the shield for less over the years."

"Oh, yeah, very funny. What were they gonna do, poke a microphone through the wormhole?" And that was when it struck him.

"MALP," Rodney pointed out quietly just as the thought hit. Yeah, MALP. They'd even had a MALP on a stick, once, even if it hadn't worked out well for John.

The silence stretched a little, and Rodney murmured, "So, now that we both feel like morons... Which I've told Zane is a swear word, by the way, uhm. What now?"

He didn't have any idea. "I don't know. I mean, it's been five years, Rodney, and... there's kind of a lot to take in, if... you know what I mean."

"Right, right." Rodney shifted, and leaned his elbows on his knees. "I have a penis now. If it helps."

"Actually, it, ah. It might. Even though I'm having some pretty weird images thinking about... You're gonna have to explain that to me a little better." All of it, because John didn't know what to think, still.

"Which part? I mean, I don't like talking about this, but I, I miss you. I thought you were off flying around the universe. So if it helps something..." Rodney twisted, peering at John. "And we might as well take advantage of quiet time. Zane's pretty attention intensive."

"Take advantage of...?" Hyperventilating was not manly, no matter what Rodney used to tell him.

"The opportunity to talk without him clinging to you like a monkey." At least Rodney had said it first, even if John had been thinking it for a while.

John let out an explosive breath. "Oh, well, that's good to know. I was kind of starting to wonder. My mom used to say that, uh..." He'd thought it earlier. Somehow, it didn't surprise him to remember it now. "That I'd swing from the lights if I had a tail. Zane's kind of got that going on."

"Which is why he plays soccer. He's no good at it, but he likes running in circles on the field and trying to kick the ball. Losing doesn't bother him. It's organized playtime as far as he's concerned." Rodney sat back, and idly cracked the knuckles of one hand. "Five years ago, I wouldn't have believed how much my life revolves around him. Except, it does. When the SGC needs me to come in for an emergency, he stays here with Jeannie. Otherwise, I work from home and... parent."

"He seems like a pretty good kid," John offered, shifting uncomfortably. "He looks pretty much like me, and then he... does things and he gets this look like you get. It's kind of..." Weird.

"What happens when a kid has two parents and isn't a cloning experiment." Rodney smirked a little. "He's stubborn. I don't suppose I can blame you for that...? No, probably not."

"I'm kind of thinking that's a McKay genetic trait. Among other things." Not that John hadn't contributed to the stubborn side of things. "He's not allergic to stuff, is he?"

"Citrus, mold, and one line of antibiotics. The citrus allergy is... more rash, hives than swelling throat, but I don't want him drinking someone's orange juice at school thinking that it's not dangerous to him. He has a lot of interesting juices at home to gloat to his friends about, so my diversionary tactics have worked so far." Rodney knew what he was up against, after all, and John kind of wondered how many times Rodney had given in and tried something citrusy because he thought it wouldn't be that bad.

Smart people could be so dumb sometimes.

Rodney in particular. John couldn't believe he hadn't said something. And okay, maybe it would have been over then, because all he could think of was bad SheMale porn, but it wasn't something that actually made any difference now. Rodney was all Rodney and no Meredith, and John was seriously going to need a better therapist than Heightmeyer.

Hopefully Rodney had a better one than that, now that he was away from Atlantis. "So, uh..." Rodney cleared his throat, and leaned closer, shoulder-to-shoulder with John, and then he twisted and touched John's chin with one hand. "Can I, uh, kiss you?"

"I have no idea whether that's appropriate to ask me or not," John muttered, and then leaned forward.

"So I just won't ask."

Rodney leaned in, closed the gap between them. His lips were just a little chapped, and he tasted like garlic, but that was okay since John was pretty sure that he did, too, and Rodney leaned in closer, twisting his head, changing the angle, parting his lips, and that felt good, so damn familiar.

So real, and he had no idea what he felt about any of that. He wasn't even sure where to start, if he was honest about it, so he let it go and figured that he'd work it out later. John let Rodney kiss him and he kissed Rodney back, and that was not giggling he heard, was it?

That was giggling he heard.

Rodney clutched hard at his back with one arm, and yeah, that was Rodney's arm muscles, the only place he really had them. "You little perverts! Get back in the house!"

"I'm gonna need the name of your therapist." And yeah, he wasn't surprised that Rodney just kind of looked at him blankly. "Or at least a good one."

"I didn't bother getting one. I bought an HD TV instead. If Heightmeyer was a shining example of the field... High resolution TV was a better investment in the long run." Rodney shifted, nice and close, and yeah, yeah, John remembered doing that, just holding onto Rodney, just feeling him, close at night after a too-close run-in.

"Uncle Mer 'n John, sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N--"

"That's it, it's bed time for you, missy." Rodney pulled away, stood up, and that seemed to be enough to 'scare' Madison into skittering off in a fit of giggles. Zane stood there, though, just peering at them.

"Daddy?" he asked finally, tilting his head to the side. "Whycome are you kissing my John?"

"Uh..." For the first time since he'd gotten there, Rodney had a deer in the headlights look about dealing with his son. John figured it was time to stand up, get off of the plastic mushroom. "Because I missed him, and I love him. And that's what, uh, two daddies do. Just like Aunt Jeannie and Uncle Kaleb do."

"No," Zane told them decisively. "My Johns aren't s'posed to be kissing my Daddy. That's..." He shook his head. "He's my Daddy! And loves me best!"

"Oh, god." Rodney covered his eyes for a moment, and then he started towards Zane. "Okay. It's a different kind of love. And there's lots of love in the world, and oh, god. Jeannie! Jeannie, I have no idea how to explain this!"

"Hey, Zane? C'mere a minute," John cajoled.

"No! You're trying to steal my Daddy!"

Maybe he wasn't any better at this than Rodney. "I don't want to steal your daddy. He's a good guy, and he puts you first. He already told me that you come first, all the time."

"Which is one hundred percent true," Rodney pitched in a little less than helpfully. He was approaching Zane like he was a cat, sort of half crouched and moving slow, and it was actually a good call because Zane twisted to hurtle himself into the house and Rodney caught at his sides. "Okay, hey, it's okay, no one's going to steal me from you."

"He's gonna! He's gonna! You won't love me anymore!" Zane shrieked, squirming like crazy. John figured it was probably like holding onto a lizard after its tail fell off. "He's not my John! He's gonna steal you!"

What the hell was there to say to that?

"Unf, hey, no one's stealing me. I wouldn't give you up for anything, and I don't think it's possible not to love you, so just calm down and listen to me for a second." The strained reasoning tone was tempered by the fact that Rodney was trying to pin Zane still with his arms.

"He's gonna!" Zane shrieked one more time, and then burst into tears in a way that made John ache down to the core of his soul. Jesus. If he cried like that all the time, there was no way Rodney (or anybody living) could keep from feeling like the biggest bastard on Earth.

At least he stopped struggling, and Rodney seemed to know what to do with him from then. Maybe all little kids were like that, volatile and prone to overreacting and misunderstanding. Or maybe John just brought out the hissy-fit in the boy. "Okay, hey, it's okay, let's get you to bed. C'mon, John. You can help me out."

"Noooo," Zane wept. "Noooo, noooooo."

Oh, God. He was in hell. He was lost and confused and seriously messed up because Rodney was still Rodney except he'd been Meredith and they had a kid together. John felt like his brains were oozing out of his ears. "Hey, he doesn't want me to..."

"John."

"Yeah, I'm, uh. I'm coming."

Rodney made a straight, efficient line towards what looked like a guest room that Zane might have taken over. There were kids books stacked on a table, John could see, after Rodney smacked the light switch on with an elbow, on his way to putting Zane on top of the bed. "Too much excitement in one day for you, little man. C'mon, let's wipe those tears up and calm down. I'm not going anywhere."

"I don' wanna John," Zane hiccoughed hysterically. "My Daddy! I, I, I!" It was the saddest thing he'd ever heard in his life. "I'ma stay with you. Don' go! Don' go!"

"I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying right here with you, Zane. All right?" Rodney reached out, and wiped at Zane's cheeks, then made a wasted gesture of trying to flatten down Zane's hair. "Do you want to go home tonight, or stay here?"

John was surprised that either of them could understand words through the blubbering, but maybe it was magic. Maybe parenthood came with a new set of ears tuned to one kid in specific or something. "Go home."

"I'll tell Jeannie and go out to get the car," John volunteered quietly, because it was better to do that than to stick around for the crying.

"Thanks." Rodney leaned in and pulled Zane in for an easy-looking hug. The Rodney that John remembered would have cringed at the idea of being snotted on, but Zane was Rodney's. Family meant putting up with stuff somebody wouldn't from complete strangers, and John could understand that. Atlantis had been family for him.

Rodney was family for him, even with the current weirdness.

John left the room and ran into Jeannie before he could get down the hall to the kitchen. "I, uh."

"Maddie told me what you and my brother were doing on the patio." She had her arms crossed, and it was one of those moments where John wished he understood McKay family secret codes. "Zane's upset, isn't he?"

"Yeah." That was a pretty light word for what Zane was. Then again, hysteria and overreactions seemed to run in the blood, something else that sounded disturbingly like his mother. "We're gonna, um..."

The fact that Jeannie called Rodney her brother made him take a deep breath, and before he could stop it, the question was out. "So Rodney. He's... always been Rodney to you or...?"

"Mer. He picked Rodney as a name when he was in college. But he..." She gestured vaguely towards the guest bedroom. "Yeah. He's always been himself. Infuriating, frustrating, but my brother."

John was never going to understand any of this. That, he figured, was step number one no matter which direction he went. He had to acknowledge that he wasn't really going to get it. Then again, it wasn't something he would do. Just the thought of chopping off his dick to become a woman made him hyperventilate. Maybe it was different in the other direction. "Yeah. Well, uh. That helps?"

"I don't care if it helps you or not. My brother worked with you for years, and my brother slept with you for half that time, and my brother was the one who freaked out when he thought he was going to lose your son, and had to spend half the pregnancy in care." She had her arms folded, and while he'd always thought Jeannie was kind of nicer than Rodney, maybe not. Maybe he'd been wrong. "So. You could maybe take a shot at not being busy freaking out about it, and try coping."

"Look. I've known about this for all of six hours, okay? And I was just kissing your brother in the back yard, so let me tell you, I'm doing the best I can when it comes to coping!"

She was still hard-faced at him, but the edges of her mouth were twitching, twittery in amusement. "Did Rodney give you the keys to unlock the car?"

"Oh, crap." No, he hadn't thought about getting the keys, and when he turned around, Rodney was behind him, Zane still hiccoughing against his shoulder but mostly asleep, and the keys were in his hand.

"Sometimes walking away from a complete meltdown helps calm you down. And by you, I mean anyone in the viewing area of something like this." Rodney lifted his eyebrows at John, smiling loosely. "Keys."

"Yeah. Those." Kind of important for John's needs, really, and looking at Rodney, and then looking at Zane, and then looking back at Rodney... what Jeannie said made sense. He definitely needed to get a little more by way of coping mechanisms going on but Rodney was pretty much Rodney. John hadn't ever known him any other way. "I'll go open up the car."

"Thanks." Rodney leaned close to Jeannie, and seemed to be offering Zane to her for a moment.

She leaned in and kissed his cheek. "Get some sleep, baby. We'll come by sometime tomorrow." He hiccoughed again, a sleepy, miserable sound, but he didn't really wake up. That was probably for the best, all things considered, so John left them for the moment even though he knew Rodney would be right behind him.

A little head start and some cooler night air made his head feel lighter, clearer. He walked to Rodney's car, and unlocked it. The back seat kind of smelled like Cheerios, and it was a little dirty with kid-clutter. Shoes littered the floor along with small toys, and Zane's math game was still on his booster seat. John cleaned it off and left the door open even as he got inside and turned on the car. The lights came on automatically, and so did everything else, so he stood and walked around to the passenger side, climbing in as Rodney came out the door.

Rodney was quiet as he leaned to set Zane into the back seat, carefully buckling him in. It didn't really seem to faze Rodney, so it probably happened vaguely often, often enough that he had a coping mechanism for his son freaking out. He quietly got in the driver's side, and reached over to turn the radio off. "Sorry about that, John."

"It's okay. I mean, he's a kid. They do that, right? Just kind of... they do that, right?" he asked again, because it wasn't like he'd had practice.

"Yeah, they do. Zane's been up and down today. This morning started with pancakes, and him asking why he didn't have a mother. I swear, we usually just watch cartoons and fiddle with things, but no. No, it's been a really long day." He started the car up, and started to back out of the driveway. "You're welcome to stay tonight. I still mean that."

"Yeah. Okay." Okay, even if John wasn't sure where he'd be sleeping or anything like that because things weren't going to pick up right where they left off, even if Rodney thought kissing him while they sat on funny mushroom play toys was a good idea. "I'll stay. You think he'll try to poison my cereal? 'cause I'm kind of thinking that probably runs in the family. Not mine, but yours. Actually, I'm not sure eating at Jeannie's any time soon is a good idea either."

"Nah. On the weekends I usually cook something for him. Waffles or pancakes or something." Rodney smirked as he pulled out onto the road. "Don't make that face. I've learned to cook."

"Says the man who tried living off MREs the one time the kitchen cooked that weird fruit that looked like it might be citrus related. And it wasn't," John reminded him. "Uh. I guess we can talk some more when he's in bed?"

"Yeah. That's probably a good idea." Rodney seemed content to drive in quiet, likely reluctant to do anything that might accidentally shake Zane fully awake. The kid was like a siren when he wailed, and John had sensitive grown-up ears. Just thinking about him wailing again made him cringe.

They drove in the quiet for a while, hiccoughs fading into soft breaths, and John figured that was a good sign. Zane didn't even wake when they pulled in at McKay's place.

"I'll get the house open if you can get him out of his seat." It seemed like an amiable sort of offer, but there was also that hint of Rodney conspiring to force John to spend time with Zane.

Somehow, John didn't figure Zane would like it any more than he did, at least at the moment. What did he know about little kids? Sure, he'd done okay with Jinto and Wex, and he mostly did okay with other kids, but they were always older than Zane.

He was the father of a four year old and he had no idea what to do with him.

"Yeah. Sure."

The picking him up out of the chair part of things was easy, until he realized that Zane was also one hundred percent dead weight and needed to be hefted a little differently than he'd expected. The kid also had freakishly long legs that just dangled. That couldn't be normal.

The good thing was that he didn't even open his eyes. The kid slept hard, like McKay, or maybe just like a boy who had gotten emotionally overwrought and worn himself out. It was kind of sweet and really weird and seriously. John was going to look up a therapist and he was going to go and he was going to make McKay go.

He knew Rodney had to have a boatload of issues, and ignoring them forever wasn't going to work, and yeah, okay, he wasn't the best guy in the world to be thinking that, but. It was true, and he probably needed it, too, and the first step was supposed to be admitting that there was a problem.

Rodney had the front door held open, waiting for John. "It's down the hall, and on the left."

Down the hall on the left proved to be Rodney's bedroom. There was a tiny toddler bed at the foot of it, so John stepped inside and gently laid Zane on it. There were covers mostly scattered on the floor, so he shifted them and covered him up before stepping out of the room again.

Part of him wanted to be surprised that Zane slept in Rodney's room, but the other part of him wasn't that fazed. Still, he was four, so maybe it was time for him to be eased to his bedroom. Not that he'd probably be willing to make any changes with John just arrived, and not that John was going to arrive out of the blue and make parenting suggestions to Rodney.

"It's probably time to get him a really cool twin bed, huh?" Rodney asked quietly from the doorway.

"With really cool Scooby sheets. Do kids still like Scooby?" John replied, pretty sure that anything he thought was cool would definitely fall into the not-cool category of things. He wasn't exactly up to date.

"Some of them. I was thinking more like space-ship sheets. Next weekend, maybe." Rodney took a step backwards from the doorway. "We can talk in the living room."

John followed him to the living room, not saying anything at all until they got there. "You know, the kid's shook up enough as it is. It's not like I know anything about them, but do you really think now's a good time to change things around on him?"

"Not in the slightest. But, a week is a pretty long time for a kid, and it's really..." Rodney sat down on the sofa, posture casual. "It's angling it to make it seem like he's pulling one over on me."

"Oh, hey. Don't go telling all of the parental secrets," John protested. "Otherwise I'm gonna really start to wonder about some of the stuff I got when I was a kid."

The edges of Rodney's mouth twitched as he looked up at John. Right, sofa and sitting down was probably a good idea. "It takes some of the illusion out of it. Some of the things your parents did make so much sense now, and other things..." Rodney rolled his shoulders. "Well, we all make mistakes. I suppose Zane will eventually stop wondering if his penis is going to fall off."

"Which is kind of a funny idea, considering you had yours put on." Although John guessed he might be worried about where Rodney got it from, all things considered. "So... how does that work, anyway?"

"I think that's the second time you've asked that, and I still have no idea what 'that' is." Rodney leaned forwards a little, turning to look at him better, and his knee bumped John's. "After he was born, I had all of that... taken out. Which I should have done years ago."

"Yeah, y'know, I think so, too." Preferably before he traumatized John. He? He, because Rodney always had been. "Um. I meant, with the... you know. The putting on thing."

"It was two surgeries. I did a lot of research on a doctor who'd do a... really really good job. And he did. It works, the whole nine yards." Things John took for granted, he guessed, like peeing standing up. "It works... sexually, too, but that's been limited to me in the shower."

Huh. Wow. Okay. "So you... yanno. It actually...?" Yeah, that was articulate. "It feels like, you know. Sex?"

"Yeah. I'm not sure it feels like what it feels like for you, but it's damn good. It... I really should have done it years ago, but I heard so many horror stories and saw so many botched procedures, and then I was busy, and then..." Rodney gestured vaguely to the living room. "You were dead, and Carson was dead, and I couldn't stand it there."

If John hadn't been inclined towards forgiving him already -- forgiveness for leaving Pegasus, forgiveness for lying, forgiveness for not telling him about that son of a bitch, Kolya -- that would have been enough to tip him over into it. As it was, he reached out and wrapped his arm around Rodney's shoulder. "I'm sorry. For. You know."

"Ascending?" Rodney snorted. "Better than a corpse. Carson was taken out by an, an exploding tumor, but I'm sure you scanned some of the reports..." Rodney twisted, turned, and it was a slow motion, but he seemed to be feeling John out this time, letting a hand idle down John's side. "Anything else we need to talk about?"

"Yeah, well. Not so much. I mean. There was fishing. And some harvest festivals. And this woman who kept offering to sew me new pants," John said, and that much was true. It had been kind of weird, actually.

"Maybe it was a courting ritual." Maybe. Probably, but he wouldn't have guessed it any more than he would have guessed Rodney had all the wrong parts. And Rodney's hand was stroking his side, definitely close enough to John to kiss.

It really wasn't any different. After all, Rodney had always been Rodney, and the fact that Rodney had really been Meredith shouldn't have been worth taking into account in any measurable way. Sure, he'd be bundling Zane to a therapist as soon as he got the chance, but for the time being...

John turned, and he felt it when Rodney's mouth found his. He felt the way that those blond bristles rubbed against his lips, his own rougher black scraping against Rodney's, and then they were locked, and it was just like kissing Rodney always had been, particularly since he wasn't perched on a plastic mushroom in a dark back yard. He and Rodney had always tended to do things in a nice, quiet, clean room, lighting or not. Easy and simple, and Rodney leaning into him and pressing him back against the sofa, hands pulling at John's shirt.

"Hey, don't you.. mmm. Think we're... oh, God. Going a little fast here?" It took everything John had in him to give that protest, and the fact that he could feel Rodney shifting, moving, and he wondered, he wanted to see.... well. That didn't exactly make it any easier.

He wanted to see, and that was fast. That was very fast, even if he was pretty sure Rodney would go with it. "Oh, now you want to slow down? I made eyes at you after a near death experience and twenty minutes later I had my fingers up your ass!"

"Yeah, well. I didn't... Oh my God yes!" Yes, yes, yes, because Rodney was palming his cock and working his way under John's shirt and, "Seriously. What if Zane wakes up?" he hissed. "He'll be traumatized for life."

"I think we've already traumatized him for life four or five times now, just today. I know for a fact my sister has traumatized Madison to the point that she'll throw things at the wall if she has to walk past their bedroom at night. Might as well start early." Rodney wasn't freaking out, he was the exact opposite of freaking out, he was pulling at John's clothes and stroking his dick through his pants, fumbling at the zipper.

"McKay!" It kind of sucked by way of protest, but it was the best John had. Frankly, once Rodney's hand was firm on his cock, anything by way of protest was out the window. Even now, five years later, Rodney knew all the right ways to touch John and make him go off like a fucking rocket.

Five years. Five years later, and Rodney was willing just to jump on him and take whatever was coming. The last name stopped Rodney, though. "You... really actually have a problem with this?"

"There's a four year old sleeping less than six yards away. Yes, I'm a little nervous about that part!"

"He's sleeping!" Rodney hissed it, and squeezed over John's dick. "Fine, okay, if it bothers you that much..."

"Wait, wait, wait. Um." Okay, yes, it did, but...

But. But. Maybe there was a guest bedroom or something, and he could ask Rodney that. "Wait? This is yes or no, because when Zane no longer thinks you're going to kidnap me, he'll be able to stay the night at Jeannie's."

"Well, it's a... call it a qualified yes. No kidding. Our kid's going to need years of therapy, Rodney."

"You're exaggerating," Rodney murmured, squeezing him through his pants again and leaning back in to pick up with kissing John. "There's a guest room. We can close the door."

"You're sure he won't think I've kidnapped you after all?" John asked, and he realized that he had forgotten how incredible it was, kissing Rodney.

"Not as long as I go back to the master bedroom before he wakes up." He could almost imagine Zane standing up in his toddler bed, balefully wondering why his daddy wasn't there, and that was a train of thought he was going to derail because Rodney was standing up and using a handful of John's shirt to pull John with him.

"Wow. You, uh. You're really..." A lot more forceful. Not that John had problems with forceful, it just wasn't exactly something he was familiar with when it came to Rodney.

"I've spent four years fantasizing about you. And feeling guilty for doing it because I thought you were dead. There's a lot of pent up..." Rodney waved a hand slightly, and leaned in to kiss the edge of his jaw. "You have no idea how much I missed you."

"Oh, I kind of think I'm getting the idea." Like he hadn't missed Rodney, too, because yeah. That was, that was good, and familiar, and he'd worry about the other stuff sometime later. Lots later. If there was even anything to worry about. Zane was sweet, well adjusted or so he seemed, and Rodney was edging John down the hallway, kissing at his neck, his cheeks, his mouth.

He'd worry about Atlantis later.

"God, I missed you." Thought about him every day, cursed him for being the reason John came back to a life without flying, wondered if Rodney had moved on or stopped waiting for him. He didn't worry that Rodney wasn't going to love him anymore. That was a whole separate kind of anxiety.

That was a knotted up, built up thing that he hadn't even wanted to touch on, and it had all been wrong, all of his worry and wondering. Rodney shifted his hand, clutched tight against John's side, and bumped the bedroom door open with his hip. "I'm sorry you missed all of this, that you missed flying, that you missed Atlantis, that you missed..."

"You." Christ. He'd missed Rodney, and he could freak out about other things later because seriously. Right now, he had broad shoulders, thick upper arms to grab onto, solid thighs. There was the faint pudge of Rodney's belly, enjoyable in its own weird way. "I missed you."

He'd missed a lot of things, but those touches, that feeling, that familiarity, Rodney's stomach and his hands, and the feeling of his clothes being pulled at, slower now, that old familiar sense of reverence back now that they were in a bedroom and Rodney was closing the door behind him with a foot.

"Later," John murmured. "Later, you'll tell me..." Everything. All of it. What it had been like, what everything with Zane was like. What not telling him took, because Rodney could never keep a secret worth a damn unless it was important and impersonal, or apparently a base of his existence.

"Later. Yes..." Rodney urged John back to the bed, and it felt a little like a flashback, except Rodney was shifting his hands, and letting him touch.

Letting him feel.

Letting John know.

That fact made him groan into Rodney's mouth, a barely controlled sound, and if he was humping McKay, well. He had good reason. It had been so long, and okay, there had been a fling or two during that time. It wasn't like he'd been deathly faithful, not knowing if he'd ever be found on his Ancient version of Gilligan's Island. Still. He'd been thinking about Rodney, loving Rodney, wanting him so long he didn't know how to want anything else.

Rodney wouldn't hold it against him. Rodney wasn't that kind of guy. Rodney was letting John pull his shirt off, and Rodney was pulling at John's and then they were shirtless, which was a good start on naked. "You got hotter. That's almost not fair."

"Yeah, well, I kind of think the same thing about you," John mumbled, but he was thinking a lot more on his chest and Rodney's chest and how good they felt together. "Oh, yeah."

The light in the middle of the room was on, and it was definitely a change of pace. Rodney slid a hand between them, and tweaked at John's nipple, like it was a casual gesture that he'd done a hundred times in the past few years, never mind that there hadn't been a past few years. "All over tan, very impressive. Fishing, huh?"

"Yeah, well. Until I finally found the natives, I was kind of fishing naked." With spears made of sharp bamboo-like bits, for that matter, but they could talk about that later. "They, uh. Only wore loincloths. To fish. Could you, maybe...?" Do that again, because wow. Seriously. Wow.

Rodney twisted his nipple again, just a little, and moved his fingers over to the other one, letting his hand stroke slowly down John's stomach. "Take my time and work out where some of these scars came from? I think I will."

That was different.

Everything was different, but that, Rodney's confidence, the way he was content to leave the lights on, that was different. When John raised his hand and pressed his palm to Rodney's chest, he didn't flinch now.

He'd always wandered to touch through more than clothes, to feel skin. The scars from what had to have been the surgery were hardly noticeable, little white lines against pale skin. "Mm."

John leaned forward, down a little, and kissed him. It was good, like he remembered, and he couldn't help groaning and pulling Rodney closer to himself. "Oh God, I want..."

"You can have. Whatever, whatever you want..." Rodney clutched tight to him, and started working John's pants off.

"To touch you." Because he hadn't done that, hadn't ever gotten to do that. He could remember clamping his hands on the edges of the Ancients' tiny mattresses, holding on desperately to keep from scaring Rodney off. It had been hell. "I want to touch you. I want to see...."

"Sure." Sure, and there was a little hint of nerves, but Rodney leaned back a little, and started to unbuckle and unzip his pants. Just like that. "It, uh, works, if that's what you're wondering."

John had definitely been wondering. "Well, yeah. I was wondering how it worked and whether it... you know..."

"Fill me in on what I 'know'?" It wasn't much of a stripshow, but it was Rodney, Rodney pulling his pants down, and his boxer briefs, and just letting them fall before he looked up to see John's reaction.

"Whether it worked or maybe it did... I have no idea, Rodney, it's not like I've had time to ask questions or do research." He was looking, though, and huh. It looked... right. Natural. Just like it ought to, and John didn't know why that surprised him.

He'd been expecting it not to look... right, but it did, it looked like a penis, and Rodney had normal looking pubic hair. There was a scar on the inside of his thigh, but that was it. Rodney reached down and gave it a few strokes. "It works. It's not ever going to be rock hard, but I had a good surgeon and a little, uh, help with some of the Asgard tissue reconstruction tech."

Yeah, that was good to know. Otherwise, John would be thinking about it way more than was healthy for sex-type activities. "It's pretty normal looking." On the small side, obviously happy to see him, and that was okay with John. Both of those.

He was probably already thinking about it way more than was healthy for sex type activities, because if Rodney still had the whole, all the girl parts down there, he didn't know what he'd have done. Love should really transcend gender, sure, but, but John wasn't sure if it did or it could, or what he'd have done if Rodney didn't have a happy-to-see him penis. He stepped out of his pants, and then was back to manhandling John, back to kissing him, and it left John wondering if he was just a little. Just a little shallow.

Or maybe a lot. He wasn't sure he could have faced Rodney with a vagina, and just thinking about it made him shake a little. Or maybe a lot.

"I missed you," he said instead of any of that, and kissed Rodney, settled against him, and yeah. Okay, yeah. This, he could work with.

Rodney pulling at his pants, feeling for his dick, close to him, touching and kissing him. Maybe they could just relax and fool around and just ease into it, because John wasn't sure he was in the right headplace for full on sex with a four year old in the bedroom across the hallway.

With Rodney. Who used to be Meredith. Yeah, he was shallow.

"Maybe..." John paused, pulling away just a little. "Maybe we can take this slow? It's been a while."

"Sure. Sure, we can, I just wanted to feel you again..." Take charge, and Rodney had always done that. He pulled his hand back, rested fingers on John's stomach, and seemed to wait for a cue.

"That's.. just that. That would be good." Rubbing off, maybe. Not... anything else, yet. They needed to talk about things, as much as John didn't want to do anything like that.

He needed time to think about what he wanted to talk about, in the first place, because it was and it wasn't like stepping back into his place in the world. But there was some foundation there, because kissing Rodney was like kissing Rodney had always been easy and familiar and it got him hard. Rodney shifted, stroked fingers over John's stomach, and declared, "You're freaking out, aren't you?"

"...yeah, a little." It was easier to admit it than he thought it would be. "We're gonna hafta actually sit down and talk sometime, McKay. I've got... there's... all this stuff, and I'm not good with it. With..." Talking about things or emotions. He was pretty good with Rodney, most of the time.

"Emotions," Rodney guessed, and he shifted to stretch out on the bed. He seemed comfortable in his own skin, and Rodney had never really seemed that comfortable with himself. "It's okay. Just tell me when you're freaking out. I'm not sure what I can do, but..."

"Okay. I'm kind of freaking out." He moved with Rodney, and it was nice, being in the bed together. It was big enough to hold them, for one thing, and the lights were on, for another. Just. It was good. "But I think I can be excused a little. It's been kind of a day full of revelations."

"That you're alive, for one," Rodney agreed quietly. His hands roamed a little, like he was soothing John down. "I'm not... expecting you to fall back into a relationship with me and help out with Zane, and stay here and... whatever. Go to soccer games. I've just missed you."

"Yeah." That was something to think about, too, the fact that Rodney wouldn't be going back to Atlantis. He had a four year old, for God's sake. "I've missed you, too. It was a pain in the ass, getting back to Atlantis." Getting back to Rodney, he'd thought. Hoped.

"I hate to ask this when you're half naked and I am naked, but do you want to talk about it?" He did, except there was one familiar, blunt fingered hand on his stomach.

"Not so you can tell it. It's kind of like going to the dentist, though. If you don't, it just gets worse, and that's pretty bad."

"Then tell me some of it." He shifted, just a little closer, until John could feel him pressed vaguely against his side from shoulder to calf. "Because from when Zane wakes up tomorrow until he goes to sleep? You won't be able to."

"Yeah, well. It was... it was pretty boring, actually. Lots of fishing. I was alone on an island for a while, and couldn't remember anything. By the time I did, some guys who fished there a couple times a year had showed up in their boat. The gate wasn't something they were real familiar with, and what I remembered was pretty... vague. Not connected." John shrugged. "It was a space gate."

"Mmm. And if they were in loin cloths and living off of fish, they weren't exactly space-going people. How did you eventually get off the planet?" Rodney was hitting the highlights, and later he'd probably pry stories out of John, bits and pieces.

"There was an outpost kind of like the one on Athos. About six months ago, Lorne and Zelenka came to check it out. I'd activated parts of it, so... they could see that something interesting was down there." John shrugged and rolled onto his side, facing Rodney and propping his head up on one hand.

Face to face, still close, and it was getting slowly, slowly, less weird to be that way. "And that was... what? They just finally showed up and picked you up?"

"Pretty much. Kind of anticlimactic for spending so many years apart, huh?"

Rodney shifted his shoulders, and petted at John's arm loosely, lazily. Maybe, maybe sleepily. "It is. It's sort of hysterically anticlimatic, but you're... here now, you're back."

"Yeah. And, uh. Things are... They're just different. There are things now that have kind of thrown me for a loop."

"Clearly. Zelenka..." Rodney cleared his throat slightly. "And Lorne. Have sort of taken our place there. Well, mine and in your absence yours. I miss the city a lot, but... Zane. Can't exactly relocate him to another Galaxy that doesn't have TV and soccer and cars. The city's more populated, I've been told..."

"But no kids yet. Maybe..." Maybe one day. Or maybe Zane would grow up to be a genius like his old man. Or his mom. Or... "I'm having trouble equating Rodney and Meredith," John confessed finally.

"You shouldn't. Meredith never... I'd say never existed, but she was a hallucination enforced on me by my parents. I changed my name after I went to college, and started to go by Rodney long before that." There was a pause, and Rodney shifted, just a tiny bit closer. "Well, I tried to go by 'Rod' but it never took. Bizarrely, that alternate universe me had actually been born, well. Male. So I'm guessing that I'm the anomaly in the timelines."

"You're a pretty great anomaly," John told him, and he meant it. He honestly meant it. Rodney was Rodney, and that was all good.

"And I've had a pretty good life. I was a mess for a while." He moved his fingers in a circular motion on John's shoulder. "But I have Zane, and I have some pretty good consulting work with the SGC. Not what they want, which is probably why they fully approved of dropping you here to convince me to come back to the city, but."

John curled into him, and it was good. Rodney was solid, and he was... well, he was part of what made up home and family and Atlantis to John. Even if he did protest about it. "You said they know about Zane."

"They know. They really hysterically know. Sam sent him a stuffed teddy bear for Christmas. Zane calls Radek 'Uncle'. They know, it's no secret." They could have told John. They could have given him a heads up, but then again he'd suggested it to them first. Maybe it was to knock that idea out of his head.

"So what makes them think you're gonna be willing to come back to Atlantis? Without him?" It might be a rhetorical question, but why else would they send John to him without any warning?

"I don't know. Maybe they want me to bring him. Or maybe they dropped you off here, like this, hoping you wouldn't go back. I don't know. I suggest calling them tomorrow morning. I have a secure line in my office." There was a shift again, Rodney nudging a knee up against his own. "Mmm. I should get up and turn off the light."

"That'd require movement." And seriously. The more John thought about it, the more he was pretty sure that movement wasn't on his List of Things to Do anytime soon. He might be willing to shift to get at the covers.

Nah. One of them would have to get up and turn on the lights, so... "We oughta put on pajamas and get in the other bed. In case Zane wakes up."

"Probably." Rodney started to sit up, slowly. "You didn't actually bring clothes with you, did you?"

John shrugged. "Didn't realize I'd need any."

"Did they give you any way to contact them? You said you'd be here for a few weeks, so..." Rodney had thought maybe he'd hidden clothes behind the bushes. "Okay, I'll grab two pair of mine and I'll be back in a couple of minutes."

"I'll be... here." Naked. Waiting. It wasn't like he had anywhere in particular to go, in any case. He had to get his pants off the rest of the way, but that was easy. Rodney was probably in the other room, pretending to be stealthy, because he was usually faster than that. Well, had been, once upon a time.

John stretched out on his back, and stared up at the unmoving ceiling fan. For a guest room, it was lined with books. Who even stayed there, other than his sister, maybe, or Radek apparently, if Zane was calling him Uncle?

"Hey." Rodney leaned into the room, holding out a t-shirt and a pair of plaid drawstrings.

"Hey." He sat up and took them, starting by pulling the t-shirt over his head and then pulling up the pants. He tugged the ties tightly, and really, it wasn't like Rodney'd ever been that much bigger than him. Rodney just... he had presence and he felt thicker than life, most days.

A little less well put together, a lot less caring about what people thought of how he looked. Rodney leaned in the doorway, vaguely watching him, and then gestured with his head towards the master bedroom. "C'mon. He's still out like a light."

"Yeah, well. It's been a pretty rough day for a four year old, you know?" It had been a pretty rough day for a forty-four year old, if John was honest about it. Still, he padded down the short hall with Rodney, and paused at the door behind him once all of the lights were off after him.

It felt... inclusive, John supposed. Rodney headed to the bed, twisting and waiting for John. "Be careful," he whispered, "The bedframe fights back."

He could only guess at what that was supposed to mean, right up until he stubbed a toe trying to get into the bed. It was all he could do to keep his verbal protest to a hiss of agony instead of the curses he wanted to give. "Jesus, Rodney!" he whispered. "Where'd you get this thing?"

"Yard sale. Just the frame, the mattress set was new." Yard sale from hell. But the bed barely squeaked when he laid down on the mattress, and Rodney was already settling in. "It's one less place Zane can hide under."

"He likes to play hide and seek, huh?" John's toe was throbbing, but what the hell. He'd get over it. The fact that McKay had bought a bed frame at a yard sale on the other hand... Maybe not so much.

"Yeah. Not often, but I've had him climb up inside the closet..." Rodney shifted, turned towards John a little. "Jeannie helped me put the place together, and given what Maddie got into, thought it was a good idea."

Huh. John didn't remember hiding from his parents much when he was a kid, but his dad had been a stickler about things like that. No hiding, nothing under the beds, nothing tossed willy nilly in the closet. It hadn't been a lot of fun, in retrospect. Maybe Zane would look back and think his life was pretty cool instead of thinking his dad wasn't any fun. "What did Maddie get into?"

"Everything she thought Jeannie would let her get into," Rodney whispered tiredly. "Electrical sockets, drain cleaner, paint... Zane's a little hissy fit throwing saint compared to her. Plus, he's still small enough to pick up and carry off when he gets like that."

"That's gotta be an advantage," John agreed, and when Rodney curled into him, head on his shoulder, he didn't argue. He just wrapped his arm around him slowly, and let him get comfortable.

"When he gets older I'll just get a taser. Or one of those bolos..." Rodney settled in, close and comfortable, and John started a count in his head. Before he reached ten, Rodney was out.

Well, John figured. At least he'd gone to sleep before he started babbling about putting the kid on a leash.

---

There was a knife poking into his kidneys.

He had no idea when Ronon had started crawling into bed with him, but he was damn sure that had to be the kind of knife only Ronon would own.

It was blunt, sure, but wide and frightening, like a machete. He went still, and only slowly started to crack his eyes open. He was pretty sure he was in a nice bed, because the sheets smelled familiar, warm and slept in, not dirty, but not sterilized by the city's cleaning system.

Rodney.

Yeah. He was at Rodney's and... John managed to crack his eyes open a little wider.

Zane apparently had knees like big knives, because there was one little arm flopped over him and a knee in his back, the four year old nestled between him and Rodney as if it was his place.

He didn't really have the energy to turn onto his back to get the knee out of it, because the bed was comfortable and the pillows welcoming, and after too many years of sleeping like he was on a black ops mission, he still hadn't gotten over how fantastic beds were. Zane had even crawled under the sheets.

Really, rolling onto his back would suck, except the longer he lay there, the more John felt watched. Another glance back revealed glittering hazel eyes, and John had never understood more than he did in that moment exactly how a rat felt underneath the gaze of a hawk.

"Morning." He croaked it, but then he cleared his throat and said it again, more quietly this time.

"Mmm, 's waking up time." The knee in his back shifted, but those eyes didn't blink or look away, and it was more than a little eerie.

Children of the Corn creepy. "Yep. Your dad seems to be snoring away over there." Away from John. Because there was a kid between them.

Nothing. No answer. He closed his eyes, and shifted, and seemed to cling to Rodney just that little bit harder. "You're not taking my daddy."

"Yeah, I really didn't figure you were inclined to let me," John told him. "And I don't think he's inclined to go, if it's all the same."

"Why did you leave?" Zane kept his eyes closed, or maybe not. Maybe he was peeking at him while he worked at worming under the sheets better.

That was a pretty tough question, and answering it on a kid's level was even harder. "Your dad and I were working together, and something happened. I got really sick, and I had to go away for a while. I didn't know about you when I left. Your dad found out about you after that, and then he came back to... home. Back to your Aunt Jeannie, because he didn't know I wasn't sick anymore, and I was ready to come back."

"Why didn't you come back sooner? Are you going away again?" Loaded questions, and he had a feeling that no matter what he said, Zane would hold him to it.

"I don't know." It wasn't a good answer, but it was what he had. "I couldn't come back any sooner. We were working really far away, and when I got sick, I had to go even further away. Getting back was pretty hard. And I still have the job we used to do, so.. I don't know."

"Daddy has a job. Daddy does science work for the..." There was a pause, and then Zane carefully pronounced what followed, "Gov-urn-ment. He goes on trips and then comes back, and he brings presents."

"Your daddy's a pretty smart guy." John smiled at him, and struggled onto his side facing Zane. That was easier than twisting his head around to watch him. "He's been really important to a whole lot of people. He's pretty important to me, too."

"Then don't go away again." Weaseling out of that was hard, but the talking seemed to have woken Rodney up, because he twisted around with a groan.

"Mnn, is there a little monster in my bed?"

Zane giggled, and he disappeared underneath the covers. "Nooooo."

"Oh no, it's a sheet monster!" Rodney pitched his voice to the same falsetto he used to use to mock women John hit on, and then twisted to grab at Zane under the sheets. "It must be stopped!"

There was an entirely appropriate amount of laughter, quite a lot of fumbling and rumpling of covers, and John was kneed at least twice more. He was pretty sure Zane must have spent time sharpening his knees in the dark. Still, he couldn't help laughing, especially when Rodney 'caught' Zane, who squealed and laughed and came out of the sheets with his hair on end, looking as if he'd stuck a finger in a light socket.

"I love you, Daddy!"

Rodney hummed against Zane's hair before he let him go. "I love my little monster. What do you want to eat for breakfast, huh?"

"Cereal."

"Not pancakes?"

Zane shook his head and crumpled on top of Rodney. "No. Pancakes is just for you an' me. He's not getting pancakes. They're all mines."

"Ooof." Rodney petted at Zane, and gave John a raised eyebrow look over top of Zane's head. "Okay. Cereal it is, then. You sure you don't want John having pancakes?"

"Miiiiiines," Zane told him firmly, and then laughed when Rodney squirmed around and blew a raspberry on his neck. "Mine mine mine!"

"Well, if you feel that way about it, I guess I'll just eat your cereal, then," John teased, and wasn't surprised by the full-out bellow that followed.

"Noooo!"

"John has to eat something, or else he'll starve," Rodney pointed out. "He could probably do with eating more."

Zane considered it and then protested. "Nuh-uh. He's not got any sharper bony bits than I've got."

"That's just because I haven't shown you them. I'll bet I do. I'll bet my kneeees are sharper than yours," John teased.

Rodney started to sit up again, prodding Zane to move. "You two can try to outskinny each other later. C'mon, up and at 'em. Let's get you some food." Preferably before either of them got grumpy from not eating. While John had certainly doubted Rodney's claims of hypoglycemia and figured he was mostly eating because he was unhappy, he couldn't deny that grumpy came along right before it was time to eat.

That was probably inherited, too.

"Yay! Cereals! And nenas. I want nenas in mine!"

What the hell was a nena?

"I'll give you a whole one if you go to the bathroom and then wash your hands." He nudged Zane, carefully maneuvering him out of the bed.

"Going!" Zane yelled, and he scrambled off the bed in the opposite direction of Rodney's careful manipulations. He crawled right across John, making him give an exaggerated oof in response, and ran for the nearby bathroom.

"Ow. What the... What's a nena, Rodney?"

"Banana. He likes fruit." Rodney shrugged his shoulders, and laid back for a moment. "Mmm, I should get up because he really needs to eat like clockwork. And you should get in there before he tries hiding all the bowls from you."

"....Well, I can tell you're related."

"Oh, ha, ha, very funny, Colonel."

Yeah. He'd expected that answer, and it made him grin from ear to ear. "I try my best."

His best seemed to be fantastic for Rodney, because Rodney's expression softened, went a little mushy, before he finally levered himself out of bed. "Hopefully your best will keep Zane from trying to starve you in some strange form of revenge."

"Yeah, well, that'd be nice. At least I know you'll let me have some coffee." Even if Rodney might hoard most of the pot for himself. Getting coffee from Rodney was kind of a long shot, most days. Then again, they were on Earth, and there were readily available supplies of the stuff. There was no sense of rationing to fight with.

"And the pot is automatic. Which probably means that it's lukewarm by now, but hey. Coffee." Rodney wandered towards the bathroom. "Zane. It's not going anywhere."

John was afraid to ask, so he didn't. It was better that way. Besides, they'd probably discussed it sometime during yesterday's trauma, and Rodney would roll his eyes at him for forgetting.

"But your bananas might," he called, and was gratified to hear a gasp and the patter of little feet.

That worked, because there was a burst of Zane heading past him, towards the kitchen, intent on getting the bananas first. He was probably used to having them sliced, but he might just stand in front of them and growl.

He was really enjoying this way too much, but John just grinned when Rodney told him as much from the bathroom door. "He's worried that his penis will fall off and he didn't even wash his hands!"

"Something about those two things aren't alike...."

"It was part of the whole 'why he doesn't have a mommy' explanation." Rodney waved his hand a little, and then ran it back through his hair. "I have cornflakes to share. Come. There might be bananas left if we're lucky. Sometimes I think he just peels them for the fun of it."

"Yeah, well, they're bananas. If there's ever been a fun fruit..." His mom had done this thing with pretzel sticks, pushing them gently into banana slices, and sometimes she had coated them in chocolate or caramel. That was usually when his dad was away for a long time, and she needed the extra lift it gave her, John thought. "We should get some pretzel sticks. I've got an idea."

"I'm always open for ideas that don't involve the soccer mom's bizarre obsession with celery and peanut butter. Because that? That is a fantastic way to ruin two foods that are perfectly good on their own." They meandered to the kitchen together, to find Zane perched on a stool at the bar, peeling his second banana.

"You put the bowl too high."

"Well, it was in the way yesterday," Rodney told him, and dug out a bowl with a scary looking red muppet on the side.

Scary if anybody asked John. "Elmo!" Apparently not so scary to Zane.

"So, we've got a bowl, bananas on the countertop... Let's see, milk, corn flakes, and granola." Rodney moved quick, now that he was in the element of his own kitchen, and he grabbed a bowl for John along the way. "So, what do you want to do today, Zane?"

"MUSEUM!" Zane yelled, nearly turning his bowl over. Thank God there wasn't anything in it yet. "Let's go see the place with the red choo choo!"

Rodney straightened the bowl for Zane, and poured in a healthy wad of cornflakes before he added granola over top of it. "Oh, so you don't want to go to the park?"

John could practically see the struggle to make a decision one way or the other marked on Zane's face. "...both?"

"We'll run out of time and energy," Rodney pointed out. "And you have school tomorrow. Can't have you scraped off the floor tired for school, can I?"

John could see the worry on Zane's face. "I don't wanna go to school!"

"You love school," Rodney told him. "It's your favorite place."

"But... if I go to school then he'll be here with you and I'll be there and..."

"I'm not running away with your daddy, Zane. It's okay. I promise," John told him.

"Really," Rodney reiterated, looking for a knife to slice the bananas. John figured he might eventually get over the urge to gawk at the fact that Rodney was so very patiently doing things like that. "Plus, I have work to do and phone calls to make to the people who pay John and me."

"So whycome if you works here, my John can't work here, too?"

Well, it was good to be My John again instead of Daddy-thieving asshole. John could kind of live with that, all things considered. "We worked in the same place, buddy, but my job's kind of hands-on." Except for the fact that Lorne had been doing it for years, so it wasn't like they really needed John.

Huh.

He hadn't actually thought that one, but. Lorne had been the acting military commander for a few months and then they'd declared him MIA, which was As Good As Dead, and he'd been given the raise to Lieutenant Colonel, and Lorne had been and still was the military commander which left John... what, exactly?

"John's a soldier," Rodney supplied. "You know, one of those people Uncle Radek complains about?"

"'cause they're all m.. m.. the m word?" Zane looked wide-eyed and innocent staring at John, but something told him that wasn't quite the case.

Rodney snorted as he sat down beside Zane at the kitchen bar-cum-table, and grinned at John. "Yeah. But only most of them are that word. Some of them are pretty smart most of the time."

The kid was looking at him, an expression of suspicion that would have done Rodney proud. As it was, it did Zane proud instead. "Which one is he?"

"And what's the m word?" John drawled.

"He's smart." Rodney said it firmly as he ate a few bites of his cereal. "The M word is a swear. We're not allowed to say it."

"Yeah, so I'm betting most of the swear words I know are out of the question, too, huh?

"'s not nice to talk dirty. If you do, you owe money to the swears jar, but we haven't made one yet. But you still owe," Zane informed him firmly.

"I'll make one today. Tonight." Rodney amended that. "Which reminds me. Park or museum?"

"I want both!" Yeah, that was a full-fledged whine. John was pretty sure he'd given that much of a hard time to his folks when he was a kid.

Rodney seemed to have a handle on it, though. "One or the other. We don't have time for both, especially not if your John has to go back to work soon."

"He has to goes?"

"He might. How about the museum? It takes longer," Rodney offered, glancing at John to check.

"That'd be cool." Why not? It wasn't like he'd been to a museum any time in the last few years. The last one he'd actually been to had been the one in Warner Robbins, Georgia, with all of the old planes. It had been kind of cool, all things considered.

Maybe Zane would like something like that. "Okay, then it's a deal. Museum is the plan for the day. John, do you need to borrow clothes?"

Yeah, well, it was that or go naked. "I guess. I wasn't exactly planning on staying for long, so I'll have to go pick up some stuff to wear..."

"Or you can keep wearing the same outfit for weeks on end," Rodney offered casually. His spoon clicked on his bowl as he finished the cereal off. "Or for however long you stay."

John was still dawdling with his cereal, and he was surprised to watch Zane do the same, his spoon trailing through his bowl in little circles. It was cute, a baby spoon of some sort. Toddler spoon or something. He was maybe only barely four, John figured, and going to school already, which meant that he definitely had the McKay genius streak in him. "Yeah," he said finally. "I'll need some stuff."

"Any idea where you want to get said stuff?" Rodney at least wasn't prodding Zane to finish it off, and his eyes seemed drawn to John's bowl, slowly but surely.

"Yeah, one or two," he said, nudging his cereal bowl towards Rodney. Sometimes he wondered about McKay. Of course he knew where he wanted to shop. "Seriously, Rodney. Did you think I wouldn't?"

"Hey, it's been five years. Are you even sure those stores still exist? Do you know if they're open in Canada? If I have to drive you to a mall, Zane and I are going to require some serious bribing, right Zane?"

"Bribe me! Bribe me!" Zane yelped, and reached for the last banana. Even if he wasn't going to eat his cereal, obviously the bananas were to be kept out of John's reach at all cost. "Malls is boooring."

"Maybe... the park that's in the mall?" Rodney offered. He didn't stop Zane from taking the banana, just watched little fingers pop it open messily along the side. Rodney was a good father. It was really obvious that he loved the kid a lot, and that alone was enough to make John feel kind of... Yeah, that was uncomfortably gooshy.

"With the treee!" Zane crowed and bit into the banana to chew it loudly.

"Tada, compromise that gets John shirts to wear and pants that aren't mine." Rodney stood up, and ruffled Zane's hair. "I'm going to be in the shower. Be good."

Rodney was a good father, John thought, watching him head for the bathroom, and also? A complete schmuck for leaving him alone with the kid.

"So," John said finally as the pressure got to be too much for him. "You're feeling better this morning."

"I thought you were going to be not my Johns and take my daddy." Zane squirmed, eating a little more banana. It was really a massacre, but the kid looked like he could eat more, so it was probably a welcome massacre. John remembered being like that.

That seemed reasonable, he figured, at least to a four year old. "Well, I'm not taking your daddy away. He's got you, buckeroo. A guy's pretty lucky to have a kid like you, and your daddy's smart enough to know it."

"My daddy's smart," Zane agreed happily, mushing up a little more banana and eating maybe half of what he mushed. "Daddy says you have to go and then says you might not. Why would you?"

"Well." John paused. "I work for people who tell me where to go and what to do. I protect guys like your dad. That's my job. And when they tell me to do it, I have to go."

"So... you don't like daddy that much, then," Zane guessed, peering at him intently.

Wait, no. That wasn't quite right. "Where'd you get that from?" John asked him, frowning.

"Because you went away and you didn't come back and you might go again. It's going to make Daddy sad." It would have been a little scarier if Zane hadn't been gesturing at him with a banana peel. "Don't move. I'm gonna get dressed."

Great. He was just as damn bossy as McKay, too, John noticed. He couldn't help smiling about it, though. "I'll be waiting right here. Pajamas and all." He got one last good, long suspicious looking-at, and then Zane disappeared into the hallway. It was kind of a relief, and John let his breath out in a slow, steady sigh. Thank God. A minute alone. Even if Rodney had munched on John's cereal without either of them paying attention to what he was doing, John figured he could check out the fridge and grab some kind of fruit to take with him.

The fridge was clean, packed tightly with juices and fruits and vegetables, yogurt, cheese, margarine, eggs. The only oddity was the bottom shelf, with a tidy row of plastic cups at the front. What the hell?

John decided those didn't look edible, just weird, and went for a slice of cheddar and some of the yogurt before settling back down on the bar stool and waiting for Rodney to come back.

Rodney didn't take too long, and he'd probably been distracted by Zane on the way. John heard him coming up the hallway before he saw him. "Okay, pants and a shirt and a belt, you're going to have to wear your own shoes." And, okay, Rodney cleaned up real well. Nice clean shirt, slacks, and John couldn't remember the last time -- no, dinner that night, when they'd gotten the call from Landry. He'd moaned about kissing Carson when he'd been Cadman, and the whole thing had made John smirky because he knew how much Rodney liked kissing him.

"Yeah, I'll manage to make do until I get some pants of my own." Rodney had a fantastic ass, and John's just... it was there, but it couldn't hold a candle to the wonder of Rodney's. Pants were necessity number one.

Otherwise he was going to look like he had a hugely saggy ass. "Which will be today. After the museum, which is actually pretty interesting, so I promise you won't be suffering through it."

"Yeah, I figured if it could keep Zane's attention, I'd probably be interested. By the way... what's in the cups in the fridge? It didn't look edible."

"Juice. Zane's a little... Well, he's not graceful like you, so I pre-pour him cups of juice, and he drinks what he wants. That's from yesterday, and I should probably see what he drank. If he finishes all of the milk or the juice, that's it for the day, but he gets as much water as he wants."

Okay, that made sense. John hadn't figured on there being anything underneath those lids. They were brightly colored, and he just hadn't been so sure about looking into the cups. Hello -- home of a scientist. He probably should have figured Rodney wouldn't put anything in his kid's reach.

"So, you should probably get dressed before he comes running full tilt out of the bathroom," Rodney prompted lightly.

"Oh, hey, yeah. He told me to stay right here. I figured he was worried I'd kidnap you or something." John was pretty sure that was the reason, anyway.

"I don't think he knows what to do with you." Rodney perched on one of the stools. "If you stay, it's probably going to take a while for him to really warm up to you as more than just, uh, that cool guy. If you go back to Pegasus, I can send photos and keep you updated, but. He'll hold a grudge."

John had gotten that feeling. "I wonder where he got that from," he said finally, and he knew it wasn't something the kid got from just one parent.

Christ. Rodney had been Meredith, and it still kind of freaked him out. Then again, he could have touched the wrong Ancient device and gotten knocked up, so at least John had a pretty good explanation instead of 'Stupid Ancients, again'.

"Yeah, I wonder." Rodney cocked eyebrows at him, and prodded him in the side with a belt buckle. "Go, clothes. It's not like he can taser you for having left the chair."

"Yeah, well, I wouldn't put it past him," John replied, finding a corner and shimmying out of the pajama bottoms and into the pants quickly once he had the clothes in his hands. He was most of the way through putting on the shirt when Zane came in, eyeballing him in a way that said strange, strange things.

"You're furry," he said, and wrinkled his nose. Then he kept walking. John kind of wanted to give him the bad news that he'd probably grow up to be a big huge hairball one day, too, and that any attempts to shave his chest would only result in clogged drains and dulled razors after judicious use of scissors beforehand.

"Daddy, my John's all hairy!"

"Yes, I had noticed that. Do you suppose it might be catching?" The innocence of that question was so fake it practically dripped with it.

"I think Zane's lucky he doesn't look like a baby monkey," John growled teasingly. "Rawr!"

The kid squealed and grabbed Rodney's legs, but his eyes were lit up with glee. "Noooo!"

"I promise to love you when you turn into a baby monkey," Rodney consoled, petting through Zan'es wild hair for a moment. "You're supposed to growl back."

"I don't wanna turn into a baby monkey!" Zane yelled, but then he seemed to think about it. "Unless I have a red butt and I can touch..."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" John yelped.

"...the people who poke their fingers inna... Whoa?"

"Cage," Rodney finished for Zane. "John thought you were going to say a swears." And he shot John a look that said that had better have been what he'd been about to say. "Museum. I'm ready, you're ready, race you to the car."

"LAST ONE IN'S A ROTTEN LEMON!" Zane yelped, and took off.

"Sorry," John apologized. "I don't know a lot about dealing with kids."

"You're doing good." Rodney swiped his car keys out of a fruit bowl, and started towards the front door. "I just usually let him say whatever horrifying thing he might say and then talk to him about it. Did saying 'whoa' ever stop me? Or you?"

Not exactly. John remembered scrawling some of those words he'd been told whoa about on his box spring.

He also remembered how pissed his mom had been when she found it, and exactly what his dad had to say about it, too. Just thinking about it made him wince.

"No."

"Right. It definitely didn't work for me. It always made me curious. Zane's only been to a zoo once, but he was pretty happy about it and for his fifth birthday I'll probably take him and an untold, ungodly number of little soccer playing children with him, and they'll all want to watch the monkies with the red asses."

"What is it about those things, anyway? And they're actually baboons," John said as they stepped out the door and Rodney went through a complicated locking procedure. There were two deadbolts, a normal lock, and then a screened glass door that had another two locks.

Yeah, that was McKay. "Biology. Pffft."

"Baboooons. He'll like the word, Rodney. C'mon."

"He'll want someone to make him a balloon baboon. He has a stuffed porcupine for just that reason. Cool animal names are a danger for kids. Well, parents trying to put the toys in the crib." Rodney clicked the car open, and waved at Zane. "You beat me here!"

"Yeah!" Zane cheered, already in his seat. He wasn't buckled in, but he probably couldn't make his hands cooperate. He was just a kid, after all. "Yous a rotten lemon!"

"Best kind. Rotten and in a trash can," Rodney agreed, leaning into the back seat to adjust and belt Zane in for the trip. "What's your favorite part of the museum, huh? You can tell John all about it."

It was neat to slide into the front seat, already watching the kid's eyes get wide and glowy in that way Rodney had when he saw a ZPM. "The planetarium!" he squeaked, and immediately started gushing about dark matter and its effects on gravitation while Rodney climbed in and started the car. He was probably repeating something he'd heard at the musem, John figured.. He paused at the end, though, and said, "But they think that 'cause they're m words," and then spilled into something that sounded like it had come out of Rodney's mouth instead.

John couldn't help grinning. "Which reminds me that you should at least let the staff finish saying what they have on their pre-typed cards before you correct them," Rodney broke in, nodding at John as they pulled out of the driveway.

Death. Taxes. Rodney. Apparently Zane, too, because he was already going on and on and on about the stars, working his way into the big bang with a glee that was weirdly out of place in a four year old. Well, at least until John considered that he'd often thought Rodney and Radek were about that age when they got gleeful like that. It wasn't anywhere near as creepy as it was when the topic was nuclear weaponry in the context of any mission setting. "Any other parts of the museum that you like?"

For a second, John was pretty sure he'd committed some kind of sacrilege, but then Zane beamed at him and started telling him about some kind of mini-zoo they seemed to have. "With turtles!" Zane crowed.

"And porcupines," Rodney said in a vaguely tense voice that made John wonder just how bad that hissy fit had been. Considering the one last night, he didn't want to think about it much.

"And pork-you-pines," Zane enunciated. "But no touching 'cause they've got pricklies and they don't like kids. Because Daddy says so."

"You could really hurt your hand, and then you wouldn't be able to play any of your games because your hands would hurt so much."

"But it looks softy." Like a little pokey nosed kitten, and just as dangerous. John had learned that the hard way. For some reason, kittens really seemed to love his leg hair.

He cleared his throat and half-turned to look at his kid. Their kid, and in that moment, it kind of hit him like a brick through a plate glass window. Jesus. They had a child. "Uh."

He had a son, a son who was almost a clone of him, a son who kicked his feet a little and fidgeted and talked more intelligently than John might've at that age, and threw haircurling hissy fits, and he was their son. His, his and Rodney's.

"Hey, if someone t-bones the car right now, Sheppard, the airbag is going to snap your neck if you don't turn around."

John was never sure how he was going to manage that. Somehow, not looking at Zane had gotten pretty damn difficult, and John couldn't help it. He managed to turn around finally, and the stunned expression on his face probably told Rodney everything he needed to know.

It had finally clicked. He... had a son. A little him, half of his DNA and all of his quirks mashed together with Rodney's, and he was going to grow up one day and be a person of his own, but for the moment he was strapped tightly into his safety seat and staring back intently at John.

"Can I pet the pork-you-pine this time?"

"No, Zane. You got a John yesterday. Now is not the time to ask for new pets, especially not dangerous ones. Your John's having a hard enough time as it is," Rodney answered dryly.

Besides. Zane had dangerous enough parents. New parents, just one, but it was enough. "I dun want to take it home. I want to pet it at the museum." Through glass, probably, but reality and the limitations of it never seemed to sink into kids' minds.

"We'll see when we get there," Rodney finally acquiesced. He'd probably been planning to say that all along, but maybe making Zane think he'd won something helped.

God. He was thinking like Rodney did. That freaked him out even worse. "So. Um. Yeah. When we get there," John said, and he probably sounded just as dazed as he thought he did.

"Seriously, John, the airbags in this thing are impressive. Don't do that if it's moving." Rodney shot him a quick sideways dirty look.

"Well, excuse me, Rodney. I just looked back and realized..." That he was somebody's father. There was no way he wasn't going to need a therapist. It felt a lot like whiplash.

"Yeah." Rodney smiled. "It took me... two weeks, I think." Two weeks of diaper changes and everything else that went with babies might've made it seem real sooner, John figured. Stuff he had missed. Stuff he'd never get to see, even if he stayed.

Oh, God.

He was thinking about staying.

If he stayed, he'd miss everything in Pegasus. Pegasus was beautiful and amazing and vicious, prone to trying to kill him but that wasn't a reason to walk away. He hadn't even wanted to go, but he'd flipped a coin and he had and it had been amazing, and he'd be stupid to give that up. He'd be insane, and yet...

"Hey, Daddy, can I show my John the plate-pusses?"

"Yes. In fact, we can spend lots of time there." Rodney nodded while he said that, and John was going to have to ask him what his fear was about Zane and the porcupines if he was so willing to do anything but that. Maybe Rodney was afraid of them. "We'll be there soonish."

They couldn't be there any faster than John had fallen into fatherhood.

Maybe Pegasus wasn't the only adventure out there. "Plate-pusses and pork-you-pines!" Zane crowed happily, and yeah.

John was pretty sure that was true.

---

John had stayed.

Rodney had stopped asking what John was going to do, and John had just... not left. It was a whole lot of avoiding and making do. John was adjusting to being planetside, to dealing with Zane's schedule and Rodney's schedule, which was completely and shamelessly built entirely around Zane's schedule. It was just something that was fitting together. He'd managed to convince Zane that it was time to sleep in a real bed in his own room, but the plan had suffered from mixed success, as Jeannie had predicted.

Most mornings, he still woke up with Zane clinging determinedly to him, his knees somewhere right around John's kidneys. John always complained, but he'd started making puddlejumper shaped pancakes and teaching Zane to fold paper airplanes.

It was obviously love, even if John didn't want to say anything.

It was there in the little things and that was what Rodney noticed. John was starting to look after him, and Zane was sort of starting to listen, getting comfortable with John. Zane had a daddy and a 'my John', and he seemed happy about it.

Rodney just wished that he had some idea of what the hell John was actually planning on doing.

That and he wished people from the SGC would stop 'just dropping by' to check on them. Southern Ontario was not that close to Cheyenne Mountain.

"So. McKay." Daniel Jackson was sitting in his living room, beer in hand, peering at him in that disturbing way that made Rodney feel like a science experiment. Brains had always turned Rodney on, but for some reason, Daniel had never caught his eye. Probably because he didn't like being studied, Rodney figured. "Sheppard's been here a while."

"He has." And Daniel Jackson was always studying, watching, probably trying to attribute his actions to a hundred crazy things that were all archeological or anthropological. "I suppose all of you finally noticed that. Took long enough."

They might be psychological even, though Rodney wasn't planning on thinking about that one much. John already had them in counseling, individually and as a family. For the cost, they could have remodeled the kitchen into something bigger and more kid-friendly. John was worse than Zane some days.

Jackson took a pull off of his beer and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "Yeah, well. Jack seems to think you guys are secretly plotting to take over the world. Of course, he also thinks you'll fail, because Jack's pretty bright but he still kind of associates the two of you with complete and utter disaster."

Rodney crossed his arms over his chest. "If you want to compare failure for failure on a list, the general completely outclasses me in my ability to fuck up a simple mission. If we wanted to take over the world, I think we could manage it. But we're a little busy."

"Yeah, well. What Jack doesn't know... okay, it probably would hurt him," Daniel decided, and took another swig. "So how long is he staying, you know?"

"I don't know. How much leave was he given? We haven't really talked about it." John changed the subject every chance he was given, and Rodney was liking the company.

There was something about that expression that really made Rodney want to hit things. Probably Daniel, if he did that kind of thing. "You mean he didn't tell you?"

"If I just said 'I don't know', Doctor Jackson, how do you manage to interpret it as 'I know, I just don't want to tell you. I enjoy playing extended verbal cat and mouse games with you while you pretend that you have a tolerance for beer.' "

Yeah. That expression didn't help either, mostly because it was so obvious the man was laughing at him. "His leave, it's pretty much open-ended. You've both got tickets back if you want, but there's not... which, considering the Air Force...." Jackson shook his head. "They're kind of letting him get himself together for now."

He cocked his eyebrows at Jackson. "That might take a while."

"Especially if he keeps enjoying himself around here. Just. Try not to go Pinky and the Brain, McKay. I think Jack'd probably be way too smug about it."

"Is there any timeline on this open-ended leave he has? Anything else I should know?" He didn't bother with the Pinky and the Brain remark. After all, Jackson might start talking about rubber pants, and Rodney just wasn't up for that.

Jackson shrugged. "Nothing I can think of."

"I'd go back, but there's a problem. His name is Zane." And he needed someone to make food for him, never mind weather his tantrums and get him to soccer and everything else that kids needed.

"So what makes you think Sheppard's going back to Atlantis without either of you?"

"Nothing much in particular. Like I said, we haven't talked about it." He was going to have to, though. They couldn't just keep stalling, and Rodney knew that no such thing as 'indefinite' existed. "How badly is he needed back?"

"Honestly?" Daniel took a deep breath and let it out in a quick sigh. "Lieutenant Colonel Lorne's been holding down his job for a while, and Zelenka's only gotten better since you left. I'd hate to make you think you guys were replaceable, except... yeah."

"I figured. I like consulting for the SGC, because I have to worry about the chain of custody for Zane a lot less. I'll see if John can get some kind of answer one way or another in a couple of weeks."

Jackson emptied his bottle, tilting it up to get the last swallow. "Yeah, well. Honestly? I figure he'll stick around if you want me to tell the truth. If not for you, then for you and Zane."

"He'll want to work, eventually," Rodney pointed out drolly. "We might end up relocating. Also, did you bother to get him through customs before you dropped him in Canada, or will this become an international incident when we try to cross the border?"

"No, no. Nothing to worry about. We got all of the proper paperwork done, just..." Daniel cleared his throat. "It took a bit of effort to make the right calls and get all of the documentation done. Especially since he was already here."

Rodney was sure they were delighted with that. He'd assumed that they would do it, and perhaps he shouldn't have. "Good. Was there anything else you needed to say before I hand over a couple of hard drives to you for transport?"

"Mmm, I think that about sums it up. Good luck with everything."

"Thanks." Rodney stood up, moved to the safe where he kept the data. One was compressed raw, the other was simulators, theories, proofs, the real work. It was a nice, easy way to move his work around, and cheaper than DVDs in the long run. On the weekend, he'd go buy another two or three and start over the process.

"Well. You're welcome." Daniel watched as he pulled the hard drives out of the safe, stacking them in the carrying case that always came in with whatever courier the SGC sent his way. "So. I'll, ah, tell them it'll be a while longer then."

"Couple of weeks." He'd have to make John talk about it, and it was in the not-talking that they'd started to settle into something like a comfortable existence. Going from not-talking to talking would have to be painful. Rodney wasn't ready to think about that yet.

"Right." Daniel cleared his throat and reached for the case once Rodney had it closed. "So. I'll, ah, talk to you next time, then."

Rodney nodded, and then looked up to the ceiling. "Are you going the same way you came in?"

Jackson waved his hand and promptly disappeared in a shiny Asgard beam. It was a bit of a relief for him to be gone, actually, because that left them safely back in the land of Not Talking.

Thank God.

He had no idea how to mention it to John. It wasn't something to bring up in one of John's 'therapy' sessions, and it wasn't something he wanted to bring up when they had quiet time at night. Because that was... that was fantastic. That was sex, and John's hands. Not full on sex, no, but comfort and John getting comfortable. It wasn't something Rodney wanted to mess with. He was too glad to have just that small amount of contact. Finally. Finally, because if Rodney was honest about it, he hadn't wanted anyone since John. He didn't want anyone but John even now.

Because it was... John. John was John, John was his best relationship, pitfalls and assumed deaths and everything else, and John probably didn't understand that his level of freaking out and trying to handle it was more of a comfort than if he'd pretended that everything was smooth and fine and just ran for it.

He was still there.

He was there, and Rodney hoped he'd stay, thought he would despite... everything. All of it, the whole messed up crazy wrong of things that had gone on. Rodney had never meant to hurt John, even if he was lying to him. That wasn't because he wanted to, anyway. That was necessity, because Rodney didn't want John to have a kink about him or, or to leave him because he had been born wrong.

The time it was taking was worth it.

That reminded Rodney that John would be 'back' from picking Zane up from school soon, which meant that Rodney could do the oddly worrisome domestic thing and make dinner for them, or he could order in.

Ordering in definitely seemed like the way to go. He'd done it a little more often than usual lately, but having John around had unsettled their routines, and it wasn't like they were having pizza every night. There was a place down the road a little distance that made casseroles and meatloaf, and they delivered. All Rodney would have to make would be a few vegetables.

He had to get used to the routine, and he also had to talk to John, so it seemed best. Chicken wings and mashed potatoes and biscuits, and Rodney could put together broccoli. It was a usual routine to fall into, keeping an ear half open for John and Zane. His son, their son, was loud enough that it was unlikely Rodney would miss him.

The broccoli was frozen, but he had it on to steam by the time he'd finished talking to the casserole place, and he heard the door to his car shut by the time it was ready.

Right on time, and the thumping footsteps were no surprise. Zane was always in a hurry whenever he came back with John for some reason.

"Daddy Daddy Daddy! My John said we were gonna go see a wherrisfeel!"

"Ferris wheel," John corrected, coming into the kitchen right behind him.

"Yeah? Where'd he hide it, huh?" Rodney twisted around, and caught himself an armful of Zane going full tilt, and hefted him up. "Ooof, how was school today?"

"Goooood!" Zane was full of squirming, but his arms wrapped tightly around Rodney's neck in a hug that made his heart melt. "Miss Dot says I'm the smartest one ever!" And well he should be, all things considered.

"Tell her what else she said," John prompted, and Zane got that look, the one that said he was up to no good.

Half of Rodney didn't want to know. "Go on," Rodney coaxed, and from that look, he didn't actually have to coax anything. Zane was going to tell him whether he wanted to hear or not.

Their son squirmed a little, not looking directly at Rodney for a moment. "She says I'm a smarty-pants, too," he confesed in a quick blurt of breath. "'cause I was working with Dylan, and I told him he was..."

"Go on," John said, tossing Rodney a grin since Zane couldn't see it.

"...the 'm' word. But it's true! He is!"

Rodney groaned, and pressed his face against Zane's hair for a moment. "No, no, no, that's a swear word, Zane. Now where are you going to get a dollar for the jar, huh?"

"My John gave it to me!" Zane patted the back of Rodney's head gently. "My John says you said it all the time used to, and I got one freebie."

He was going to beat John up in lieu of talking to him later. Rodney hugged Zane for a moment more, then headed for the nearest chair at the bar. "Fine, fine. But just the once!"

"Yay!" That yell of glee made his eardrums ring, but he plopped Zane down on the stool and let him squirm himself into a comfortable position. "Can I color until dinner?"

John cleared his throat. "I'll, uh, go get his stuff out of the car."

"Yes. I made you broccoli to go with dinner. Do you want to sit here and I'll help John get the stuff out of the car?" Rodney moved to follow after John. Just for a second.

"Okay," Zane agreed. "If I can color. I gotta have my crayons, Daddy! And the book with the numbers."

He snorted slightly, and went about fetching Zane's preferred tools of 'art'. He had numbers with feet and eyeballs and Mickey Mouse hands, and all sorts of things in that book, and crayons that ran between normal recognizable colors and weird twisted up swirls and neons and semi-transparents that any kid would like. "Right, right. Here we are. Crayons, sharpener at the back, and numbers on parade."

"Yay!" Right. New favorite word, then, and obviously he'd have to take that one up with My John, who was slinking off because he already knew he was in trouble.

Zane got one last backwards look, and Rodney caught up with John on the front step. "So, we're encouraging bad behavior now, huh?"

"Yeah, well, it just... he was cute, McKay." Ha. That was... Okay, that was at least an excuse that Rodney could understand. "And you can't have the kid in negative numbers already. What incentive's he gonna have not to call people morons then?"

"His daddy not being happy with him," Rodney sighed, rubbing at his face for a moment as he shadowed John to the car door. "We had a visitor this afternoon, and I think we need to talk about that tonight."

John's expression shifted, turned deeply worried. "What kind of visitor?"

"The kind that shows up, drinks my beer, and acts generally superior to most of the human race." A Daniel Jackson sort of visitor, the kind of man who Rodney was glad hadn't been allowed on the Atlantis mission with them. He'd have kept insisting that Anthropology (or whatever it was that he did) was a real science and Rodney might have had to hide the body.

"Huh. So, Carter was here again?" And yeah, John was making the I-really-don't-like-her face. Well. It was good to know that he didn't, really.

"Jackson, actually, but now that you mention it that could apply to either of them." Rodney crossed his arms over his chest, looking grimly at John. "So."

"So?" The fact that Jackson got the same face as Carter kind of said a lot. All good, if Rodney thought about it. "What do we need to talk about?"

"We need to talk about your uh. Posting here. Your leave until you decide something status." John looked like he was going stiff backed. "Apparently it's the talk of the SGC."

"Ohhh. That." John stuffed his hands into his pockets, paused halfway into the yard. "So. Uh. Are you kicking me out?"

Sometimes Rodney wondered if John just had air in his head. "What? No. Why would I do that?"

The shrug said nothing and everything and made Rodney want to whack him about the head and shoulders. He might have, five years ago. "Well, I just showed up. It's not like you were expecting to add me to your life or anything at this stage, McKay. I just. I'm not... I don't know."

"Yeah, well. It's an open offer. You, me, Zane. Here. I'm not going to pull the rug out just because, well, you were gone, because I thought you were dead and... And you still need to work out what you want to do."

He'd seen that look on John's face before. It was the suicide run face that made Rodney puke, every time. "So if I said... I wanna stay here, I don't want to go back to Atlantis...."

"I'd have to ask you if you're just saying that because you think it's what I want to hear, because that's a weird face you're pulling at me." The thought of dealing with Zane every day wasn't exactly on par with genocidal insectoid space-vampires.

"I just don't want you saying it's okay when you really don't want me sticking around. Zane's a great kid, and... I don't wanna mess things up here, Rodney."

"You won't..." Rodney gestured a little vaguely. "You won't mess things up, there's -- John, it." He swallowed, and he looked at the front door. "I'm not just saying it. I want you back. Really back. I want to keep you." Not in the creepy tie him up and keep him under the bed sense, but John knew Rodney well enough not to take things that wrongly.

Yeah. Rodney had seen that sheepish little head duck dozens of times in his life, a little motion Zane had inherited. "Huh." John peeked up at him, and Rodney had seen that, too. "Then I guess I'd better call General O'Neill and let him know I'm not going back."

Just like that. "You're kidding. You really thought I wouldn't want...?" Jesus. It was easy for Rodney to close the space between them, catching John's arms. "Sometimes you're so intelligent and sometimes you're bafflingly stupid."

"Yeah, well. At least we've got a genius kid," John said, and he was closer and kissing Rodney, and thank God. Thank God, he was going to stay and be My John instead of Colonel Sheppard. Everything else, they could work out in pieces, later. Rodney liked the closeness, pressed closer to John, let the feeling of John's mouth against his just seep in. They kissed often enough, in the mornings, at odd times, but it was always good.

"Ew! Daddies aren't supposed to kiss My John!" Zane declared from behind them. "Daddies are s'posed to kiss ME!"

John loosed himself from Rodney slightly. "How about your daddy kisses both of us, buddy?"

Rodney twisted, and pulled at John a little. "There's enough kisses to go around," he promised. He was also pretty sure that he and John were out there to do something, but hell if he could remember it.

"Let me get your bag, kiddo." John ruffled Zane's already wild hair. "What do you think about me sticking around? Staying here with you and your daddy?"

"Staying forever?" Zane leaned into John's hand and yeah, he was eating up the attention.

"Yeah, staying forever type of staying." Sleeping in his bed, eating breakfast with them, getting through Zane's hissy fits. It made Rodney smile, despite everything.

"YAY YAY YAY!" Zane was going crazy, all over the place, and Rodney felt like doing the same.

John was sticking around. He'd done all right on his own, but having John... having John made him feel better about things.

"Yeah, you say yay now, but I've already heard what you say when it's bed time," John teased.

"Lots of nos." Rodney leaned in to John, hugged him close for a moment. John was alive. John was alive and with him and maybe it was time for that kid-style happy dance. "Okay, everybody inside, I think we've given the neighbors enough to bitch about for weeks."

"SWEARS JAR!" Zane yelled excitedly, and took off back into the house.

"This is gonna be a serious job, isn't it, McKay?" John asked. He was gleaming with happiness, though, in all the best ways.

"A huge serious job. Do you happen to have a dollar on you? I hate making change from the swear jar in front of him," Rodney declared as he started to follow after Zane.

"Yeah, well. You're just trying to cheat me out of my dollar, McKay. I'm on to you." John reached out and grabbed his fingers, giving them a squeeze.

"You'll owe the bucket eventually." Probably more than once, because if they didn't argue, then they weren't... them.

There'd be arguments. There would be yelling, and visits from aliens from outer space. There would be first girlfriends and explaining about Daddy's penis and John's scars.

They'd be together, though, and that would make all of the rest of it easier to work through.