through a glass darkly

The first hour or so flies by with everyone getting back into the jumper, the Marines standing guard over the Wraith and his team watching him in silence as Carson does a quick check up.

Ronon looks twitchy as he watches John, his fingers restless around his gun, eyes glancing at the Wraith every few seconds.

Teyla looks visibly disturbed, but smiles at him when he catches her eyes. He sees relief there with some weariness.

Rodney looks a mixture of confusion and fear. John figures he must have looked pretty bad back there, a real special kind of pay-per-view bad.

Carson goes still, attracting John's attention. When John turns to see Carson, the other man is staring at John's chest, transfixed. John doesn't look down, but he glances across at his other friends, seeing Ronon turn around with a growl, Teyla's jaw clench as she clamps her mouth shut and Rodney looking as though he's seen a ghost.

John pulls back, away from Carson, not looking at him as he zips up his shirt. "I think we should leave this until we get home."

Carson backs away, giving John a view of the Wraith; his killer and his saviour. It would be so easy to just kill him where he lies.

The jumper sets down and John stands up, holding his hand out to one of the Marines. "Give me your vest and P-90, Lieutenant."

Ronon smacks his fist into the jumper wall and then reels on John, "You're just going to leave him out there for his Wraith friends?"

John glares. "Yeah. I am."

"Are you crazy? He fed on you!" Rodney snaps, his face going bright red.

John swallows, his heart pumping wildly like it's still in the grip of a Wraith hand. He looks at Teyla. "I made a deal."

Before Ronon can suggest they fuck the deal, Teyla turns to him and Rodney, while speaking to John. "We would not have you break your word, Colonel."

"He's. A. Wraith. He almost killed you," Rodney says, his voice cracking on the last words.

"You don't need to remind me, Rodney. I was there," John says evenly. "We're doing this. Set the jumper down and take him outside." Ronon starts to move and John places a hand on his chest, stopping him. "Not you."

Ronon glares down at the Wraith and then at John before backing away. While John is out there, saying his goodbye and thank you, he can feel his friends watching his back, their eyes boring into his back, as if their looking will be enough to drag him back if need be.

They leave the Wraith behind and go home, John watching everybody else, noticing how they look solemn and resolute. As though they're bringing home a corpse. He wants to say he's fine, but he's had his life ripped out of his chest and forced back in, while having no choice in either matter. For all he knows, something could be missing. Something important. Something could be left behind. John stares at his arm, able to see the scar from another Wraith encounter even though it's hidden under a sleeve.

A hand on his shoulder snaps him out of his nightmare, and he barely contains his flinch. He turns to see Teyla smiling at him.

"We are home," she says.

John nods and breathes a sigh of relief before smiling, putting his face back on.

Elizabeth is waiting in the jumper room with a team of medics, hands clasped in front of her. John wonders if she'll just crumble like a sculpture made of sand when her hands come apart. She looks pale and afraid. Of course, then she gets a look at his face and there's surprise, her body no longer tense and her hands daring to release each other.

She looks at the others and back at John. "I don't understand," she says and John doesn't miss the wavering in her voice.

"I think we can talk about it later. For now, I want the colonel in the infirmary," Carson says, still looking worried as if John might drop dead any second.

Elizabeth nods, smiling shakily. "Of course."

John smiles back at her, looking for something to say, a quip maybe, but the way Elizabeth is looking at him, a little broken, it takes away his words.

"I-" she begins and he knows what she's going to say.

"Did the right thing," John says.

Elizabeth looks away, but he can still see the doubt in the line of her shoulders. When she looks back at him, he can't see it in her face, though. There's a smile on her face, almost as impenetrable as his own. "I'm sure you would have done the same thing."

John smiles. "Of course," he says and he can tell she knows he's lying.

Carson insists on John's team leaving the infirmary, insisting he can't work with all the looming and complaining and that maybe Teyla ought to take the loomer and complainer away. John settles back on a bed, lets them take blood samples, shine a light in his eyes as he stares at the ceiling, listening to a soothing buzzing somewhere in his brain. It feels like sleeping while being awake.

"Colonel, I'll need you to take that shirt off," Carson says, pulling the curtain around the bed.

John sits up and swings his feet off the bed, pulling off the shirt and putting it aside. Then he notices that Carson is staring at his chest, paler than he was before.

John looks down at his chest and sees that though he feels like a million bucks right now, not even feeling all the bruises he should have, there is something that stings on his chest. The Wraith's hand print is still there, a faded shape from where skin met skin. John stares at it for a while, fixated. He remembers burning.

He ignores the memory and looks up at Carson, who seems frozen for a moment, before looking away and getting back to his examination.

John stares ahead, feeling Carson's fingers gently press on the bruising, but he doesn't feel anything. Least of all pain.

Carson keeps him overnight for observation. John figures the doctor is waiting for him to turn into a Wraith again, or something worse.

John's supposed to be sleeping, but he just lies there, wide awake, a constant buzz humming under his skin the whole time.

"You are regretting your decision to let me go."

John turns his head and looks at the Wraith, sitting there by the bed, his posture almost regal. "Maybe."

The Wraith nods, looking as if he understands. Then he smiles. "Yes, Wraith are for killing."

John rolls his eyes. "Don't even try to lay that guilt trip on me. I'm not going around sucking the life out of people."

"Survival is a strong instinct, Sheppard. Were you able to fight it?"

John looks up at the Atlantean ceiling, feels the city glow around him, feels it sing to him -- home -- and he can't deny that some instincts are harder to fight than others.

John closes his eyes and orders his brain to turn off.

“Is it so hard to believe that I gave you your life back?”

John's breath turns shallow, like any minute he'll feel the same fully fledged panic of the first time he saw that Wraith coming for him. He pushes it all away, somewhere deep.

“This could all be a dream,” he says. “Wouldn't be the first time.”

The Wraith rises from his seat and towers over John, tilting his head as he looks into John's eyes, his own wide and greedy. John watches his hand near, spread out and ready to feed. John flinches, a sound catching in his throat as he feels the heat of the hand clamp to his chest.

“Does this feel like a dream?”

John looks down at his chest, his own hand there, almost shaking, his breathing shallow as he tries desperately to ignore the burning sensation that just won't go away.

“Colonel?” John sees Carson at the foot of the bed, face etched with concern. “Are you all right?”

John's fingers curl into a fist above his chest. “Thirsty.”

Carson nods. “Right. I'll get you a glass of water.”

John mutely nods back and thinks a glass is nowhere near enough to put out the fire.

When Carson releases him the next morning, he almost looks disappointed by John's lack of mutation or sudden wrinkling and sprouting of grey hair.

He says, “As far as I can see, everything's... normal.”

The look on his face says the inhabitants of this city will have to find a new definition for what the word normal actually means to them.

John is about to say that he feels normal, but he's not really sure of how he feels.

Awake. He feels awake. He smirks at Carson and says, “I think I'll get some breakfast.”

Carson stills looks pained, even though he smiles. When John's finally about to leave, Carson calls out, “And, Colonel? Try and get some rest. I know you didn't sleep a wink last night.”

John stops and fixes a smile before aiming it at Carson. “Sure.”

He reaches his quarters in no time, surprised by his own eagerness to get away from the corridors and the people in them. Two steps inside and he's pulling off his shirt and throwing it aside. The speed with which he gets his pants and boots off is hurried and frantic.

John steps into the shower and almost slams his palm onto the plate on the wall, activating the spray. He stands under cold water, palms against the wall to stop his arms from shaking, neck bowed and eyes closed.

He lets it all wash away, the shine of the event horizon, the smell of the Genii cell, the desperation of a hungry Wraith. He wills it out of his pores and lets it wash away before slumping against the wall, pressing his forehead to the cold tile.

There's something knocking on the door in his head, asking to be let out, but he squeezes his eyes a little tighter, hiding the key.

“You do not appear to be pleased that you have your life back.”

John turns his head slightly, opening one eye to watch the Wraith hover over him, wondering if it is his life that he has back or maybe one of those dead Genii soldiers. “I'm not a worshipper,” John says, feeling tired, feeling awake.

“And you do not wish to be considered a brother,” the Wraith says with a smile.

John breathes in. “No,” he says and pushes away from the wall, the water having lost its chill too soon.

He grabs his towel and makes quick work of drying himself off before getting into some clean clothes.

He's by the door when he turns back to see the Wraith sitting on the edge of John's bed, hands folded in his lap, just waiting. Like he's still waiting to be rescued. Waiting to watch his life pass by in that small cell.

John leaves to find something normal.

The mess is busy, lots of people and noise. John feels relieved because he knows these people and this place. It's his life, that thing he was so impatient to get back to.

John gets himself a coffee and makes his way to the table he wants, smiling and nodding at anyone that looks at him. There are pleased smiles in return, some people even look relieved, which is... well, he supposes it's pretty cool.

Some people look like they're seeing a ghost. Not so cool.

The table he's heading towards has Ronon digging into a hearty breakfast, Teyla contemplating what John knows is Athosian tea and Rodney making a face at his pancakes, prodding cautiously with a fork.

John plops into the seat next to Rodney, smiling at Teyla when she looks up in surprise, Ronon next to her, noticing him too and arching an eyebrow.

Rodney gets straight to staring at John's ear until John has to turn around and acknowledge him with a questioning look.

“Shouldn't you be in the infirmary?” he asks.

“Nope. Carson said I'm fine,” John says, giving Rodney's pancakes some serious consideration.

“Fine?” Rodney says before rolling eyes. “That man must have the memory of a goldfish.”

John lets himself get irritated at Rodney, because it eats away the stuff that's scratching at the back of his head, asking to be let out. “I feel fine.”

Rodney watches him for a few seconds longer, like he's looking for signs of John not being fine. “Okay,” he finally says. “Want my pancakes?”

John eyes the pancakes. “What's wrong with them”?

Rodney looks appalled for a second, before John gives him an unimpressed look. “Well, they could taste less like rubber. That would be nice.”

John smirks and takes a stab at the pancakes, aware of Teyla and Ronon's silent watching. “You guys going to say anything?”

Teyla smiles. “No.”

Ronon smiles next to her, still in no mood to talk it seems. “We missed our run this morning,” John says to him.

Ronon nods. “You up for it tomorrow?”

“You bet,” John says, before sticking a forkful of Rodney's pancakes in his mouth. He regrets it instantly, feeling as though he's just eaten a ton of salt. He grimaces and drops the fork, swallowing the food with a shudder. “Okay, that was bad.”

Rodney pushes John's coffee cup closer and John instantly takes a few gulps to wash the taste out, only it's like drinking a cup of hot salty water. John stares at the cup, nausea rising up from his stomach, realizing that actually, that coppery taste is like... well, not salt. He has no idea how he stops from spitting it across the table.

“John?” Teyla asks when he's been staring at his cup for too long. “Are you okay?”

John looks up and smiles at her, a smile that leaves his face feeling tight.

“Bad coffee,” he says, ignoring the fact that every table in the mess seems to have a Wraith seated at it, enjoying a nice cup of coffee.

If his friends notice him flinch, they're kind enough to not mention it.

When he catches up with Elizabeth, he finds her seated at her desk, staring at her laptop screen, completely transfixed.

“Who's winning?” he asks, walking in and sitting down opposite her.

She looks up, clearly surprised and then smiles when she sees him, but something about her eyes says that she's taken his question in a completely different way.

“Don't ask,” she says with a smile and shuts her laptop. “How are you feeling?”

John gives a nod and says, “I'd say at least twenty-five again.”

Elizabeth's smile falters enough for him to catch it before she pastes it back on. It makes him wonder when they all suddenly became so aware of each other's lies.

“Okay,” he says. “Not so funny.”

This time her smile is sad, something darkening in her eyes. “No. Not so much.”

John nods, looking for the right thing to say as he catches sight of his fingers involuntarily curling against his thigh. He looks up at her, forcing forward the guy that tries to say the right thing but usually just ends up looking like a dork. “Look...uh...I still mean what I said yesterday. You know, about not caving in, doing what Kolya wanted.”

Elizabeth nods slowly, her fingers linking before her on the desk. He can almost feel the shakes under her tightly linked hands.

“I'm not sure he would have honoured any trade anyway,” John says and Elizabeth frowns and looks down at her hands, nodding slightly. “You-”

“Did the right thing,” she finishes his sentence. “I know. And as a consequence I saw you being fed upon by a Wraith.”

They hold each other's gaze for a moment, while John remembers in crystal clarity the look in Sumner's eyes as he was fed upon and the nights after where John would wake up shivering and sweating.

“I'm sorry,” he says. “I wish you didn't have to see that.”

Elizabeth stares at him for a second before she laughs. He really doesn't expect it. He sits there with a frown while she laughs, her eyes glittering a little.

“What?” he asks.

Elizabeth's smile is warm and real as she nods. “I'm glad you're okay,” she says quietly.

John nods and smiles back, ignoring the Wraith in the room who has taken to exploring Earth artefacts.

He spends the night wide awake again, lying on top of the covers in the dark, one hand resting on top of his other hand, both a heavy weight on his stomach. It feels as though he might never sleep again and yet, he feels tired. Empty regardless of the life that was pumped back into him, burning him to his very core.

There's a shuffling in his quarters, his own personal ghost, slowly walking around. All that's missing are the chains. Until John thinks of them of course, because then the Wraith steps into the dim light being cast through the windows and there he is manacled, his hand in a glove. John looks at it long and hard, imagining an iron mask over his own face, as he starves to death.

John goes back to not sleeping. The Wraith goes back to haunting him.

John is secretly disappointed when Ronon doesn't let him win next morning. After all, he should be cut some slack for the whole almost dying at the hand of a Wraith and not getting to kick Kolya's ass thing.

They both stand at the end of the walkway, John drinking his bottle of water, the only thing that doesn't taste like a salt mine. John eyes Ronon as he's drinking, wondering if Ronon is doing the Ronon thing where he's just Ronon being Ronon, or whether he's doing that pissed off Ronon thing where something's bugging him and he's just going to brood until he's beaten his mood out of the Marines.

“Still mad at me?” John says, a little out of breath from their run.

Ronon gives him an amused look. Yeah, he's still mad at John, but it's passing. John can tell.

“I had to let him go, you know,” John says, slightly resentful of the fact that he needs to explain himself. “I made a deal with him.”

Ronon nods. “I know.”

John nods back. “We're cool?”

Ronon nods and says, “I just think you made the wrong decision.”

John watches Ronon, reflexively licking his bottom lip. “Yeah. I figured.” He passes Ronon his bottle. Ronon gives it a look and then takes it, making John wonder if the hesitation he saw is real or just in his head.

“So... what do you do?” John asks, honestly curious. “In my place.”

Ronon drains the bottle and lightly tosses it back for John to catch. “Kill him.”

“Before or after he helps you escape?”

“First opportunity I get,” Ronon says.

“Even if it means getting caught and being stuck there for a very long time?” John asks.

Ronon shrugs. “Yeah. Even then.”

John nods, figuring that seven years on the run can change the way a guy thinks. Maybe one day Ronon will stop being so angry. Looking at Ronon though, John knows that time could be a long way off.

“Keep going?” Ronon asks.

John shakes his head. “Tomorrow.”

Ronon nods and turns to run back up the walkway, while John is frowning at a Wraith limbering up and doing stretches.

“Sheppard.”

John makes a face at the apparition and turns towards Ronon instead, the other man watching him blankly. It's plain to see that he wants to say something, but is having trouble finding the words.

“Kolya,” he finally says, the name sounding heavy and dead from Ronon's mouth.

John nods, aware that if he'd made it back to Atlantis in a body bag, one day Kolya would run into Ronon and not even have enough time to find out the name of his executioner. “I know,” he says.

Ronon nods and then he's off running, like seven years hasn't tired him out. Like Atlantis is a dream. Like he's still running from the Wraith.

“Maybe he is,” John's personal apparition says.

John nods, grateful he only has to deal with his own ghosts.

That night, John lies there staring up at the dark ceiling, under the light falling through windows, all the way down his body.

He closes his eyes and holds out his arm, stretching his hand out wide, as if his fingers are reaching for something. Then he swiftly brings his hand down onto his chest, blowing out a breath, hearing it whoosh into the room as he imagines what is to feed on someone's heart, steal their life to quench your own thirst.

He hears the Wraith laugh, a sound that's oddly rich and warm, the way an old man might laugh at a silly child. John opens his eyes and blinks up at the dark in question.

“You could never imagine it,” the Wraith replies.

John nods slowly, not sure he really wants to know.

During his sparring session with Teyla, John decides to really push his limits. Enough to make him have no choice but to pass out asleep for at least one night.

It surprises him that he can keep up so well with Teyla, see her telegraphing her next move, blocking her when she fully suspects him to fail. He's been improving, sure, but he's still nowhere as good as Teyla. The only time he's been anywhere near that good...

John sees Ellia, briefly peek out from behind Teyla, like a child playing hide and seek and then disappear again. At that same time, Teyla stops mid-attack and seems to look straight through John, as if she can see his thoughts as clear as day.

But immediately they fall back into the fight, harder and faster. John hold back, wondering how much of him is Wraith these days and Teyla doesn't retreat from whatever her own doubts are. They continue, faster, the blows much more jarring. John doesn't want to win and he wonders what his losing means to Teyla.

They move across the floor and John passes through a bright spot of light that pulls a memory from him, of white hot pain. He remembers. It's like there's a hole in the universe. Something going missing forever.

John falls to the floor, landing hard and rolling onto his back. For a moment, it's like being in a lava lamp filled with slow moving blobs of black. He blinks several times, seeing a familiar face look down at him with amusement. The guest in his head who is taking his sweet time to go away.

A few more blinks and Teyla is looking down at John with worry, her expression pained. He feels her warm hand on his face, cupping his cheek. He also notices a stripe of pain down the left side of his face. John clicks his jaw open and shut, grimacing in pain.

“Ow,” he says, touching his fingers to his forehead, smearing something warm and wet.

“I'm sorry,” Teyla says. “I...you just-”

“Got hit by a big stick,” John complains as Teyla moves away and then reappears to push him back down when he tries to sit up, holding his towel to an obviously bleeding cut. “Well, I guess that means you win.”

“You stopped so suddenly... I'm not sure that counts as winning,” Teyla says, guilt painted across her face.

“Trust me, I'm not good enough to let you win,” John says.

Teyla's silent, her eyes briefly flicking to his chest, where the burning isn't completely gone. She gently holds his face by his chin, continuing to apply pressure to the cut.

“What?” John asks, staring at the unhappy set of her mouth.

“Ask her,” the Wraith says, his head coming into view above Teyla's. “She will tell you. She knows.”

He looks up at her, ready to read every sign. “You can feel it, can't you? The Wraith.”

Teyla looks straight into his eyes, the pressure of the towel against his forehead lessening a fraction. She nods slowly. “There was a strong Wraith presence.”

John raises his eyebrows at her. “Was?”

Teyla nods again. “It was stronger when you came back.”

Something pops in John's chest somewhere. Something like relief. He hasn't considered that this bad trip could come to an end. “So, that's good, right?”

Teyla smiles, but still manages to look sad. “Yes,” she says. “It is.”

John sighs, not sure if he wants to ask what the problem is then. He's tired and now has a headache and a captive audience in the form of a Wraith eating popcorn in the corner of the room.

John closes his eyes instead, welcoming the throb in his head, glad to be bleeding. Maybe some of that life can gush right back out, the way it does in human bodies. The way it's supposed to.

“I saw you die,” Teyla says quietly.

John keeps still, feeling her over him, close enough that he can smell fresh sweat and something else, something that's all Teyla. Like smoke and spice.

“I keep expecting to remember that you died. That perhaps this...”

“Isn't real,” John finishes, opening his eyes and staring right into hers. He smiles at her. “That big stick you hit me with felt pretty real, Teyla.”

A laugh escapes from Teyla and with it her eyes seem to glisten. She nods and gives him a sympathetic look. “I'm sorry.”

“Me too,” John pretends to scowl as he sits up with a groan, noticing that her eyes are there again, that pillaged spot on his chest.

“They are not meant to come back,” Teyla says quietly, frowning at that place on John's chest, like she can see through the material of his T-shirt. “Those fed on by the Wraith.”

John nods mutely, remembering that Teyla's been fighting the Wraith longer than him. She's probably lost more people, none of whom have returned. And here he is, alive and bleeding profusely.

Perhaps everything Teyla's ever believed about the Wraith makes no sense right now.

John sees his Wraith by the window, staring right back with a smile.

Far from here, this Wraith is making up for lost time. He's not walking around with John Sheppard in his head. He's not walking around wondering if he's more human than Wraith. He's not wondering if there are pieces of him missing, or too many pieces that jostle and slide under his skin, keeping him up every night.

No. Right now, this Wraith is feeding because he wants to live.

Not only that. He has the power to give it all back. Maybe they all do. Out there, ships with cocooned corpses and monsters that can take and return life.

And John Sheppard is alive.

The Wraith sits down next to Teyla, breathing in the scent of her hair with his eyes closed and then looks at John. “No wonder they all look as though they have seen a ghost.”

The burn fades a little and John's eyes start feeling gritty, his head heavy by the end of the day.

He doesn't plan on falling asleep -- ever -- but somewhere in the middle of the night, sleep pulls him under for a moment and keeps him there long enough for the door in the back of his mind to open and something to come out.

He's running through that forest again, being chased by every enemy he's ever made. Amongst them is someone else, gaining on him as he slows down. John stumbles and falls, his hands braced against the ground. He stares at them, hands that should belong to an old man.

“And you thought you'd never grow old in this job.”

John looks up at the man staring down at him. He sees himself, half man and half Wraith with amber eyes and a smirk he knows well.

He shakes his head and laughs just before he sees his Wraith self lift a hand with a bloody mouth at its centre, hungry for more. Always hungry for more.

He awakes with a jolt, sitting upright and breathing harshly, loud in the quiet of his quarters. He means to get up from the bed, but stumbles from it instead, falling on the floor and scrabbling in some direction he hasn't even thought about.

He stops for a moment, remembering how to breathe again, his hands fisted against the ground.

“See for yourself.”

John looks up at the Wraith with stinging and itchy eyes, desperately trying to blink reality back into focus.

The Wraith is watching him blankly, waiting. John looks at the door to the bathroom, his heart still hammering in his chest.

“Afraid?” the Wraith asks.

John glares at him. Sure he's afraid, but that's never stopped him from anything before. John gets up and unsteadily heads for the bathroom, the light coming on as soon as he passes the threshold.

The mirror is right there. All he has to do is take one step to the left.

The Wraith is quietly laughing.

John closes his eyes and takes the step. He thinks of that cell, lying there on the ground, talking with his grandfather's voice, looking at his old hands.

He opens his eyes. The man in the mirror is familiar. He doesn't look older than the last time John saw him. He looks a little tired, a taped up cut high on his forehead, dark stubble on his chin. John steps in closer, still able to see the light faded mark on his chest, fading a little more every day, along with that burn under his skin. Looking at the light blue scar on his arm, he knows the scars won't ever really fade enough.

“Still human?” the Wraith asks in John's ear, casting no reflection.

John nods, his chest feeling a little tight. “Yeah. Still human.”

“Must be a load off, Sheppard,” John hears Sumner's voice somewhere in his head. “Guess you can quit beating yourself up about that bullet.”

John figures there are so many bullets to beat himself up about, one more doesn't make much of a difference. Especially since it's the bullet that left him a city he calls home.

With his daily check ups and newly acquired stitches, John's beginning to feel like a voodoo doll. He's sure there's an alternate reality where John Sheppard is in pain, but doesn't know why. Maybe he has a few new grey hairs. He probably sleeps all day long too.

It's late night, early morning, sometime in between where it's really neither. John lies on the balcony ground, fingers linked behind his head as he stares up at stars that are becoming familiar.

It's a cold night, the chilly breeze making him shiver occasionally. It feels good. He figures seeing a million stars is worth one Wraith getting away. At least, for one night it is. Tomorrow morning, all bets are off.

John's watching a movie someone's left running on the projector. He's not sure who's in the movie, what's going on and exactly where it's going on, but it's kind of nice to look at, so he sits there and watches while hoping his apparitions are packing and leave before he gets back to sanity.

That's when Rodney saunters in and stands at the end of the couch, frowning at the movie. “What are you watching?”

John shrugs. “Not sure. But, he's mad at that guy for some reason. I think it has something to do with a truck.”

Rodney directs his frown at John. “What?”

John shurgs at Rodney. “What?”

Rodney shakes his head and sits down on the couch, sighing and flopping back. He's frowning at John again, like he can't figure something out. John points out the taped cut on his forehead, wondering exactly how Dr. Oblivious gets anything done.

“What happened?” Rodney asks.

“Teyla.”

“Oh. You know, you wouldn't guess someone so small could hit so hard. Or someone so pretty,” Rodney says with a little wistful smile that makes John laugh. “Why are you up? It's late.”

“You're up,” John points out.

“Yes, but I have important scientist business to take care of,” Rodney says, rather haughtily.

John cocks a thumb at the screen. “Well, I've got this movie.”

Rodney looks at the projector, seems to wander off into thought and then says, “What the hell was Paint Your Wagon all about?”

“A wagon?” John asks, something clicking in his head. “Hey, where have you been anyway? Haven't seen you around for a few days.”

Rodney looks a little caught out. “Well, you know, the um, the important scientist business, like I said,” Rodney says, pointing at the door, like the important scientist business is right there.

John nods. “I figured you might've been freaked out by the whole...you know,” John says, making a face and waving his hand a little.

Rodney looks about ten times as uncomfortable as John feels, making a face too. “Well, that too, a little bit, maybe.”

“It's okay,” John drawls, shrugging and watching the men on the screen who are morosely walking around and glaring at each other.

“I... Carson said you were okay,” Rodney says. “I asked him and he said you were okay.”

John nods mutely, grateful that he can count on Rodney to not want to talk about it or anything related to it.

“It's just... that day,” Rodney says, looking lost in unpleasant memories. “It was awful, watching what happened.” He turns to John, serious, unhappy. “I kept thinking of Gaul, what he did and somehow... it all got pretty mixed up. I kept wondering about what we'd find.”

John just continues to nod. What can he say? They all have their ghosts. The trick is finding the space to accommodate them all.

Rodney's looking down at his hands, expression sombre. “Can't imagine what it would've been like without... I mean, you're practically part of the furniture.”

John reaches out to Rodney, his hand unsure of where to lay its comforting presence on the other man who is a hunched up ball of misery. John finally gives him an awkward pat on the knee. Rodney looks at the patting hand, frowns and then looks up at John.

John stares at Rodney for a second. “So... I heard you shot a mouse.”

Rodney sits up, defensive in nought to six seconds. “You have no idea how stressful that day was... well, okay, maybe you do, but excuse me if I panicked in a big dark warehouse with rabid rodents the size of sheep!”

John keeps a straight face. “That's pretty big. Did you manage to get any intel out of it?”

Rodney gives John the skunk-eye. “Very funny, Sheppard.”

John tries not to laugh as Rodney sulkily falls back and watches the movie. “I don't suppose we have any popcorn.”

“Nope.”

Rodney fishes out a power bar and unwraps it, breaking it in half and holding out one half to John. John looks at the bar, sick of the coppery taste left in his mouth by everything he eats. It's fading, but it's still enough to make him insane.

“What?” Rodney asks, aware that John is just frozen. “You okay?”

John lets his head tilt back against the couch as he blinks up at the ceiling. “Beat.”

Rodney's so quiet John can hear him thinking. “You know, Carson can give you something, if you can't sleep.”

John turns his head towards Rodney and looks thoughtful. “Want to go shoot stuff?”

“Do I look like Ronon?” Rodney asks as if John's stupid. “Besides, I want to find out why that guy's so angry.”

John looks at the movie, slipping further down on the couch. “Someone stole his truck. Or wife. I'm not sure.”

“He looks pretty angry. Has to be his truck,” Rodney says.

John laughs and Rodney looks quite proud of himself as he goes back to watching the movie. John sits there bonelessly, his eyes drifting shut as he watches the morose man search for his truck...or his wife. Or something. Rodney points out everything that's stupid, randomly providing facts on other movies.

It doesn't seem like much, living in an alien city, far away from Earth, listening to some guy talk about some movie. John should be lonely, but somehow it's Earth that makes him think of loneliness and Atlantis that makes him think of home. It's Carson's worried faces, Ronon's territorial anger, Teyla's gentle eyes, Elizabeth's welcoming smiles and Rodney's voice whether it's complaining or talking.

It's a life worth fighting to come back to.

John flinches when he feels a hand on his shoulder. “You asleep?”

John gives a slight shake of his head, unable to open his heavy eyes. “No.”

“It's okay,” Rodney whispers. “Sleep.”

“What about the guy with the truck?” John murmurs.

“I'm sure he'll find his truck,” Rodney says, a little irritated.

“Or his wife,” John says with a smile.

Rodney makes a snorting noise. “Shut up and go to sleep.”

John nods. As he starts to fall under, he feels a tentative pat on his knee before hearing Rodney sit back, quietly making derisive sounds aimed at the movie.

When he wakes the movie has ended and dawn is breaking. Rodney is quietly snoring at the other end of the couch and Atlantis looks more beautiful than most mornings.

This is a gift the Wraith gave him.

“I hope I don't see you again,” John says quietly to the Wraith standing by the window.

He doesn't answer John. He quietly sinks into the rays of the rising sun. John closes his eyes and sleeps a little more, the taste of copper fading from his mouth.

- the end -