Well, as it turned out, John had done pretty well for himself. He'd had plenty of stored-up earnings before he went to Pegasus (not a lot of chances to empty his pockets in places like Afghanistan and Antarctica) and the investments he'd made had turned out amazingly well, considering that he just sort of closed his eyes and stabbed at the index.

Since it looked as though he'd be trapped in Colorado Springs for the foreseeable future, he might as well buy himself a swanky place.

He ran into Rodney walking his cat on a leash down the base corridor. John just raised his eyebrows. "Are you sure that's safe? For the cat, I mean . . . might get some sort of psychosis . . . start thinking it's a dog, crazy things like that."

"Oh, Copernicus is used to it. Aren't you boy? Can't have you getting cat dander on all the ten-thousand-year-old Ancient technology, can we?"

John grimaced. Rodney *talked* to his cat? That was a piece of information (despite the teasing potential) he could've gone his entire lifetime without knowing.

"So, I'm going house shopping. Wanna come? We could be neighbors, chuck homemade fireworks at each other across the back fence, barbecue, carpool, plot world domination, the usual." John winked.

Rodney got that tight look on his face, the one when he found out a really tasty dish he'd been eying had citrus in it. He looked down at the floor. "Actuallyumimsorryjohnbutimmovinginwithsam."

"Excuse me? Slow down, Superman, I can't listen at the speed of light."

Rodney looked up, regretful. "Sorry, John. But . . . um . . . I'm moving in with Sam."

"Oh." Well that was probably the last thing he expected. Rodney, the man who'd pushed John out of bed in his sleep on more than one occasion, who kept his floor so dirty that you couldn't find your feet half the time, that hadn't worked normal hours since he was six, *living* with someone? A human? "Isn't that a little . . ."

"Sudden, I know." Yeah, only two months together, that was really fucking sudden. He and Rodney’d been having sex for nearly three months before he’d even spent the whole night – granted they were fuck-buddies and there was the whole ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ thing, but still . . .

"Actually, I was going to say 'impossible,' but 'sudden' works too."

Rodney rolled his eyes and ignored him, a familiar routine. "Well, we're both logical people. I wouldn't be considering the whole living together thing for a few months more under ordinary circumstances, but if I'm going to be spending most nights either here or at her house, it doesn't make any sense for me to move into a new place only to possibly move out again in a few months. Wasted energy." Rodney jutted his chin out defensively, the way he did whenever he got into an intellectual shouting match with one of the other scientists.

"Hey, you don't have to justify yourself to me. But, I'd still like some company, if you're free."

"Actually . . . Sam and I are going to buy a couch."

A couch? Rodney already had a couch. He'd kept it in storage the entire time they were in Pegasus because he'd never find another like it in the either galaxy, and constantly bemoaned the fact that it was missing from his lab. "Don't you already have . . ."

"Sam says it doesn't match the rest of the furniture."

"And you agreed?" Since when did Rodney, who made labtechs cry, and fought with children (if Ford was to be believed) kowtow to a stupid argument like 'it doesn't match the furniture.'

"Well, it is her house."

"Yeah." John tried not to sound too disappointed.

"But I'll catch you for chess Tuesday, right?" Rodney at least had the dignity to look eager about it.

"Sure. Wouldn't miss it."

<<<>>>

He did miss it.

They were supposed to be back Tuesday early morning. They didn’t get back until Wednesday night, covered in mud and thorns and bruises.

John collapsed gratefully onto the ramp, lazily watching medtechs pop seemingly out of the woodwork to greet him.

Zelenka and Toderov were supporting each other, leaning heavily against the railing. Lin just groaned from some place nearby, the first noise he’d made in twenty-four hours, the first noise of complaint John had ever heard him make.

This had been the mission John had been both looking forward to and dreading: the mission that would make or break them as a team. On Atlantis, that mission had come early, with John truly lucid for very little of it. The rest of the team had pulled together though, and from then on, they trusted each other.

This mission, while a bit easier on John (he was in pain, but it was nothing compared to that damn bug attached to his neck), it was a hell of a lot longer than those tough thirty-eight minutes that Ford and Teyla and Rodney had made it through, and with more physical hardship for the others.

First the bridge had gone down, with John still on it. Only Zelenka making a wild dive to grab John’s hand had saved him. And, wow, dislocated shoulders still hurt like fuck. Toderov had popped it back in pretty seamlessly, though.

Of course, after that, there was the 105 degree sun and the not-mosquitoes and the swamp and the not-cougar that made a nice slash across Toderov’s back and the second bridge that almost went out and the ravine with the not-crocodiles and the EM interference on their radios and the lightning storm and the force field ‘protecting’ the third bridge and the whole getting lost thing. And, oh yeah, the not-mice, with teeth.

John closed his eyes, soaking up the blessed cool of the hard metal of the Gate ramp. That was something they didn’t have back on Atlantis . . . nice, cold, thoughtless . . . “John? Oh, thank god, John. What the hell happened to you anyway?” Annoying voice, intruding upon his nice cold silence, trying to make him think.

He moaned, slitting his eyes open just a fraction to see concerned blue ones staring right back.

“Dr. McKay, we need you to move aside so we can move the colonel to the infirmary.” A nameless voice.

“Is he going to be okay?”

“Fine,” John said as they lifted him up onto a gurney and into darkness.

<<<>>>

John woke feeling tired, but unable to sleep any more. Every muscle in his body, and a few he was certain he’d never had until now, was sore. But he *could* feel. He was alive. That was all that mattered, really.

He looked down to spot an IV running into his hand. Damn. He shifted around experimentally. His right arm was in a sling attached to his chest and they seemed to have wrapped that gash on his ankle. The not-mosquito bites didn’t even itch. Things were good.

He could hear talking behind the privacy curtain – Toderov from the casual cadence and the thick accent. John didn’t like being the second to wake. He rolled onto his side and got his legs over the side of the bed, reaching out to draw back the curtain.

Toderov appeared to be flirting with one of the nursing staff – John hadn’t been here long enough to get to know them all by name. She looked guilty seeing him awake and scurried over.

“Colonel Sheppard, good to see you up.” Her name was Emily Higgins, according to her nametag. She had a nice smile, too nice for the Russian. John raised his eyebrows at him over her shoulder. Toderov just smirked back.

“Good to be up,” he smiled charmingly.

She didn’t take the bait. “I’m sure it is. I’m just going to take the IV out and then you’ll be free to go.” She was good – he barely felt it.

“The rest of my team?” It felt good to say that again and mean it.

“We released Doctors Zelenka and Lin to their quarters earlier this morning.” So he was the last one out - how embarrassing. “I was just about to let Iva. . . Mr. Toderov leave as well.”

John nodded.

“Now, Dr. Reyes wanted me to remind you to take it easy the next few days. Keep the sling on until you’re feeling one-hundred percent, drink a lot of liquids and call us if you need anything.”

“Light duty?”

“In a few days. Rush wants you all on stand-down until Lieutenant Toderov’s wounds have healed.” Which was another way of saying he wanted John out of the picture for as long as possible. Oh well, there wasn’t anything he could do about it. For now, he’d take being given the time to actually heal as the blessing that he’d never truly had during his time on Atlantis.

Emily disappeared for a few minutes, returning with a pile of his clothes and some Tylenol and muscle relaxants. “Dr. McKay brought some of your clothes by earlier,” she said, pulling the privacy curtain for him. John smiled at the thought.

He’d barely finished pulling his pants on when the curtain was pulled back again. Toderov was standing there in scrub bottoms, also shirtless, gauze wrapped around his chest. “Help you with yours if you’ll help with mine,” he seemed to grunt, begrudgingly.

“What, the pretty nurse won’t bend over backwards to do it for you?”

“Sign of weakness.”

“Or a chance to mother you . . .”

Toderov half grunted, half laughed as John helped him pull an arm through the loose scrub top.

“You did good back there, Lieutenant.”

“Almost not good enough.” Yeah, it’d been a tough one. They’d almost lost Zelenka down the side of the ravine and Lin to the not-cougar, if John hadn’t used his bad arm to grab Toderov’s gun and fire (that probably hadn’t helped his condition any).

“But we survived.”

“Yes, we survived.” Toderov looked almost upset about it. No wonder Russian novels were always so long and mopey. Or maybe it was time they did the team-bonding thing that he’d kind of been putting off in hopes that Rodney would come back to field duty and solve all his problems.

Toderov unstrapped the sling and helped him get one arm through the sleeve of the button-down shirt that Rodney said was too dressy for him, unless he finally decided to get a haircut. John tried to be manly and not wince. He still had to put up a strong face for his team. That much hadn’t changed.

“Hey, I’ve got a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in my quarters, maybe it’s time we did a little unofficial debrief.”

Toderov snorted. “Is that an order?”

“No.”

“Okay,” Toderov smiled as he buttoned up John’s shirt, like Rodney’d done after he’d cracked a few ribs and wrenched his neck getting thrown about twenty feet by the super-Wraith. “The Czech gonna be there?”

“Of course.”

“Then I can’t be held responsible for my actions.”

John laughed, a long genuine laugh. Toderov smiled back at him.

<<<>>>

John woke up with a pounding in his head and a groan. His shoulder was painfully sore, though miraculously still in the sling, and the rest of his muscles hadn’t improved much. Yeah, getting plastered with your body already beaten up so badly was a really dumb idea. John barely suppressed a whimper as he pushed himself up and reached for the Tylenol.

But then again, it was worth it. He’d gotten to know his team a whole hell of a lot better. He found out that Lin had the most amazing alcohol tolerance for a guy his size, and got a chance to brush up on both his Chinese and his Ancient in the process. Before they’d been lost to brotherly manhandling and off-key singing of Russian love-ballads, Zelenka and Toderov had actually bonded, though John could’ve done without the long drawn-out story of Toderov’s love life. Zelenka also let spill a few former USSR state nuclear secrets, but it wasn’t like any of them were going to tell.

And Lin was married. Who would’ve thought? His wife had apparently waited for him while they were on Atlantis. John must’ve read it in his personnel file, so was completely ashamed and apologetic when he found out. He also used to be a Buddhist monk, until he met his wife, which, while less than surprising, was definitely interesting. John’d asked his opinion of the Ancients, but didn’t remember it at the moment. Once this mother of a headache subsided he’d have to ask again.

And the pounding was just getting worse, despite the Tylenol. Oh, wait . . . that was actually a pounding on the door. John tried to think it open, then groaned again, remembering they weren’t on Atlantis anymore and stumbling to his feet.

Rodney was standing there looking flushed and on the verge of panic. “Oh, there you are. I was about to override the door locks. Jesus, John, you look terrible.”

“Thanks,” John squinted at him. God, the light was too damn bright.

“Are you hung-over?!”

“Yeah.”

“Oh. So that’s where you were last night.” Rodney seemed a little put off. “I was looking for you.”

“Sorry.” He really did feel bad about it. “Doing a little post-disaster-mission drinking-binge with the team.”

“Ah. I see.” Rodney invited himself in, looking slightly embarrassed or hurt or something - John couldn’t really focus at the moment. “About that . . . I don’t think I’m going to be coming back to the team.”

“I know.” In a way, John had known for a long time.

“It’s not that I don’t want to. I mean, getting chased by angry natives and trading for tava beans and almost getting killed on a regular basis were fun and all . . .”

“And you never hesitated to let us know it.”

Rodney rolled his eyes. “But I really am needed here in the lab. Even though the science staff has pretty well integrated itself, it seems pretty clear that with Colonel Carter needing to devote even more time to SG-1 now with General O’Neill in Washington . . . ” if Rodney were on a team too, he’d never get to see her. “. . . and with that asshole Rush holding things back, my presence is desperately needed.”

“Too bad you’re such a popular guy.”

“Well, you guys are doing well, aren’t you? Drinking binges and all that.” He’d be damned if that wasn’t a bit jealous. As upset as he was at the situation, Rodney’s jealousy felt good.

John sighed. “Yeah.” But it still wasn’t the same.

Rodney looked sad and lost for a second, then he patted John stiffly on the arm, walking out. “I’m glad you’re all right.”

<<<>>>

“John!” Natasha exclaimed, throwing her arms around him.

“Ow.” She had jarred his shoulder. Maybe taking out of the sling hadn’t been such a good idea.

“Oh, baby, what happened to you?”

“Dislocated shoulder,” he winced.

“Aw, poor thing. How’d you do that?”

Deep space radar telemetry. “Playing football with a couple of the guys from work.”

She kissed him on the cheek. “Should’ve known. Next time give me a call, okay? I want to meet your friends and maybe if I was playing, you wouldn’t get so rough.”

“I dunno, Tash, I might get even stupider trying to impress you.”

She smiled, guiding him inside. “Oh, baby, you know you don’t have to do anything else to impress me.”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

The second they were through the front door she was kissing him deep, running her hands lightly down his sore shoulder and across his back. On Atlantis, he and Rodney would come home from a tough mission and collapse onto Rodney’s bed (closest to the infirmary) sleep all day and wake up to desperate thank-god-we’re-still-alive sex and a long hot shower. It was strange, these long lingering kisses, Natasha not knowing or understanding his desperation and him uncertain of whether he was desperate at all. Here in her small house with the Bruins posters and unwashed coffee cups and MTV playing in the background, it was hard to think that P3X-whatever-the-hell had even existed at all.

Natasha’s hands were skimming beneath his shirt, sending a chill up his spine. He deepened the kiss and . . .

“Hey, where’d you get all these mosquito bites?”

John put on his most charming smile. God, he hated lying. “Park.”

“At this time of year?”

He gave a one armed shrug, deflecting. “So . . . I got an apartment.”

She practically bounced. “You did?! That’s great, baby! When can I see?”

He smiled, having successfully distracted her. “Right now, if you want.”

“Of course I want to.”

“Good, then you can help me pick out some furniture.”

“I’d love to. Just let me go get my jacket.”

They spent all afternoon at Ikea and Circuit City and some small vintage poster place that Natasha knew about in town. He got himself a monster stereo system, a huge plasma TV screen, and a whole ton of Johnny Cash and Grateful Dead memorabilia. He let Natasha pick out most of the furniture and silverware and bedding. But they couldn’t seem to find a couch that was comfortable enough.

John ended up with Rodney's old couch, and damn if it wasn't really the most comfortable one he'd ever sat in. Not that he'd admit that Rodney was right about that. Didn't match a thing, but this was a bachelor pad, it didn't need to. He didn’t care if Natasha shook her head disapprovingly at him.

<<<>>>

John stared plaintively at his lemon chicken, knowing that he didn’t have to worry about it anymore, because he wasn’t going to be kissing Rodney anytime soon, but feeling defiant nonetheless. This was the worst idea *ever.* It was worse than the decision to disobey Elizabeth’s orders that once, or twice, or however many times, worse than trying to teach the Athosians football, worse than the mission that sent him to Antarctica, worse than ordering Toderov and Zelenka into that temple together – the time when they both came out with black eyes and icy glares.

Why he ever thought that giving in to Natasha’s pleas to meet his friends from work and going on a double date with Rodney and Sam was a good idea, was absolutely beyond him.

“So, you majored in sociology?” Sam struggled awkwardly. She was doing her best; John’d give her credit for that.

“Isn’t that what people major in when they don’t know what they want to do with their lives?” Rodney said, mouth still full. John knew it wasn’t really intentional, but he kicked Rodney’s shin under the table anyway.

“Ow! John, you know how easily I bruise!”

Natasha looked at him, eyebrows raised. He shrugged, embarrassed. She turned back to the conversation, trying valiantly to be diplomatic. “Well, to tell you the truth, I already knew what I wanted to do, and you don’t really need a college degree to do it, but the way our society is right now, it’s like if you don’t have a college degree, you can’t make a decent living.”

She was sweet, but boy was that the wrong thing to say to Mr. Three-Point-Five PhDs. “And that’s a bad thing, how?”

“Well, I wouldn’t have had to waste four years of my life flashing frat boys and sleeping through useless lectures when I could’ve been actually out there *helping* kids instead.”

“Or, you could have chosen not to flash the frat boys and actually learned something useful.”

Natasha was a nice girl, but she didn’t back down. Normally that was something John loved about her, but now he just wanted her to shut up and look pretty so this horrible night would end. “Not everyone aspires to be a geeky, what was it that you said you did?”

“Astrophysics.”

“Yeah, because that’s *so* useful.” She rolled her eyes. It was then that the tremendous extent of her ignorance struck John. She didn’t know . . . she could never know about all the sacrifices they’d made, all the danger they were in, even now, due to a war fought a galaxy away.

“Excuse me,” John said, standing abruptly. He felt sick, claustrophobic. What was he playing at? Did he really think they could work when . . . when she was like a goddamned child?

“John?” Rodney asked, concerned for a second before continuing his argument. “Well, the space program, for one. And who the hell do you think makes sure the satellites that let you talk to your fellow bimbos on your cell phone and give you the weather and . . .”

John walked out of the restaurant and into the cold Colorado air, wishing for the cool sea breeze of Atlantis and all things familiar. He liked Natasha well enough, but did he really think this was going somewhere? Shouldn’t he do the right thing and tell her before she got in too deep? She was a good person; she deserved better.

Then he felt a firm but delicate hand on his shoulder. He turned, finding Sam’s sympathetic blue eyes trained on him. “Don’t blame her for it.”

He sighed. “I’m not. I’m just not sure I can deal, you know?”

“I don’t know what to say. It never worked for me, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t work for you.”

“I know. But I don’t know if it can.”

“Give it some time. Let the shock wear off before you do anything you regret.”

He nodded, closing his eyes and letting the cold air seep in.

She put a warm arm around his back and squeezed. “She seems really nice.”

“She is.”

“Then let’s get back in there before Rodney flays her alive, okay?”

“Yeah, okay.”

When they got back to the table, Natasha was telling Rodney to go choke on a lemon.

“Oh, how original, I’ve never heard that one before. Are you sure you needed a sociology degree to come up with that?”

“All right, all right, you two, settle down. Don’t make me throw you over my knee for a spanking,” John said, wincing at the innuendo he and Rodney still hadn’t quite managed to weed out of their banter.

“Is that a promise?” Rodney snarled. Everyone at the table gave him a disgruntled stare.

“No,” John said with a wince.

Sam and John spent the rest of the meal talking about the recently reported sexual harassment scandals at the Air Force Academy while Rodney and Natasha stared resentfully at each other.

Afterwards in the car ride home, Natasha was sullen and pissed off. “Well, I like Sam a lot. I can see why you like her, but her boyfriend . . . what an asshole! It’s like he’s never gotten laid until now and has made up for all the sexual frustration by being intellectually superior and paranoid.”

“Yeah, that’s Rodney alright. Though I’m not sure it’s out of sexual frustration.” Rodney was horrible with women, but John wasn’t his first man by any means. Hell, he’d lost his virginity before John did, to the grad student that gave him extra lessons in physics.

“Then what is it then?”

“He didn’t have the best childhood.”

“So he’s determined to make sure no one else does? How can you defend him?”

“Well, he’s been through a lot.”

“Like what? The loss of his favorite magic marker?”

“It’s classified,” John growled.

“So he’s not really an astrophysicist?”

“Oh no, he definitely is, just . . . he’s also had to work in the field.”

“How do you do astrophysics in the field? Sit in front of a TV and watch Star Trek?”

“Like I said, it’s classified.”

“C’mon, John, it’s not like I’m going to tell anybody.”

“Even if you wouldn’t, I can’t tell you.”

“Why? Then you’d have to kill me?” she snapped, sarcastically.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Oh.” She sat in silence for a second. “I think he has a crush on you, you know. You might want to warn Sam.” Yeah, it didn’t take a soc degree to figure that one out either, except Rodney was so possessive over pretty much everything that it could’ve been a completely heterosexual man-crush, for all anyone knew.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

He broke up with Natasha two weeks later, though he told himself that it had absolutely nothing to do with their disastrous attempt at a double date.