I open the door to my quarters and feel a blast of music, like you think you only see in cartoons. I'm glad these walls are soundproof (for the bazillionth time), because Dr. Simpson really doesn't need to hear this . . . or any other of John's and my nocturnal activities.

Speaking of the lazy S.O.B., he's sprawled out on my bed, not wearing any socks, which, for some inexplicable reason, really irks me, even when he raises his head with that cute and maniacally innocent look. "What are you doing here?"

He shrugs. "Hiding from Dr. Beckett. Playing music. You like?"

He pumps up the volume even more so I can feel the beat in my fingers, in my heart, in my toes. It's the Beatles, 'Baby you're a rich man.' I'm glad I recognize this one so he can't make fun of my paltry pop music knowledge again. John's diehard into classic rock - he brought an iPod full of music, and some football videos, as his one personal item.

He jumps up from where he's been lounging on my bed, letting his much-worn copy of 'War and Peace' slide to the floor, singing into his cast like it's a microphone, looking ridiculously like Elvis with his hair falling over his eyes. "How does it feel to be one of the beautiful people?" He does a little dance and grabs my arms, rubbing himself up against me seductively as he twirls me around, or at least attempts too.

I try not to step on his toes and to move as little as possible. Who is this, and what has he done with StoicJohn, the military commander of this base? "What's wrong with you?" That came out a bit harsher than I intended. It's not that I don't love John when he's silly and carefree. Come on, being neurotic and pessimistic all the time is a full time job, and I already have one of those. Still... John is acting really strange - even for him.

"Why does something have to be wrong." He pouts shamelessly, knowing that it makes me weak in the knees. "Do I need an explanation to be happy to see my . . ." For a second I think he's going to say it... say something... tell me what it is we have together. Surely we have something. His eyebrows come together for just a second as he searches his mind for a helpful evasion. "... my Geek?" He looks at me expectantly.

"Very funny." I cross my hands over my chest, trying not to show my disappointment, even though I'm sure he sees. He tries to retrieve my hands from where they're tucked beneath my armpits, giving me the 'puppy begging for table scraps' look. "Stop it!" I snap. I can't take him like this. It's almost... romantic. "Now, tell me what's going on!"

He frowns and turns away, though I still catch the wounded look playing in his eyes. "Pain medications make me a little... happy." He grinds it out, crossing his arms to mirror mine and still looking away.

"Great! You're high. I come back after a long day trying to suppress Kavanagh's political machinations and mediating a little intellectual cockfight between Grodin and Zelenka and I have to deal with you high. That's just great, Major."

He turns back to me, fire in his eyes, and I already feel relieved. Anger . . . anger, I'm used to. Hurt, on the other hand . . . "Well, excuse me, Rodney, but I like to take pain medication when I'm in pain."

I feel the color rush from my face. "You . . . you are?"

"Yeah, broken bones aren't all about the ice cream and beautiful girls wanting to sign your cast." Not that he doesn't have that... a note from Teyla saying 'I implore the Ancestors for continuing health and freedom from pain on your behalf,' Ford's scribbled, 'Ditto, Sir' and a smiley face, something in Chinese from Elizabeth, which, apparently, John actually understands and finds funny -though he's refusing to tell me- with an addendum from Wu, which made him nearly snort jello out his nose in laughter. I'm the only one of those close to him who hasn't signed and I know it's been annoying him. Good. What am I supposed to write anyhow? As his secret sort-of-lover/fuck-buddy/teddy-bear, what am I entitled to write?

"Is there anything I can do? Are you comfortable?"

He smiles. "Well, I guess now's the time to tell you that pain medications also make me a little horny." He has his 'I'm charming you into giving me my way and I want you to know it . . . and do it anyway' expression on.

I really should step away. But he lets me see just a small sliver of vulnerability beneath it all, smug melting to tentative and encouraging in a heartbeat. Maybe he really is in pain. And he's turning me, Rodney McKay, into Mr. Bleeding Hearts. Damn him!

"John..." I lean forward, gripping his arm, not wanting to complete that sentence - not even daring to complete the thought. Then our lips come together, the last song on the album, 'All You Need is Love,' fading into silence, leaving nothing but the soft moans and smack of lips as we find ourselves once again in a steamy kiss.

As he nips and bites his way along my jawline on the way to suck on my earlobe -a familiar routine that still never fails to excite me- he whispers, "Did I mention that drugs also make me incredibly easy?"

"Good to know," I whimper as his good hand executes a skilled technical maneuver and has my pants unzipped, stroking me.

It's not long before he's swearing as he struggles to get his arm out of his shirt. And only a week ago, he punched me for feeling under his shirt - trust really is a marvelous thing, if you can afford it. The second he's extracted himself from his now-very-rumpled shirt he tackles me onto the bed, still in the middle of getting my pants off.

"Mmmphf! John, that hurt! Do you have any idea how sensitive..."

"Whine, whine, whine," he growls, silencing me with a kiss and bracing himself on his elbows as he rubs against me.

As usual, a tube of lube appears out of nowhere.

For some reason, I'm feeling bold. Maybe it's the drugs. "How'd you..."

"Somebody's talkative today." He grins.

I roll my eyes. "I'm always talkative."

He nods thoughtfully, "True. But not when I can help it." He leans down for another kiss and I hear the cap snap off the lube and spread my legs in a reaction that would make Pavlov proud. "Un-uh, my turn," he chides, handing me the tube and rolling us over, just missing sending us off the bed.

"What do you mean?" I thought the other day was just a one-time, make-up sex thing. He doesn't seem like the bottoming type... well, maybe with someone else, but not with me. He's clearly the one with power here, the teacher, the experienced master, the... what did the Greeks call it? Oh well, it's not like I have room in even my brilliant brain for historical fact - it happened, that's all I need to know.

"I mean that it's my turn, so please, fuck me before I get impatient and take care of myself." His voice is harsh, but I can see the lust sparkling in the dulled spheres of his eyes. And, God, by the heat of his skin, his cock, the way he's panting as he continues to shift against me, he really is at the point where he'd do himself.

And with him putting it that way, I'm really not all that far behind. "If you say so..."

"God, Rodney, I say so," he pants as I move a slicked finger inside him, marveling at his heat, the motions he makes against me... the way he seems to want me, need me, almost. And doing this with him... coming inside him yet again, is just as explosive and wonderful as before, even when the only music are his moans and my panted grunts. I don't think I could ever get tired of this. And I was always taught that infinity was not a number, just a limit one approached but never reached. Somehow, being with John has made me wonder -hope, even- that we can reach it.

I wake to the sound of someone screaming. I've never been one for nightmares - I sleep like a rock and never remember a thing the morning after, not even dreams. And, believe it or not, living in Maple Ridge doesn't give you much opportunity for scream-out-loud violence. So, I shoot out of the bed and am sprawled flat on my face on the ground before I remember that we left a mass of clothes and boots on the darkened floor.

"Jesus fucking Christ we need to be more careful. What the..." I turn to find a still form silhouetted in the moonlight, sitting pushed up against the headboard with long arms wrapped tight around lanky legs. He's so pale, skin glowing blue. I think about all those myths of the Virgin Mary shrouded glowing and blue, the tales those annoying immigrants from the East would tell in pubs late at night when I was drinking to one sorrow or another.

I move cautiously toward him, an utterly rational panic overwhelming the quiet mysticism of his sorrow. I don't really do well with these emotional connection things. Psychology is even less of a science than medicine, after all. Now I feel as though I might have done well to listen, instead of doodling relativistic equations during Psych 101. Not that it would have helped me through something as dicey as this. I remember the words PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. There's a lot of really smart people out there who think it's a myth, invented after the Vietnam War to give vets more lobbying power or something or other. Or maybe just to get the military to realize that their soldiers are human - that they don't stop where Captain America ends.

I give him an awkward pat on the back, and try to put my arms around him, but he shrugs them off like he would a coat. But in even that brief moment of contact, I could feel him trembling. He just stares straight out into space, and I find I am suddenly afraid - scared by a look alone. The look in his eyes makes you want to turn and look around for monsters, for unthinkable horrors... as though if you could see what he sees you'd go insane.

I don't know what to do, so I retreat to the bathroom. "I'll get you a glass of water," I say over my shoulder. He blinks once, but otherwise doesn't give any indication he's still alive.

As I hold the cup to the sink I feel my hands trembling. Looking in the mirror at the worry lines and wrinkles that seem so prominent in the shadows of this painful night I tell my reflection, "I'm not ready for this... I'm in way over my head." But, like anything really, since I stepped through the gate, I don't have a choice. I can't stop caring about him. I can't stop the pull deep in my chest -not my asthma, I hope- that hurts every time he does. I school my features into a semblance of order, at least in this darkness, and step back through the door.

When I return, he's rooting around in his jacket for something, hindered slightly by the cast on his wrist. I move to help, but he easily evades me, pulling out a baggie of pills - Atlantis has no children, and thus no need for those damn humanproof containers. He smiles smugly and pulls a few out, downing them without even a gulp of water. I'm afraid he's going to choke, but he doesn't.

I want to ask him if he really needs that many, but it'd only get him mad at me again. It's not like I've never taken a few too many meds. There was that time when I tried to kill myself by taking eleven Advils. Of course, with my Scandinavian liver, that did jack diddly. It wasn't even a cry for help; it was just pathetic. "John, are you all right?"

He looks so tired, I can almost see a fog forming around him, but instead of blurring his features, it sharpens them, letting me see every weakness: the pathetic beginning of a beard, the sharp edge of his chin, his strangely, though not entirely unpleasantly shaped ears, his hair slicked down and matted from sweat so different than it's usually poofy and undisciplined appearance. His eyes are the only thing to blur, and the weariness there is felt like a solid weight. I once called -at least privately- John's gaze magnetic, but perhaps that is the wrong word. Magnets are ordered - particles all aligned perfectly, and that's how they attract. John is not that. He's gravity - functioning only with a massive weight at the center.

"Yeah. Sorry, Rodney, my wrist hurt. I didn't mean to wake you up." He gives me a slightly muffled version of his winning smile, completely unconvincing with his pale features and sweat-soaked brow. We both know that while the nightmare may have been triggered by the physical stimulus of pain, it wasn't the pain that woke him. Still, I see that pleading look in his eyes and can't bring myself to say anything.

"No problem, John. You know I go back to sleep easily."

He smiles again, but looks mildly disappointed not to be on the receiving end of my usual bitching. He was present a few weeks ago when I nearly took Zelenka's head off when he interrupted me in the middle of a power nap - I go to sleep easily, but that doesn't mean I'm not grumpy when I wake up.

"Thanks." He lays a kiss half on my lips and half on my cheek and pushes himself off the bed and walking out onto my balcony. The fullness of the moon glowing off the bare skin of his back should make him angelic and tranquil looking, but the contrast only succeeds in highlighting the ghastly white of the scars, standing out like menacing insects crawling over the perfect flesh and feeding, like fragments of bone, like reality so stark and bright extending from the shadows in harsh angles and lines.

The night air is warm as it spills in from the wide-open doors, blowing through his hair in the only motion of his thin frame, tensed as he gazes out into the darkness. I rise, stumbling clumsily as I drag the duvet with me. He doesn't even flinch at the sound, or as I lay it over his bony shoulders, covering up the scars I'm determined not to see, now that I know they're there.

He clasps the blanket loosely at the front in one hand, gripping the railing with the other until his knuckles are white. When he looks out at the horizon, I wonder what he sees. I wonder if he ever dreamed of flying through the stars - it'd be just like John to want to be an astronaut when he grew up. Or maybe he wanted to be Captain Kirk - he sure acts enough like him. But for him it was all about adventure, I'm sure. John's all about feel - he likes to touch, possess, experience, fly fast. But the only understanding of beauty he's ever shown is mathematical. He thinks I'm beautiful, so there's obviously something wrong with his aesthetic appreciation.

I, on the other hand, have always been enchanted by the grandeur of the night sky. I looked up at it through thickets of cedar in Stanley Park and demanded an explanation for it all beyond the myths of heaven and earth, of basket weavers who sprinkled lights throughout the vast dome or mythic tales of heroes and heroines, gods and monsters. It was too great, too big and luminous, and beautiful for me to stand. I wanted to tame it, quench my fear of something infinite with knowledge and explanations.

But, as I learned in the crystal clear desert of New Mexico, knowing the 'why' doesn't change the beauty. Just as knowing that gravity is not some mystical force that drags everything down, but a mutual attraction between objects and the Earth does not suddenly make things star falling up. The attraction is there, immutable, regardless of the why. Not even Samantha Carter and all her knowledge and charm could find a way to halt the effects of a black hole.

The intensity of John's silence is making me uncomfortable, the stillness unnerving. Even playing with my hands is not enough - I need a purpose to keep the abyss that is the horizon and John's stare at bay, so I bend down to focus my one 'official' personal item - a near professional-grade telescope, personally enhanced, of course.

After lingering moments, I slip further into the wonder that I'm seeing an entirely new set of stars - the infinity of nights spent marveling at the enormity of the Milky Way compounded and transformed. And it is John who breaks the reverence. "So I guess I'm supposed put my arms around you while you tell me about the constellations." We make jokes about not being a couple. I guess we aren't really. I mean, there's never been an agreement of any kind. He just comes to my room at night, sleeps wrapped in my arms - but he could stop any time he pleases and not worry about having to break any promises.

"If I knew them." I snort. "You should ask Teyla."

He uses his 'have it your way' voice, never good, though comforting in its familiarity, a return to our normal routine of bickering, despite the very real threat in its meaning. "Maybe I will."

"Or maybe I'll just tell you the redshift index of each and every star instead." The beauty of the night is lost to our flirtatious little game in a moment. We love to argue, there's no doubt about it. It's gotten to the point where it's become an almost sick form of foreplay.

"If you want me to push you off the balcony, go right ahead." I can't help a small grin at this, at least he's coming out whatever trance he put himself in.

"So once wasn't enough for you?" I remember the mischievous grin on his face when he did it, making me feel like a child again, proud to be part of something.

"Oh, you know how much it turns me on to see you panic."

"You are a sick, sick, sick little man." I'm sure that's a quote from something.

"I am not little!" He gives me a playful shove, even though his eyes are still distracted, a part of him still in the clutches of nightmares that cannot be washed away until daybreak. Then he seems to wilt, sinking down to the ground and dropping the blanket behind him.

I'm at his side in a moment. "Are you all right, John?"

He spreads to blanket behind him as he sits. "Fine. The meds just kicked in." He yawns and lays back on the soft padding of the duvet, pulling me with him. "Tell me about the stars."

He snuggles up against me, insinuating a leg in between mine and laying a hand on my chest as he rests his head on the usual place on my shoulder. I can't take the intimacy of it all. "What are you, five?"

"C'mon, Rodney, I'm sure you've used the 'You Jane, I big astronomy buff' routine to try to get into someone's pants at one point. Humor me." He pulls me tighter, letting his eyelids droop as he gets comfortable.

I sigh, rolling my eyes for good measure. "Fine. The cosmos are ruled by the force of gravity - the attraction between massive bodies."

"Massive bodies?" He chuckles sleepily, breath fluttering across my chest.

"Do you want me to tell you or not?" He nudges me to continue, breaths already deepening. "So, anyway, the thing about gravity is that while it's relatively simple to calculate between two bodies, operating in a void, it's ridiculously complicated to calculate between three or four, not to mention the infinite number present in our universe. I mean, we have a good idea, from observations, and if the objects we're dealing with are relatively weightless in comparison, but there's still a huge amount of complexity even if it doesn't necessarily effect the net attraction, or even the observed motion. Every once and a while, however, that rich background, the miniscule pulls and forces that we must ignore in favor of efficient prediction and definition, come into play. There we see the true unfathomable infinity of the universe, and thus it's beau..." A flash of light streaks across the sky, and for a second I fear that it is the shimmering surface of a Wraith dart, the harbinger of a sudden invasion, but it is just a meterorite. "Hey, John, did you see that? A falling star. Well, actually, it's not a falling star, because stars are too massive to..."

But I realize, by the deep breaths I feel against me and the relaxed set of his boyish features, that John has already fallen asleep. So I think of the nature of falling stars in silence, not daring to make a wish.