I thought you always hated
Those lip-gloss girls you’ve dated
With skinny legs and all that

Another illustration
Of diverted desperation
Has left you kind of jaded

You hold your head up high
And sometimes you cry
You can’t make up your mind
To touchdown or fly
But you keep your head up high

You claim another stole gas
For every rule you’ve broken
Your moving and some motion

And all your superheroes
Have added up to zero
As things are getting weird now
-Sugarplum Fairies, Touchdown or Fly

THE COANDA EFFECT
By Gaia

1. Separation

There was no parade. Then again, a parade was what happened when you came home victorious. All he could really say about their return was that it was sudden. One minute he'd been the commanding officer of an outpost in another galaxy, complete with swanky ships, great friends, liquor and alien weed that were finally getting to be passable, and only a few thousand nasty blue sons’o’bitches that wanted him dead. All in all, a pretty good deal - except for the life-sucking aliens wanting to kill him part.

It wasn't some great catastrophe that sent them running through the Gate with their tails tucked between their legs, or the promise of greener pastures or whatever would cause you to give up the adventure of a lifetime for the comforts of home. Instead, it was politics. Administrations changed, the winds of fortune got a whole hell of a lot more militant, Jack O'Neill got sent off to push paper at the Pentagon, and somebody named General Rush (though John preferred to pronounce it, 'Dickwad') sent the orders recalling all civilians from Atlantis.

John said, 'if they go, I go with them,' because hey, it worked with Everett. All the brass cared to say to that was, 'oh, sorry to lose your oh-so-brilliant genetic code, but at least this way Colonel Henderson won't have to housebreak you,' and just two weeks later he and Rodney and Elizabeth and Zelenka were the last of the command staff to step through the wormhole, leaving Ford and Teyla and Bates behind to fight the good fight without them. He would have to remember to send a note to Gandhi about the complete and utter failure of passive resistance in the American Military.

The damn Earth iris seemed to clamp shut with all the woeful finality of a funeral dirge and he and Rodney turned to each other, gaping. Elizabeth just seemed resigned to it all. She'd fought it at first, but she'd been in politics long enough to know that these things happened.

Rodney was louder, but ultimately, all his whining just made Rush more pissed off. It was only Colonel Carter that kept Rodney at the SGC instead of getting shipped back out to Area 51, and John was awarded his very own SG team (lucky number 13) as a consolation prize, though it'd be another couple weeks in debrief before they could get out there again.

"This sucks," he said, offering Rodney another swig from his beer bottle. It was Corona, his favorite, but somehow it didn't taste even half as sweet as he'd imagined those long nights on Atlantis.

"Tell me something I don't already know." Rodney rolled his eyes. "It's always this way with the military. They think that if they have enough guns they can take care of anything. Rush doesn't seem to understand that this is the enemy that defeated the Ancients. Scientists and innovative technology are the only things that stand between them and a human buffet bar . . ."

"You're not going to get any argument from me," John said, leaning back against the cold hard concrete of the base wall - on Atlantis they at least had balconies. There you could watch the sunrise. "Two weeks and they still haven't let us out of this goddamn hole in the ground." He bounced the tennis ball General O'Neill had left with his name on it against the wall. O'Neill'd also left him his season football tickets, saying that he'd return to reclaim them eventually. John could only hope. He hated Rush with a passion already, though he felt sorry for the poor bug stuck up the guy's ass - there must be enough pressure to make diamonds in there. Then again, probably even the damned bug was a homophobic asshole.

Rodney leaned back as well, his hand falling idly on John's thigh, stroking. "At least they gave me a relatively decent position."

"You're head of the lab here. How's that 'relatively decent?'"

"There's still Colonel Carter."

"Who you admit is smarter than you. Plus, I know for a fact, taking orders turns you on."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "It's not like she's interested in me anyhow. Still pining over the long lost general. Dumb blondes always go for the grunts."

"Nah, she's just playing hard to get. Isn't that what you told me, oh, five million times when you were drunk and waxing poetic about the great Samantha Carter and how good you were together?"

Rodney's hand continued stroking but moved higher. "We would be good together, but she's too short-sighted to see that. Besides, I know someone else who . . ." the rest was lost as Rodney's lips found John's neck.

John pushed him away, reluctantly. "Rodney . . . you know I can't." This wasn't Atlantis. It wasn't John and Elizabeth in charge. It was Earth and John'd already made enemies with the man in the big chair. He didn't want to end up in Leavenworth, and God, wouldn't Rush love an excuse? That’s how he and the late David Sheppard had gotten to be such good friends, arguing against faggots in arms.

Rodney sat back and sighed. "I know. I was just hoping that . . . I don't know."

"Me neither," John sighed. They had been good together. Best friends with benefits, and damn were those some good benefits. But it hadn't been serious. Maybe in a perfect world it could’ve been, but in this one, they both knew that it would end.

At least that's what John told himself when he showed Rodney to the door.

"So, who're we gonna put on our team?" John asked, catching up to Rodney. Tomorrow they were finally going to break out of this mountain and he could barely contain his energy.

Rodney didn't slow his pace, though he did hand several plates of Jell-O over to John to help him carry. "Um . . . about that . . ."

"Please tell me you're not going to request Kavanagh."

Rodney snorted. "Please, Colonel, how stupid do you think I am? I'd rather give up my Nobel prize to Bart Simpson." John wasn't about to point out that Rodney hadn't won a Nobel prize yet, nor that Bart Simpson wasn't a real person. He was more concerned about the way Rodney was refusing to meet his eyes.

"Then what were you 'um'ing about?"

"I . . ." Rodney stopped, causing John to bump into him and drop a plate of Jell-O. "Oh, now look what you did. Didn't you used to be a quarterback?"

"You were the one who . . ." John knelt down to pick up the mess of shattered porcelain and jiggling green gunk.

"Maybe it would be best if you took another scientist for a while. Oh . . . don’t give me that look. It's just that there's so much to do here. Between redesigning the experiments we were conducting on Atlantis and hybridization tests and personnel reassignments and establishing myself as an expert on Goa'uld technology as well . . ."

"You wanna give up your spot on my team so you can play king of the laboratory?" John let his disappointment shine through, even though he did kind of see this coming. It didn’t make it more fair.

"As stunning as she happens to be, Colonel Carter is far too lax in her laboratory protocol and it didn't help that General O'Neill was about as good a check on scientific standards and resource allocation as my pencil sharpener. Just a few months while I get everything running smoothly. You can take Zelenka . . . he's like a giant teddy-bear. You'll have a blast."

"I don't want a giant teddy-bear. I want . . ." But John didn't get a chance to say it because they reached the lab and Colonel Carter was calling Rodney over to explain some of the modified zero point field equations.

In the end, John did go with Zelenka, and Lin, because they needed an anthropologist in this galaxy, and a Russian, because Rush was just that cruel.

John missed Ford. And he really missed Teyla. But most of all, he missed Rodney.

On the bright side, he was learning Russian, if only because he was the only one that didn't speak it. Mostly, it was just swearwords, which seemed to be as much regard as Zelenka had for the Russian military. And Lin, though he somehow did the peacekeeping, wasn't much of a talker. John finally realized why he couldn't remember exchanging ten words with the guy on Atlantis - the man didn't speak.

"Zkurvysyne," Zelenka said, kicking the pedestal.

Toderov mumbled something John couldn't quite catch and before he knew it, there was shouting.

John sighed and went to check on Lin. Maybe he could do something useful, like take a rubbing or DV. Who knew? Missions in the Milky Way were dull as dirt. Though he supposed Rush was giving him the boring ones on purpose. After the 'talking to' he'd received yesterday, John was pretty sure he was at the very very bottom of the General's shit list. In Pegasus, at least he got to make things light up.

"Dr. Lin?"

"Yes, Colonel Sheppard?" The anthropologist blinked at him owlishly. John resisted the urge to kneel so that they'd be at the same height.

"Is there anything I could do to . . . you know . . . speed the process?"

"No."

That was all, just 'no,' before Lin blinked again and went back to work.

John was going to make Toderov do a perimeter sweep, but bored as he was, he figured he might as well do it himself.

'That's all you're good for, Major, perimeter sweeping and chasing space bimbos. Now just don't touch anything and maybe we'll all get out of here alive,' said a snarky voice inside his head.

"I'll try to keep my hands to myself," he mumbled, imagining how he would've given Rodney a good slap on the ass after that one. The teasing had always been fun, but it only got more fun when they'd added innuendo to the mix.

"Kurva, I have had it with this debile zasranej," Zelenka came storming over. "He does not let me concentrate, always looking over shoulder like lost puppy and criticizing what his meathead mind cannot possibly understand. Colonel, you have to get rid of him or I will go crazy!"

"Toderov!" John barked. "Perimeter sweep. Now!"

He heard Toderov cursing as the petulant Russian stomped off.

Two more days . . . two more days on this goddamned rock before he could get back to scientists that at least bitched in English.

"Thank you," Zelenka said, pushing at his glasses. "Now, if you please, go away."

John sighed, sitting down on a piece of ruin. It lit up.

Rodney would have made fun of how he could even light things up with his ass. But Rodney wasn't here.

"Kurva drat!" was all Zelenka said, going frantically to work on his laptop.

John didn’t hear English again until about three hours later.