5. They Are Told

The ocean air is familiar. It tastes of salt and seaweed and the rough perfume smell of the long-tailed blue birds that have taken to using this balcony as a nest, now that the city has been moved closer inland.

John stares one in the eye, watching the salt water drip from its eyes, shedding the tears he can’t yet bring himself to shed. His skin feels paper thin against the chill of the wind, and the black cardigan his mother knitted him just before her death does nothing to insulate him against the chill.

It is appropriate that he should find his company among these birds today, for blue is the color of death.

“Still moping, I see,” the voice is intimate and recognizable, coming from the doorway, loud and annoying. Even as wrinkles creep up his forehead and white into his hair, Rodney can still manage to sound like the petulant child that whined for sweets or pushed John into the ocean and then told Mom that it was because John splashed him first.

The birds, too pure blue and regal to tolerate Rodney’s bitching, take flight, off to the snowswept peaks of the mainland and Rodney’s house, where even now Reka must be worrying over the two of them.

“I lost my husband; I’m allowed to mope.”

“Yes, yes, and he was very brilliant and hot, and a good twenty five years older than you. I’m sorry if I’m the only one who saw this coming.”

“You are such an asshole, you know that? Praise be to the Ancestors that they have not condemned you to great karmic suffering because of it.”

Rodney heaves a put-upon sigh, coming to stand beside John and wrapping one arm around him. John tries to pull away, but even at this age, Rodney is still stronger than he is. “Come on, we can’t have our Chief Scientist catching a cold out here.” Rodney has always been overprotective, ever since John got so sick as a child.

They walk down through the heart of the city, children playing in the hallways, the Gateroom buzzing with Marines and scientists, General O’Neill (the second one . . . somehow) smiling at them as he twirls his chair around in his little glass office.

“He’s pretty wacky, for a Military guy,” John comments, watching with interest, as he practically falls out of the chair when Lieutenant Richer enters with a salute.

“No more wacky than I hear Atlantis’ first military commander was,” Rodney says with a smirk, leading John into the nearest transporter. “I have no idea how they expect us to believe that you or anyone like you could have survived in the military. I mean, when they were checking for ATA, did they miss the glaring insubordinate gene among the bunch?”

John smirked. “I could have done it. If that was the only way to fly, I would have.”

Rodney nods. They know each other well enough to not dispute the truth when they hear it. But the transporter does not let them out into the Jumper Bay as John had expected, but into a darker corner of the city. John looks to Rodney, confused.

“Oh, I figure you’ve done enough flying in the past few days to get your pilot’s license all over again.” Not that John’s ever needed an official license.

John recognizes the corridor now. He knows Atlantis better than he knows himself sometimes. “The organ room?”

Rodney nods. After all these years he’s finally given up on trying to interface it with Earth technology, content instead to let it play as it is – it’s own art.

“I want to play you something I wrote a long time ago,” Rodney says quietly.

John nods. He’s heard Rodney play a thousand different things here, but this is the first time he’s seen Rodney sit down at the bench, hands away from the keys, eyes closing to use his gene to connect.

He thinks back to how General Carter once told him that the Rodney before, the mysterious McKay of Atlantis legend, had given up music, claiming that he had no art.

But Rodney, this Rodney is all art, intelligence, strength. He’s not the best with people, but John can’t imagine someone better to write the symphony of Atlantis, majestic blues and greens as she rises from the sea, violas and cellos and sounds like the whales of this world’s depths, then a dancing melody, adventure, sparkling golden across the ceiling, sorrow and truth, and a battle hard won, generations turning over, deep crimson melting into royal purple, birth and death and so much life, the high bells of the stars, the vaulting notes of their mother’s perfect song, her voice, returning seemingly from the grave, clear and beautiful and haunting in more ways than one.

When the notes have finally faded, both of their eyes are shining with the beginnings of unshed tears. John finds it odd that it is not the song of death that has finally moved him, but the song of triumph.

Then Rodney’s forehead touches his, the most familiar embrace he’ll ever know.

“Ancestors, I miss him so much,” John chokes out.

“Well, there’s nothing you can do about that, now is there?”

“We have the Gate address,” John whispers. “I could go back . . . the Vaas.”

Rodney smiles at him, sadly, eyes so blue against the pale white of his skin. “You could.”

But there is no way to bring him back, not the way he was. If anything, John and Rodney are proof of that. “Do you ever wonder . . . you and I?” They’ve heard stories. And once John had a dream, a desert planet, through haze and smoke, Rodney screaming at him in terror, their eyes meeting, a Wraith stalking between them, a sudden flash of knowledge that they would either live together or die together just like this, and do so willingly.

“Sometimes,” Rodney admits. “But then I remember how much of a pain in the ass you really are.”

John punches him lightly on the arm. “I hear that you were the pain-in-the-ass of the original expedition.”

“Yes, well, just goes to show you that there are no guarantees.”

John nods, thinking back to the Ring Ceremony he preformed just three days ago, stuttering through the notes in a voice not even his mother could help. Ever since he was a child, clutching his mother tight against dreams of the Wraith, she had taught him not to fear death.

‘Everyone has a purpose and a place,’ she told him. ‘Not even the Wraith can take that away. But it is not our duty to question when we must die or that we must indeed someday die. What I wish for you, John, is that you live a rich and full life, without fear, and that you die knowing that you have lived your life the best that you could.’

“I won’t bring him back,” John whispers. “I loved him, but I won’t bring him back.”

Rodney nods, gripping John in a traditional Earth embrace.

“I know.”

FIN