It was the Fourth of July and John and Sam were out in the backyard barbecuing. It was strange – holidays on Earth. Sure, he’d been back on Earth for longer now than he’d been on Atlantis, but it still felt too strangely domestic. And seeing the American flag plastered all over, when he was used to it just being a meaningless patch on his jacket, was more than disconcerting. There were still people out there that thought of the world in terms of nation-states instead of as the refuge-place of the Ancestors or as the home of the Taur'i.

John looked down at his watch. “Where’s Rodney, again?”

Sam shook her head. “I sent him to the grocery store for baked beans, but you know how he is . . . .” Yeah, Rodney’d been bad enough when they just had a mess, but a whole grocery store’s worth of food; that was something else. “I should’ve learned by now.”

“Yeah, but no reason to deprive him of his pleasure. Besides, would you rather have him cook?”

Sam chuckled. “Good point.” They both knew that a man who liked MREs and airplane food really shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a kitchen. “He’s probably going to get us another cabinet full of those horrible canned sausages.” She wrinkled her nose in disgust. It was kind of cute.

“How you live with him, I don’t know.”

“Sometimes I don’t either. But I love him.”

“Yeah . . . but, canned sausages?”

She laughed harder, but then suddenly sobered, lost in thought.

“Sam?”

“Do you think Rodney would take it as a great offense to his masculinity if I asked him to marry me?”

John let his jaw drop, but that was the only luxury he afforded himself. “Well . . . I don’t know. He can be pretty touchy about manliness sometimes, but I wouldn’t really rely on him asking you either.”

“Oh.”

“No, no, Sam, I don’t mean that he wouldn’t want to! He just . . . you know how he works himself into a panic about things. And we both know that relationships aren’t really his thing.”

“I know. I just . . . I kind of left my last fiancé at the altar and I don’t want Rodney to think I’d do the same to him.”

Sam’d been engaged before? He hadn’t known that. “Rodney knows about that?”

“Yeah. It wasn’t my proudest moment. It was the first . . . normal relationship I’d had. Before that, pretty much every guy I’d been with died.”

“Bummer.”

“They used to call me Black-Widow Carter.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, and then this guy, Pete, came along and he was just a normal nice guy. He didn’t know about the Stargate or about past lives as a Goa’uld. He wasn’t an alien. He just liked me for me, took me dancing and out on normal dates on this planet. And I confused wanting that life with wanting him. In the end he found out about the program, but that only served to drive a wedge between us. He knew, but the fact that he knew and didn’t understand just made it worse.”

“Rodney understands.”

“But it’s more than that, John. He’s funny and brilliant and passionate and human, not just in terms of species, but in the fact that he’s not a dream to me. I’ve never doubted the fact that Rodney’s flawed.”

She blushed and smiled.

“No, that’s not really a danger,” John agreed with a laugh. “I think you should ask him, Sam, if that’s how you feel. Maybe do it in private so he can make some grand sweeping proposal later.” He winked.

Sam giggled. “Thanks, John. You really are a great friend.”

“You’re welcome.”

As they stood smiling at each other, Rodney barged through the gate, about ten shopping bags in his hands. “Some help here, please! Can’t feel my fingers . . .”

John rolled his eyes to Sam, but went to help anyway.

Rodney dropped a bag full of canned sausages at Sam’s feet and gave her a peck on the lips. “Hey. You guys weren’t talking about me, were you?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Sam replied, eyes laughing.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, John,” Sam complained. “There’s no way ‘Signs’ was even a remotely good movie. I mean, why would a race that’s intolerant to water even try to colonize a planet that’s ninety . . .”

“Movies aren’t supposed to make sense. The whole point is that they’re not real. Trust me, when you’re out facing life-sucking goth-wannabe evolved-insects, the aliens from ‘Signs’ are a blessing.”

Sam pulled on her protective glasses and loaded her 9mil. “And you’re not going to get any argument from me there. I just think that for something to be good it has to be more than just entertaining.”

John shrugged. “What else is there? Art?”

They both laughed and started firing into the targets. John looked over a bit competitively, proud that he was, in fact, a better shot, if not by much.

He turned back to her as they reloaded, to ask if she’d popped the question to Rodney yet, though judging by the way Rodney had just asked him about five times exactly how much time they intended to spend on target practice, he was prepping some sort of elaborate display of affection as they spoke.

Of course, Sam beat him to the question. “You seeing anyone, John?”

He shook his head. No, after the disaster with Jonas, he wasn’t ready for anything more than one-night stands, if that. “Nope.”

“Not ready to go back on the market?”

He didn’t feel pathetic enough to tell her the strong ‘yes’ he really felt. “I guess.”

“Because, if you wanted, I know some . . .”

“No, thanks, Sam. I’m good, really.” He did not want to talk about this right now. “Speaking of which . . . you popped the question yet?”

She laughed. “I thought he was going to faint for a second.”

“He didn’t?”

“No. But I think I might have the record for Rodney silence . . .”

“No way.”

“He said something about surprising me though . . .”

He tried to be happy for them. The smile seemed to go off okay. “That’s great, Sam.”

“I don’t know whether I should be frightened or not.”

“If it were me,” which it wasn’t, “I’d go with cautiously optimistic.”

She laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

The target practice passed surprisingly quickly after that. Sam’s accuracy had dropped a little, but that was probably due to the happy smile she couldn’t seem to wipe off her face. John wondered if he ever looked that happy. Maybe flying.

“Well, I’m done,” Sam said, pulling off her glasses and smoothing back her hair.

John looked down at his watch. Well, he’d given Rodney the promised hour. “Me too. What do you say we go back and see Major Peterson back from the orange swamp planet? After the shit he gave me for hiding from the man-eating-mosquitoes, he deserves an audience.”

Sam laughed. “Sure. I have to recheck whatever ‘improvements’ Rodney said he was making to the DHD protocol anyhow.”

John loaded himself a new clip, signed them out and walked out into the hallway, Sam not far behind. “You left him alone with the DHD protocol?”

“Well, he is head scientist of our lab. And I trust him. Why?”

“Well, you know how much of a perfectionist he is. We do want see Peterson covered in orange gunk sometime this century, after all.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. He can’t upload any changes into the mainframe without a ranking military officer’s password.”

“Yeah, about that . . .” Maybe he’d given Rodney his passcodes in case of emergency. It wasn’t like Rodney couldn’t be trusted.

“John!” Sam exclaimed, just as they walked into the Gate Room to find Peterson, completely orange-sludge-free, standing at the bottom of the ramp, looking up at the Gate, still rippling, but something strange was . . . it was swirling . . .

“Rodney! What did you do?!” Sam yelled, running for the control room, just as the swirls in the event horizon coalesced into a familiar scribble.

It said, ‘Samantha Carter, will you marry me?’

Rodney came out of the control room, his usual smug grin on his face, only to meet Sam screaming, “Rodney, how could you modify the protocols without . . .”

Rodney gaped and sort of pointed. It was only after John shouted her name that Sam turned to look. The red didn’t fade from her features, but her smile was radiant.

She whirled back around to hug Rodney, who still looked a bit at a loss as to what to do.

“Of course I will, Rodney.” She seemed to have completely forgotten the fact that Rodney had still modified the protocols without her permission, in a way that John was guessing wasn’t exactly safe. He’d probably get chewed out by Rush later. They both might.

Then Sam and Rodney were kissing in the middle of the Gate Room amid cheers and catcalls, and despite the fact that he thought it was sappy to the point of ridiculous, even embarrassing, John couldn’t help but think that maybe he wanted that, all the absurdity and embarrassment included.

“Get a room,” he said.

Rodney gave him the finger, holding tightly onto Sam and looking happier than John had ever seen him.

Of course, Rodney’s giddy state at marrying the girl of his dreams only lasted so long. It was Tuesday and they were sitting on Rodney’s couch in John’s apartment playing chess. "She wants to hyphenate our names." The disgust was clear.

John shrugged, moving his rook. "She's a feminist."

"No? Really? I completely failed to notice."

"Besides, what's the harm? It is the twenty-first century, you know?" It sounded reasonable enough. Not that John would ever have agreed to it.

"What's the harm? What's the harm, he says?" Rodney snorted.

"Other than to your masculine pride, of course."

"Like anyone could suggest that I'm anything less than a paragon of manhood."

John couldn't suppress a snicker. “Your move.”

Rodney took John’s knight. "Well, fine. It's more that it's just a hassle. I mean, when someone says they're looking for Dr. McKay-Carter, the sexy genius, most talented astrophysicist in two galaxies, Sam's going to feel a bit put out. I mean, sometimes I think she has some self-esteem issues. Not that she has anything to worry about it. She does manage to keep up with me, after all."

"Well, people could always just call her by her rank, or, they could just say, 'the hot one.'"

"Hey, I never heard you complain . . ."

"Never," he said, completely insincerely. "Besides, if you think it's inconvenient for you to have hyphenated names, how convenient do you think it'll be for her to change hers entirely?"

"I wasn't suggesting she change hers. It's just that the whole two name thing is just . . . well . . . the thing is . . . it's too many syllables."

John snorted. That was one of the most pathetic excuses he'd ever heard Rodney give for anything. Or at least he thought so. Until after a week of 'Dr. Carter-McKay' proved so cumbersome that it wasn't even worth the rise it got out of Rodney.

‘Well, that's what first names are for,’ John said with a shrug.

John had done good. He'd done damn good and he knew it. Rodney was his best friend, and it wasn't every day that your best friend was getting married and you had the chance to throw them the party of a lifetime. John doubted Rodney'd seen anything this good, even at Harvard.

There were drinks and really good music and geeks playing really really competitive games of strip-Scrabble and Go and Twister. And a bunch of really beautiful women (and a few men) from a good escort service that one of John's ex-employers actually ran (so he'd really wanted that Mustang, so sue him). And Rodney was at the center of it all, sipping a white Russian with one hand and holding on to an actual Russian with the other.

John decided he should cut in before it got a little too friendly. Rodney was at his rosy-cheeked, hump-anything-that-moves stage, which meant that it was time for some careful directing on behalf of his best man and party manager. John grinned, taking the girl in the pink bikini that was hanging off his arm with him as he parted the crowd.

Daniel Jackson and Zelenka were singing something in Czech and Teal'c was breakdancing to some good 'ole eighties hip-hop. Even Simpson seemed to be enjoying herself with the leggy brunette John had allowed, despite Rodney's obvious preference for blondes.

"Hey, Superman, leave Toderov alone. He should be pure for when he and Zelenka finally give in to the attraction and jump each other."

Toderov scowled. "I'm not . . . we're not . . . you are one sick fuck, Sheppard."

"That's Colonel Sick Fuck, to you," Rodney giggled, releasing Toderov, only to grope John, who made a show of rolling his eyes, even if damn, didn't that feel really good? And watching Simpson make out with the call girl wasn't half-bad either.

"Okay, too much of Mr. White Russian for you." John grabbed the drink, which only freed Rodney's other hand to find John's ass. Hmmm . . . someone was single-minded today. Luckily, John had a gorgeous blue-eyed blonde in a pink bikini on his arm. And they said that he was never prepared.

John stepped back and Rodney took a nosedive into Tanya? Tillie? Tamara's? ample bosom, extracting himself only to look down in wonder. "Hey, John, look what I found." He squeezed experimentally.

"Well you are a genius," John rolled his eyes.

"I'm a genius," Rodney said to the girl.

"She's a stripper, Rodney. You don't have to impress her." And a good one, because she didn't even look upset by the comment, eyes wide and doe-like.

"Hmmm . . .” Rodney bit his lip in drunken-contemplation, “stripper, stripping, strip . . . . Why are you still wearing clothes?" he asked.

"Because we're in the middle of a party," John explained patiently, gesturing to Toderov's retreating back and the other guys and girls milling around.

"Oh, yeah."

"Your bachelor party."

"Yeah, my . . ." and Rodney finally put two and two together. "I'm getting married. I'm getting married and this could be my last . . . this could . . ." he gulped. The panic was actually sorta cute.

"Relax, Fido, I've got everything taken care of. You. Tanya?" The girl blinked at him. "Room in the back."

"Me. Tanya. Room." Rodney seemed perplexed. He took a step forward and stumbled. "Help?"

John sighed. He needed to be a little more drunk for this. But then he couldn't see that Rodney had a good time. He grabbed Rodney's shoulder and let the girl cling to his other arm as they made their way to the back bedroom.

After Rodney was situated comfortably on the bed, bikini-clad blonde in his lap, John though his work was done, but Rodney's hand obviously had other ideas as it reached out to grab his wrist. He ended up tripping and flopping back onto the bed. Rodney was kissing the girl, but his hand was fumbling at John's belt.

John looked down, amused at how the man who could fix anything with those nimble hands while sober couldn't figure out a simple buckle like this. "Rodney . . . what are you doing?"

Rodney broke off his kiss. "Jesus, John, do I need to draw you a picture? Have your mutant hair follicles finally eaten their way through to your brain? I'm undoing your pants."

The girl looked from John to Rodney and back again, but didn't speak.

"I can see that, Rodney. But why are you undoing my pants?"

"Did you die and get reborn as a toaster-brained marine? I'm undoing your pants so I can fuck you."

"But Rodney, I hired a . . ."

"Shut up, Sheppard. Drag out the old Kirk complex. I'm getting married tomorrow and you promised that this would be the time of my life, anything I wanted, and what I want is my hand down your pants, get it? Got it? Good." Rodney could be one demanding sonofabitch, especially when drunk and horny, as John had experienced on multiple occasions.

After Rodney had stopped talking, the girl looked at him questioningly.

"What are you staring at?" Rodney demanded.

"I don't do group jobs," she said, matter-of-factly. "You can read my contract."

"Alright then, scram," Rodney said, pushing her away a little more violently then necessary. She looked slightly offended, but shrugged.

"You sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. Genius, here, hell-o? Why are you still here?"

She looked at John, who nodded apologetically. And then she was gone and Rodney was on him, kissing deep and passionately and rubbing himself up against John in a way he hadn't felt in such a long time, and damn, didn't he miss it?

"Mmmphf," was the biggest protest he could manage as he struggled ineffectually against Rodney, only increasing the friction. This was good, as good as they'd always been together.

"Like you, John. Like you screaming beneath me, begging for more."

"I like you too, Rodney," John managed in panted breaths, because he did. He liked Rodney a lot. He even liked being beneath him, screaming and begging for more, but . . . "But, we shouldn't . . ."

"Why not?"

John thought about a man named Jonas Quinn and that wide innocent smile and the childlike wisdom in his words, and how once when John had asked him the same question he had said 'Because I might fall in love with you,' and how it was probably already too late.

"Because you're marrying Sam." That was the right answer. That was what he was supposed to say, because Sam was his friend too and she was the girl of Rodney's dreams and guys didn't spoil their best friend’s dreams no matter what the small little fluttering at the back of their mind said.

"And this is my last night of freedom and I want to spend it with you."

Rodney got that young, almost lost look on his face, pleading. It wasn't an expression John was ever good at saying ‘no’ to and now was no exception.

"Okay," John said, breathless.

Rodney wanted to be found. You didn’t even need to know the man one tenth as well as John did, or even have passed psych 101 to come to that conclusion. Even if the name he’d used was a hockey star, Rodney knew damn well that if it was a sport (exempting golf, curling, and cricket), John would catch the reference. Besides, Rodney was the only one dumb enough to actually have his pre-wedding breakdown and actually buy an airline ticket out of the country. Rodney never did small.

But even if Rodney was secretly planning on being found, it was still nice to see him jump as John plopped down next to him, an arm around his shoulders to keep him from bolting (not that Rodney could outrun him, of course).

“You ever notice that airports are the only place where you don’t have to feel embarrassed about eating alone?” Rodney said drunkenly, though John knew from plenty of experience that Rodney wasn’t drunk.

“Hospitals,” John contradicted almost automatically.

“Hmmm . . . touché.”

The silence was too thick for John to even spare a thought to wonder at Rodney giving up an intellectual argument. When it was finally more than he could stand, John said, “I wouldn’t have figured you for a Ducks fan.”

“Yeah, well . . . maybe you don’t know me as well as you thought.” It was heavy and fatigued and too harsh for their usual banter.

“What makes you say that? I found you. Didn’t I?”

“I’m not a nice person. I’m not Mr. Jovial Grinning Next Door Neighbor Barbecuing Yuppie with a cool lawnmower and a white picket fence and . . .

“Never said you were.”

“I’m not . . . I mean . . . who am I kidding? I’m not the guy you marry. I’m an asshole.”

“Yeah, I know.” John squeezed Rodney’s shoulders just a little.

“And this can only end up bad. Really really bad. I mean, I can fix a naquadah generator with my eyes closed or jury-rig a nuclear bomb from some uranium and old refrigerator parts, but relationships . . . how long will it be before we hate each other?”

John shrugged. “You’ve made it this long.”

“Yeah, by some cosmic accident. But how long until she realizes that I really am as much of a prick as she thought I was at first? How long before we’re screaming and throwing knives and telling our children vicious lies just to hurt each other?”

“Is that really what you think about marriage?” Rodney’s parents had really fucked him up. If they weren’t dead, John would’ve liked to give them a piece of his mind.

“Well, it’s not as though you have much proof otherwise.” That was fair, he supposed. His parents were more cordial and distant towards each other than at each other’s throats, but he’d never particularly felt the urge to settle himself, so it was understandable.

“Do you really think you and Sam could get like that?”

Rodney paused for a second. “Well, no. But who does? She’ll probably just cheat on me.”

“Rodney. You’re panicking. Trust me, I’ve seen it enough times to recognize the signs. Just some pre-wedding jitters. Maybe it won’t work out. Maybe it will. But why sabotage it before you start? Sam loves you. You love her. You want this.”

“I do.” That wasn’t a question and so John wasn’t secretly hoping that Rodney would in fact call the whole thing off.

“Then let yourself have it. Let yourself be happy.” Isn’t that what Sam had told him a long time ago? When? He didn’t remember, but it was good advice nonetheless.

“Okay,” Rodney said dazedly.

John looked down at his watch. “And look, you’ve scheduled your panic attack with just enough time to give me a good excuse to speed on the way back, how considerate of you.”

“You’re welcome.” It was absent. John tugged Rodney out of the seat. Rodney owed him one. Big time. John tried not to sigh in disappointment. Rodney really did want this. It was for the best.

He sped a little bit more than was strictly necessary on the way back. But he was a pilot. He loved to fly.

John stood wearing a tux next to Zelenka, Daniel and Teal’c. All were grinning, though John wouldn’t exactly call Teal’c's smile a grin – he looked happy, at least. Zelenka had cleaned up a bit for the occasion, but they all looked incredibly out-of-place wearing their tuxes. Rodney had bought one for John and demanded he not wear his uniform on account of space-bimbos fawning left and right. The collar was too tight. He hated it.

He stole a glance over to the bridesmaids: Cassandra, Sam’s pseudo-adopted daughter, Dr. Reyes, whom John liked well enough, though he was never thrilled to see her, and Jeannie McKay, who, despite being a lot younger and only Rodney’s half-sister, looked a hell of a lot like him.

Rodney was standing in the middle, looking like he was about to pass out from manly-apprehension. John wanted to whisper to him to stop pulling at his collar so John could stop thinking about his own suit and the suffocating feeling that seemed to drown him. Maybe he just didn’t like churches.

Why were they in a church anyhow? Neither Sam nor Rodney could be called anything close to religious. Still, this one was truly gorgeous, which is how he supposed Sam had convinced Rodney into it. The pastor was a bit put off by Rodney’s absolute refusal to be married by a priest, but took the fat wad of cash anyway.

Rodney pulled at his collar again and John stared until he met his eyes. Rodney gulped, but seemed to calm, nodding to John.

Then the music started playing and everyone was standing, including all their friends from the SGC and Sam’s brother and his wife, a few of Sam’s friends from the Academy that John didn’t recognize, and a few of Rodney’s, who seemed to be here more because they wanted to see it for themselves than because Rodney’d made all that much effort to keep in touch with them.

And then Sam was looking gorgeous in a white dress, tight and simple, plain white and of an almost translucent flowing material that John recognized from P5X-765, where he’d asked Major Peterson to nab it on his follow up mission. She was lead up the aisle by General O’Neill, who was wearing his dress uniform and looked pissed as hell that John wasn’t.

John thought it was kind of strange that O’Neill was giving her away, as Sam’d admitted to him that she’d once had a thing for the guy, but he was too old for her anyhow. And John thought it was kind of appropriate to be given away by ex-flames, more so than by parents (though Sam’s were dead). He wondered if, should he ever get married, Rodney’d be willing to give him away, at least privately.

The ceremony was short and to the point. John liked the vows Rodney wrote. They were fumbling and read off notecards (after Sam’s account of how Rodney talked for two hours about leadership and his masturbation habits in his message home from Pegasus). John still thought Rodney did a good job, though. He especially liked the part about how Sam had gone from being an unattainable dream that he used to reaffirm his masculinity to his peons to being the true love of his life.

Sam’s vows were actually less touching. Despite a better set of social skills, John had always seen her as being more emotionally distant. She talked about how she used to hate Rodney, but how he’d blossomed into an amazing man seemingly before her eyes.

Maybe John didn’t like Sam’s vows because they weren’t true. Rodney had blossomed entirely away from her gaze, regardless of what Sam thought. He’d left Earth the asshole Sam knew him as and had been forced to change by hardship after hardship. He’d changed the most with John, and wasn’t it kind of unfair for Sam to profit from all his hard work?

Then again, John’d given him up, while Sam kept trying, even after disastrous first impressions. Maybe that’s why she got him and John didn’t: just desserts.

They got to the part about objecting and all that, but this wasn’t Hollywood and John wasn’t the rat bastard that’d fuck up a day like this for his two best friends in this galaxy, so he forgot the objection that rested on his tongue. ‘But what about me?’ was hardly an objection, after all.

At the reception, Zelenka got really drunk and gave a hilarious speech comparing Rodney to Pumbaa, the warthog from the Lion King, a musical which Zelenka really liked, apparently. Daniel got really drunk and stopped speaking English, not for the first time. John got really drunk and slept with Jeannie McKay.