He wakes to a vision of boundless blue sky, the thick sticky feel of the grass cushioning his bruised limbs. His thoughts gather like birds, flocking to a bath or a feeder. He remembers the cold dank smell of an underground bunker, the rustle of thick cloth uniforms, a voice repeating over and over again, ‘they will not come.'

The device shined, chrome-slick and slippery, the refractive sea slipping over him, cool against bruised skin as it washed over him. He was Neo, and it was the red pill or a life of torture. When it slipped into his mind, he was Dorothy. ‘I wish I was home.'

But this isn't the bronzed corridors and the tall spires of Atlantis, sunlight against stained glass flowing in from all angles. John takes a deep breath, drinking in that fresh-cut grass smell that can only be found outside of Pegasus – with the Wraith at the doorstep, no one has time for gardening. He grips one hand to his aching side. It isn't too bad – nothing broken. His captors thought they'd have a lifetime to torture him.

Sitting up from his supine sprawl is a difficult task, but the sound of an approaching car forces him to action. He's laying in the front yard of a large Spanish-style home. Actually, mansion would be more accurate. The hedge that runs around the front is thick and well-groomed, and the stone pathway that runs up to the door is a little too immaculate, flowers of golds and blues and purples in full bloom. John can't see too far beyond the house, but it appears to boarder a wide canyon of dry brush, yellow and dark green against the bone deep ache of the sunlight.

The car that pulls in the driveway is a silver beamer, a Z4 convertible from the look of it. So, definitely Earth. Or mist-people planet.

Of course, John can rule out mist-people rather quickly, because in no fantasy universe of his, should teenagers be allowed into cars that will probably smear their brains on the highway somewhere. The girl who steps out of it is tall and skinny, with that long slouch that young women use to accentuate their narrow hips. Not that she needs any help, with a rack like that and a Che Guevara shirt held together by safety-pins, she's already jailbait enough, even if she's gone the route of white girls with dredlocks, something John has never found particularly attractive. She's like Ronon, only with bright, somehow familiar blue eyes.

"Um . . ." John begins, still sitting sprawled on her parent's lawn.

The kid slams the door with a little more force than a machine like that is deserving of and then stalks over to him, cocking a hip to the side and demanding, in that snide rebellious way that matches her large collection of piercings, that he tell her exactly who he is and what he's doing there.

Good question. "I . . . um . . ." he looks over at the canyon. "I was hiking and I fell, banged myself up pretty good. Do you think I could use your phone?"

The girl eyes him suspiciously, clearly trying to assess whether or not she can take him.

She whips out a cellphone – one of those new fancy ones that opens up into a keyboard for text messaging. John winces. He can't call into the mountain on a cell. Only the ones with built in scramblers are deemed secure enough. "Actually, um . . . would you believe me if I said that I needed to use a landline?"

She looks at him again for a minute. "My father says never to believe old lecherous men with strange coincidences, because they're all trying to get into my pants thanks to the jailbait genes I inherited from my mother's side. Because before I know it, I'll be knocked up with the child of some idiot in a prison somewhere and even further dilute the family genius and he'd never forgive me for that, even though he was already getting his master's degree and living on his own by the time he was my age."

John winces. "Too much info, kid. What's your name anyway?"

"Mary, but you can call me MJ"

"So you're a fan of Spiderman?"

She looks annoyed, black eyeliner oozing rebellion and antagonism. Yeah, John knows this phase – he has the piercing-scars on his nipples to prove it. "And you are?"

"John. Though you can call me . . ." John is interrupted by motion back in the convertible. A kid, maybe twelve years old with unruly blonde hair and glasses pushes himself up, not even stopping to pause his PSP to stand up on the fancy leather upholstery before jumping down into the driveway. He makes it all the way to the front door before turning around and noticing the stranger sprawled out on his lawn.

He stops and blinks. "Are you one of mom's boyfriends?" he asks, indifferently. "Because she's a lesbian now." He sits down on one of the pots of bougainvilleas on the side of the house. They crawl up the wall behind him like bright magenta tailfeathers.

John is seriously beginning to doubt the parenting skills of whomever's in charge of these two. "So . . . um . . . your phone?"

"We've got a custom built security system that I'm sure Max has already linked into with his PSP and really noisy neighbors. So don't try anything," MJ says, reaching down to help John to his feet.

He can't help but stifle the gasp when she yanks him up. His ribs and his left hip are smarting, but he does his best to limp after her.

"What kinds of stupid do you have to be to get that injured hiking?" MJ remarks, "Swiping her hand across a sensor where the doorknob ought to be that makes the door click unlocked.

"Pretty damn stupid," John replies. He should never have gotten caught in the first place.

She looks him over critically again. "I could drive you to the hospital."

"No!" John holds up a hand, moving too quickly and pulling at something in his ribs. He gasps. "No, really, it's okay. No big deal. A couple of Advil and I'll be fine."

"Max, run upstairs and get the emergency kit." MJ's archly concerned look is somehow familiar. "Are you sure? Because if you keeled over and died on our living room rug, I'd be in soooooo much trouble."

John nods.

"You do have insurance, don't you? Because seriously, Dad would freak if I had to call the paramedics and an ambulance showed up on my Mastercard."

"Yes, I have insurance," or at least he's hoping that the John Sheppard in this universe does. "And, no, you're not going to have to call the paramedics."

"Good."

"Here." Max seems to come tumbling down the stairs, still landing on his feet somehow, though shakily. John remembers that age too – all awkward gawky limbs and stumbles. Hell, sometimes he thinks he never grew out of it. The emergency kit is apparently a duffle bag filled with more bandages than Carson takes offworld and enough epipens to keep an army of McKays in a beehive. The Advil bottle seems dwarfed and alone . . . especially next to the portable defibulator.

John dry swallows four Advil and nods his thanks. Max is staring at him kind of oddly, his light brown eyes fixed very unsubtly on John's nose. He feels like he's in high school again, being scrutinized and judged from every angle and being found wanting. "Hey, do I have a zit or something?"

MJ cuffs her brother on the back of his head, ignoring his squeal of protest. "Don't mind him. He's just off to do his homework," she glares at him.

"Why do I have to? I'm not the one who got a C minus in History for writing ‘fuck the French Revolution' on her test last semester."

John tries not to laugh. In general he's kind of wary of kids in the way only-children tend to be, but these two are obviously intelligent enough and old enough to be fun.

"History is written by the bourgeoisie capitalist machine," MJ replies, "And I see enough propaganda on television. Mrs. Fredericks just couldn't handle my negation of her metanarrative. " John elects not to mention the ‘Hot Topic' tag hanging out the back of her shirt. "And," she turns to Max, "Grammy and Grandpa are coming over for dinner tonight, so you have to be ready. You'd better do my physics too, so I can pick something up from Honeybaked ham. You know Mom won't have time to cook."

For an anarchist/communist/whateverthehell, MJ certainly seems on top of things. "Are you sure you should be letting your brother do your homework for you?"

She waves him aside. "It's just busy-work anyway. Without all of the squishy sciences and Mom's insistence that I be a ‘well-adapted' child, I'd be in college right now. Plus, Max likes that stuff. Not that it's any of your business. The kitchen phone's right there, or is cordless too modern for you? Hey, you're not one of those paranoid people who thinks that aliens are intercepting our . . ."

She's interrupted by the front door slamming open and Max rushing past them and into the living room. His loud "Mom!" is followed by a long line of mumbling – far more words than John would've expected five minutes earlier.

MJ just roles her eyes. "Well, you'd better meet my mother, before she catches me in here with you and throws a fit. I apologize in advance."

John nods, shuffling after her back into the living room. MJ's Mom isn't what John would expect from her two slightly crazy children. She's tall and lean, with narrow shoulders and tanned skin, dusted with a touch of freckles. She's wearing black suit-pants and a sleeveless black silk t-shirt, offset by gold bracelets, piercing hazel eyes, and wavy hair pulled ruthlessly back into a high ponytail. She would remind John of Aeryn Sun on Farscape, if it weren't for the fact that her nose . . . oh God. John's seen that nose before - in the mirror. Maybe in this reality, John has a sister.

"Hi, Mom, this is John, and no he's not my ‘newest desperate cry for attention,' he's a hiker who fell on the trail and I was letting him use the phone. That's all. I swear, I'd scream rape if he tried anything with me, but you're always telling me to do the right thing and he was hurt, so I'd thought I'd be the good Samaritan and . . ."

MJ's mom narrows her eyes, stepping forward and reaching out her hand. She smells musky and floral like expensive women's perfume and John can see a cold guardedness in her smile, despite how objectively enticing one might find it. "Jordan Sheppard." Her handshake is firm even if her hands are cold. "You've already met my children."

John gulps. "I'm John . . ." not Sheppard. "I'm John Weir."

"Like the skater?" Max interrupts.

"Sure, like the skater."

Jordon (his sister? His cousin? His twin?) glides even closer to him, making stilettos look as easy as flying. Normally John doesn't see it coming, but that look, he recognizes. She's evaluating him . . . appreciating. "And what could you possibly be doing in my house, Mr. Weir?"

"Just needed to use the phone."

This causes her to spin around to face her daughter, face going tight and cold. "Mary Jane, you have a cell phone for a reason." She shoots John a look. "Not that he looks particularly threatening."

"Hey!" Without the bruised ribs, he'd be pretty damn threatening, thank you very much.

"No offense. He's too old for you, MJ. Especially if you haven't finished your homework."

MJ sticks out her tongue, flouncing upstairs with a stern look from her mother.

"Sorry about that, Mr. Weir. Kids."

John nods, plastering on his ‘charm the natives' grin. "It's okay. I'm used to that kind of thing."

"What are there names?"

"Oh, no . . ." John never really wanted any – not compatible with his lifestyle, at least that's what he'd told Dana. "They actually remind me of a couple of people I work with. They're smart."

The woman that looks creepily like him rolls her eyes. "Smart enough to find new and interesting ways to get in trouble."

"Exactly like the guy I'm thinking of."

She looks even more suspicious of that. "What exactly is it you do, Mr. Weir?"

Good question. "Uh . . . I'm a pilot." Not exactly a lie.

"Sounds romantic . . ." She moves forward, arcing her back and leaning towards him. He usually doesn't see it coming, but when it's someone who's most likely related to him, he has to be extra vigilant.

"Not in a long walks on the beach kind of way, but, yeah, it is." John has always been head over heals in love with flying, at least. He loves it more than he's loved anything else in his life, except maybe Atlantis. He loved it more than Dana, as it turned out. "What about you?"

"I'm on the less romantic end of things, I'm afraid. Aeronautics engineer."

"Having good equipment in tricky combat situations – there's something romantic about that."

Her laugh isn't quite geniune, but John sure as hell knows the meaning of a hand on his chest like that. He backs up right into the kitchen counter. "So . . .um . . . about that phone call . . ."

"Sure." She tosses him a cordless phone lazily. "I'm going to go make sure MJ is doing her homework, not messaging her friends about how I've ruined her life this time."

John nods, wincing as the soreness in his muscles have time to settle.

"SGC department, NORAD, how may I help you?" a pleasant female voice comes over the line, faceless and completely unlike the gruff and otherwise incompetent Airman they have answering the phones in John's universe. At least he has the right number.

John pauses for a second, debating whether or not he should ID himself. "Is General Landry available?"

"I'm sorry, Sir, but there's nobody here by that name."

"General O'Neill, then?"

"The general is currently out of the office. May I take a message?"

John catches his alternate universe sister or cousin out of the corner of his eye gliding down the stairs in a huff. He couldn't exactly say his name in front of her.

"What about Colonel Carter?"

"I'm sorry, sir. If you give me your name and tell me what it is you would like to discuss I might be able to put you through to someone with the proper authority who is present."

"Um . . . What about Doctor McKay? Is he in?"

"Again, I'm not familiar with a Doctor McKay, perhaps . . ."

John doesn't get a chance to hear her response, as the phone is literally ripped from his hands by an irate woman with intense hazel eyes and high heals that would probably be classed as a weapon on most of the worlds Atlantis trades with. John sure as hell hopes he looks that scary when he interrogates prisoners.

She slams the phone down hard, not bothering to settle it straight in its cradle. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Does he really think I'm that stupid? I can't believe this!" She steps forward, painted nails clamping down on his arm like steel traps as she yanks him towards the door. "You get the fuck out of my house and you tell him that because of this, he'll be forking over a check that'll buy me a brand new division. He never took me seriously before and now he resorts to espionage! In my own home! In front of the children!"

"Um . . ." John begins, bewildered. Her tugging is rough on his bruised ribs so he winces and pulls in on himself. "What?"

"You just tell Doctor McKay that I'll see him Sunday night at five o'clock and if he lets Max miss another soccer practice, the social worker will hear about it."

John is panting now, waves of pain shooting up and down his side. He blinks and he's in a crumpled heap on the floor gasping.

"Mom! You broke him!" MJ is complaining from where she's perched on the stairs.

"He's spying for your father, sweetie. Just let mommy handle this."

Wait? Her father! John's alternate universe sister is . . . or, from the sounds of things, was married to Rodney McKay? That's just not . . . it's just wrong. When would he ever let his sister date McKay? Even if he is John's best friend, he wouldn't know what to do with a woman if one showed up naked in his lap with technical diagrams drawn on her stomach.

MJ rolls her eyes, shaking her car keys at her mother. "I'm going over to Jessie's . . . I'll grab something for dinner on the way back."

"No . . . wait . . ." John protests, as it's obvious nothing good can come of her abandoning him alone here with her psycho mother. He coughs. "Can you drop me off at Cheyenne Mountain?" He coughs again, wincing. "Or maybe a hospital?"

MJ stops mid stride, doing her best to look put upon, but hiding it very poorly. "I don't think he's lying, Mom. Dad can get a little obsessed sometimes, but he's not going to beat up some guy just to spy on you. It's not like he's discovered anything Max and I wouldn't have already told him."

"That's just what he wants you to think, honey."

This is met with yet another eyeroll. John can really see Rodney in this one. "We've been over this, Mom. No matter what you say about him, I know that Dad's not evil and out to get us. You guys can have your jealous little capitalist wars all you want, but you can't let other people get caught in the middle. Seriously, just let me take John to the ER. I'll get a ham on the way back."

It's kinda pathetic, how this girl has to act like the parent in this situation. Then again, considering the genepool, it's not surprising.

"Mom, it's the right thing to do and you know it," MJ continues in a perfect parody of John's own stubborn declarations.

For a second, Mom looks like she's going to dig in, but in the end she relents. "You're right, sweetheart. But I need to keep an eye on this one. How about you grab the ham and start setting up." She checks her watch. "They'll be here in an hour and a half. And you know Grandpa – on time if he has to chop off a limb to make it."

MJ smiles triumphantly, bounding up the stairs. "Max! Are you done with your homework yet?"

"Kids. Think they're right about everything." The older Sheppard shakes her head, reaching down to pull John to his feet. He sways a bit when he finally gets there, but manages not to yelp with the rough handling.

"Well, I think she's pretty right about this one," he winces, holding his side.

"Well, injured or not, you're going to tell me what you're really doing here."

John grimaces as she leads him out and into a very impressive Mazarati. "Would you believe me if I said I came all the way over here to check out your car?" He runs a finger along the hood. "What kinda acceleration do you get on this?"

Surprisingly, this AU Sheppard launches into a loving speech about horsepower and cylinders and improvements over other models. John is starting to get a sneaking suspicion that something isn't quite right here.

She gets him settled in the passenger seat before slamming her own door with an ominous thud. "Nice try. Normally, I could talk about this baby all day, but I'm going to have to insist."

John takes the time to arrange his ‘cuddly, friendly trading partner' face (which oddly, leads to running for his life at spear-point about half of the time). Knowing his luck, this woman will have more than a spear. "Look, I just stumbled onto your lawn; I'm not spying on you; and if I know your . . . ex-husband? - it's from a long time ago."

She slams the car back into reverse and down the quiet suburban drive with a screech. "No, you see, that's how I know you're lying. If you knew Rodney from a long time ago, then you'd know me, too. We got married when he was twenty years old and still at Northwestern."

Well, shit. Rodney, that bastard. John didn't know he had it in him. "That early?"

"That's what happens when you let the grad student that's tutoring you in Physics knock you up," she grumbles bitterly. "He didn't even tell me that he was younger than I am!"

"And now you think he's spying on you? That's a little extreme, even for Rodney, dontcha think?"

"You're the spy. You tell me."

"I told you already. I. Am. Not. A. Spy." What the hell is he? She's not going to believe the parallel universe thing. That much, he knows. "I work for the Air Force. Rodney consulted on a project I was assigned to. There was a mistake and I need him to help me fix it."

"If that's true, then why am I driving you to a commercial hospital instead of being surrounded by black helicopters?"

"It's highly classified. I've almost told you too much already."

She pulls to stop sign, giving him a long hard look. "I don't know why, but I believe you. I always knew he had some sort of outside source of research material, the bastard. And when we were young and strapped for cash he was always ‘morally opposed' to giving in to the whims of the US government, no matter what cool technology they had. Military contracts were okay, but none of that top-secret experimental research crap. I gave up grad school to take care of MJ and work as a fucking waitress in order to pay for his PhD and when the kids are old enough to need a good show of moral principle he caves? You know, all these years I always expected that one day he'd wake up a humbler man? I guess that was one of the problems. I always wanted to see too much in him."

John wants to argue that it's there – well, mostly. Rodney does have the principles and the strength of character to stand up for them when push comes to shove. John's seen it more times than he can count. Maybe in this universe Rodney really still doesn't work for the Air Force and John feels guilty for the lie.

"I don't think it's wrong to try to see the best in people." John's been doing it all his life, even after all the times he's been burned.

"No, you're right. It's just . . . fuck, if he could've once, just once seen things from my point of view. I had a career of my own and ambitions of my own and I've more than proven that being Mrs. Doctor Rodney McKay has only ever held me back and he can't stand it."

She spares him a glance then, looking over to find a shell-shocked look on John's face. He really doesn't need to know any of this about Rodney. Sure, they're buddies – they tease each other about women and occasionally give dating advice, but they don't judge each other's relationships and Rodney doesn't need John judging him for the way he treats women in alternate universes, even if they are John's relatives.

One in particular is staring at him now, looking self-recriminating and angry. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm dumping all this on you."

"I'm a spy, remember?" he jokes, though on second thought, maybe he shouldn't remind her.

"Yeah, well, how Rodney and I went down in flames isn't exactly a state secret. If he needs to hire someone to figure out how it all went wrong, then he's even more oblivious that he seems."

"And why exactly would he be spying on you?"

"Oh. My company – Orion Navigation Systems. We only compete with a small market share of McKay Enterprises and though Rodney is a more than competent engineer, his focus has always been the software side of things. He only got into aerospace because the military was worried about Y2K affecting their navigational equipment and he added in some improvements with the patch. Orion's products are mostly manual interface – we find ways to make the controls more responsive to the pilot, navigational and other data faster and easier to read. We want it to feel as though the plane can read your mind – and we're doing it. Software is a big part of it, but we spend half our R&D budget on live tests with real pilots monitored by neurobiologists. Our last release included a targeting system that records eye movement, so that the pilot only has to look at a target to get a lock."

"Damn." If John didn't already have a ship that really could read his mind, he'd be demanding she take him on as a test pilot right now (alternate universe or no).

"The Air Force has commissioned 200 of the systems already. It'd be 500 if McKay Enterprises hadn't offered to install a similar system into the chopper upgrades they're already doing at half cost. That bastard can reverse engineer anything and has the deep pockets to run his ego at a loss. He can't just stand back and let me have this. He has to be the best at everything."

Well, that's Rodney all right. He won't even let a 7,000 year old grey alien with a brain the size of a basketball get away with outthinking him. But John still can't quite imagine him being that much of an asshole – not to someone he loves. Even after what happened on Doranda, he was honestly apologetic.

"I couldn't even imagine being married to him. It must have been tough."

She smiles then, the bitterness melting away. "That's an understatement. But we had some good times. And the kids – I can't imagine my life without them."

John offers his best understanding grin, even though he knows he'll never understand. After his family and the disaster that was his marriage, he's positive that kids are not for him. He's happy with who he is, but he's also smart enough to know that he's too fucked-up to raise a kid.

At least she's aware enough to know not to press him on the subject. The rest of the ride is pleasantly silent, especially compared to the chaos that is the hospital. John is all too aware of the luxury of the city's infirmary. But then again, maybe he'd get first class treatment here if he turned into a giant bug.

John is busy trying not to stare at the kid with one of his nostrils stapled closed when Jordan returns with a stack of forms to fill out. She looks over his shoulder while he makes up an address and phone number.

"Hey, I'm O-Negative too!" she exclaims. Then she frowns. "And we have the same birthdate."

John looks up from his form, summoning a nonchalant shrug, even if the pain in his side is increasing dramatically. "Interesting coincidence." He tries harder to shield his form from her, but she's undeterred. It's becoming clear that this woman is more than just a cousin or a sister. She must be a twin.

"Hey, that's my social security number . . ." she begins, only to be cut off by a sharp gasp from John. Yeah, the pain is bad, but he needs to get out of here right away. The walls are closing in. There's no way that he can explain this to her. His next breath comes out a choked gasp.

"Oh my god, are you okay?"

"Get . . . a . . . doctor." Her pants out dramatically.

She nods before turning and yelling for some help. Before he knows it, they've got him on a gurney and in an exam room, breathing into an oxygen mask. And hey . . . what happened to his shirt?

"Relax," a young blonde doctor is saying, motioning exaggerated breaths like he's seen pregnant women do. "Deep breaths."

John nods, forcing his muscles to unclench. He supposes he was only half-faking it.

The doctor is leaning down above him, adjusting the gurney upright. "Good?" The woman says with a bemused smile.

"Yeah," he whispers, cowed.

"Your oxygen levels are well within the acceptable range. I assume you had a chest spasm?"

John nods.

"Happens with bruising like that." Thin fingers skim across his chest, pressing down suddenly, making John wince. "I don't feel any breaks, but I wouldn't be surprised if the x-rays come up with some cracks." She pats him on the shoulder, obviously trying for matronly and failing at most likely ten years John's junior. "You feel like telling me how this happened?"

John shrugs.

"How about you just nod if you want to press charges?"

Yeah, if he was in the right universe, in the right galaxy and there was a recourse other than bombing the crap out of an alien planet. "No. I should have seen it coming."

"You know, that's not really a reason. I can call someone in. Believe or not, I know a few cops who can be discrete."

"No thanks, I'll . . ." John, of course doesn't get a chance to finish as his AU twin (apparently) barges her way in, looking confident and frankly, a little frightening.

"How is he?" she asks.

The doctor launches into a familiar lecture about bruising, the possibility of internal injuries, x-rays and the like, but his self-appointed next-of kin isn't paying any attention, instead staring fixedly at the bruising spreading across John's right side. She's oddly silent as John goes through x-ray and she forges insurance forms before they wheel John back out to the car.

The second they're back alone in the car, John begins to ask whether or not it would be too much trouble to take him to Cheyenne Mountain, when she cuts him off.

"Okay, cut the crap. Tell me what's really going on."

"Excuse me?"

She snorts. "Come on." She's pulling at her shirt, exposing the bottom of a red push up bra that John might find sexy under any other circumstances.

"Hey, I don't need to see . . ." he trails off, noticing the birth-mark, shaped rather bizarrely like Australia and a perfect match for the one on John's own side. He gulps.

"Explain that."

"Well . . ." he runs his hand through his hair, a nervous tic he thought he'd mostly gotten rid of years ago. "I um . . ." He understand what people mean when they say tongue-tied. He feels as though his mouth isn't even connected to his brain. But in all fairness, he's just found out that if he were born with an extra X-chromosome, he'd be married to (and divorced from) Rodney McKay. He'd have birthed Rodney McKay's children. Conceived . . . he doesn't even want to think about that. Yuck. "I don't suppose you believe in alternate universes do you?"

"Yeah, just because I may be partial to string theory, does not mean that I'm going to just accept that some stranger who happens to know my ex-husband, who doesn't even need to hack my social security number or my birthday . . ."

"And what do I get by convincing you that I'm you from another universe?"

"I don't know. But it sounds like one of Rodney's convoluted machinations to me."

"Fine. I'll prove it. You were born in Louisiana. You moved to Texas when you were three, then Colorado, Guam, California, Washington DC, California again, Japan, Kansas . . ."

"Yeah, because anyone who can look up Dad's service records couldn't figure that out. Besides, you didn't even get it right. Dad thought he'd get an overseas station again, but I got to the junior Olympics in diving . . . before I had my growth spurt. Mom convinced him to push to stay in California even if it meant being off the promotion fast track so I could have a chance at the Olympics."

John can feel the look of stunned disbelief on his face. Maybe she's right. Maybe it's more than just his gender that's different about this universe because he can never imagine his father giving up his career for anything. Not his wife. And certainly not John.

"Wait . . . you were an Olympic hopeful . . . diver?" John loves surfing, sure, but other than hot summers that he can barely remember in Texas, the pool has never appealed to him.

"You're a pilot . . . supposedly. Surely you can understand the attraction of flipping through the air from ten meters."

John grimaces. "Yeah, well . . . falling is something I generally try to avoid." Unconsciously he rubs at the wrist he broke trying to skateboard across one of the rafters of their barn in Kansas. "Why were you bothering with that when you could have been trying to actually fly?"

She shakes her head. "Never made it into anything other than a commercial airliner until Rodney got airsick when they took him up in one of the prototypes he helped develop. I went in his place. Got my pilot's license two months later."

John raises his eyebrows.

"Well, when you have a lot of money, friends in high places, and the schedule of a desperate housewife, things happen."

"Your father never took you?" If he failed in every other way, that's the one thing that John might still be able to love his father for – seven years old in the back of a rented prop plane, the world spread out beneath him.

"Dad? I've had to make my employees sign a contract promising not telling him about our production schedule, or he calls before every test flight to make me go over preflight checklists. You know fathers and their daughters." Actually he doesn't. "I think maybe he knew back then that I had flying in my blood. The Air Force was the last thing he ever wanted for his little girl."

"Okay, well then . . . it's pretty clear that just by being born with different equipment means that nothing that happened afterwards is going to be exactly the same." Because for the General that John knew, nothing short of a perfect service record was ever good enough.

"And Rodney knows most of it."

"Okay, so . . . wait, your company's name! Orion Navigation Systems. You called it that because when Uncle Lou was caught behind enemy lines in ‘Nam, he used Orion's belt to find his way in the jungle."

She looks at him suspiciously. "In our annual report it says that we called ourselves Orion, because we shoot for the stars." She grins, sheepishly. "It just seemed wrong to sell that."

"Hey, I understand. When McKay asked me why I named the ship that, I lied too."

"McKay?"

"Rodney. I um . . . in my universe we work together."

She laughs at that – a tragic sounding chuckle. "No matter what I do, I can't seem to get away from him, can I?"

"Rodney's a tough one to get away from."

"Yes, he is," she whispers and for the first time since he's been here, she sounds like she feels something.

They sit in silence for the remainder of the ride.

Back at the house, there's another car in the driveway, but Jordan doesn't pay much attention to it, opening the door and helping John out of the car. His muscles are really starting to tighten up by now.

"You're welcome to have dinner with us," she says, "But if you want to rest, I can make you a plate and set you up in the guest bedroom." She sounds like Martha Stuart. It's creepy.

John is thinking about taking her up on that offer when he steps over the threshold to find the two people sitting there. "Mom?" John whispers, shell-shocked. He thought he remembered her, but memory couldn't possibly convey the essence of her. Her chocolate brown hair is streaked with grey now, tied up in a complicated-looking bun. She's still beautiful though, delicate with laugh lines creasing her eyes and lips.

"My mother died of cancer when I was twenty nine. I didn't even find out about it in time to return from my tour of duty in the Balkans," he whispers to Jordan.

"Mom got cancer around that time too, but Rodney's company was successful enough by then that we were able to send her to this clinic in Switzerland . . ." John has to lean on her to steady himself at this new revelation. If things had been different . . . if he'd had the means . . . or maybe just even known that the means existed, then maybe his mother would still be alive today.

"Hey," Jordan says, smiling more comfortingly than John knows he could ever manage. "I know you did everything you could for her. It was a fluke we even found out about the treatment – one benefit of being married to the most well-funded and research-oriented hypochondriac on the planet." She laughs a little, but John is thinking – if he had known Rodney back then, it wouldn't have been any different. The man always comes through (except for the one time with 5/6ths of a solar system). This time, it's not the placement of his genitals that matter, but whether or not he had Rodney McKay in his life.

"Sweetheart!" John is drawn back into the present by a familiar gruff voice – one he expected never to hear again after that black mark. The General's grin is so wide, it looks like it might split his old pock-marked face in half. John has never seen him look like that, shuffling up a set of steps to grab Jordan in a tight hug. "It's good to see you, Jordan. And with a man other than that good-for-nothing geek." Of course the General would disapprove of Rodney.

Jordan rolls her eyes, but hugs her father back. "Dad! No, this is John. We just met today, actually. He was running down in the canyon and had a little accident. I just drove him to the hospital."

"Oh. Well, how do you do?" The General's handshake is firm, like the few times John can remember it. He tries to smile, but really, his father's is a face he just doesn't want to see.

"Nice to meet you," his Mom says, and he has to force himself not to reach out and hug her or stop to breathe in the scent of her – lavender and spice, like he remembers. "Will you be joining us for dinner?" Her eyes are wide and expectant, and even though he'd really like to, he finds that he just can't. It's too painful, and John has never been particularly good at confronting his emotions.

"No. Actually, I think I'm just going to lie down. They gave me some muscle relaxants and I'm feeling a little bit dizzy."

His mother's eyes glaze over with concern, even though to her he must be a complete stranger. "Oh, dear . . . what kind of medication did they give you? If you'll just let me help you over to the couch. We'll make up a plate for you." Before he knows it, she's at his elbow, guiding him over to a long and sumptuous sofa, the nurse in her taking over as she fuses. Her fingers are cool against his neck as she arranges him to her liking against a stack of pillows.

"It's fine, Mo . . . Mrs. Sheppard."

"Please, call me Nancy, dear." She pauses. "You look familiar. Have you ever been a patient over at St. Luke's?"

John shakes his head.

"Ah, well, in my line of work you meet a lot of people. I swear . . . no, no, at my age the mind plays tricks. Take care, dear. We'll be just over in the dining room if you need anything."

He nods and smiles, accepting a glass of water from MJ when she brings it by a little while later. She's toned down the punk thing into a black skirt and a black top, with only a few safety pins unobtrusively stuck on the hem. She asks how he is, but is quickly drawn back to the dinner table. John closes his eyes and fixes on the happy sounding chatter of the people in the room beyond, letting it wash over him and thinking of home, and the family he's found there, so late in life.

He's not sure for how long he dozes, but when the familiar clinking of plates being cleared starts to echo into the living room, he pushes himself up and towards the patio door. His muscles are stiff and he's tired, but he wants to sea the night sky from Earth at least one more time. He knows what's coming in the next twenty-four hours – entropic cascade failure isn't supposed to be a pretty sight. Once his parents have gone, he'll try the mountain again.

John is just making his way down out of the pool of light spilling across the brick patio and towards the pool before he hears a rustling in the bushes. He goes immediately on guard, thinking Wraith, maybe the people who did this to him, before realizing that this is Earth, and it's probably just somebody's cat. A raccoon, maybe. But the electric thrill dancing up his spin puts him on guard as he steps forward.

He's almost at the edge of even the shadows cast by the patio umbrellas when there's a flash of movement in the darkness. John lashes out, ready and on the defensive. Except his injuries and the pain medicine have dulled his reflexes. He doesn't quite get his hands up fast enough to stop the soft sting of a metal blade pressed to his throat.

"Who are you?" a voice grumbles in the darkness.

"John," he gasps, his ribs aching as he forces his breathing to calm and release the pressure of the knife to his throat. "I'm sorry I surprised you."

"Are you banging her?"

"What? Who?" So his female self is not only an ex Mrs. Rodney McKay, but she attracts crazy stalkers all in black too? "No, I'm not banging her!" Because despite what Rodney might say, he is nowhere close to that narcissistic. "We're related!"

"Oh," the guy says, releasing John and pushing him to the ground, within the reach of the patio light. If it wasn't such a struggle to breathe, John might've taken the guy out. "Sorry. MJ never told me she had an uncle."

"It's okay," John chokes out, clasping a hand to his ribs. "Honest mistake," he rasps with false ambivalence.

The guy saunters over, leaning down to pull John up. His eyes glint dark like obsidian in the moonlight, but his thin jaw line and rich coffee-colored skin are achingly familiar. "Ford?" John can't help the outburst. That's the third person tonight he'd never expected to see again.

The knife flashes for a second while Ford steps away. "How'd you know that?"

Well, that's difficult. Ford's prowling about restlessly. His crazed look is also familiar. John hates to think that some people are more disposed to it, but the jerking tremble of Ford's movements and the paranoid way that he almost dances forward to get right up in John's face stink of methamphetamines.

"It's nothing . . ." John is trying to say. He swears that Ford is about two seconds away from punching him when he spots a slim silhouette against the light spilling out from the living room. He wants to shout to her to go back inside, but she's already rushing towards them.

"Aiden?" MJ approaches, wearing a ragged plaid skirt and deadly-looking combat boots. "Hey, sorry, I told you I couldn't come out until after my grandparents . . . John? What are you doing out here?"

"You never told me you had an uncle," Ford accuses, his attention shifted to her now, racing forward to pull her against his chest and give her a possessive kiss. Even though she's technically not his child, John's hackles raise. This selfish, careless speed-freak has his hands all over Rodney's daughter and he wants to throttle the guy. But the knife catches the glare of the moonlight, still in Ford's hand as he cups her head while they kiss, and John wouldn't dare move a muscle for fear Ford's drug-addled brain will turn the blade on her.

MJ shoots John a look of confusion, but she's a smart girl, and can probably feel Ford's body shaking against her. She pulls back, giving him the same shrug she'd used on her mother. "You don't know everything about me."

That just seems to make Ford madder. He grabs her by the shoulder hard enough for her to wince. "Maybe I don't now, but I will. You're mine MJ. We're a unit, and we have to stick together." He nods over toward John. "He cool?"

"Yeah. He's fine," MJ spares John a glance, looking slightly frantic. Ford is still gripping her arm, hard enough that his knuckles are turning white. "Aiden, I thought you said you'd stop using. I told you, I don't like it when you're like this."

"Naw, baby. I'm the same old me. I'm just better, is all. Stronger. Faster. If you'd just try it, you'd see."

MJ sighs. "It's one thing to smoke some pot or trip on ‘shrooms a few times, but I'm a genius, and if you seriously think I'm going to ruin my brain with that shit, Aiden, I swear to god, I'm surprised you even got into the Marine Corps." The rant is pure McKay, enough to almost make John's jaw drop. Of course, along with the intellect, MJ seems to also have inherited her father's talent for saying the absolute worst thing at the wrong time.

Of all the things, John never expected the shy almost virginal Ford he knew to slap her, but Earth drugs are worse than the enzyme in a lot of ways. Ford on the enzyme had been crazy, but at least the source of his obsession – killing Wraith – had been one that John could get behind.

"You're a spoiled brat, MJ. You have no right to insult the Corps. Even if they kicked me out . . . you don't get to diss them unless you've been through that."

MJ is crying now, huddled down against the sharp blades of the grass. John's heart almost breaks at the sight of it.

"Come on," Ford is saying, trying to pull her to her feet.

"No, Aiden. Fuck off and come back so I can dump you while you're sober," MJ whispers.

It's enough to send Ford into a rage, but before he can hit her again, John is on top of him, tackling him to the ground. John is a good fighter, but he's injured and Ford is twenty-something and high as a kite, so of course he's able to roll John off him. John gets in a kick to his kneecap, but Ford just lands on top of him, an elbow connecting with John's ribs with a crack and a dizzying moment where the world flashes white.

MJ is screaming in the background now, but John can't really hear anything over the absolute agony exploding across his side. At some point, the patio door bangs open, and someone else's shouts are added to the melee.

Ford is standing above John with his knife drawn, but when he catches sight of the figure, he grabs MJ instead, trying to drag her with him. John tries to push himself up, but ends up sprawling back on the ground, vision blurring.

Luckily for him, MJ is no more of a pushover than her parents, and instead of following along like a damsel in distress, she turns into Ford's grip and brings up one of those nasty combat boots to nail him right in the nuts.

‘Thank you, Hot Topic,' John thinks, right about when he loses consciousness.

He can't have been out for more than a moment, because when he wakes up again, he's still lying on his back in the grass, the moisture of the soil seeping in the back of his shirt. He's just in time to hear Ford call MJ a bitch, which prompts what John considers to be the adequate reaction from his female double. She kicks him in the stomach – still wearing heals.

"Are you okay, John?" MJ asks. Her eye makeup has run down her face with tears, but she's oddly composed as she helps him and lets him lean back against her. "I swear, I didn't mean to make your injuries worse."

"It's fine. Just . . ." he coughs, "Do me a favor and don't see this guy again."

"Not a problem." She squares her jaw, eyes flashing with both anger and hurt, and for a split second, she look just like Rodney.

"You'll do better," he says, squeezing her hand, as they watch Jordan deliver a few more kicks and choice swear words.

"I know," MJ says, again sounding like Rodney with her confidence. "I think I'm over my ‘parents getting divorced rebellious phase.'" She shrugs.

"Good for you."

Jordan is now tying Ford up with a Calvin Klein belt.

"Your mom sure knows how to accessorize," John remarks.

MJ laughs, but some sense that he swears he never had before is telling him that she's still crying, even when he's in too much pain to shift around and see for himself.

The police and an ambulance arrive minutes later, about the same time as a very badly driven BMW, which dumps out none other than Rodney McKay. At the sight of him, a little heavier and with glasses, but familiar, John lets out a breath he didn't even know he was holding.

Rodney's already screaming at the ambulance about response time in suburban neighborhoods by the time he's out the door, but the rant soon fades as he runs over to his daughter, faster than John has ever seen Rodney move when his life wasn't at stake. "MJ, thank god you're all right." He hugs her, without any of the awkward hesitation John's observed when Rodney and hugging come together on Atlantis, and she lets out a heart-wrenching sob, for the first time that night.

"I never thought he'd do that, Daddy."

"Shh . . . shhhhhh . . ." Rodney is cooing, rubbing her back and leading her inside, a police officer trailing after them. John doesn't hear the rest, as a friendly paramedic escorts him over to the back of the ambulance.

He goes through the exam in a daze. Apparently, he's not in any worse condition that he was before, but they want him to go in for more x-rays in the morning anyway. His side is still a wash of pain, but it's subsumed by an odd floaty feeling of introspection that just might be shock, if he didn't need it so much.

Here, in another universe, he has a beautiful daughter and an incredibly smart son, a successful company, two parents who he still talks to and actually gets along with, and a family. Sure, as a woman, he's a little bit of a bitch, but his counterpart seems to know the right things to say. She seems comfortable with herself – expect for the fact that she clearly hasn't finished duking it out with Rodney. And even then, he watches her head inside, stressed out and still a little frantic, but she still smiles when she meets Max at the doorway, hugging him to her. John's been searching for a family from Dana to that last desperate attempt to connect with his father, and he has made Atlantis his home, feeling more for Rodney and Elizabeth and Ronon and Teyla than he thought possible to feel for anybody, but . . . maybe there's just a little something missing from it still.

After answering a few questions from the police, he finally makes his way back inside. He knows the clock is ticking and he just wants to say goodbye to everyone before he calls the mountain and gets a pick-up. Entering from the front door, he can hear whispered voices from the living room. The lights are dim, and peaking around the corner, he can just make out the tops of two heads over the back of the sofa, one leaning tight against the other's shoulder.

"You were a good father tonight," Jordan whispers.

"I'm not always?" Rodney's familiar indignation.

"No," she replies, sounding a little too tired to imbue it with the full force of resentment from earlier. In fact, from the way they're sitting, it seems almost friendly, something he would have thought impossible after hearing her talk about it.

"I know. I was never home enough. I'd forget to pick the kids up from school. I spoiled them. I almost let Max blow up the garage. But I love them . . . and I loved you."

"I know you did, Rodney."

"I still do, you know?" he whispers, hopefully. Something about it makes John's heart ache. He didn't know Rodney could ever sound quite so broken. Even after Doranda . . . he'd never sounded like that. Even after all the thing he'd supposed done to her, John kinda wants his female-self to take him back. He never has been good at seeing Rodney hurting.

There's a silence, but apparently, she does have some things in common with John, because Jordan just chooses to ignore the emotionally charged comment. "What did we do wrong, Rodney? Jesus, our daughter was sneaking out in the middle of the night wearing combat boots and a mini skirt to go out with a 27-year-old ex-military speed-freak."

Rodney sighs. "I don't know. Maybe if I'd been around more. You know, told her I'd shoot her if she ever did something this stupid like an ordinary dad. I could have taken her into work more, you know – kept her busy."

"Hey, I'm just as guilty. Since I started Orion, I haven't been home much either. Since she learned how to drive, I've basically let MJ run the house. She's just so smart sometimes, I forget she's still a kid. With all of the adult responsibilities I've dumped on her, it's not a surprise she finds herself someone older."

"Yeah, on meth. I thought she was just acting out for more attention. When we first grounded her, I expected her to listen to reason. I know we can't keep her a little girl forever, but we should at least be able to keep her out of a crack-den!"

Jordan chuckles. "She's a teenager. I don't think they're built to listen to reason."

"True. I remember sixteen. Just finishing off my undergraduate career, finally the same age as all those fine freshmen women. Horny."

"Rodney!"

"What? I was!"

She laughs, not delicate and airy and forced like before, but John's own horrible braying chuckle. "I remember."

"We were so good together back then," Rodney reminisces – like he does about Sam Carter, but more down-to-earth somehow. "Even if you hadn't gotten pregnant, I knew you were the One."

Jordan doesn't answer him for a long time and when she does, it's barely a whisper. "I don't think I ever forgave you."

"What?" Rodney sounds like it's all news to him.

"I was young and I wasn't sure and you chained me down with a house and a kid and I always wondered what I was missing out on."

"Oh. I just . . . both my parents worked and Jeanie and I were smart kids who needed a parent around to pay attention and the company was working out, so you were the logical choice, I . . ."

Jordan sighs. "I know that. But you never gave me a choice, Rodney. Though I guess we've just found out what happens with both of us working. The kids are more important, but I love what I do, and the interference you have Zelenka running on my government contracting division keeps me up all night."

"Well, if you hadn't stolen my idea for the over-water FLIR-assisted night vision equipment . . ."

"You were never going to develop that! And I helped you do the math on the children's menu at Friday's!"

"It was still my idea!"

"No. We worked on it together. And we're pissing our kid's inheritance away fighting over the same market share. If you could, for once in your life, share some of the credit! Hell, Rodney, just admit that I'm not just a uterus and a pretty face!"

"Jesus, Jordan, how can you even think that? The reason I fell in love with you was that stupid numbers thing you can do – the way you can look like a porn star one minute and solve a complex fluid dynamics problem the next! I didn't know you wanted to help with the company. I would have given you a department or something."

"No, Rodney. I needed to do my own thing. They would've just treated me like the trophy wife going out for a spin. But I think that if you wanted to open up that government contact I know is feeding you data for your new inertial dampening systems, we could work together on the Navy fighter-jet contract. Less time playing tug-o-war with contracts means we could spend more time with the kids."

John can see Rodney thinking even though only the back of his head is visible behind the couch. "And us?"

Jordan sighs. "I don't know, Rodney. We weren't any better at being together than we are at being apart. But maybe . . ."

"It's that guy, isn't it? The one who was talking to the paramedics. God, even beat up, he looked just as hot as you. I always knew that someone like me could never . . ."

"Shut up," she sounds suddenly fierce. "You know your personality was always harder to swallow than you appearance. And you have absolutely no idea how far off the mark you are."

"What? Is he your son traveled here from the future to do Oedipal things to his mother and look for a lightning strike to send him back to the future?"

She's silent.

"Jordan, come on. I don't even like that ridiculous movie!"

"Rodney, do you believe in alternate universes?"

And before he knows it, Rodney McKay is up out of his seat, rushing towards John, talking a mile a minute and snapping his fingers and John suddenly knows that everything is going to be okay.



Epilogue

"So, let me get this straight," Rodney is saying, glaring down at John from over the rails of his infirmary bed. "You escaped the hospitality of the Chaynmar by grabbing a teleportation device that takes you wherever you want in the universe. Only the place they were hiding you was through a quantum mirror, so you wished for something asinine instead of being back on Atlantis where we could properly care for you, and ended up in a ditch somewhere on Earth with no money and apparently no way to get to the Gate. But then you somehow miraculously met alternate-me, who, being almost as brilliant . . ."

"Jesus, McKay, you even think you're smarter than other yous?"

"Well, that's the thing about being the smart-est. You have to be smarter than everyone, even other lesser models of yourself. Now, where were we? Yes, the almost-as-brilliant other-me found a way to trace your quantum signature, find the right universe and send you through before you died of entropic cascade failure and then you just had to convince General O'Neill that you were the right you and we were able to use the gate bridge to come pick you up."

John sighs. They have him on some of the good drugs for the cracked (as it turns out) ribs, but it's been a long couple of days and all he really wants to do is sleep and get away from thoughts of him and Rodney and how in another universe they might be in the process of working things out. And make-up sex. He shudders at the thought.

"But, you see, Colonel, there's just one hole in your story," Rodney crows, waggling a finger at him. "What did you tell the device? And how did that lead you to me? I mean, I know that I save the day with a scary degree of frequency, but in the process of getting the shit beat out of me by crazy people, I'd most definitely wish to be next to Ronon and as many guns as possible."

John shook his head. "I didn't teleport myself to you." Rodney looks almost disappointed at that. "I think I wanted to go home. The device interpreted that as my other self's home in the mirror universe – which was on Earth."

"So you didn't go on the Atlantis expedition in that universe?"

"Nope. I wasn't even in the military." Maybe if he feeds Rodney some partial truth's he'll get off John's back.

"Wait, so then how did you meet me?" Good question.

"I guess even in mirror universes, I can't escape you," he quotes Jordan on that one.

"Huh," John's relieved that Rodney doesn't seem to want to push it further. Or maybe he's waiting for later when Nurse Samson is no longer giving him the death-glare. "Well, I guess with an infinite number of universes, anything's possible. Even a world without shrimp."

"You're telling me," John whispers under his breath.

"We were friends?"

John shrugs, wondering if he looks like MJ when he does it. He knew her for less than a day, but he finds that he misses her already. "We were kinda like we are now, only different." John's surprised to find that it's almost the truth.

Rodney rolls his eyes. "How you manage to communicate at all is sometimes beyond me. Though it is kinda reassuring to think the even in another universe, you and I are still . . ." he waves his hands vaguely.

"Yeah," John agrees. Despite the horror of finding that if he had tits, he'd have been married to Rodney, the first time John felt like he was truly taken care of wasn't from himself, or his parents, or his children, but when Rodney tumbled out of an expensive sports car.

"Well," Rodney pauses, something intense and familiar flashing in his eyes for just a second as he reaches out to squeeze John's shoulder. "I'm glad you made it back. Next time, wish for me right away. Elizabeth was going crazy with worry." Though John can tell by the dark circles under Rodney's eyes that Elizabeth wasn't the only one.

"Hey!" John calls to Rodney's retreating back. "Even though it was a ‘lesser' version of you this time, I think that next it'll be my turn to save your life."

Rodney just turns and smirks. "Night, Sheppard."

"Night," John whispers, though despite the exhaustion and the drugs, he doesn't drift directly off to sleep, thinking about Rodney's big capable hands and his soft words and how Jordan described them – just as bad at being together as they are at being apart.

Only, how should he know until he's tried?

FIN