The Silent Language of Grief (5/?)

[water4willows]

Title: The Silent Language of Grief
Characters: John S., Rodney M., Carson B., Evan L., Wolsey, and various OCs
Parings: None
Rating: PG13 for violence, language and some adult situations
Warnings: Mentions of Major Character Deaths
Word Count: 23,981 based on 5 chapters so far
Disclaimer: The Stargate: Atlantis show and her characters are the property of MGM. All I can lay claim to is my passion for the show and the original characters within this story
Summary: 20 years after the Wraith decimated Earth, the SGC is once again ready to resume the Atlantis Expedition. There's only one man for the job, only John Sheppard has been MIA since the end of the War. A slip-up reveals John's current location, but will he be able to forgive the ultimate betrayal and return? AU, rated T for language. Mentions multiple major character deaths

Chapter 5 - Suprise Attack

Being the town recluse was not without its perks. For one thing, if John didn't show his face around town for days at a time, no one thought anything of it or came looking for him to make sure everything was okay. In fact, if he wanted to, he could probably live out here in his little clearing in the woods indefinitely without ever needing anything from another living soul. The Wisconsin River offered all the fish he could catch, someday soon he might actually be able to talk himself into shooting a deer, and he had pretty damn impressive root cellar behind the house stocked with all the things he'd grown that year in the garden he and Carrie had made.

He was set.

...Or so he thought.

It had been three days since his fight with Carrie and he knew, being the kind of person she was, everything was pretty much over between them. The things he'd said to her (and those he hadn't) were going to be enough to drive her away for good this time and he couldn't blame the woman for it. For years they had been playing this kind of game of faked, unvoiced commitment, but he'd known, even in the early days, that it could never be allowed to last. He was too... unavailable and it was as if he'd just been waiting for the day someone would breeze into town and take that girl away to the life she deserved, knowing all along that he wasn't the man for the job. Still, as much as he craved a life of utter solitude, human beings just weren't designed to survive completely alone, no matter how much he tried to live his life to the contrary, and John was miserable as he stoked the fire he'd just built up and listened to the unyielding quiet around him.

Maybe he would get a dog. There were enough of them left in the world without homes now that half the population was gone and he was kind of surprised he hadn't thought of it sooner. But it was too late for that now as he had the sneaky suspicion he wasn't going to be staying in Blue River, Wisconsin for very much longer.

John set the poker he'd been using back against the wall and, stomach rumbling loudly and reminding him he hadn't eaten since yesterday, he tried to shake himself away from the thoughts that were driving him crazy and headed into the kitchen. But the thoughts were tacky to the touch, and followed along behind him into the kitchenette where he stopped next to clean up the congealing plates of meatloaf that Carrie had left out on the counter the other night and he had forgotten to clean up. He sent out a little silent apology to Millie for disrespecting her famous dish so and dumped the molding and untouched contents of the plates on top of the compost pile behind the cabin before donning his heavy hunting jacket and grabbing his favorite fishing pole from just inside the back door.

It was a bit warmer outside compared to the last few days and John carefully picked his way through the thick dead grasses near the river's edge and walked out onto a short little pier he'd constructed himself ten or so summer's ago. The Wisconsin River could be swift at times and he'd lost his little river boat a few summers ago to the current, but the dock was a nice place to sit and catch fish and he eased himself down onto cold boards to get ready.

The ice choked Wisconsin river trudged along grumpily a few inches beneath his boots and John threaded his fishing line through the eye of the hook he had brought with him with cold fingers and tied a messy clinch knot; wetting the line a little with spit when he couldn't get it to pull tight properly. He attached the weights he would need to fight against the river's strong current next and then finally the bright red bobber Carrie had given to him as impromptu birthday present a few years ago. She hadn't been able to pry the real information from him so she had chosen an arbitrary day on an old calendar he used to have pinned up on the kitchen wall beside the stove and presented him with the bobber the next day with a smile. He thought for a moment about just tossing the damn thing and the memories it conjured into the water to be carried away downstream but he settled on taking his aggressions out on the worm he pulled from a container and used to bait the end of his hook. The cold little body captured between his thumb and forefinger squirmed in his grip a bit but he managed to get the sharp hook into it a few times over and offered up a silent apology to the little critter for its unfortunate fate as an afterthought.

Finally ready to cast, John drew his arm back then forward quickly with a snap to let the line fly with a practiced flick of the wrist and a quick press to the release on the side of his reel. It was a series of movements he knew by heart and he let go the exact moment he knew his line was where he wanted it, and the red and white bobber Carrie had given him settled gracefully onto the swiftly flowing Wisconsin River without a hitch.

Before the war John had never been what you'd call a serious 'outdoorsmen' but he'd learned a thing or two from the master of fishing himself: General O'Neill, on the few trips he'd taken with the guy up to the General's own cabin in the woods. He'd gotten a crash course in the basics up there at that lake, but it was here, along the banks of the brown Wisconsin river - behind a cabin he'd practically rebuilt himself from the ground up with his bare hands - that he'd truly learned to love it. There was something powerful about the way his arm knew exactly where to go to set his line perfectly in the water and John thought maybe he understood the draw of this place a little better then.

For his entire life he had believed that he was in charge of his own actions, his own destiny... but one horrible and unimaginable event in his past had shown him that that idea of being in control was nothing but a delusion and that at any time, anyone he trusted could betray him and use his loyalty against him. Yet still, even though any feeling of free will he'd once had was ground down into dust and gathered into a little pathetic pile at his feet, no one could come here to this place and control the instinctual way he knew to flick his wrist or the dictate to him the exact arc of his arm needed to let that fishing line fly. Those were still things that belonged to him, and always would be, if he had anything to say about it.

Shifting uncomfortably under the weight of heavy thoughts, John let his eyes roam around the frozen banks on either side of the waterway and tried to think of other things. Even if he had no luck with the fish today at least the river could be counted on not to demand anything from him beyond focus on his line and absolute silence so as not to scare the fish away. So he sat as still as his overactive body would allow and concentrated on the sounds of the wildlife around him. A tight formation of geese chose that moment to make their way across the steely gray sky above his head and to honk a chorus of hellos down at him as they passed and continued on their journey southward. John lifted his chin and watched them go, their brown and white bodies disappearing over the tree line and then finally past his cabin in a rudimentary arrow.

John could still remember the day he'd found this piece of land tucked back from civilization and hugging the southernmost edge of the Wisconsin state river preserve. Eddie Nostrand had mentioned the old hunting cabin to him back when he was still trying to find a place to live that didn't require social security numbers or employment histories to obtain. The previous owner of the cabin had passed away with no living relatives that anyone knew of so John didn't think the old man would care if he moved in and made the place his. And for 10 years or more he'd apparently been right. No one in town had minded either and he found it amusing how quickly the old cabin out off Smith Street had morphed from Old Man Johnson's Place into John Evan's Place amongst the Blue River townsfolk almost overnight.

The cabin had been little more than a collapsing collection of dilapidated wood when John had first happened upon her, but the underlying structure had been sound and he'd stripped her down to the bare bones then built her back up again with all the care he had left in himself at the time. The end result had been a cozy secluded place where he could hang his hat... and wasn't that just what he had been wandering around the countryside looking for for years in the first place? Whatever the reasons for him settling here, the house complimented him. It was simple and undemanding; knew the value of giving back what was put into it and it wasn't just a house... it was a home.

Even though he never thought he'd find it or that he even deserved to have one anymore, the little cabin in the woods was just that, a home... and now he was going to have to leave it forever.

Carrie came back into his thoughts then and John resisted the urge to sigh audibly in case he had any interested nibblers in the riverbed. They way he'd left left things with her was weighing on his mind, refusing to be discarded completely and John had half a mind to get his stupid ass off the dock and go into town to apologize to her. He played their fight over and over again in his mind and knew he'd been cruel and that he'd lied because as much as he wanted to deny it, Carrie Sinclair had found her way into his heart and nothing he was trying was working to force her back out.

Something tugged at the end of John's line and the red bobber he'd been watching absently dipped below the water line, instantly pulling him from his thoughts. Giving the pole a quick tug upwards and back, he watched the line dance around the water and knew he'd caught something and - judging by the fight it was putting up - it was something fairly sizeable.

He pulled the fish in quickly and expertly, careful not to let his catch throw the hook, until a decent sized catfish sat flopping and eyeing him angrily from the water darkened dock boards as he pulled the hook from the its mouth and dumped it unceremoniously into the tin bucket he'd brought along with and had filled partially with icy cold river water. The catfish put up a spectacular fight at first, but eventually it gave up trying to escape and lay heaving on top of the mostly frozen over water as John reset his line for another go.

He wasn't going to last much longer out here in the cold. Winter was already promising a brutal season and he slid near frozen fingers into gloves that really didn't fit him all that well and zipped the collar of his coat up further against the chill before he cast again. Yet even brown and dead, the banks of the river were still somewhat picturesque... though the height of summer was when it really showed off it's true beauty. That was when wildflowers grew in mindless clumps along either bank so numerous it was like someone had taken fists full of seeds and thrown them up in the air with no care as to where they landed. It was when the roots of the trees bending over the water's edge like they were interested in seeing their own reflections would cover themselves in moss so green you couldn't really call it green anymore and the valley would come alive with life. Those were loud times too; when Mother Nature screamed at the top of her lungs that she had been spared the horrors of the Wraith darts and was defiantly taking back over her world.

An hour or so later and having no more luck with the fish, John finally eased his achingly cold body up off the dock and headed back into the promised warmth of his cabin with his catch. The fire he had built up was blazing away in there already so it was going to be warm and comfortable and his empty stomach growled in anticipation of the fish lying at the very bottom of his bucket; though he wondered what his appetite would be like after he finished preparing his meager catch. Normally cleaning fish didn't bother him at all, but ever since that day in the blind, the scene at Eddie's and then the fight with Carrie, his internal focus had been all over the map. It was a symptom, he knew, of a bigger issue but he didn't know how to fix it. He was conflicted about what he needed to do... but he couldn't even decide on what that was... was it to sit in his chair in front of the fire and wait to see who they sent to collect him next? Or was it to put this place and all she held, in his review mirror and never look back? But John just wasn't young anymore. He was almost 55 years old now and he was long past any prime he might have had; and even though he was still in as good a shape as he had been at 35, he was kind of ready to slow down and be still.

The rewards of a life hard fought were supposed to be peace and quiet and a safe place to rest his head at the end of the day, weren't they? So why was he exempt from that end all of a sudden? Why couldn't fate and the universe just leave him the hell alone? He'd paid more than his fair share of dues in sweat and blood and loss so the least destiny could do was leave him the hell alone for a little while, right? And yet, on the other hand, did he really deserve peace after what he had done? The atrocities he'd committed? Stargate Command apparently thought he was worthy of some kind of redemption, but could he really go back to the people who had forced him to commit those unspeakable things?

Conflicted and pissed, John banged open the back door of the cabin and angrily slammed his bucket down on the worn linoleum counter near the sink; the ice heavy pail reverberating the force of the slam back up into his arm and sloshing the now dead fish around the bottom of the pail like a... well... dead fish. Four days ago he had been happy and inconspicuous and all it had taken to shatter that carefully constructed existence was some stupid kid from the USSF tracking him down from his picture on the internet and calling him out in front of everyone in town.

God, he'd strangle Carole at Eagle Cave if he ever thought he'd see that woman again! Shit, that had been so stupid, letting her take that damn picture when he knew full well what she was going to do with it. But he hadn't even thought about the consequences or their repercussions, in fact he'd kind of liked the idea.

Guide, they'd named him. Just like the Wraith used to call him, and that right there should have tipped him off that taking the job at Eagle Cave was a bad idea. He'd gotten careless and now he was going to pay for it with his life.

John dug the sharpest knife he owned out of a drawer and stabbed it into the skin on the back of the catfish near it's spine and slashed downwards as ruthlessly as he dared. He should have been doing this outside and with the proper set up to contain the mess, but he could have cared less in that moment and angrily ripped the skin away from the body of the fish with a pair of pliers he always kept handy in a can near the edge of the sink... the pair of pliers Carrie always gave him a hard time about for keeping in the kitchen. Having caught the fish only a short time ago the skin came away from the body easily enough but that wasn't what he wanted. What he wanted was something to take his aggressions out on, to forget about Carrie and her silk flowers gathering dust in the middle of his dining room table, and thus far the fish wasn't living up to his expectations. He savagely slashed at the parts he needed to remove, mindful of the spurs on the fins, then let the fish's slimy entrails fall out over his hands and onto the counter as he savagely slashed at its belly. The process wasn't nearly as satisfying had he had hoped it would be and instead of feeling better at the end of it all, John was left with nothing more than shaking hands and a completely wrecked kitchen counter top. Sighing in defeat and letting a little of his bluster release, John rinsed the catfish carcass clean in the sink, set it aside to scrub down the counter top, then filleted the catfish as carefully as he could into four decent sized helpings. It was more than he needed but maybe he could put some out in the ancient icebox behind the cabin next to the generator to save for later.

If this had been any other Friday night John would have thought about heading into town and to the Tamed Tiger for its famed Friday night fish fry, but that wasn't exactly an option any more, and he busied himself with getting the wood burning stove in the corner of his kitchen ready to cook his catch.

The old cabin stove was cast iron and monstrous and took up half the space in the kitchen but Old Man Johnson had spared no expense on the thing and it had served John well over the years. In fact, if he thought he could get away with it, he probably would have tried to take the damn thing with him if or when he left. He even had a few cast iron pots and pans that had been in the cabin when he'd first arrived and even John had to admit, there was nothing better than a pot of steaming hot coffee brewed to perfection in a cast iron kettle.

Deciding fried fish was indeed the order of the day, John pulled the heavy frying pan down from its hook on the wall then opened the kitchen's one lone cupboard to search it for where Carrie had hidden the oil and the spices he would need, but something caught his attention mid reach and John paused.

He was pretty attuned to his surroundings (years of living alone in the woods could do that to a person) and after the other day in the bar and then his fight with Carrie, he had been on extra high alert already. So John could have sworn that, down the road and away from the house, almost too far away to be absolutely sure he wasn't just hearing things, he could make out the faintest sound of an approaching engine struggling up his lane. There were only two people in town who would come all the way out here to check on him and John focused in to try and get a better lock on the sound. It was definitely a car and was most certainly headed his way, but the engine didn't sound at all familiar. Eddie would know better than to come out here so soon after the shit that had hit the fan in his bar and he hoped to god it wasn't Carrie driving Eileen's car to try and throw him off. Whoever it ended up being, John had made a promise to Major Fancypants and if it was indeed another representative of the United States Strategic Force, he was going to give that poor bastard a run for their money.

John had put his rifle away in the shed out back after that disastrous hunting trip with Eddie the other day, but that didn't mean he wasn't armed. As a byproduct of his time in the Air Force, the first thing he'd done when he'd moved into the cabin was stash a gun in every available nook and cranny he could find that would safely hide a weapon and he went for the closest one to where he was.

The Para-Ordnance P-14 secured to the underside of his kitchen table hadn't been fired in over 20 years, but John knew the gun wouldn't fail him. With nothing much to do out in the woods with no electricity, gun maintenance had become a bit of an obsession of his and he ripped the well cared for gun from its holster just as the vehicle approaching his house stopped halfway through the turnabout in front of the cabin and cut its engine.

The automobile outside in his driveway ran on gas, and that fact alone told John that his unwanted visitor was most likely not a local. Most of the people he knew in Blue River drove cars or trucks that ran on diesel since the New Horizons Co-Op in town was still able to manufacture the fuel for the local farmers. No, whoever it was that was shuffling up John's porch stairs with heavy footsteps and up to his front door wasn't from the area but was apparently alone if the one door slam from earlier was any indication. Still, John knew what the people out for him were capable of and he gripped the P-14 in his hands a little tighter before throwing his back against the kitchen wall he'd added himself to enclose the space beneath the stairs leading up to the second level. It would conceal him from anyone trying to peer into the cabin, but it also meant he couldn't identify his visitor either. There were no lights on in the cabin and dusk was fast approaching, so that helped a little too, but the thought of having to defend himself should they try to take him by force was enough to start his hands to trembling. John reined in his errant nerves as best he could and tried to remain calm.

These moments were the kind he'd trained for and dealt with his entire life. This was no different than blasting himself out of a Wraith Hive ship teeming with faceless foot soldiers and he forced his mind into that calm cool head-space he would need to help get him out of this encounter unscathed.

Whoever was on his front porch wrapped their knuckles against the door and John knew his best bet was going to be moving out from behind the cover of the kitchen wall so he could get a better look at his assailant. Glancing around the corner for a split second, no face was visible between the spider web cracks of the recently broken window and John made a mad dash for the front door under the cover of flickering firelight, ducking away just as his mystery visitor walked back in front of the little window and tried knocking again. John stiffened against the door, waited for the figure to move off again and when it did, he carefully and quietly turned the door's knob until he could safely open it without making a noise. He put a hand up to the storm door's latch, cursing himself for not having oiled its hinges like he'd reminded himself to do weeks ago, and readied himself for his surprise attack.

The unknown figure on his porch was shuffling around near the living room windows and John paused with breath held until until instinct took over. He threw himself forward with all the force his ageing knees could give him and aimed the gun directly at the middle of his visitor's back.

"FREEZE ASSHOLE!" He bellowed, bursting out of the house and startling the hunched figure trying to peer into his living room from around the curtains so badly that they actually yelped.

"Damn it, Sheppard!" The man roared back at him, throwing his hands in the air but not turning around. "You nearly gave me a heart attack!"

The sound of the voice speaking to him hit him like a ton of bricks and the weight of it was almost enough to bend John at the middle under the weight of memories battering against him so suddenly. He lost his ability to speak for a moment and the elderly man in front of him turned around slowly, hands still raised like they were in the middle of a stickup, but all John could do was stare at the figure with mouth agape.

"M-McKay?" He eventually managed to choke out, stumbling over the name almost as if it had not wanted to be released.

"The one and only," Rodney beamed for a second or two but quickly sobered when he realized John was still training the gun at the center of his chest. "Think you could point that thing somewhere else, John?"

"What?" he stammered. "Oh!" He lowered the P-14 as Rodney lowered his arms and they stood in an awkward silence for a moment looking each other over hesitantly.

"What's with the beard, Paul Bunion?" The physicist quipped, but John didn't know how to respond. The man standing before him on his porch was not the man he'd expected the USSF to send and he didn't know whether to be pissed... or commend the newly formed SGC for their ingenuity at sending Rodney McKay in to do their dirty work.

"Heloooo, Earth to John? Do you think you could at least invite me in? It's freezing out here and I really don't want to catch some Wisconsin Wilderness superbug." Rodney suggested, shivering melodramatically as if for added emphasis, and John shook his head to try and clear his brain.

"Um, sure. Come on in," he said finally and moved out of the way so Rodney McKay could make his way into the cabin. John followed in behind the scientist but not before he did a quick sweep of the grounds with his eyes just to make sure McKay hadn't brought anyone else with him. There was no one.

"Well this is... quaint," Rodney was commenting as John shut the cabin door behind them and bolted it just in case. "What happened to your window?"

"Huh?"

Rodney threw John an inquisitive look over his shoulder. "Your front door genius; the window's broken."

"Oh. Girl trouble." He answered without even thinking about it, totally taken aback by the easy way with which McKay addressed him as if they'd seen each other only yesterday and not 18 years ago when John had wished the astrophysicist good luck with his life, then disappeared off the face of the earth.

"Figures you'd still be a Captain Kirk after all these years," Rodney joked easily enough, but there was still a hint of the old McKay in the way he said the words with just the smallest hint of jealousy. "Hey, do you have any other lights we could turn on? It's really dark in here." Rodney was inspecting the interior of the cabin and looked over at John expectantly when he couldn't find a lamp, but John was still standing dumbfounded just inside the front door trying to wrap his head around the fact that the friend he hadn't seen in 18 years was standing in the middle of his house. It was surreal and he couldn't figure out how he felt about it just yet.

"John?" Rodney walked backed over to where he was standing rooted in place and looked genuinely concerned. "Are you all right?" McKay was eying him skeptically now, like he wasn't entirely certain John was all there and he shook himself slightly to try and get over the shock that had him anchored in place and unable to speak.

"Just wait here a second, Rodney," he finally said, putting a hand out to indicate he was serious. "I'll be right back," and he walked out the back door of the cabin to find the generator in the dark, leaving the surprised scientist standing near the front door without explanation.

It was pitch black outside now, and colder than hell, but John knew the back of his house as well as anything and easily found what he was looking for in the dark. The generator roared itself to life a few seconds later when he found the right button then settled into its work at a more tolerable decibel level as John rubbed melted snow off his palms and onto his jeans and made his way back into the cabin still trying to wrap his head around everything. Rodney was standing in the exact same place he'd left him and was watching John's every move with wary attention like he expected at any moment to have to make a mad dash for escape. But John ignored all of it and went to work excavating a pair of dusty old lamps from the closet under the stairs in silence. When he finally found them, he plugged them both into the lines he'd fed in from outside in case of one of Carrie's 'emergencies' and filled his little cabin with more light than it had seen years. The illumination, bathing them both in its bright light as the lamps blazed to life, set Rodney to blinking and seemed to be all the catalyst the scientist needed to relax once again.

"Oh that's much better," he said merrily and shrugged out of the heavy wool coat he was bundled up into before throwing it over the back of Car... what had used to be Carrie's chair.

"What are you doing here, Rodney?" John asked pointedly after he finished positioning the lamps where they would throw the most light and Rodney stopped his inspection of the living room to look over at him sharply.

"I could ask you the same thing," the scientist replied with a glint in his eye but John wasn't in the mood for games.

"Did the USSF send you?" He demanded, crossing his arms over his chest to broadcast his displeasure at the whole situation, but Rodney merely sighed. "Because if they did..."

"Look John," Rodney interrupted, throwing up his hands, "I've had a really long day and I'm starving. Why don't we cook up that fish you've got sticking up the place and talk once I've gotten something in my stomach." As if to agree with the suggestion, Rodney's stomach complained audibly. "See?"

"But... you hate fish," John replied simply and Rodney laughed.

"Used to, John. I used to hate fish. Now, I'll fry it up. You stoke that fire; and you wouldn't happen to have a radio somewhere would you? It's so quiet out here!" John eyed his guest apprehensively but Rodney only smiled over at him before rolling up the sleeves of his shirt and heading into the kitchen.

"Okay, I can work with this," the scientist muttered under his breath with an errant glance around the sparse kitchen and the wood burning stove before starting to root around in the cupboard to the left of the sink and John knew there wouldn't be any use in arguing with the man at this point. Sighing a little himself, he went back over to the closet under the stairs and dug an old transistor radio out before setting it up on one end of the dining room table and turning its dusty knob until Johnny Cash's dulcet tones spilled out of the tinny speakers.

"Perfect!" Rodney called over his shoulder from the kitchen, elbow deep in a cupboard, and John headed over to stoke the fire as ordered and to watch his old friend from afar.

Rodney was a lot skinnier than John would have thought he'd be though the scientist tried to hide it with an over-sized shirt and thick red and black checkered vest. Of all the people John had known from before the War, Rodney would have been the one he'd expect to let himself go, but the balding man bouncing around his kitchen to the Beatles tune that had come on after Cash was anything but. If anything he reminded John of the holographic Rodney he'd met 40,000 years in the future on Atlantis, but thinner; like this incarnation of McKay had seen more hardship than his previous future incarnation. And for all John knew, he had.

John had no idea what Rodney (or anyone else with the SGC for that matter) had done after the war because he'd never allowed himself the luxury of trying to check up on his old friend for fear the military would track his movements somehow, though he was damn curious about the life Rodney had lead after John had left all those years ago. He had a suspicion that they would get to it eventually and that that was why Rodney was filling his cabin with the savory smells of frying catfish and insisting they sit down and eat dinner together before they talked. This was Rodney McKay they were dealing with after all, John reminded himself, and when had the scientist ever done anything the easy way?

When supper was finally ready Rodney set out two expertly fried catfish fillets on the table and motioned for John to join him.

"Got any beer?" He asked, looking back towards the kitchen and searching for the fridge John didn't have, face falling when he realized there wasn't one. John got up from the table without saying anything and retrieved two ice cold beers from the box just outside the back door and set one down in front of Rodney's plate with a dull thud. It was a local Wisconsin brew called Spotted Cow that John was particularly fond of and Rodney popped the cap of his expertly on the side of the table before pulling at it in large greedy gulps and settling in to his fish with a sigh. John watched all of this from his seat with what must have been an amusing expression on his face because Rodney stopped mid bite to look over at him with a laugh.

"For heaven's sake Sheppard, what? You better eat up before that gets cold!" Rodney chided good-naturedly, pointing his still loaded fork at John's plate.

"Who are you?" He asked a little incredulously, not sure what to make of this new version of his very old friend sitting across from him at his own dining room table and drinking beer like it was the most natural thing in the world for two old men to be doing.

"I'm you're old friend, Rodney," the scientist smiled, taking his bite and closing his eyes a little as he chewed. "Good God, that's good! Did you catch this today?"

John nodded

"Thought so. It's incredible." He praised, shoveling more into his mouth like the Rodney McKay of old. "Come on, Sheppard, eat up. You're going to need your strength for later." McKay actually winked at him then before going back to his food and John lifted his own fork to his mouth to sample the catfish even though food was the farthest thing from his mind in that instant. The thing was, the fish was actually fantastic. He wasn't sure what Rodney had been able to find in the hidden caverns that were his cupboards, but whatever the scientist had done to the fish, it was amazing and before he knew it John had cleaned his plate and was reaching for another helping from the pan Rodney had set on the corner of the table in case they wanted seconds. He was ravenous, he suddenly realized, and it felt like he hadn't eaten in weeks.

"Not half bad, if I do say so myself," Rodney sighed contentedly when he'd finished, sitting back and patting a hand over his protruding belly before taking another pull from his beer. John scraped the last bits of fish from his own plate with his fork then pushed the dish to the side to rest his elbows on the edge of the table and level a serious look in McKay's direction. Rodney put his beer bottle back down on the table with a small nod and his face lost a little of its earlier mirth.

It was time to talk.

"How have you been, John?" McKay asked before Sheppard could form everything running through his mind at once into a coherent starting question and John blinked over at the man. It was a funny query considering the last time they'd seen each other was 18 years ago when John had said his goodbyes then disappeared. How had he been was complicated and he couldn't tell if Rodney expected a serious answer or not.

"I gotta say Rodney, I'm a little confused and wondering what it is you're doing here."

"Landry asked me to come." The scientist stated simply with a shrug of his shoulders.

"That's what that wet behind the ears Major the USSF sent here earlier said, too."

"Yeah, Major Bradshaw. Landry told me they'd sent him in first. Believe me, I dressed them all down good for that asinine idea." Rodney chuckled cheerlessly.

"And this General Landry, he's Hank Landry's nephew?" John asked.

"Yes! He is." Rodney exclaimed, sitting forward in his excitement. "I guess he's Hank's brother Jeff's son and you should see the family resemblance, Sheppard. It's uncanny... like looking at a ghost." Rodney went quiet after that, almost like he was realizing he'd brought them dangerously close to some kind of line. It was line John wasn't entirely sure he was ready to cross over just yet and he eyed McKay apprehensively. He could feel the familiar pull of old grief shuffle up beside him and he tried to will away the memories it set out before him to see. They were full of old things that he had lost, that they all had lost, in that damn war, and he was angry at Rodney for a moment for forcing him to face them. Hank Landry had been casualty number one in a long line of bodies all leading up to John's front door.

"What are you doing working for them Rodney?" He asked suddenly and McKay stopped fiddling with the label on his beer to look back over at John with something unreadable behind his eyes.

It took the scientist a minute to answer, like he was trying to think of the safest way to say what it was he'd come all this way to say.

"I guess I'm working for them because, regardless of what happened in the past, the Earth is still vulnerable. And I figure the only way it's going to stay safe is if I'm around to keep it that way." He smiled after the last bit. "I mean, come on, I am the best in my field, as I'm sure you well remember." John could tell Rodney thought his own self-depreciation was funny, but he would have bet a million bucks right then and there that Rodney McKay still thought of himself that way.

"So why are you here then, Rodney? What do they want from me?" He finally asked, guessing the answer already but wanting to hear it from McKay's own lips and Rodney's shoulders lifted in a heavy sigh before he started.

"There never was any beating around the bush with you, was there Sheppard?" The scientist replied and gave another smile but this one didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Well, in order to make an incredibly long and convoluted story short, I'll just come right out with it.

Your government has reformed the Stargate Program and General Landry is heading it up. We recently acquired a power source large enough to power up Atlantis again, and Landry and the IOA have decided it's time to fly the city back to Pegasus to reestablish the expedition there. You would be reinstated and promoted to Brigadier General and be the Expedition Leader and I would tag along as lead scientist. And I even managed to talk a few people we know into coming back for it all! Even Lorne reenlisted and Carson Beckett has also agreed to come back and help."

John knew immediately that Rodney had been saving this final name for last and the memory of Dr. Beckett swam to the forefront of his mind. The last time he'd seen his friend was after he'd nearly been killed in an explosion on Atlantis and the man was doing everything in his power to save his knee. As if remembering its previous trauma, he felt the tendons there twinge painfully and he reached a hand down to rub at the offended joint. He'd give anything to see that man again since their parting had been anything but pleasant. John shivered at the memories.

"What's going through your head right now, Sheppard?" Rodney asked, interrupting his thoughts and pulling his focus back away from the past.

John cleared his throat. "I was just wondering why the hell the USSF thinks it can come to me after all these years and ask for my help. Especially after what those frickin' cowards did."

"Ah. I see," Rodney answered but John was pretty sure he didn't, not really.

"...Or how they could ever think I would want to come back." he added and Rodney looked over at him sadly.

"Well, if you won't do it for them or for me, would you do it for Torren?"

"Torren?" The name had John stopping short and looking up sharply. What did Teyla's son have to do with anything? "What are you talking about Rodney?"

"Torren's here, John. On Earth. In New York actually."

"What?" He exclaimed, nearly knocking his beer over. "But I thought they would have sent him back to Pegasus on the Daedalus to live with his mother's people?!"

"No, John. Teyla wanted him to stay here. But you would have known all that had you come to the funerals and not dropped off the face of the earth like some asshole." Rodney's voice tightened and John felt anger heat the skin of his face beneath his beard.

"How the hell can you say that to me Rodney?" John growled out, doing his best to keep his anger in check before he said something he would regret. "And after everything that happened?"

"What happened was terrible and wrong on so many levels, John," Rodney countered, leaning forward, "but after it was over you just up and left with no thought to what you were leaving behind. We needed you there with us John, to help bring down those responsible for what happened, but you just vanished. And people lost their lives! Good people died doing what you should have been around to help us do!"

"What are you talking about Rodney?" He sputtered, unprepared for the sudden turn in their conversation or for what his friend was telling him.

"What I mean is that you ran away and left the rest of us to clean up the mess without you! We managed it, but the cost was too high. Higher than it should have been John, because you weren't there to help us bring those bastards down!" Rodney finished his tirade then, throwing himself back in his chair like he needed to put as much space he could between himself and John.

He thought for a moment about opening his mouth to tell the son-of-a-bitch sitting at his kitchen table to get the hell out of his house and never come back... but John found he just couldn't do it. Rodney was telling him that people had died doing what he should have stuck around to do and calling him out on his most grievous of sins and he couldn't for the life of himself get up the will to kick Rodney McKay back out of his life again for doing it to him. Instead, John ran a hand over his face, then through is hair, and tried to rein in his emotions.

"What happened?"

"That's not the point John! The point is we got them, but we really could have used your help in doing it."

"I had no idea anyone would be able to go after them," he said quietly but didn't dare look back up to meet the gaze he could feel boring into him. If he looked up and saw hatred there, he was going to shake lose completely.

Rodney was quiet for a long time after that but eventually he spoke again. It was quiet and pinched, but he spoke.

"Look, what's done is done, John, and I made my peace with the past and your decisions a long time ago. Besides, I understand why you did what you did. They betrayed us all and what happened was unimaginable, and I can't say I wouldn't have done the exact same thing you did had I been in your shoes, but it's in the past now and it's high time you came home. The people responsible for what happened have paid for it and now we need you to come back and help us fly Atlantis back home to Pegasus. You can decide after that if you want to stay on as Expedition leader or not."

"You really did it, McKay?" He asked, finally finding his voice again, and ignoring the subtle manipulation Rodney had snuck into their discussion. "You tracked them all down and made them pay?" His thoughts flitted upstairs to the flash drives hidden beneath his floorboards and the difference those files might have made had he stuck around and used them to bring those bastards down instead of hording them to protect his own ass. Those thoughts, he knew, were going to haunt him for the rest of his life.

"We did." Rodney replied as if his thoughts were far off. "Every single last one of them."

"And what about Wolsey?"

"Ah. How'd you figure out he was still around?" Rodney asked seemingly unsurprised he'd pieced it together.

"Bradshaw and some of the bullshit he spouted, I guess. It had Wolsey's name all over it. And I figured he would be the only one left involved with Atlantis with the balls to track me down and ask me to help out even after everything that happened," he mused and Rodney chuckled. "So why didn't that coward go down with the ship?"

"That situation was a little more complicated," Rodney sighed, scratching at his chin and the five o'clock shadow that dusted the side of his face. "Technically, Wolsey wasn't giving the orders that day, he was just following them, and the snively little bastard had just enough clout left in his arsenal to get himself out of some serious jail time."

Even though the hated to do it, John let Richard Wolsey's face swim to the forefront of his mind. In that last year on Atlantis when Wolsey had taken over as Expedition Leader, John had actually found himself starting to like the guy a little. At first he had been completely by the book and a regular IOA stooge, but a few disasters and near fatal experiences with the Pegasus Galaxy had cured him of that pretty quickly and, towards the end, he was shaping up to be a fair and intelligent leader. But then the unthinkable had happened and John could still hear Wolsey's voice in his ear, giving him the order that would change the course of an entire world.

"Hey, there's still some justice left in the world," Rodney put in, seemingly picking up on the direction John's thoughts had taken. "He's nothing more than a glorified paper pusher in the Office of Acquisitions now."

John raised an eyebrow at the unfamiliar term and Rodney chortled a little with a shake of his head. "I keep forgetting you've been off the grid for almost 20 years. There's so much I have to tell you, but not tonight. Why don't you go pack your bags and in the morning I'll take you through some of it on our way back to the airport?" Rodney looked over at him with an expectant lift to his eyebrows but John just sat back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest, contemplating what it was his friend was asking of him.

He had built a life for himself here in Blue River, messed up as that life was, and now he knew that the men who had been hunting him for nearly 20 years were gone. John knew now that he could, if he wanted to, say no to all of it and live out the rest of his days here. He was older now, no longer the spry young warrior capable of running headlong into battle, and he wasn't quite sure he was ready to be the one on the sidelines of all that calling the shots either. He was no Jack O'Neill or Samantha Carter, but didn't he owe it to them to at least try and see if he could be good at this? And now that he knew those responsible for what he had been forced to do were no longer in the picture, there would be no threat of death hanging over his head if he did go back. ...No, he could do this; he would do this. He would go upstairs and pack a bag like Rodney had suggested and go back to the SGC with him to fly Atlantis back home and try to atone for some of his sins.

"Ok, Rodney." He said finally and looked up to meet the scientist's surprised gaze over the table.

"Ok?" The scientist repeated with a grin.

"Yeah, McKay. I'm in."


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