Thunderstorms are nothing to be scared of. That's what they told her as a girl. And really, tucked up in bed, covers billowing around her like she was a raincloud of her own, it was hard to imagine those bright, pretty flashes as threatening. She remembers her dad's broad hands, pulling back the curtain to give her a better look, rain hammering against the window. The calm, measured tones of her mother's voice, talking of lightning and electricity and tiny charged particles. As a child, too, she'd needed explanations to feel reassured – science an anchor, even then. And of course she remembers her bedroom, right under the slanted ceiling that turned even the lightest summer drizzle into a waterfall of sound.

How could she be scared of storms with the patter of rain – even bad rains, especially bad ones – was so comforting on the roof above her? Her home would always be there, wouldn't it? She would always be safe.

Or at least, that's what she thought back then.

There's a roof above her now, holding back the storm, and it's bright and beautiful and stronger than any human-made thing she's seen. But she doesn't take it for granted; not anymore. Not even though she knows the science behind it, a comforting weight at the back of her mind.

It wasn't science that saved them today.

Something saved them, though. Something far vaguer and less predictable. Wit. Courage. Team work. Addressing her crew after the crisis, thanking them for the good job in a voice barely like her own, those were the words she used as praise. They deserved them, every single one. Even if she wasn't sure that she did, too.

A strange thing, memory, she thinks, squinting up against the bolts of white that just keep on coming, the clouds that are still rolling in. The floor where she's sitting is slick with water, moisture seeping through her coat and pants, but the cold is a distant sensation. Of course the shield is too high up, not to mention made of the wrong substance, to be able to hear the patter of rain against it. Still, somehow she keeps expecting to hear exactly that sound, to see the droplets rolling off like pearls.

It's fitting, in a way, that she can't. Knowing what it cost them to put the shield up there, she isn't sure she'll ever be able to watch a storm again without flinching. Or be able to sleep during one.

She only hears the footsteps after they've trailed to a halt outside the door.

"Elizabeth?"

Voice uneasy, but not on the first name. Out of all of the expedition, he was the first to call her by it, and he's still the only one who does so without reservation, ever. That thought is a kind of anchor, too. It is now, anyway, when she'd like to be anything except Dr. Weir, expedition leader, for just a little while.

A squeaking noise, and she knows he's rocking back and forth on his toes, nervousness spurring him to stay in motion. She can almost hear him turning the question over in his head. Stay, or leave? Her calf is cramping a little, and she braces one hand on the steps to shift position. She doesn't turn around, though. There's this deep, irrational fear that if she stops looking at the shield, it might stop existing, and so she keeps her eyes glued to it. It's childish, but she can't help herself.

He clears his throat, then pipes up, "Well, um, so far for my premise that coming back out here, and-and-and- in the dead of night too, was such a ridiculous notion no one else could possibly have had the same one, right?" He sounds a little strained, a little winded, and she imagines his eyes flicking back and forth between her and the steel railing. The one Kolya nearly sent him tumbling across. Pause, then, rushing to fill the silence, "Not – that I'm calling you ridiculous, of course. I mean, I'm sure you have a perfectly good explanation for being here, if only –"

"Rodney."

It says something about this day that it doesn't take more for her to stop him. She doesn't even have to raise her voice.

More shuffling, the sound of a pair of feet making its way across a puddle. Then, "God. My back is killing me." Softly, just a hint of plaintiveness in the tone. "Humidity – humidity is just the worst, isn't it?" And she knows that's Rodney's way of signaling talk to me. Or possibly just don't ask me to leave. Of course it figures – that Rodney with his propensity for brooding, his obsessive-compulsive urge to cling to whatever bothered him, would be drawn back here once the crisis was over. What doesn't quite figure is her doing the same.

He's not going to leave now, not without her telling him to. But he doesn't come closer, and he doesn't say anything else. The air is thick with silence – she has no idea why the shield would mute sound as well, but for some reason it does – and she can hear every breath that escapes him. Short, sharp puffs, like he's breathing just to keep himself from talking instead.

She doesn't know if it's that, or something else, that gets her to take her eyes from the shield. Her neck feels stiff and painful – well, half an hour of staring at the sky will do that, won't it? – and she winces a little, inching to the side until she can tilt her head against the wall. Rodney isn't meeting her eyes, but that's fine with her. She's not feeling very confrontational right now.

"Couldn't sleep." She shrugs, tucks in her knees. "Tried the Control room first, but Zelenka was looking at me like he expected me to crack any moment. He even – even offered me a chair,for God's sake. I was hoping to postpone being offered chairs till I was well past retirement." The laugh comes out more like a hiccup. Rodney's feet shuffle awkwardly at the edge of her vision. She bites her lip, tastes blood and isn't surprised, because she's only been chewing it all day. "Coming out here – made sense, somehow. At least it did until I started thinking about it."

Peering up, she's suddenly relieved by the look on his face, not all that different from your regular Rodney frown. At least Rodney isn't about to treat her with kid gloves, or to fall all over himself with protectiveness for her. Which isn't to say he can't be protective if he needs to. He just – likes to pick his moments, she thinks, with a jolt of affection that takes her by surprise. He's been picking them pretty well today.

"What about you?" Swallowing past the lump in her throat. "How are you holding up?"

"Um – you mean, aside from the being so far past exhausted it isn't even funny?" A sigh, not so much plaintive as rueful. "Well, for one thing, I suspect the whole 'getting dry' process would be a whole lot easier if the soaked jacket could come off. Without taking my arm with it, that is." Watching him point at the bandage, wrapped around his sleeve, it's suddenly all she can do not to laugh.

It's not happy laughter, she knows. If anything, she feels punch-drunk, dizzy. But a snort escapes her anyway.

"Might I remind you," he says, tone clipped, "Carson has a concussion?" For a second he almost looks betrayed. "And despite what 99.99% of the population of Earth believes when hearing the word 'doctor', I'm not and will never be an M.D. I did the best I could with what little–"

"It's an infirmary, Rodney. Honestly, Carson isn't the only one in there able to dress a wound. You could have asked any one of the medics –"

"– and told them what, exactly?" He glares, hands clenching at his sides. " 'Excuse me, but I just leaked vital information to the enemy because they poked me with a butter knife, so can you kiss it and make it better?' Is that what I'm supposed to say? Or maybe 'leave a nice scar, so everyone knows what made McKay lose it'? Or –"

"That's not –" She cuts herself off, something hot and hard pooling in her stomach. "You aren't –" But the words don't come. It's like talking to Kolya bled her dry of what words she had, leaving a gaping hole where she used to look for them. In a reflex, she pats the floor next to her. "Rodney…" Long beat. "Come here." The rasp in her voice makes it come out less like an order than a plea. She almost adds "please", but bites it down.

"I, um…" He fidgets. "Honestly –I need to check on the generator, see how the repairs are holding. Let me – let me do that first, okay, and then... Then we can –"

For Rodney, that's more tactful than he's used to being, and she briefly considers feeling touched. Then again, the fact that Rodney, of all people, seems to think tact is called for…

Kid gloves after all, then. She nods, go ahead, because really, what can she say?

He actually makes a move towards the console, the flow of words stopping as his brow furrows. The storm still hasn't lessened in strength – if anything, the streaks of lightning are coming more frequently – and once again she finds her eyes pulled to the sky.

It's a surprise when, instead of kneeling at the console, Rodney sighs and turns and, the next moment, an arm and a knee are jostling her from the side.

"Great." He grimaces, and pulls in the offending knee. "So much for my lower half being dry, at least."

"It's all about balance, Rodney." She smiles, half-hearted at first, but then suddenly the smile feels real. He shoots her back a crooked grin.

"Oh, balance, okay, sorry. Like sitting on the same wet, stone-cold floor we've been sitting on all day, right? Is that about balance, too?" Pause, then, "Why are we down here anyway? There's a perfectly decent place to sit right inside that door. In fact, I wouldn't mind to relocate there right now, if you –"

"Do you like thunderstorms, Rodney?" She fingers the hem of her sweater where it's grown a little frayed. "Not this kind, I mean," she adds quickly, seeing the look on his face. "The kind we have back home, the ones that are bright and loud and mostly harmless – supposing you're not sitting in a tree, of course…"

"Uh, reality check? Why would I like thunderstorms?" Indignantly, his tone all the answer she needs. "I mean, like you say, they're loud and they're wet and they keep you from sleeping – and they're never harmless, by the way, don't tell me you don't know that. Are you aware of how many people get struck by lightning each year? There was this guy I know over at Area 51, came from Colorado, claimed he got hit about, oh, seven times since he moved there? And I'm betting he wasn't sitting in a tree."

"I'm taking that's a no, then."

"Yes." He blinks. "Seriously, Elizabeth, if that surprises you, you must've grown up on another planet than I did."

"Not on another planet, just…" She sighs. "There's – this childhood memory I have. Watching a storm pass by, the sound of rain against the windows. My dad used to tell me – there was nothing to worry about, as long as we were inside the house." Dry chuckle. "I believed him, of course."

"Huh." Rodney's head bobs in thought. "Well, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have bought that as a kid."

" 'Wouldn't have'? As in, hypothetically? Come on, Rodney, don't tell me your parents never comforted you about thunderstorms. That has to be standard educational procedure for every child in the United States, not to mention Canada, right?" His look is darkening by the second, and she finds herself rushing to go on, keep things light. "Or was young Meredith Rodney McKay just that much braver than young Elizabeth Weir?"

"Yes, well, no, they didn't," he cuts her off, words tumbling as if to outrun hers, and she needs a second to pick up on the flow. "Comfort me, I mean – my parents. Not that I remember, and anyway, they weren't very – comforting, to begin with. Maybe for my sister, but – like I said, I wasn't exactly their favorite offspring, was I?" He's fidgeting again, tugging at his jacket, and she puts a hand on his arm before he can elbow her in the ribs. He blinks a little at the intimacy, swallows, hard. "And no, I wasn't that brave. No surprise there, right?" His jaw sets, lips pressed together in a pale line.

Frowning, she stops from where she was pulling back her hand. "Rodney, if this is about –"

"About…?" He cocks his head. "Oh, no-no-no, not about that at all." The headshake far too fast to be convincing, eyes still fixed on her hand like it's some kind of fascinating alien artifact. Long beat, then, a breathless rush, "I mean, 'that' is a moot point now anyway, isn't it? It stopped being about 'that' the moment I opened my mouth to Kolya, so…"

She's actually surprised it took him this long to get that out.

It's what she's liked about Rodney from the start – how he carries his heart on his sleeve, working his way through life with all the tenacity of a six-year-old on his first schoolday, questioning everything, hiding nothing. Sure, his forwardness tends to border the arrogant, and half of the time that's just annoying… But then, the moments of sheer honesty make it worth it. In a way, he's more of an innocent than any of them. Kind of, she thinks with a stab of homesickness, like the younger brother she never had.

"Well, I wasn't there, so I can't even judge what happened, but…" She hesitates, goes on only when he doesn't interrupt. "You know there's a reason why we need a military presence here."

"You mean – a reason other than manly posturing and hauling heavy crates?" Feeble grin. "Hm. That's a new one."

"Yes, other than that." Despite herself, she has to smile. "They're trained for this, Rodney, we aren't. And some of them – like John – were born for it. The same way you were born for science, while John could never be a scientist, no matter how smart he is. It doesn't mean we're fragile and he isn't. It just means – "

"Okay, let's – let's just stop talking about this," he interrupts. "It happened, right, it's over. I screwed up, then I fixed it, all is well. The end." He squirms against the wall, tries to flatten his back against it. Shivers a little into her touch, and suddenly she's feeling just how cold she is – again. Resisting the temptation to rub her arms, she wonders if it's guilt that's stopping him, or if he's picked up on her own distress and doesn't want to add to it. She isn't sure what she'd mind the most.

"It's just…" He sighs, rubs his face with pale fingers. "I've – I've never trusted the human body, least of all my own. Too many ways it can break, you know, too little conscious control." A sideways glance, as if to check her reaction. "I always trusted my own mind, though. Was somehow convinced – pride would get me through anything. Except that was a stupid thing to think. Human mind's just as breakable." A soft noise of frustration. "So much for certainties, I guess."

She gives his arm a little squeeze. "You didn't break, Rodney. Neither of us did."

"Oh no?" Shrill burst of laughter. "Obviously, you didn't see me in there."

"No, I didn't," she admits. "But I saw plenty afterwards. You bluffed, gave John a fighting chance. You stepped in front of a gun for me. I fail to see how any of that qualifies as 'breaking'."

Long, shuddering sigh, and he relaxes, minutely. "Yeah, well. It's easier not to be scared to death when someone – a friendly someone, who isn't about to cut your head off – is watching. Being alone, though… I mean, let's not be kidding here. IQ notwithstanding, courage under fire isn't exactly my strongest suit. You, on the other hand, you were –"

"I was terrified."

He blinks, slowly. "You were? Really?"

"Yes." It comes out a whisper, not really what she was aiming for. She sighs, bites back embarrassment, then decides to hell with it. "Scared witless, from start to finish. From the moment I realized they'd killed the guards, wouldn't hesitate to kill us if they had to. Then worse after –" Gesturing at the sloppy bandage work on his sleeve. Failing to meet his eyes, she goes back to staring at the sky instead. "I wanted to get angry at them – at Kolya – for doing this, for killing our people, but apart from the errant adrenalin rush…" Tears sting at the corners of her eyes, and she blinks them back furiously. "Between John out there fighting them, and you in here saving our – "

"Asses?" he provides, helpfully.

"Asses, exactly," she nods. "With you and John and the others saving our asses – it was hard not feeling like the fifth wheel, somehow. Not feeling – helpless. Useless, even. And I don't know –"

"Whoa! Hey. Elizabeth – hey." Suddenly he's taken her hands in his, is squeezing them tight, tight, like he's afraid they might fly off like birds. "That's not – what you were. What you are. You're the heart of this thing, this – this – place. Everyone who fought Kolya today, fought him for you. You know that, don't you?"

Her head shakes furiously, almost of its own accord. And the tears are back, hot tears, threatening to spill over. "They fought for the city. For Atlantis. Not for –"

"Elizabeth, you are Atlantis."

Coming from Rodney, that's so unexpected a statement that it brings her up short. She blinks, once, twice, shivers convulsively. Most of her's still freezing, but her hands, wrapped in his, are almost warm now.

As if reading her mind, he smiles wanly, loosens his grip. Gives a little shrug, as if to say, hey, who am I? andmutters, "They'd follow you to the end of the universe, Elizabeth. All of them. Actually – they already have."

She nods, a slow sense of wonder swelling inside her. "They have, haven't they?" Long beat. "They really – really have."

The silence that follows is long enough for her to catch her breath, for Rodney to pull back his hands and start rubbing them furiously, before stowing them under his armpits for warmth. He looks away discreetly when she blows her nose, a bit louder than she should have, maybe.

"Well, then," he pipes up, in between blowing his fingertips. "Never mind the end of the universe, right now I wouldn't mind just following you, um, inside? Like – mess hall, maybe? Hot drinks – god, yes, coffee – and a sandwich, what do you say? 'Cause I am famished, let me tell you. Have you – have you eaten at all since this started? I didn't see you eating, and I'm hungry enough I'm sure I would've noticed, so – "

"I had soup in the infirmary," she manages to throw in, but of course that doesn't stop him. He's already tugged her up and to her feet. "The same kind you had, I'm guessing."

He scowls, then brightens. "Oh, you mean the flavored hot water Carson's minions tried to force-feed us? Yep, I had that. I'm pretty sure it doesn't qualify as soup, though. Or even as food."

"You might have a point." She smiles despite herself, lets him usher her towards the door. "Still, let's give Carson's people the benefit of the doubt, shall we?"

"Let's," he concedes, and leads her into the corridor, the city rising up above them.

She doesn't stop to look back at the storm.