AN: I'm excited to post this story! This is a major AU, so it is more inspired by than faithfully following canon. Mckay and Sumner are female and Sheppard and Mckay have a past. I tackle gender discrimination and sexual assault in this story, so if those are triggers be careful. The ending to Season 1 is also not my usual clear-cut Happily Ever After. I originally wrote this for a Rough Trade Challenge in Summer 2017, but it's been edited heavily since then.

Shout-out to DivrSam for asking me to post this story again in a comment back in Aug 2018!

A Stargate Atlantis Fanfiction

ROME

By Indygodusk

Chapter 1

"A thousand roads lead men forever to Rome."

– 12th-century French theologian Alain deLille

Despite the abrupt change to his schedule, Major John Sheppard walked into the airfield's duty office with an unhurried stride. The sergeant behind the desk looked up with a toothy smile. Eagerness from Sergeant Deckard meant interrogation and gossip. Hesitating in the doorway, John gave an internal sigh.

"I knew you were lying about being content with this gig!" Leaning forward, Deckard pounded his desk, making his cup of pens tip over. He didn't seem to care, too busy cataloging John's reaction. Despite the booming voice, it was hard to hear him over the sound of planes taking off and landing on the airfield just outside. The small squat building held the duty officers who passed out flight orders to the pilots at California's Travis Air Force Base. It was almost too noisy to talk unless you shut the door.

John wished he could get away with not shutting the door.

Shrugging lazily at the bombastic greeting, John strolled inside. He'd been about to take off on a supply run in his helo when orders had changed, telling him to drop everything and report back in. Leaning against the counter, John said, "I have no idea what you're talking about, Sergeant. Nor do I really care. My new orders?"

Not only was his lack of curiosity true, but it also had the added benefit of irritating Deckard. In addition to being a duty sergeant, Deckard was one of the biggest gossips on base. Ever since John had been assigned here, Deckard had been picking at him, trying to dig out all his secrets and ferret out why the CO always gave Major Sheppard the crap jobs more suited for fresh-faced lieutenants and airmen on report.

Too bad for him that John wasn't the sharing type.

Deckard leaned back in his chair and scoffed. "You went from being a hotshot pilot in a war zone to making milk runs for chair jockeys stateside. You've become the potato peeler of the United States Air Force. That has to grate. No one's that chill." He watched Sheppard's face closely.

"Just call me Frosty." John dropped his paperwork into the inbox on Deckard's desk and gave the man a smirk. None of it mattered anymore. "Someone has to run cargo and passengers stateside, might as well be me. I was starting my preflight checklist when orders came down to report back here ASAP, so...?" John lifted one eyebrow.

Eyes narrowing, Deckard tapped a finger on his desk. "It's obvious you're cashing in on your connections to escape taxi duty, Sheppard. Just admit it."

When John merely blinked lazily, the Sergeant sat back with a huff and finally passed over John's new duty assignment. John reached out to take it, but Deckard wouldn't let go right away. "Your previous orders are canceled in favor of that VIP of yours. You know, the general who pulls strings for you?"

Baffled, John waited until Deckard finally let go of his orders so John could read them over. "Don't all Generals consider themselves VIPs?" John asked absently as he looked fruitlessly for a familiar name. The paperwork told him that as of fifteen minutes ago, he and his helo were indefinitely assigned to a USAF General Jonathan J. O'Neill, itinerary to be provided on a need to know basis. "Your RUMINT's off. I've never had the brass do me any special favors."

In fact, officers nowadays preferred to take the opposite approach when it came to John. Ever since his black mark in Afghanistan—when he'd gone on an unsanctioned and ultimately unsuccessful rescue op—Sheppard flew on the Air Force's sufferance, not trusted as anything more than a glorified taxi driver and delivery man. It had been that way when they'd first exiled him to Antarctica and had continued with his unexpected transfer to California and Travis AFB.

In Antarctica, the base's commanding officer must've been used to getting the screw-ups of the service, since John's arrival hadn't inspired more than a yawn from the CO. None of the interesting jobs were ever assigned his way, but it had given John time to come down from the feral edge he'd been riding ever since waking up in the desert next to his friend's cooling body. There was clarity in the cold, comfort in the numbness. He came to accept it, even like it.

It had been a valuable lesson to learn before coming to Travis AFB. The CO here had taken one look at the black mark on John's record and made it his personal duty to make John miserable. Perhaps he hoped it would make Sheppard quit since the inquiry hadn't found quite enough evidence for a discharge. The downtime was minimal and assignments either monotonous or aggravating. John only slept in his own bed on base two or three times a month.

However, his CO didn't realize that he was actually doing John a favor. The constant flying kept his mind too exhausted to obsess about the past, his time too full for socializing, and on his rare free days, he got to surf at the nearest coastline or see a matinee alone in a mostly empty theater.

"As long as I'm flying, I'm fine," Sheppard told Sgt. Deckard honestly, signing the requisite paperwork and folding and tucking his new orders into a zippered pocket on his flight suit. "Doesn't matter where."

"You're full of it, Sheppard. Besides, I saw Gen. O'Neill's name on your transfer paperwork from Antarctica. That seems like a pretty big favor to me, going from flying helicopters in frozen BFE to sunny Cali. C'mon, tell me the truth," he wheedled.

"I don't know where you get your information, but I've never even met the man," John said, though Deckard's words got his rusty wheels turning. His time on ice had been mysteriously short. When he cared enough to bother, he had wondered why he'd been moved south. "Besides, I'm not sure what use this general would have for a washed-up major besides the obvious, flying him around."

"If you say so, Sheppard. I don't know what this O'Neill does, but he's a big deal. When his name shows up, his requests always get first priority. I wonder what he's involved in?" He scratched his chin and looked at John with speculation.

"Big deal or small makes no difference to me. It all looks the same when I'm refueling my bird or snatching some shuteye in the barracks," Sheppard said blandly. "And you know anything said by passengers isn't my business." Tipping his head in farewell, Sheppard returned to his helo.

In advance of Gen. O'Neill, an understaffed team of three marines—two men and one woman—took over the back of John's helo. Their unit patch read SG-15, a service designation John wasn't familiar with. As they settled in the back, John automatically cataloged names and ranks.

Major McLean was a large and stern-looking man with a shaved head, light brown skin, wide nose, and deep bass voice full of gravel. Next to McLean sat the almost as big Sgt. Kindall, a seemingly-reserved man with intense eyes, lightly tanned skin, and dark brown hair and eyes. Both jarheads looked like they chewed up tanks for breakfast. Across from them lounged Capt. King, the final member of their team, a tall woman with dark hair and wicked eyes. She reminded John of a lioness between hunts and looked a little mean in all the best of ways. John couldn't help the way his gaze lingered on her in the rearview mirror as she mocked her teammates.

He'd always liked his women a little mean.

John never would've survived friendship with Rome for so many years otherwise. Dr. Rodney Meredith "Rome" Mckay was the meanest and smartest woman he'd ever met. Inexplicably she was also one of his best friends, though he had no idea how that had happened. Probably all of the forced interactions while testing experimental planes for the military had tricked him into some version of Stockholm Syndrome.

Not that he'd seen her since she'd skipped out on attending his disastrous wedding to Nancy three years ago. Rome still owed him an apology, even if she had been right about his ex. He missed Rome, but he wasn't going to be the one to give in and contact her first, not after she'd abandoned him without even a phone call. Her shipping him the most expensive present off the wedding registry meant nothing. She hadn't even bothered with a personalized note, just typed From Mckay on the invoice.

John still felt hurt by her abandonment. Rome hadn't even bothered to call after his divorce to gloat and sympathize. He'd almost broken down and called her himself after signing the paperwork, but then someone had mentioned that she'd married Dr. Troy Forrester and was busy breaking the laws of physics somewhere classified overseas. John had hated Forrester ever since they'd worked together on a project in England. He'd decided not to bother calling. Besides, the only way to get a current phone number would've been to beg Jean, her little sister, and he wasn't feeling that pathetic just yet.

When the bored marines in the back of the helo mentioned the name Mckay several minutes later, John almost turned around. He forced himself to brush it off as a coincidence. However, he started paying attention in the mirror, just in case they had new RUMINT on Rome.

"I'm just saying, Mckay might've been exaggerating things to get attention," Maj. McLean said, sucking on a tooth sourly. "No one else saw this suspicious black SUV following her around in town and let's be honest, who'd willingly subject themselves to her company? There's a reason she's single on a base full of horny men and it isn't because she's ugly."

"Mckay is pretty attractive—well, as long as she keeps her mouth shut. We all know she can be an arrogant drama queen," Capt. King wrinkled her nose, "but she's also insanely smart and can fix just about anything. That might make the mouth worth it to some people."

"Is it really paranoia if she's been kidnapped before?" Sgt. Kindall asked mildly. "Better to keep Mckay safe now with a few men than have to mount a rescue later. I got injured on the last one. The extra security doesn't cost that much in the long run."

McLean snorted derisively, "Except for those men's sanity. Mckay's more irritating than a rotting tooth and twice as painful."

"Well, at least we got to avoid that dentist visit," King smirked and fired finger guns at McLean. "Thanks, Major. This detail is way better."

The bald McLean grunted in acknowledgment.

As the conversation turned to sports, John let his attention wander. Their talk linking Mckay and kidnapping made him start to doubt his stubborn decision to hold radio silence with Rome. What if something bad had happened to her? What if she wasn't safe and happy over in Europe with her four-eyed jerk of a husband after all?

As they waited for Gen. O'Neill to arrive, John did his best to ignore the sometimes confusing conversation in the back, but since they'd already roused his usually dormant curiosity, it was hard to stop listening now. The things their words danced around didn't add up based on any of the active conflicts the US was currently engaged in, at least not those he knew about. Of course, John had also participated in a few actions that most people didn't have the clearance to know about.

It didn't really matter because—John forcefully reminded himself—it was none of his business.

Trying to recover his usual detachment, John checked his instruments for the fourth time. He didn't want to feel curious. Curiosity was dangerous because it led to change. John was comfortable. So what if he'd become a loner in a dead-end job with a CO just hoping for an excuse to discharge him? John was fine. He didn't need or want change coming in and making things worse, and it could always get worse.

He also didn't need to know exactly what Mckay was up to now, not as long as she was safe. Rome always shook up his life and expectations in crazy ways. Better to avoid her. If she was really in trouble, she knew where to find him, care of the USAF, but she'd left him first, thrown him away and abandoned him. If she called, he'd come flying with weapons primed, but until then, John Sheppard would keep his head down.

Finally, Gen. O'Neill arrived, a fit man in his early fifties with iron-gray hair and an unusually laid-back attitude for someone of his rank. He was talking on a cell phone as he stepped onboard. Despite wracking his brain, John didn't recognize the man. Maybe Sgt. Deckard had been wrong when he'd claimed he'd seen O'Neill's signature on John's early transfer paperwork. That or there was a simple explanation John was missing.

Everyone came to attention when he entered, but O'Neill was distracted by his call. Holding his phone between shoulder and chin, the general waved off the salutes and passed his bag to Sgt. Kindall to stow as he continued talking. "I see you finally got tired of dodging my calls, Daniel. I know I said I trusted you guys to do this for me, but come on! You know how the IOA is going to react to this."

Pulling out a crumpled paper detailing the itinerary, he passed it to John. The general's first stop turned out to be Nellis AFB in Nevada. John had never been. Nellis supposedly doubled as the real-life Area 51, home of aliens and top secret projects. John had always loved sci-fi. He'd done a lot of top-secret aircraft testing in his career—if it flew, he could pilot it—but never at Nellis.

After Nellis, they routed to Washington D.C., a slower trip by helo than by plane, but it wasn't John's job to ask questions, just to follow orders. Queuing up the map to double-check the route, he kept his face turned away from the General's phone conversation to give him an illusion of privacy. Nevertheless, John kept a surreptitious eye on the mirror to watch the cabin at his back.

"Why do you do this to me? Are you sure we can't find someone better from the pool of volunteers? And no, that doesn't mean you. No, Daniel!" In response to what he was hearing, O'Neill made a face. "No, that's not what I said. Don't tell Carter I said that. I did not say that! Obviously, she'd be a shoo-in if she wasn't needed more here, just like you, but we do need both of you here. I'm just saying that the IOA isn't going to like them all being women."

O'Neill paused again and sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Yes, I can logically see why you chose them, they're very qualified, but despite your gleeful hand-rubbing at being all high-minded, you have to know this would cause a few raised brows. We have to operate in the world the way it is, not the way you think it should be."

O'Neill listened, then growled irritably, "For crying out loud, I was busy saving the world! I didn't have time to look at the files earlier! That's why I assigned this to my old team, to people I trust."

The corners of his mouth pinched tighter. "I do not always use saving the world as an excuse, but whatever the case, you got your way. I sent the files already, so it's out of my hands now. I just boarded my flight. I'll call you again after the IOA meeting, so you better be picking up your phone. I won't forget this though, you can count on that. O'Neill out." Stabbing the off button, O'Neill roughly shoved the phone into his pocket with a growl and moved to the cockpit.

John swung around in his chair. The General glanced down at John's uniform patch. "Thanks for the last-minute ride, Major Sheppard. Nellis AFB is our first stop."

"Yes, sir," John saluted.

O'Neill started to turn away but suddenly did a double-take. The exasperated older man unexpectedly morphed into a steely-eyed warrior, subjecting Sheppard to a piercing examination. "Is the J on your uniform for John, by chance? Major John Sheppard late of Antarctica and Afghanistan?"

"Yes, sir," John said slowly, ignoring the impulse to either shuffle his feet nervously or jump to attention. Instead, he gave the General a respectful but breezy salute. Did the man recognize John's name because he actually had signed John's transfer paperwork? But if so, did it really matter?

"Huh." The intense stare disappeared, just as mysteriously as it had started. O'Neill turned away and strapped in. "Okay, we're good to go, Major."

"Yes, sir," John repeated, shaking off his discomfort as he radioed the tower for takeoff.

"Thanks for the last minute escort, Major McLean," General O'Neill said through the public mic channel once the helo leveled off. "And congrats on the promotion from captain."

"Thank you, sir," the gravelly-voiced marine answered.

"I'm sorry you guys got stuck following me around to meetings this week, considering your typical assignments. My usual detail and transport got hijacked last-minute to put out a fire I don't have time to get involved in. You'll probably be bored, but then again, so will I," the general joked.

"Oh no, sir, we wanted this assignment. Boring is right up our alley considering the alternatives," McLean reassured him. "Since we just dropped off our unit's anthropologist at a professional conference, we're stuck with guard duty around here until he comes back. It was between you, Dr. Jackson, and Dr. Mckay."

John's heartbeat jumped at another mention of Mckay's name.

Unaware of John's increased scrutiny, O'Neill snorted with amusement as McLean continued his explanation. "As you can imagine, the jockeying was fierce. Since we were already in Cali after dropping off our anthropologist, we sweet-talked the duty officer and won the right to join up with you here."

Then again, John told himself, Mckay was a common enough last name. It was probably a coincidence. A genius astrophysicist and engineer, even one who'd designed experimental aircraft, wouldn't fit in with people who found it rational to place anthropologists of all things on military squads. Rome was very vocal in her disdain of "soft sciences" like anthropology.

"I have to ask," General O'Neill asked teasingly, "who was your second choice for guard duty, Jackson or Mckay?"

The squad exchanged looks as McLean answered, "We couldn't agree on who was worse, so we decided to leave it up to Capt. King."

"I lost at Rock, Paper, Scissors," King confessed with amusement in her voice. "If things had gone really wrong, they'd have blamed it all on me. Thanks for saving me from that, sir."

"If you'd chosen Mckay as you'd threatened," McLean growled, "you'd have deserved that blame and worse."

"Hey," she defended hotly, "you'd have chosen Mckay too if you'd had to rescue Dr. Jackson from being sacrificed by a cult, only to have him apologize to the natives for excessive force and then make you all perform a ritual cleansing that lasted for six hours and included feathered costumes and a public performance of something eerily close to the Hokey Pokey."

"I thought it was the Macarena?" asked Kindall with a serious expression belied by his twinkling brown eyes.

Laughing, O'Neill said, "That's nothing. I could tell you stories about Jackson and SG-1 that would make your hair curl."

"I don't doubt it, sir," McLean said with a flash of teeth as he rubbed a hand over his shaved head, "but I'd rather perform with Dr. Jackson in a chorus line for a solid week than deal with Dr. Mckay. At least Jackson's brave. If Mckay isn't complaining about the sun shining in the sky, she's cowering over her computers or ordering us around like raw recruits who can't tell their asses from their elbows."

"Using the wrong names, of course," King interjected with an eye roll. "They're embroidered on our uniforms, how hard can it be to read? Though I will say that when she's berating one of her minions, she totally cracks me up. She's also pretty handy when something complicated breaks. I almost like her despite myself, but then she goes and talks to me and that ruins it before I can get ahead of myself."

McLean grimaced. "Speak for yourself. I'd hate to have to rely on her out in the field. Thankfully she mostly sticks to her lab unless the powers that be force her out in the field with a passel of babysitters. If they could find someone with a bigger brain, they'd replace her and throw a party. She's a pain. When push comes to shove, I doubt Mckay cares for anyone but herself and cold hard facts."

"That's not true," Kindall interrupted with quiet authority, ignoring the incredulous look McLean threw his way. "A few months ago, my old squad got sent to rescue her from a kidnapping. In the process, I got injured and the two of us got separated from gear and backup. We had to make the stargate on our own on foot. I'm not arguing that she can be difficult, but when push comes to shove, Mckay has a core of steel. I would trust her with my life. I have."

McLean scoffed, "Well, what about the time—"

"That's enough, Marines," O'Neill cut him off.

John's head spun over what he'd just heard. Despite his earlier doubts, their descriptions certainly sounded like his Rome. People either hated or loved her.

Like Judith Works had written in City of Illusions, "Living in Rome is either a one or a two, or a nine or ten. Not much in between."

But if it really was his Mckay, did that mean she'd been the one kidnapped last year? What if she had tried to contact him and he'd missed it? It's not like he'd been easy to get ahold of in the last year. He didn't even have a cell phone. John wished he'd given in to impulse and contacted her when he'd first hit stateside. Instead, he'd clung stubbornly to his silence and wallowed in a detached state created by his grief and bitterness.

Also, what was a "stargate" the codename for and how was Mckay involved? If she was. For months John had felt too numb to let mysteries bother him, but learning about O'Neill's potential interference with his posting followed by hearing Mckay's name felt like a battering ram, causing huge fissures in his ennui.

"Our pilot hasn't been read in, he's a last minute sub," the general said pointedly. "Mckay is nails-on-the-chalkboard irritating but completely dependable and this conversation is starting to veer into overly detailed. I started it, so we'll let it slide, but our pilot's going to forget everything he just heard and we're going to change the subject, right Major Sheppard?"

"Passengers complain all the time, sir," Sheppard answered blandly. "It goes in one ear and out the other." Biting down on the useless impulse to ask questions, to demand to know if their Mckay was his Rome, John turned back to his instruments.

"Excellent," the General said breezily. "What's our ETA for Nellis?"

"About forty-five more minutes, sir," Sheppard answered. "I'll top off the tanks just in case and then it's a straight shot to D.C. I should get you there plenty early, even with the helo's slower flight time."

"Extra time with the IOA. Oh, joy." O'Neill wrinkled his nose. "I appreciate your competence, Major, but don't feel the need to break any speed records. I have to be there on time, but I'd rather not be available for any extra meetings. There's a reason I'm taking a helo cross country."

"Roger that, Sir," Sheppard said, ignoring the impulse to ask the irreverent general a follow-up question about who the IOA were and why they were so bad. John didn't need to know. He kept his face blank and mouth shut, letting the routine of flying fill his thoughts.

Still, he couldn't completely restrain his curiosity as they approached Nellis AFB, the rumored Area 51 and alien crash site. Sheppard tried not to look around too obviously as he radioed the tower and received confirmation and an approach vector. There weren't any obvious signs of aliens, but that didn't necessarily mean the little gray men weren't here, John thought with a barely-suppressed grin. "I'm starting our descent now," he announced.

Suddenly his instruments beeped stridently and flashed red, registering an incoming missile. "What the—!" Sheppard exclaimed even as he swerved and activated the helo's defense screen. "Missile inbound!"

Ignoring the shocked questions from the cabin, John opened a channel to Nellis AFB even as he continued evasive maneuvers. "Why are we under fire?" he demanded. "We're friendlies! This is USAF Major John Sheppard with General O'Neill onboard! Nellis, do you copy?"

Grim-faced, the General dropped into the copilot seat and strapped in as the tower squawked back with panic. "Nellis here, we didn't fire! At least, I don't think—we're tracking the origin point now and scrambling reinforcements. Hold on, over."

Cursing under his breath, John's focus narrowed to the missile gaining on his tail. It didn't behave like anything he'd ever seen before. None of his feints or jammers worked. It had to be cutting edge tech.

O'Neill opened a private channel on the radio and began snapping orders, but John barely paid attention as he struggled to keep his bird ahead of the missile and in one piece. Someone dry heaved in the back. If they puked, they were cleaning it up themselves. John took a hard left and dived, trying to get under the missile's tracking software. The missile overshot to the right but then curved at a seemingly impossible angle to come roaring back.

Sheppard might have finally met his match when it came to flying. He'd never faced a missile this advanced before, despite years testing experimental planes and weapons. However, it wasn't just his life at risk here, but the lives of the general and his Marines. John had to figure out a way to save them.

Eyes darting across the mountainous desert landscape, John took a page from the alien-fighting movie Independence Day and dived down into a canyon. Of course, Will Smith had been in a jet—not a helicopter—and it had all been movie magic. Too late now.

Captain King gave a soprano yelp as the helo's tail clipped the wall, jarring the cabin and snapping one of the tail blades. It was damaged but still functional as long as the remaining blades stayed intact. John forced the rocking helo to steady in the air.

For a moment he thought he'd lost the missile with his crazy maneuver, but then it reappeared behind them in the narrow passage. "What is that thing, the Energizer Bunny?" O'Neill muttered as John zipped around a series of sharp turns. "It keeps going and going and going…."

"It doesn't strike me as the drum and sunglass type," Captain King joked tightly. "It's probably more like the killer rabbit from Monty Python."

"If we die," McLean growled, "they better not put on my tombstone that I was killed by a rabbit."

"Man, I could really go for a Tombstone Pizza right now," Sgt. Kindall said breathlessly.

The missile crept inexorably closer as they raced through the tunnel of orange rock. Readouts blinked orange and red and panels creaked as the aircraft strained against its mechanical limits. With the damaged tail rotor, their maneuverability was limited. John's best efforts weren't going to be enough to save these men.

Again.

Stomach a knot, Sheppard felt a flicker of hope as the missile abruptly began swerving back and forth, as if experiencing difficulties acquiring a lock. Pressing his lips tight, Sheppard went for a Hail Mary and yanked his bird down into a steep corkscrew dive.

"What are you doing?!" McLean cried as the helo angled down almost vertically toward the canyon floor, pressing everyone forward against their straps. The missile followed, dangerously close.

Not answering, John turned sharply, threading a narrow opening low on the canyon wall. He pushed the speed to max, going back up in as steep of an angle as he could without bleeding off too much acceleration. He hoped to trick the missile into hitting one of the stone bridges overhead or the rocky walls.

Unfortunately, despite its jerky flightpath, the missile still followed after them, refusing to be distracted. John scraped through the sharp twists and turns of the tight canyon with nothing but blind faith in his reactions and an intimate knowledge of his machine. "Come on, baby, you can do this," he coaxed desperately. Sweat dripped over his forehead and stung his eyes, but he couldn't risk blinking.

Coming around a bend, he felt his heart drop at the high orange cliff face directly ahead. They were either going to smash into the wall in front or explode from the missile in back. Refusing to give up, Sheppard stubbornly forced his beleaguered helo to climb. The engine whined in protest. The wall loomed larger and larger, eclipsing the sky until there was nothing but burnt orange rock and scraggly brown plants in his windshield.

At the last second, a sliver of blue sky appeared at the top of the windshield. The body of the helo scraped over the lip of the canyon. The landing skids caught on the rocky edge, jolting them hard. Something snapped. The helo tipped. The main rotor clipped the rocky plateau and the tips of several blades snapped off.

If that rotor broke, they were dead. If they lost any more blades, they would crash. Even if they didn't lose more, the blades he had still might be too damaged to level out his bird before it was too late.

Time slowed as Sheppard fought with his controls, forcing his damaged machine to grudgingly right itself.

About to take a breath, John saw the missile's sleek body appear on his rear screen. It really was the energizer bunny, he thought half-hysterically. Swearing under his breath, John couldn't do much more than keep his bird in the sky. At this point, fancy maneuvers would crash them for sure.

They were dead.

The missile on his tail suddenly dived, hitting the rim of the cliff they'd just cleared and exploding in a ball of yellow, red, and black. The pressure wave pushed his helo's nose forward, bouncing them off the rocky ground with a tongue-biting jolt. Swallowing blood, John fought the controls and got them back up into the sky.

They were alive.

John could barely believe it.

"Damn fine flying, Sheppard," the general said breathlessly. "I see what she sees in you."

Before John could ask for clarification on who "she" was, the back cabin exploded into cheers. King pumped her fist in the air. "Hoorah Major, you have nerves of steel for a flyboy!" The other Marines began talking over each other in their excitement and the moment was lost.

John checked his sensors again, but couldn't see any other threats. However, he wasn't ready to relax the protection of his charges just yet, not after being attacked on American soil by a missile so high-tech he'd never even heard whispers of something with similar maneuvering capabilities. "I'm not reading any other missiles, General, but radar doesn't show the reinforcements they promised either. Nevertheless, if Nellis is compromised, I can take you to a safer location. Creech AFB isn't far."

Face hard, O'Neill shook his head and held up a hand while he listed to something on a private channel. He listened to the response and growled. "You can bet I want to see them! Be there soon, O'Neill out."

Turning to Sheppard, the general ordered, "Take us down, Major. I'm told that the attack was a research accident. I've been promised that the situation is contained and the weapons disabled."

"Yes, sir," Sheppard answered grudgingly, wishing he could demand the general explain what was actually going on instead of having to swallow such a piss-poor explanation, but a major didn't order a general to do anything.

Babying his damaged bird now that danger was passed, Sheppard slowly and shakily flew them back to Nellis. After a bumpy landing due to the damaged landing skids, his passengers disembarked from the canted vehicle. John powered down his bird and hopped out to assess the damage.

His first good look at the outside make him wince. The helo had dents and scratches on just about every surface and was missing pieces from the tail and undercarriage. Not even one of the blades was the right length anymore. She would need major repairs if they didn't decide to just outright scrap her.

"Poor girl, you did a good job," John murmured, rubbing a hand down her ruined paint job.

"Sheppard, with me," called General O'Neill.

"Sir?" John had intending to remain topside, especially since he didn't have clearance to wander around a top-secret base like Nellis.

"We're going to need new transport and you deserve a moment to relax after flying like that." O'Neill paused and looked John over. "Besides, it's over a hundred degrees out here. Are you still good to fly me to Washington today or do you need me to find another pilot? There's no shame if you need time for your adrenaline crash, Major. Not after a save like that."

Grateful for the general's consideration, John nevertheless shook his head. "Thank you, sir, but as long as you get me a new bird to fly, I'll be fine. However, I don't have clearance to go inside Nellis."

"Don't worry about it." O'Neill clapped John on the back and steered him with a firm hand towards where a welcome committee anxiously waited across the tarmac. "Just don't touch anything." On that note, the general strode into the waiting crowd. SG-15 followed protectively at his heels and a curious-despite-himself John brought up the rear.

With each step forward, O'Neill's posture shifted, until he looked like a dangerous general again, one ready to tear somebody a new one.

At their approach, a sweaty and pale-faced Colonel who's uniform read Graff—probably the base CO—stepped forward. "I am so sorry, General. Are you alright?"

"I'm alive, no thanks to you. If I hadn't had God's gift to pilots on the stick, I'd be dead." O'Neill snapped crankily as he stomped past Graff and into the facility. "How did this happen and where were my reinforcements?"

Everyone followed, with Sheppard holding up the rear next to King with her feline stalk and eyes begging someone to just give her an excuse to unsheath her claws. John was very careful to maintain a respectful distance and not block the sightlines to her charge.

As they descended into the bowels of the base, Graff kept up a constant stream of excuses. They were so flimsy even John could see through them. O'Neill abruptly held up one hand. "Stop and let me shovel out of this pile of shit you're trying to bury me in. In summary, you underestimated the very geniuses we employ, failed to keep oversight of their labs, and put green officers in advanced positions without sufficient training. You screwed up. Any last words before I talk to the scientists?"

Col. Graff's sweaty face went dark red. He really should keep his mouth shut, but he just couldn't seem to help himself. That or he thought things couldn't get any worse no matter what he said. For all John knew, he might've been right.

"I'm not the only one who made mistakes. Dr. Mckay may be smart, but she's also pushy, shrill, and unreasonable. She should've stayed in Antarctica where she belongs. If she'd done her job properly instead of wandering off to powder her nose, this wouldn't have happened!" His voice boomed vociferously as they pushed through a double door into a large room with a soaring ceiling and tables covered in high-tech machinery.

Just inside the room stood a scowling woman with her arms crossed. John stumbled. It was Rome. Mckay was here. His lips shaped her name silently, helplessly, "Rome."

He'd orbited this woman for half his life. Would he be drawn in again? Did he want to be?

"That's a gross oversimplification of the accident!" Mckay cut her calloused and grease-stained hands through the air. Green ink smudged along the inside of her wrist. "Besides, you're even more pushy and unreasonable, Colonel Graff, but without the intelligence to back it up. And the only reason your voice isn't shrill is that you have a pair of balls—at least, I assume you do, all evidence to the contrary. Otherwise, what you just said about me would be called whining."

Seeing Rome again always felt like coming out of a cave and staring directly into the sun. The years had been kind to her. Mckay's golden hair still gleamed, her blue eyes still snapped, her perfect breasts still heaved when she was in a temper, and her tongue still cut like a razor. John had hoped that the years apart would make her effect on him less potent, but no such luck. Mckay still looked magnificent, especially when in a temper.

Change had found him whether he wanted it or not, damn it.

AN: And that's Episode 1. Yay! Leave me a review, please. I live for those things.

I cast Kate Winslet as Mckay. I'm going to post a bunch of story and cast related images on my Indygodusk Tumblr, so check that out over the next little while.

Military Acronyms:

AFB - air force base

Helo - helicopter

RUMINT - rumors and intelligence, gossip

CO - commanding officer