Disclaimer: I lay claim to neither Stargate Atlantis the series or the Legacy series. MGM gets all the goodies.

Note: After reading all three books currently out in the SGA Legacy series, I got frustrated by lack of a conclusion and decided to write my own. Plus, I really want Jeannie and Jennifer to be bros. But yes, this is unlicensed fanfiction of licensed fanfiction. Wrap your heads around that one.

Jeannie walked into the infirmary to check on Rodney, and was surprised to find it deserted. Aside from her brother, who occupied a curtained-off bed in the corner of the room, the infirmary was usually buzzing to some extent, primarily with doctors and nurses treating minor snow and ice-related injuries. The Atlantis crew was really having trouble adjusting to their new, frosty home.

It was equally surprising to find Rodney abandoned. Not that he was aware of anything—it turned out that transforming a human who'd been turned into a Wraith back into a human was a painful process, and Drs Keller and Beckett were being generous with pain killers. That said, as far as Jeannie knew, Dr. Keller had been constantly by Rodney's side for the last seven days. She'd eaten when one sympathetic soul or another brought her food from the Mess, and caught snatches of sleep at her desk. Her staff must have worked out an arrangement with Ronon, who always seemed to materialize about 10 minutes after she'd dropped off in her chair. He'd shift her from the chair to a nearby bed, stop to spend a few silent moments with the sleeping Rodney, and then fade back into the shadows. Jennifer never commented on waking in a different place than she'd fallen asleep, so Jeannie never brought attention to it.

Hoping that the other woman's absence was a good sign of her brother's recovery, Jeannie settled in the chair next to his bed, where she'd been spending most of the preceding days since Colonel Sheppard's team and a Wraith apparently called Todd had returned him, amnesiatic and all but unrecognizable, to the city. He'd figured out that he was Dr. Rodney McKay, but still had almost no memory of it. All he knew for sure, he told them, was a sense of wrongness. He'd asked for Dr. Weir several times, which had had all of them exchanging worried glances. As it turned out, the memory loss had been the easiest symptom to fix—it seemed to fade as the days went by, and every time Rodney awoke, he appeared to have regained more of his human memories.

The physical transformation was the trickiest part. Rodney didn't just look like a Wraith—he was one, inside and out. Keller and Beckett were proceeding with extreme caution, although they insisted they were as confident in their treatment as one could be in an experimental genetic alteration no one had ever attempted on a human before. But it seemed to be working; Rodney's skin had returned to its original pinkish color, and although he hadn't eaten anything as of yet, he was receiving nutrients intravenously. The "mouth" on his hand would require actual surgery to remove it, but the markings on his face were fading. The only thing that was determinedly not going away was the color of his hair—it stubbornly remained a pure white.

"You're looking good, Meredith," Jeannie leaned towards her brother's prone form and made her voice as upbeat as she could manage. Happily, as the days went by it was becoming easier and easier to be upbeat. "I just had dinner with Dr. Zelenka. He's probably the happiest person in the city that you've come back! All he could talk about was the things he was going to ask you could do once you were back on your feet. Well, that and pigeons. He really likes his pigeons, doesn't he?"

Jeannie didn't actually expect her brother to respond, so she was startled to hear a muffled noise. "Meredith?" She stood and laid a hand on one of Rodney's, thrilled that his skin felt like actual human skin again. He didn't stir. The sound came again. It sounded human, and vaguely like someone was in pain. Jeannie glanced around for medical personal, concerned if someone was in medical distress, she wouldn't be able to assist them. The sounds continued, and seemed to be coming through a nearby door which, from her week of living in the infirmary, Jeannie knew led to a small storage closet.

She hesitated, and then waved her hand over the vertical panel to the right of the door. It slid smoothly open, revealing Dr. Keller on the floor, curled tightly around her knees. Her shoulders heaved with the force of her sobs, which were so loud that Jeannie realized all of a sudden just how thick the doors on Atlantis must be. Jeannie's reaction was as automatic and unthinking as if she'd opened the door and found Madison crying in a closet.

"Oh, Jennifer." She went immediately to her knees next to the younger woman and folded her arms around her shoulders, dimly aware of the door closing behind her. Jennifer stiffened, and Jeannie caught a look of mortification as it flashed across her face. Jennifer tried to say something, but couldn't seem to speak around the force of her sobs. Jeannie just held on to her, rubbing her back and repeating "I know. Oh, I know," exactly as she would have done with her daughter.

She realized in a rush just how hard the previous months had been on Jennifer, straddling the line between lover and doctor. Jeannie had thought her cold, but clearly that wasn't the case at all. "I've got to stop seeing you when Meredith's in mortal peril. I'm getting all the wrong impressions."

Jennifer gave what might have been a watery laugh, and tried speech again. This time she was more successful "I tried to be strong. I tried for strong, but I was cold, wasn't I? You thought I was cruel." The sobs had died down, but Jennifer was hiccupping between every other word.

Jeannie sat back so she was no longer embracing the doctor, but left one arm curved around her shoulders. "It's easy to look back now and criticize. The important thing is that you did it. Your friends got Meredith back, and you and Dr. Beckett cured him. Nothing else is important."

"Jeannie, I thought I was going to lose him. Oh God, I thought he was lost. Everyone was trying so hard to be optimistic, and I tried to be too, but I couldn't do it. The odds against him were so vast, and I couldn't—hic—I just couldn't…as much as I wanted him to come home…" she trailed off, sniffling.

Jeannie dug in a pocket and produced a clean tissue for Jennifer to use. One of those habits you pick up as a mom: having tissues on you at all times. "You never stopped working. These past months, with Mere missing and so much stacked against getting him back, you never stopped looking for a way to cure him. Even thinking that he'd never be back, you never stopped. When Mere first told me that you two were dating, I couldn't see it. And, well, now I think you're a lot more like my brother than I gave you credit for."

Jennifer blew her nose and peered up at Jeannie with red-rimmed eyes. "You mean it?"

"I do. Not too much like him, of course, because that's the last thing anyone needs—" she grinned when that got a chuckle out of Jennifer. "But you're well matched. And I am so glad you were here for my brother."

"Jeannie, I almost sent the cat back to Earth."

"Well, we don't need to tell him that, do we?"

The two women smiled at each other, and Jeannie thought that she might end up liking her brother's chosen mate a great deal more than she'd thought.

"Hey, doc?" John Sheppard's voice broke the moment, and Jennifer struggled to her feet. She waved a hand in front of the door panel and rushed out into the infirmary.

"Yes, what is it? Is he awake?"

John stood near the foot of Rodney's bed, hands stuffed nonchalantly into the pockets of his uniform. It was a pose he'd perfected, one that projected ease while hiding any anxiety he might feel. His glance at the bed belied the pose. "I doubt a tactical nuke could wake him up at this point. No, I was wondering if you thought the patient was ready for a visit."

They'd made a concerted effort never to refer to Rodney by name around Torren. The little boy had been told that his Uncle Rodney was away, but nothing else. They knew enough of his affection for his honorary uncle to know that if Torren knew Rodney was back, no one would be safe until he'd gotten to see him. So Rodney was "the patient," at least until they were sure he was un-Wraith-ified enough not to terrify the boy.

Jennifer looked over Rodney, taking in his improved pallor, and faded scars. She doubted the changed hair color would make much of an impact. "I think it should be safe now."

John looked immensely relieved. "Oh, good. Torren overheard Radek mention Rodney and he's been demanding to see him all morning. It's driving Teyla nuts."

Jennifer laughed. "Go ahead and bring him to visit. Maybe he'll make enough noise to wake him up. The painful part of the process should mostly be over with by now."

"Believe me, if it's a lot of noise you want, Torren can definitely provide it." With a final glance at Rodney and a quick smile at Jeannie, John left the infirmary.

"So…" Jeannie started, and Jennifer turned with raised brows. "Colonel Sheppard and Teyla. Are they…?"

"Oh, yeah. Even I noticed, in the trance I've been in. But they're clearly making an effort to keep it to themselves, and for now everyone is respecting that. It won't last forever, however. Atlantis is full of gossips."

Jeannie grinned. "I can see how that would be the case."

TBC
This story has a few more episodes!