Where I lay my head
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About four years after they start to very occasionally talk to each other again, Dave presents John with the specs of two properties off the wide-spread Sheppard estate. He gives him a moment to understand what he is looking at, then puts his right hand flat on the table between them and tells him, "Pick one."
John refuses.
He holds himself back from blowing up at his brother so that there aren't any too hard feelings when his leave is up and he returns to Pegasus. But he never wanted any part of it, wasn't given any part of it when is father died, and he figures he is allowed to be a little mad.
He thinks about it nevertheless. Not constantly, as there is enough going on with Atlantis and her allies and enemies to make him forget all about Earth. The matter simply keeps cropping up in his mind, especially when he is forced to endure downtime for hours and hours on end.
He spends two nights in a cold cell on PX5-411 pondering the Scottsdale residence, which is half the size of the mansion Dave now lives in, of what was his father's favored home. It has eight rooms, as far as John recalls, and looks more pretentious than even Queen Harmony would deem necessary. He thinks his grandfather had it built sometime in the sixties, but had the architect copy some European style that died out in the 19th century.
If he were to take up Dave's offer on that house, John would take his grandfather's study for himself, would fit the convertible couch with a new mattress. With his surfboard and his guitar on the wall, he wouldn't need any more, would be all set. The cellar, he would transform into a gym, and one of the garages would be re-built fit for Rodney to put his brilliant creative mind to work.
The master bedroom would become Teyla's, the second largest Ronon's. Two would have to be made into playrooms for Torren and Ronon and Amelia's soon-to-be-born kid. They would need a large living room, he muses just before his team breaks down the iron door, another they could play games in. A guest room to put up Jeannie, or Carson, Jennifer, or maybe even Richard.
It isn't until he is safe in his own bed in Atlantis that he realizes he forgot to give Rodney a place to sleep.
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By the time he is waiting for his team to retrieve him from yet another unbreakable prison cell – and hell, when did the Pegasus natives have time to upgrade their architecture? – he is a) convinced that he is a terrible best friend for sequestering Rodney to sleep in the his garage lab, and has b) all but made up his mind to accept the property half an hour's drive from Tulsa. The house there is virtually tiny, but his grandma had it built on top of a decimated forrest near a small lake, a green field that, while framed by trees, seems to go on for miles.
The estate has more than enough space to raise four additional huts on.
He thinks about it for a long time, and when Jennifer finally releases him from the infirmary, he sends Dave an email with a grudging thank you and specifications to pass on to certain people he trusts his brother to pick out.
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Every six months, the authorities insist John report back to Earth in person. Every six months, he waits for a chance to escape the SGC's bustle and goes to take a look.
The house he already thinks of as Teyla's gets the gym, and Ronon's is outfitted with extra rooms for the kids. One small house is solely drafted to be Rodney's tech center, and at the last moment, John remembers that while Teyla cannot cook for shit, Kanaan both needs and deserves a great kitchen.
Every six months, everything looks one step closer to the picture that has formed in John's head during way too many recuperation periods.
He puts off where to put Rodney's bedroom for a long time.
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Almost three years after the offer was first made, John gets an email from Dave. It looks great, it reads, and for the first time ever, John can't wait for his team's debrief on Earth.
"We could visit Jeannie," Rodney suggests when they are finally done, somewhat desperate to prevent Teyla and Amelia – and Ronon – from planning an extended shopping trip.
"I've something to show you," John says, fighting to keep a steady voice, and after a promise of a few hours in Vancouver before they go back, the Hammond beams them down at the desired coordinates.
"John," Teyla whispers once she figures out not where they are, but what he has done. The place is perfect, exactly as he imagined, and John looks at her shining face, at Ronon's beam and Rodney's baffled expression, then takes the coward's way out.
The buildings can speak for themselves, had better speak for themselves. If he can avoid a verbal explanation by following Torren and little Mel as they run around and inspect everything... well.
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Rodney still has his flat not far from Cheyenne Mountain. Amelia has a small place in Denver and enough money to buy a larger one if she wants, John knows. Both Ronon's and Teyla's families have tents on New New Athos, where there will always be a place for Rodney and himself. None of this was strictly necessary. But.
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The house the carpenter crew have falsely dubbed Apple Store has an alcove with a comfortable enough queen-sized bed. The convertible couches in all the guest rooms are designed to be a kindness done to everyone's back. On top of the master bedroom's ancient but sturdy double bed inside the renovated original Oklahoma Sheppard house lies a prescription mattress.
John really, really hopes he will like Rodney's choice.
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