AN: This is very much not my usual style. No fluff, no happy ending. Not even a hint of slash. Just… open something cheerful for post-reading, yeah? Oh, and while I remember, I own nothing, for any of my fics.
Dear Jeannie,
Rodney once asked me to tell you he died heroically saving lots of children. He didn't. He didn't even like children, not particularly, except Madison. I sometimes think she was his way of carrying on the McKay line, of making sure his genius lived on. And it will live on Jeannie, because although he didn't die saving lots of children, he died saving us. All of us.
A huge city, housing maybe two hundred terrified scientists and soldiers, and he saved us. It didn't matter that he had spent years asserting that he was the most important man in two galaxies, or that he was barely civil to most and hated a few. He gave up his life for Atlantis. His life, and his work, and everything that mattered to him, except you.
You did matter to him, you know. He wouldn't have said it, not ever, but he loved you. He even loved that you called him Mer, because it was the closest thing he had to a nickname, and nicknames are only given when you care about someone. When you know them so well that an arbitrary identifier decided upon for a squalling infant no longer suffices. That's why he protested every time - he knew enough to know that if he stopped objecting, you'd stop doing it, and he didn't want that.
The only reason he was so hard on Kaleb was because you were his baby sister. He hated vegetarians and English majors, don't get me wrong, but he didn't think Kaleb was good enough for you. Not by far. But when he was drunk off his ass at a harvest festival on some planet that for once was exactly the farming paradise it seemed, he told me that he was happy you'd found Kaleb. Happy you wouldn't be alone, happy you had the family you always wanted, with a man who adored you.
He does adore you, right? Because if he doesn't, Rodney gave me full authority to bring Ronon and Teyla and hurt him. They'd do it too, because Rodney asked. Well, he didn't ask exactly, more assumed that we would, but he was right. You have a whole new family now, billions of light years away and not even visible on the clearest of nights. Rodney's family.
Rodney's a hero to the Athosians. Tales are told of his bravery and intellect, and are spreading between planets. One thing about the Stargate system I suppose, it makes gossip spread faster than light. He's known as Rodney the Great, Rodney Wraithstopper, Rodney the Valiant. We arrived on a planet not too long ago, and were eagerly asked for new stories of the finest warrior to ever live - Rodney.
That was what I really wanted to tell you. Wish I could tell him. He won't be forgotten.
He will never be forgotten. Not by anyone.
John
"Put it through for censorship before you send it out. Would have thought I could at least trust the military commander to leave out sensitive information."
"Yes sir. Sir?"
"What is it?"
"It will practically all have to be censored sir."
"Bin it, then. Tell the man he can always write another one, leaving out all the details pertaining to another galaxy."