Four things John keeps in a pocket of his tac vest

by BR Lyn

And one he doesn't

Four things John keeps in a pocket of his tac vest (and one in a pocket of his BDUs)

1. A photograph

When the din of Atlantis quiets to a dull hum and the sudden silence leaves John staring up at the ceiling, head throbbing with the unexpected release of a pressure he rarely registers, he sometimes reaches into a pocket of the tac vest propped against his bedside table and pulls out a wrinkled picture. Smoothing a thumb across the face of a dark-haired woman with dancing eyes and a toothed grin, arms wrapped tightly around a giggling, squirming little boy, he quirks a corner of his mouth and huffs a short breath, a soft not-quite sigh, before tamping down the gentle ache lingering somewhere low in his chest, resolutely pushing it under the familiar press of years and the new weight of command, until all that's left is a crooked smile, a stubborn cowlick, the ghost of an embrace.

2 (and 3 and 4). Three sets of dogtags not his own

As a reminder, and a promise.

5. A quarter

In the far-too-few moments where they weren't saving the galaxy or staving off a seemingly inevitable death, the Atlantis expedition fell into a routine of normalcy, a quiet sort of contentment that John found unexpectedly comforting. In these moments, when John could linger over a cup of coffee in the mess, or slouch in the doorway of Rodney's lab for an extra minute to simply chat, his hands invariably strayed to the pockets of his BDUs to rub across the quarter he kept there, cool metal worn nearly smooth after three years of handling – a constant, steady reminder of what he'd given up in coming to Atlantis, and just how much he'd gained.