NOTES: I love receiving feedback - every author does. And those of you who've been so lovely as to let me know that you like this story have been encouraging me during a time when my muse has been rebelling against writing anything Stargate at all. Thank you so much for it, and I hope you consider this chapter worth keeping it up!

The Astonishing Persistence Of Memory: Past Time

Part One

Chapter Three: Friendships Lost

Yan watched as Ronon slapped young Mizah on the shoulder good-naturedly, and bid him lead the way back. The two ran off along the forest trail, fleet-footed as hireni, young and eager.

Major Lorne was talking in low tones with Teyla while his man waited alongside. He glanced back at Yan once, then nodded in response to whatever she was saying, flicked his fingers alongside his temple as his eyes met Yan's and headed off with the other man.

The hand he'd half-lifted to imitate Major Lorne's gesture fell back to his side as Teyla picked up the pack of meat and swung it easily onto her back. "Shall we go?"

He shouldered the pack that sat comfortably on his own shoulders and began making the long walk back up the trail toward the village. "You got stuck with me, eh?"

"Stuck is a relative term."

"I'm pretty sure you're not one of my relatives."

She laughed - a half-muted chuckle behind him. "Are you so certain of that?"

Yan glanced back at her, but she'd turned her head to follow some movement in the undergrowth and wasn't looking at him. "Yeah. Even if I don't remember if I have relatives." Anything he knew about himself, he knew because Teyla and Ronon had told him as they helped him carve up the rahbul. He'd had time to ask them about themselves, about their cultures and the city where they now lived.

He'd had time to get used to the idea.

"What were you looking at bargaining with us for?"

"Tava uololo. Our own tava crop was good this year, but we are familiar with both good luck and bad when it comes to harvests. And we are only recently moved; it will take several growing seasons before we are certain of the ground."

The trail climbed up a slow hill, wending its way through a tangle of bright bushes and tall trunks. Yan paused by one of the bushes to inhale the delicate scent of the leaves, and saw Teyla do the same.

"You want to trade for some of the ikalele, too?"

"We already have them."

"In Atlantis?" The city name seemed strange on his lips, but the familiarity was coming slowly on him. Maybe it was the fact that neither Teyla nor Ronon hesitated when referring to the city.

Maybe it was his memory coming back.

"No," she said. "They have different plants in Atlantis."

"Plants from Earth." He hadn't asked much about his past and they hadn't offered the details to him. He appreciated that. "Does everything come from Earth in Atlantis?"

He turned around a little, angling to see her face as she answered since her reactions would tell him as much as her words. "Much of what they need can only be found on Earth," she said. "But their food and some textiles, as well as raw materials, are from my people and others."

"What do you get in return?"

"Mostly medicines. Ideas." She paused and Yan stopped and turned to look at her. "Hope."

"Hope?"

"You know of the Wraith," said Teyla.

The prison was cold and dank. Not damp, but depressing - depressing and empty.

His team would come after him - he knew that in his bones. Atlantis wouldn't give in to Kolya's demands, but neither would they abandon him. He'd heard it in Elizabeth's voice as she gave Kolya her answer; knew that the others were listening and watching, hating their helplessness.

They'd find him.

Somehow they'd find him.

Then the shadows in the neighbouring cell moved and a voice of old dust and empty space began a conversation that led down slippery paths and shady places, until he found himself voicing the question that squeezed his gut like a punch in the solar plexus.

"Where'd you hear them call me Sheppard?"

It would be a tall creature when fully erect. Hunched over as it now was, it was gaunt, green skin stretched over hard bone, a thing of nightmares.

"Just before I started to feed."

He looked into the face of his enemy and his heart slammed against the cage of his ribs like fists on a prison door.

There were hands on his forearms, fingers digging into his flesh. He looked down at Teyla's concerned expression, a slight frown pulling her brows together.

"Yan?" After a moment, she let him go, stepping back out of his space.

He swallowed hard and his hands found his arms where she'd held him, rubbed briefly and convulsively. "Yeah, I know of the Wraith."

"You remembered something." She didn't phrase it as a question.

Yan looked away. "Yeah."

"You are all right?"

He stared at her, surprised that she hadn't asked about the memory.

"I'm not going to fall apart," he said, a little roughly.

One eyebrow rose as both corners of her mouth tipped up, a tilting smile that carried a wry twinkle to it. "Then that is just as well. It is quite far back to the village and you are too heavy for me to carry for long."

His first instinct was laughter. That, and relief that he wasn't going to be questioned about the flashback.

"I'd ask if you've had to carry me before, but I think I'm afraid of the answer."

"You should be." The twinkle was arch - not flirtatious - but teasing - the kind of thing he'd have expected from a friend of long standing.

As he looked at her, Yan wondered if, in the time before memory, he'd appreciated this woman who knew when to push and when to stand back. The thought discomforted him.

An odd expression crossed her face and, for a moment, he thought she'd seen his thought, clear as writing on his face; then a faint buzzing noise reached his ears. Her expression was all apology as she turned away a little and touched her fingers to the thing in her ear. "Yes, Major. We have fallen behind a little." She paused. Yan couldn't see her face, but she wasn't disguising her voice at all and the astonishment was clear. "Oh?"

He shifted to see her profile, the line of brow and nose and chin, the strong cheekbones and the planar curve of cheek. A frown pursed her lips and drew her brows together; then she rolled her eyes. "I do not suppose that anyone--? No." She sighed and turned to look at Yan, her eyes resting on his face with a troubled expression. "I will give him warning, then."

As she drew alongside him, Yan asked, "Warning?"

She stepped back onto the path, not making any haste, but clearly not inclined to linger either.

"Atlantis is a city with both a military and a civilian populace - fighters and non-fighters. The entire city is led by Dr. Weir - Elizabeth - but the fighters have ranks and a hierarchy structure for command." She looked up at him. "Before you were taken by the Wraith, you were the military commander of Atlantis."

Yan swallowed. He thought back to the fit of the gun in his hand, the instinctive sighting along the barrel and the calm that had covered him as he took the shot. He'd felt a similar calm when shooting the crossbows or the arrows, but not like that - not so strongly. "So who's commanding the city now?"

"Colonel Richard Edwards was placed in charge of the city after you were declared missing. He has a...different style of command." It was obvious Teyla was being tactful. "He is not a bad man, but he lacks your perspective."

"And he wants me brought back to Atlantis, whatever the cost."

"From what I understand, that would be a directive of the military in any case," she explained. "However, I believe he was displeased with Elizabeth's commandeering of Major Lorne's team on this mission."

"Why would he--?" Yan hesitated. Small things caught at his memory - comments, gazes, gestures. He'd thought nothing of them at the time...

His hand rose to make the finger-flick gesture by his temple that Major Lorne had given him. Casual, almost...

Almost friendly.

"Yes. You and Major Lorne worked together for over a year in the city." Ahead of them a sapling had grown up close to the path's edge, its thin branches sticking into the thoroughfare. Teyla kept to the right-hand side of the path as she ducked around it, treading carefully over the indentations in the damp ground, which suggested that too many feet had trod that way and one of them had slid. "Colonel Edwards does not trust that Major Lorne will bring you back."

A frown grew on his face. "He doesn't trust his own people? Doesn't sound like a very good leader."

Teyla shrugged. "There are some aspects in which his leadership is excellent."

"You sound like you're being fair."

She turned her head enough that he saw the smile that tipped up one side of her face. "I am. But he deserves fairness, even if we do not see levelly on many things."

"So what aren't you seeing levelly on now?"

He got a wry look for that bit of humour, but even that warmth left as she said, "He has sent another military team to the village to ensure your return. They are likely to be...peremptory."

"Great." Yan blew out a breath. "How's Lorne feel about that?"

"How would you feel about it, if it were you?"

He was angry enough as it was. Sure, he didn't remember Lorne, but the man had been courteous and friendly, on easy terms with both Teyla and Ronon and accepting of their judgement. That seemed to say a lot about where the two from Pegasus stood in the Atlantis expedition - or maybe just where Lorne stood.

And Yan had encouraged this kind of co-operation.

It felt right, even now. The thought anchored the anger, even as he felt grim dread settle in his gut. "Do I get to at least say goodbye?"

"I do not believe it is their intent to summarily drag you away," Teyla said. "But I know they will not accept refusal or delay."

"How much delay are we talking?"

"Today."

Yan let his breath out in an explosive burst. "You know, with that kind of behaviour from you people, I don't know that I want to go back."

"John..." Teyla stopped. "I am sorry. Yan. You were right - the military in Atlantis cannot just 'let you go'. It is not their way of doing things." A twist of her mouth suggested she'd ended up on the wrong end of 'how they did things' in Atlantis at least once. "Ronon made you an offer of assistance. I will add to that the rider that you have whatever assistance can be rendered by me or my people to help you escape Atlantis should your memory not return and your desire be to leave."

"But I can't ever come back to Orawi."

He'd made a home here, among people whose ways he'd learned, who'd learned his ways. People who didn't care what he'd been, but were willing to accept who he was now. No, it wasn't a perfect life, but it was his. And the Atlantis expedition would take it from him.

Teyla met his eyes, and the compassion in her gaze nearly undid him.

"No," she said. "We cannot promise that you may return here."

"But you'll get me out of Atlantis if I ask for it."

"Yes." No fancy promises, no elaborate oaths - just a simple affirmative. He respected that she'd given him that. If he was reading the situation right, her assistance - and Ronon's - could cause trouble for them in the city: two outsiders breaking the rules.

Neither she nor Ronon had put conditions on their offers, either.

What kind of person had he been, to inspire such loyalty? And the harder question to answer - could he be that kind of person again? Yan felt his throat squeeze.

He'd belonged to these people; and they'd belonged to him. Whether or not they realised it, Teyla and Ronon had marked him with their offers. He probably would have gone to Atlantis, anyway - it sounded like he had no choice, but now he wanted to go.

He needed to go.

He needed to go back to where he'd begun, if only to find out the man he'd been.

They made their way back to the village in haste, and Yan learned more about her people and what they wanted from the Orawi - tava uololo seeds in exchange for the work of Athosian craftsmen. Like the Orawi, the Athosians were hunters, but a greater emphasis on trade and alliances of blood and friendship had sprung up in the last half-dozen generations, and so the Athosians had begun producing other things and were better poised to bargain for things that the Orawi had not seen in generations.

It kept his mind off what was waiting back in the village: a confrontation between the people from whom he'd come, and the people whom he'd come to live among.

And Ivali.

Yan was more than a little worried as to how Ivali was going to deal with this.

The village seemed more closed in when they arrived back, all the more for the appearance of a new set of strangers. In their sneers, Yan was aware of the smallness of Orawi, of the sudden horizons that were both terrifying and exhilarating.

He didn't have a right to ask Ivali to take that step with him. But he asked all the same.

She listened in silence as he explained the situation, her hands busy sorting through the linen clothes on the bed, her eyes avoiding his. "You want us to go with them?"

Yan didn't wince at the question. "Yes."

They'd come inside, away from the watching eyes and the prying questions, but after the open space of the hunt, after the bright sun of the square, their room felt too small for Yan - closed quarters. He was fighting the urge to hunch, even as he tried to face his lover squarely.

He owed her this honesty, even if it pushed them apart.

"Yan..."

"I'll understand if you don't," he said, getting in before she could get any further. "It's... It's not something I'd ask lightly."

"But you'll go anyway."

He glanced at the window, looking out at the yard beyond and the people who milled there.

When he and Teyla returned to the village, the mood of the meeting had changed. A new quartet stood at the gates of the village, as though refusing to taint themselves by even entering village ground. Their leader had looked at Yan with what he immediately recognised as a sneer. "Colonel Sheppard, I presume."

"So they tell me," he said.

"I'm Major Samuel Camberwell. We're authorised by Colonel Edwards of the United States Air Force to bring you back to Atlantis."

"How kind of him," Yan had looked towards the first party that had arrived. Consciously or unconsciously, they'd clustered by the table with the Athosian visitors and the Orawi trade delegates. Dr. Weir was half out of her seat at the table with Erthana and the Athosians as Yan nodded in their direction. "I thought I already had an escort."

"Colonel Edwards thought it prudent to include us," said Camberwell. "So, if you'll just come with us..."

"Major Camberwell," Teyla said, her voice clear and calm and reasonable. "As you can see, Colonel Sheppard and I have just returned from a wearying hunt. He has been out since dawn. Perhaps a little time for him to rest himself would be advisable?"

"Ma'am, I have my orders."

"I doubt, however, that those orders involve evicting Colonel Sheppard from the only home he has known for the last six months," Dr. Weir said.

"Colonel Sheppard has agreed to accompany us back to Atlantis," Teyla interposed. "I believe that, in the circumstances, it is not too much to ask that the return to the city be delayed a few hours?"

"I don't think it is," agreed Dr. Weir before Camberwell could get a word out. "And I'm overruling Colonel Edwards' request for an immediate return." She looked directly at the man. "It was a request, wasn't it, Major?"

Yan would have laughed if it hadn't been such a serious moment.

As it was, he could see Ronon's grin off to the side, and Major Lorne shifted, turning so the twitch of his mouth wasn't visible by Camberwell. He admired the way the two women had neatly taken control of the situation, even if there were undertones that he didn't quite get. Still, he recognised when someone was being herded.

From an irritable twitch of his eyelid, it seemed Major Camberwell knew he was being led. Still, he met her gaze without blinking. "Not as such, ma'am. But it was strongly implied that Colonel Edwards wished your return as soon as possible."

"And so we shall," said Weir with a civil but unmistakeable lean on the words. "Just as soon as Colonel Sheppard has had some time to refresh himself and manage his packing and farewells."

Until then, the Orawi had been silent, leaving the argument to those whose conflict it was. Then Erthana rose from her seat, drawing the attention of Orawi, Athosian, and Lantean alike. "Yan?"

"Erthana?"

"It is your intent to leave us?"

He wanted to look away - wanted to look for Ivali amidst the crowd of their own people. He couldn't. "I think I should find out who I was."

She nodded, her eyes narrow but her expression showed she understood. Whether she'd been told or she'd inferred it herself, Yan didn't know, but he supposed she'd taken good stock of the situation. Erthana hadn't come to be head of the Orawi without knowing how to deal with people. "A person should know in what ground their roots are buried," she said. "We shall feast on the rahbul that you have brought us with the help of the Lanteans, and bid you our goodbyes and our blessing. Major Camberwell and his friends will join us."

He picked up a vest, folded it neatly, and put it to one side of the bed. His hunting clothes had been hurried off for washing, although he wasn't sure he'd be allowed to take them with him.

"They won't let me stay here."

Ivali frowned. "But you don't remember them!"

"That doesn't matter." Another one of those things that Yan knew without knowing how. "I'm a...security risk."

"It sounds so cold," she said with a glance up at him as she folded a shirt, her movements jerky with anger. "They just marched into the village and were going to take you away! If the others hadn't stepped in they'd have taken you away..."

His mind was still working through what he needed to take with him and what he could leave behind. Even more than the things he would take away with him were the friendships he'd made that would have to be managed. And he had to think of Ivali, too.

He cared about her.

Neither Teyla nor Ronon had offered the information as to whether he'd been involved with someone back then. Although, by the time he and Teyla had returned to the village, he'd wondered a little. The Athosian woman seemed so easy with him - he felt so comfortable with her, as though their friendship was a glove that fitted his hand perfectly, neither wearing nor abrading. But friendship was not quite the same as love and caring, and Yan suspected that she or Ronon would have said as much if there had been someone special to him in the city.

In a way, it came as a relief to know that he hadn't been using Ivali as a substitute for anyone - that he'd come to care about her for herself. Still, caring about her wasn't the same as having the right to ask her to uproot herself and her life and leave her people.

They folded clothes in silence. Yan didn't press her for an answer - he didn't want her to feel she had to come with him. On the other hand, if she didn't...

If she didn't, then it was him against Atlantis. He would have his allies, but even Teyla and Ronon had their reasons for wanting him back. They wouldn't press their advantage, they wouldn't force him beyond his willingness, but they'd push him as far as he'd let them.

Even if Yan trusted them, they weren't unbiased in the matter.

He needed someone with him who could balance things out. He wanted that person to be Ivali.

Yet by the time they finished folding the clothing, she still hadn't answered his question.

Yan looked sideways from her to the neatly folded pile, and let his breath and his hopes go. Then he reached out, preparing to sort them into a pile of his clothing and hers.

Her hand stopped him. "If you decide not to stay, can we come back?"

He hesitated, tempted to lie. But it wasn't fair to give her a fool's hope. "No."

Ivali looked up at him, her eyes huge and troubled in the muted light of their room. Then she cradled his head in her hands and drew him down for a soft kiss. Yan let out his breath in a sigh. He recognised goodbye when it was given, and when mouth touched mouth, he kissed her deeply back, wishing he dared take the time to shove the clothes off the bed and share one last intimacy with her.

When she let him up, her expression was serene, but her words shocked him. "All right."

"All right?"

"I will come with you to Atlantis."

"You will?" He'd been so sure that she'd meant to say goodbye that it stunned him.

Her expression was amused. "Didn't I just say?"

"Well, yeah, but..." Yan didn't know what to say. "Ivali, this is your life."

"Do you want me to come or not, Yan?"

"Yes." In spite of everything else, he was quite certain of that. Whatever he remembered or didn't remember about Atlantis, he wanted someone he could trust without hesitation.

And what about Ronon and Teyla? They didn't need to offer you an out, but they did.

Well, he wanted someone who'd understand how different the city would feel, someone who'd understand what it meant to be alone and not part of a larger group.

Teyla and Ronon know that as well.

A hand touched her face, distracting him from his thoughts. "If I decide I want to come back without you, or end this, I'll tell you, Yan. And in return, I want you to be honest with me. If you remember who you were - this Colonel Sheppard they talk about - and you want to stay in Atlantis, then don't change your mind because of me." Her fingers lingered on his jaw. "I don't want you to lie about who and what you are, any more than I want to lie about who I am. We are who we are, and we wouldn't have loved otherwise. Would we?"

Yan looked at her, wondering at the strength that made it possible for her to walk away from the life she'd known - because of him!

First Teyla and Ronon, offering him assistance out of the city; now Ivali, offering him company.

It humbled him, even as it choked him for the second time in a day - an embarrassment of emotion.

She traced his jaw again, smiling as he kissed her fingertips in brief and fervent thanks. "So, how about we start working out what we'll need in Atlantis?"

--

Safely surrounded by the hum and whirr of his computer banks, ensconced in the simulations he was running, Rodney ignored the personnel gossiping outside his lab.

Lorne's marines had called in with their report just before lunch - a typical soldier's brief, no wasted words. They'd confirmed that the man they'd found was Colonel Sheppard, he had memory loss probably caused by the torture and physical deprivation he'd gone through during his captivity, and he'd been living quite happily with this local group for the last five months, Atlantis time. ETA was around three in the afternoon, and they'd be bringing Colonel Sheppard back with them.

The news had swept through the city like food poisoning: Colonel Sheppard was coming back!

It was said that Edwards' already prune-like mouth had tightened at the news.

Frankly, Rodney didn't care. John Sheppard and whatever he'd been doing with himself in the last six months were none of his business. And he refused to act like all the other gawkers in the city, and line up to stare at the conquering hero come home.

Six months.

Instead of following an amnesiac Sheppard around Atlantis like the rest of the expedition had clearly decided to do, Rodney had chosen to get something useful done.

And he wasn't feeling at all hurt that Teyla hadn't so much as come by to see him after they got back.

"You will not come with us, Rodney?"

"I've got better things to do with my time than follow up every wild goose chase after Sheppard."

But he'd expected she'd drop by to talk to him when they returned, because, well, she was Teyla. That was what he'd expected she'd do.

The open window that gave a slim view between silver spires showed the evening sky with it's last light-tinged clouds, the day's light almost completely receded from the sea, leaving only the faintest of glimmers on the choppy waves.

Sheppard had been back in the city for a couple of hours now.

And no-one had come to tell him anything - not even Teyla or Radek.

Rodney gave an experimental cough and grimaced to himself at the faintest of rasps in his throat. Was he coming down with something? It had been a miserable winter in Atlantis and had another seven weeks of it yet to come - no snow, perhaps, but the central heating wasn't all it was cracked out to be either. And he hadn't been feeling very good. He was coming down with something - he just knew it.

He'd see Carson at dinner, sure, but that wasn't for another hour. And it really was getting cold in here. Maybe he should check in with Carson, just in case. And if he happened to hear a bit about what was going on with Sheppard...well, the man had been a team-mate and - dared Rodney think it? - a friend.

Even if it was obvious that no-one else thought Rodney would care.

He kicked off the last of the simulations with a huff, pushed his chair neatly under the desk and locked up his computer. Then he opened his door, sending the clump of scientists gathered around outside to gossip flying in all directions, and headed for the infirmary.

"Dr. McKay..." One of the newest additions to his lab came alongside him as he turned into one of the main thoroughfares in the city, a bulky young man who was allegedly one of the brightest new minds in the field of astrophysics, but who was mostly a big irritation. "So, have you seen Colonel Sheppard yet?"

"Do I look like I've seen Sheppard yet? Does it look like I have time to gallivant around the city meekly following the troupe of gawkers at the return of the city's biggest trained monkey when there are the simulations to run?"

"Uh, so...that's a no, then? I sort of figured, you being such friends and all. I heard that he..."

Rodney'd had enough. He stopped at an intersection and turned on the man. "Lababa, do you have somewhere else to be? Somewhere that doesn't involve me having to listen to your senseless babbling?"

"Uh..." Even after nearly two months in Rodney's lab, it seemed Lababa wasn't accustomed to being cut off at the conversational knees. He faltered. "No, Dr. McKay."

"Then go find somewhere else to be and leave me alone!" Rodney stalked off without looking back to see if the kid was following him. He hoped not; he wasn't in the mood to deal with people right now.

There were a surprising number of people in the infirmary, and Rodney huffed with annoyance as he shoved past a couple of marines who were blocking the door.

"Carson, what on earth is going on..." He paused and stared. "Sheppard."

Relief swamped him. Okay, so there was no reason that the entire city should be wrong, but somehow, seeing the man in front of him made a world of difference. In that moment, seeing was believing.

"McKay."

Rodney blinked. "Wait-- You remember me? I thought you didn't remember anyone!"

"I don't," said Sheppard flatly. "But they told me about you."

"Oh." Rodney spared a flashing glare at Ronon, who'd paused in his conversation with a woman who definitely wasn't Teyla, then turned his gaze back on Sheppard.

He'd heard it, but he hadn't really believed it - not really. The man looked...normal. The same as he'd ever been - no wrinkles, pouches, sags or jowls, no white hair or bleary eyes. The last time he'd seen Sheppard, the man had been a shrivelled, dried-up wreck dragged away by the Genii after being fed on by Kolya's pet Wraith.

Okay, so the last time he'd seen a John Sheppard had been when the man bounced out of the containment chamber of the bridging generator in a very non-standard leather jacket, calling Rodney 'Rod', cosying up to Teyla, telling jokes that made Ronon's laugh roar to the rafters during the dinner hour, and charming Jeannie with stories of exactly how stubborn and pigheaded her brother was in the universe where he came from.

This wasn't that John Sheppard.

He looked mostly the same - well, as much the same as a man could look when dressed in the most ridiculous local homespun - did these people dress in cheesecloth? And he was wearing enough leather to have any Pegasus PETA up in arms - assuming the Pegasus galaxy ever started getting over-zealous on animal rights and invented PETA.

"So you've determined that he is, in fact, John Sheppard?" Rodney demanded of Carson without taking his eyes off Sheppard. Sheppard eyed him right back, a slight twist to his mouth, as though he'd just laid eyes on something he didn't really like.

Fine. Rodney wouldn't presume anything, then.

"Rodney, he's sitting right there," Elizabeth said, sounding more like a mother dressing down a child than a world-class diplomat.

"So? We've seen clones, Replicators, and alternate universes before. He can look like Sheppard all he wants, but that doesn't mean he is Sheppard."

A snort from Ronon matched Elizabeth's sigh, and Carson's stare.

"We're waiting on the final DNA tests," said Carson with the brusqueness that meant he was annoyed. He turned back to marking down patient notes on a tablet file. "But everything seems in order. Both Colonel Sh- Yan and Ivali are in excellent health and ready to be shown through the city."

The name gave Rodney pause - as did the realisation that the woman who quite clearly wasn't Teyla had come along to keep Sheppard company. "Yan? All the names in the universe you could have come up with and you come up with Yan?"

"Is he always like this?" Sheppard asked, looking at Carson.

Carson bit back a smile, mischief flickering in his blue eyes as Rodney glared at him. "Usually." He said succinctly. His hand clapped Sheppard on the shoulder. "Welcome back to the city, Colonel."

They were all out of the infirmary and in the corridor before Rodney remembered that he'd gone to see Carson about coming down with a cold. He dismissed it. Carson could wait. This was important.

"So," he said conversationally to Ronon at the tail end of the group. "Edwards has seen him?"

"Yeah." Ronon's quick jerk of the head backwards suddenly made Rodney aware of the two wooden-faced marines tailing the group.

"Huh. Okay. Hey, where's Tey...?" He broke off.

Ahead of them, the strange woman had slipped her hand into Sheppard's. Rodney looked at Ronon with an arched brow. The big man shrugged, and the movement of bare shoulders conveyed a lot of thoughts.

"The Athosians are finishing off some trade agreements," he said. "She'll be back later."

"Hm. I thought it was strange that she didn't come to see me when we got back."

"You didn't come see us when we came back," came Ronon's reply.

"I was busy. You know how it is."

"No."

Rodney glared as they passed through corridors so familiar he hardly noticed them, although ahead of him, both Sheppard and the woman he was holding hands with were looking around them with astonishment and awe. Even as he watched, the woman pointed something out to Sheppard, who turned and stared with her. "Well," he said, sharply, "you should know how it is."

At the front of the group, Elizabeth was talking about the living arrangements on Atlantis.

"We've put you into your old quarters, John. Most of your personal effects were put into storage - you weren't officially dead, so we could keep them for the moment. I'll get someone to get them out for you."

"I don't think that'll be necessary."

"What? You're not staying around?" Rodney blurted it before he had a chance to think his words over.

Sheppard glanced back at him, and his eyes darted to Ronon. "We're staying for a while. But it might be easier if not everything's new at once."

Beyond him, Elizabeth was frowning - possibly at Sheppard's inclusion of the woman who clung to his hand, her eyes wary and worried - but she cleared her expression as both Sheppard and the woman turned back to them. "We can give you tonight to settle in, but tomorrow, we'll be going through a brief of your history - both in the military and in the city."

Rodney bet that was going to be fun. There wasn't really any way you could be 'brief' about five months of missing time. Especially not when it came to Atlantis.

"H...how long have you been here?" The woman spoke for the first time, her voice diffident.

"Just over two years," Elizabeth said.

As Rodney opened his mouth to remind her that the time span wasn't going to make any sense to someone who lived on another planet, Ronon spoke up. "Three melting seasons ago."

The corridor widened into an area where seats had been put down - not quite lounges, but softer than the chairs in the mess hall. With the addition of a couple of pot plants, they made spaces for people to sit down and take a break from their work. Rodney didn't use them much - he didn't usually need a break from his work and when he did he went and bothered Radek at his work instead - but there were others in the city that did.

Today, there were a lot of people sitting around in small groups, talking to each other.

And as their group came through, the noise level lowered a little, and eyes followed them.

Rodney usually ignored the people who spent their time 'corridor-watching'. He had better things to do than worry what everyone in the city thought about him. But he found himself watching people now - the flash of interest they showed when they looked at Sheppard, the murmurs behind the hand as they looked at the woman who accompanied him through the corridors.

He wondered if Sheppard was aware of the scrutiny. Did the man know his return was the biggest piece of gossip in the city since...well, since Teyla walked back through the Stargate wearing the full ceremonial getup of this culture that decided that she was their long-awaited Goddess?

As if he'd heard Rodney's thoughts, Sheppard's head turned - but only as far as the woman who walked beside him.

The tender smile wasn't anything that Rodney recognised as Colonel John Sheppard.

He stopped dead in the corridor, struck by the realisation that this 'Yan Stormborn' really wasn't John Sheppard. That whatever Kolya or the Wraith had done to John, it was done, and the man they had back might look like John, but he wasn't the same John Sheppard who'd been captured by Kolya.

Rodney wasn't sure why he'd believed Sheppard would be the same.

"Rodney?" Ronon turned, letting the rest of the group go off. One dark eyebrow arched in query.

"I...just remembered I left something running in my lab," he improvised madly. "I'll go turn it off."

He didn't think it possible that the eyebrow could hike higher, but it did. "Okay. I'll be by."

Which said that whatever excuses Rodney was making, Ronon knew that was exactly what they were - excuses. And that he understood.

As Rodney hurried away, he thanked God for team-mates who understood.

Even if it suddenly felt like he'd lost one of them forever.

It was a stupid thought, because wasn't Sheppard back in the city?

Several hours later, Rodney was feeling a bit better about it - by which he meant, he hadn't thought about it at all - when Ronon and Elizabeth 'dropped in to see him'.

"This is the pressure ioniser they found on M9R-883?" Elizabeth asked immediately, walking over to the long 'arm' of the ioniser barrel and peering along it towards the small fish-tank set up on a table at the far end of the lab. "The one that Dr. Hall thought might be related to the weather-device SG1 found on Madrona?"

"A crude version of it, maybe," Rodney said, switching off the power. "Of course, I haven't studied the original touchstone - no-one in the city has - so it mightn't be related at all."

Ronon wandered over to the fish-tank and peered into a small diorama of plants and tiny Pegasus crawlies. "Nice."

"Setup by Katie," said Rodney, checking the power ratings on the simulation. He'd appreciated her help, even if his idea of a diorama had been more along the lines of a few ferns and some of those planter gel thingies. "How's Sheppard settling in?"

From the way Ronon turned from the fish-tank and Elizabeth abruptly straightened up, Rodney guessed that the whole 'settling in' part wasn't going so well. He saw the looks they exchanged, Ronon's shrug, Elizabeth's sigh.

"He doesn't remember anything about Atlantis," she said at last. "Nothing at all. Carson's going to do some more tests tomorrow - MRI, EEG, brainscans. His...companion, Ivali Weaverkin, mentioned that he's been having bad dreams lately. We've suggested he might want to speak with Kate Heightmeyer about those."

"Because Sheppard's always been so fond of headshrinking."

"He's not 'Sheppard' right now," said Ronon.

"In the meantime," Elizabeth said, raising her voice, "we can't do much except try to jog his memory. So there's a meeting at 9am to discuss his time in Atlantis - Rodney, as one of John's former team-mates, you'll be attending."

"Teyla?"

"She'll be back by then." Elizabeth leaned back on the bench, unconsciously imitating Ronon's pose - hands behind her, elbows up. "I'll leave her a message."

"Is there a reason we're making a concentrated effort on this? Because I'd like to know if we're facing portending doom from which only Sheppard can rescue us as soon as possible, you know. Namely, before the portending doom becomes extremely imminent doom and screws everything over. What?"

Elizabeth glanced at Ronon, who shifted. "Sheppard didn't want to come back."

"Like that isn't obvious! Is the woman - what's her name again?"

"Ivali."

"Her. Is she insurance or something?"

"Something like that," Elizabeth said cautiously.

He snorted. "Trust Sheppard to get in with a beautiful woman."

"Rodney, I don't need to tell you how Colonel Edwards is taking all this."

Rodney snorted as he saved the file of statistic and opened up his mail. "You wouldn't take the news that you're being replaced well, either, Elizabeth. Besides, Edwards never takes anything well. He probably refers to Sheppard's discovery on this planet as 'going native'."

"He's not the only one."

"Hm. Well. Sometimes I'm surprised he's survived in the city this long." Opening up his mail, Rodney began to skim through the headers, using the convenient preview pane to get a feel for what was urgent and what wasn't.

"Military command," said Ronon with unusual frankness for him. "Don't have to like them, just have to obey them."

The irony of those words coming from Ronon made Rodney look up with a skeptical expression. "You don't."

"I'm not in the Earth chain of command." A brief baring of teeth made Ronon's point quite clearly. "They can't kentlat me."

"Kentlat?" With her interest in languages, Elizabeth naturally picked up on the non-Earth word. "Court-martial?"

Rodney clicked through the messages in his inbox, glancing over the reports, requests for assistance, and city news that he'd arranged to be sent. "Actually, it's closer to a field judgement. Body of peers, on the spot, no waiting."

He didn't need to look up to know that Elizabeth's eyes were wide. "That sounds very harsh."

Rodney let Ronon explain the details of the kentlat as he skipped over the news post, read through a note from Zelenka and replied with a terse response, and scowled at a request from Dr. Ottley for volunteers for the outpost viability project.

"When did you authorise the outpost viability study?"

Interrupted in the middle of a question, Elizabeth took a moment to realise what was being asked of her. "Just yesterday. Drs. Ottley and Campanella had reasonable arguments, Colonel Edwards was willing to supply the marines, so I signed off on a short-term study expedition."

"And you didn't consult me?"

"Rodney."

"I am the head of the science departments!"

"You've been pushing for this outpost ever since we discovered it, Rodney." Elizabeth folded her arms over. "And you're not on the study expedition. I need you here right now, to help me deal with John and Colonel Edwards."

"Edwards is going to make that much trouble? Sheppard's in no position to take his job back - at least, not from what I saw, anyway."

Ronon hopped up onto one of the side benches with a light thump and a creak of table space. When both Rodney and Elizabeth turned to look at him, he shrugged. "Doesn't have to be reasonable," he said. "Sheppard's not the man he was, but we still want him back."

"Exactly," Elizabeth agreed. "And Rodney, like it or not, we need as many people who knew John as possible around right now. We need him back."

"We need him back, or you need him back?"

"Both," she said grimly. "And the IOA can bite me."

Rodney snorted. Elizabeth didn't often bring out her inner bitch - as she'd once confessed to Rodney, a woman in a position of power on Earth had to be careful about being seen as either a ball-breaker or a wily flirt - but when she did, the results were interesting. To say the least.

For the first couple of years of the expedition, Rodney had kept firmly out of the politics of the city's military backing. He was a scientist, not a politician - he'd argued that he should have to deal with the politics of what was, essentially, a scientific expedition, even if their current situation was more or less one step away from a galactic war.

Until John had gone missing, Rodney hadn't realised just how much Sheppard and Elizabeth shielded him from the politics. Elizabeth took the brunt of it since Sheppard disclaimed himself of any political acumen, but even she'd needed backup from time to time. In the absence of John and in the face of Colonel Edwards' hostility, she'd turned to Rodney.

And Rodney had begun to learn that there was a whole other side to running the city.

"They'll never accept John back over Edwards, you know."

Ronon snorted. "We need to get Sheppard back first."

"And how do you plan to do that?" Rodney demanded, flagging the email about the outpost viability mission for looking over later. He had a few suggestions for that, and since it looked like he wouldn't be getting to go, he saw no reason why he shouldn't advise Dr. Ottley of them.

"Don't know. That's Beckett's kind of thing. Or Heightmeyer's."

"I've spoken to Kate already, she'll see if she can't make some time to observe John over the next few days."

Five more emails were summarily deleted. "You do realise that we may never get Sheppard back?"

In the silence, his laptop fan hopped up to 'turbo', filling the room with white-noise. Then the bench beneath Ronon creaked.

"Yes, Rodney, we know. And I know that, even if he doesn't regain his memory, it's unlikely that the SGC will let him go back to the planet we found him on. He's still an Air Force officer."

"Even if he doesn't remember it?"

"Yes."

"Does he know this?"

"Yeah."

Rodney looked up sharply at Ronon and found Elizabeth doing the same thing. "Ronon?"

"I don't know about memory, but he remembers some things. He knew it was probably going to be a one-way trip when he came back."

"So why bring this Ivali woman with him?"

"She wanted to come along," said Ronon with a shrug. "He cares about her."

"As if that isn't obvious. How'd Teyla take it?"

"Same as the rest of us."

"Why would Teyla's reaction be any different?" Elizabeth asked with a hint of pointedness.

"Uh..." Rodney hesitated with a furtive glance to Ronon, whose arched brows said everything of his thoughts on the matter. "I just... Never mind."

Elizabeth shook her head with a roll of her eyes. "All right, I'm not going to ask. But I want you at the meeting tomorrow morning, Rodney."

"You're not serious about us going through all the missions we did?"

"Not all of them," Elizabeth extemporised. "Maybe just the memorable ones."

Rodney had been about to turn his attention back to his email. Instead, he looked up. "Memorable to him or memorable to us?" There was a vast chasm of difference between the two definitions, after all.

"I'll let you decide, Rodney."

Ronon, at least, waited until the doors closed behind Elizabeth. "Tomorrow will be interesting."

"And then some." Rodney looked at his team-mate. "How is he?"

"He's Sheppard. It doesn't show."

"It doesn't show that he's Sheppard, or... Never mind." Rodney glared at his mail. "He just had to go and get himself caught by Kolya, didn't he? And then he couldn't just wait patiently for us to come and rescue him - no! He had to end up taken by the Wraith and missing for six months."

"You make it sound like it was deliberate. He's back."

"In body, sure," Rodney stuck his chin on his hand. "I mean, really, when was the last time you saw Sheppard smile at a woman like he's been looking at his local girlfriend?"

"Ivali."

"Whatever."

Ronon hesitated. Rodney looked up and narrowed his eyes. "What?"

Dreadlocks shifted.

"Ronon..."

"Only when we were hanging out with Teyla." Hands gripped the edge of the bench, shoulders strained as Ronon elevated himself off the bench, swinging his butt and legs in the gap between his wrists, a feat that was muscularly impressive, even if Rodney's wrists hurt just watching him. "And not very often." He shrugged. "Hey, Sheppard's still himself, whatever the Wraith did to him."

"Sure he is - he just doesn't remember anything in his life before the Wraith got him," Rodney sneered. "That's not 'still himself.'"

Ronon shrugged. "Teyla agrees with me."

"And her agreement matters so much!" The instant the words were out of Rodney's mouth, he regretted them. "Look, I didn't mean to be so..."

"Mean?"

"Blunt," Rodney said, ignoring the fact that he was always blunt. "We have to face this. Just because we've got Sheppard back, doesn't mean we have him back."

"I know." Ronon looked like he was contemplating saying more.

"What?"

"Nothing."

Rodney scowled. Ronon did that from time to time - but where John had done it deliberately, most of the time, it was just Ronon choosing not to answer. It frustrated the hell out of Rodney, because he always just said what was on his mind, even if it wasn't always quite what he should say. Well, no-one had killed him yet, had they?

"You know I'll get it out of you later."

"You can try." Ronon glanced at the timepiece on the wall. "You remember we're training tomorrow morning after the meeting?"

"I was trying to forget it."

"Can't fight if your body's not awake."

Rodney rolled my eyes. "In eighteen months, it amazes me that you haven't yet worked out that I'm never going to be a fighter."

"Not trying to make you into a fighter," Ronon said with an amused snort. "I'm teaching you to stay alive long enough so a fighter can get to you."

"Same thing."

Rodney knew it wasn't, and Ronon knew he knew. But they both took pleasure out of needling each other in their own ways, and anyone who'd try to hold them back - maybe with the occasional exception of Teyla - would rapidly find themselves on the receiving end of one rapier intellect and one intimidating pose.

He'd known it long before Elizabeth had commented on it one afternoon shortly after John's disappearance. Rodney had raged in full volume about the incompetence and stupidity of the IOA as Ronon leaned against a bench and offered comments Rodney didn't want. Teyla had said nothing until the end, but her query about whether Rodney now felt better had made him realise just how skillfully his team-mates had lanced his frustration.

Maybe it wasn't the way Sheppard had drawn him out, but it worked and they'd been willing to do it for him.

Of course, Rodney had realised they were family to him long before that point; but that had been the point at which he realised that if Sheppard never came back, it might be okay. Well, not okay, okay, obviously, because Sheppard would have still been gone, but okay because Sheppard wasn't the only one who'd come through for Rodney.

Except that now John was back. As someone else - someone who didn't recognise Rodney.

"What is it?"

"Hm? Oh, just... Sheppard. Don't you find it weird that he doesn't remember anything from before? That he doesn't remember us?"

Ronon shrugged. "It happens sometimes. He'll get it back."

"Oh, and how do you know that, Mr. I-Have-A-Degree-In-Showing-Off-My-Muscles?"

Another shrug. "I gotta trust he will."

Rodney wished he could.

- TBC -