The sounds of the infirmary intruded upon the blackness. John woke slowly. His sluggish mind tried to piece together how he got there. He could hear the beeping of monitors, heard the whoosh of a ventilator. The whispers of waiting friends. He rolled through what he remembered. A fist squeezed his heart. Rodney! He was dead.

"Ah, you're awake. We were wondering when you'd join us." Dr. Keller sounded too cheerful for his current state of mind. "Teyla and Mr. Dex have been getting worried." She asked him his name, rank and middle name. He told her where he was, who she was and where he was born. She helped him take a sip of water. It hurt.

"Sorry. You sustained some deep bruising to your neck, and you strained your vocal cords. It'll hurt for a while. Your back is probably sore, too." She was doing the post mission injury list. "Lucky for you the Ancient technology helped your knee. You'll need some physical therapy, but it should heal nicely. The burn you received to your chest was infected, but we put you on broad spectrum antibiotics and that cleared it up pretty fast. The scarring should be minimal. We gave you fluids since you were pretty dehydrated."

"We do need to know how you got most of your injuries. Can you remember what this did?" She held up a small black disc.

"No." He didn't care. He just wanted her to leave.

"Do you think you're up to any visitors? Maybe just one?"

"I'm tired." He closed his eyes. "I'll debrief later, if that's alright?"

"OK. I'll let you rest." She didn't leave though. She seemed to be waiting for something.

"Thank you."

"Um, OK." Still she hesitated. He waited. Was she going to suggest he see the new psychiatrist? "Well, then I'll be back later."

John wasn't surprised when Ronon appeared after she left. Apparently his being too tired to see anyone didn't apply to the Satedan.

"Hey." Ronon sat in the chair by the bed. "Good to see you awake."

"Yeah." He couldn't muster any feeling, though.

"Jennifer said you didn't ask about McKay." Ronon stared at him like he could see deep into his mind. He hated that look.

"Already know enough." Could he help his voice sounding bitter?

"So what'd he do?"

"What?" Rodney had died. That's what he'd done. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"We figured you must be pissed at him for some reason."

"How can I be pissed at a dead man? Unless it's that he's dead." John felt the hitch in his chest right before he felt the tears in his eyes. He took a deep breath. "I shot him. They made me- I had to leave him there."

"Sheppard, he's not dead." Ronon stood. "Look." He pulled the privacy curtain back. There, hooked up to more machines than he thought the infirmary had, was Rodney.

John took a few seconds to understand. "We left him there. We left his body, I mean."

"No. I carried him myself." Ronon looked at him quizically.

"Get me over there." John's head was spinning, not only from the physical efforts, but from seeing Rodney right in front of him. It took some doing, moving iv's and unhooking the monitors. When the heart monitor started shrieking, Keller ran in. She started lecturing him until Ronon cut her off.

"He thinks he killed McKay. He's gotta see him." She pursed her lips, but nodded. Together they moved him to the side of the bed.

John studied Rodney. They had him on side, his back covered in bandages. The only color his skin had was the bright red on his cheeks and bruises. There was a patch of guaze on his forehead, and he had a black eye. More bandages were taped to his shoulders, chest and hands. He had several IV's, and was hooked up to all kinds of monitors and machines that John hadn't ever seen. "How?"

"We found our way to the prisons, blew your door and carried you out."

"That's wrong. I escaped. I was in the tunnels." John frowned.

"We found you locked in a room."

Ronon was nothing if not honest to a fault. If he said John hadn't escaped, hadn't been in the tunnels, then... he hadn't. "Was he shot?"

"No. He was beaten pretty badly. Bleeding everywhere. But not shot." Keller laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.

John deflated. Luckily the bigger man had shoved a chair behind him. "How bad is he?" There wasn't even a discussion of patient-doctor confidentiality. Not for this. He needed to know. He stretched his hand out and gently rested it by Rodney's still one.

"Well, his low blood sugar nearly had him in a coma, but we've gotten that under control. He had the same trauma to his neck and shoulders that you did. Um, his back was a lot worse than yours. In addition to the lacerations, he had some pretty deep and wide spread bruising."

A vague memory tickled. John knitted his brows. "They were stoning us." Ignoring the gasp from the doctor, he struggled to remember. "Rodney leaned over me. Rodney, you idiot! You aren't supposed to be a human shield!"

"OK, well, that explains a few things." Jennifer's eyes were kind. "We managed to avoid the pneumonia, but we did have to assist his kidneys a little. I was a little surprised that the Asgard on the Daedalus seems to like him. He did something so his face won't scar."

"How long till he wakes up?"

"I can't really give you more than a guess. A few days?" She smiled as she shrugged. It reassured him. "Now, I think you need to get back into the bed."

Everything suddenly hit him. They were home. He hadn't killed Rodney. He grinned as they helped him to his bed. He watched as some pain medication was added to his IV. It was bliss. He was home, he hadn't killed Rodney and now he got the good drugs. Wait. Oh! "That device? Did Radek check it out yet?"

"He has the one that was on Rodney, but I haven't heard anything back yet."

"I think it might have made me hallucinate. Maybe that's why I thought I killed him. Trial of Heart. Feeling true remorse, or something like that." He swallowed. He had another thought. "Did they lock that address out of the computer?"

Ronon smiled wolfishly. "Yeah, but I don't think they'll bother anyone anyway."

"Ronon, what did you do?"

"Nothing. But seems that just as we were leaving, a Wraith hive ship stopped in orbit." Ronon shrugged.

"So they were probably culled." John wasn't sure how he felt about that. Death by Wraith wasn't the most humane way to go. On the other hand...

Ronon leaned close to whisper in his ear, "Radek seems to think it was the wraith you call Todd and his hive."

John felt his eyebrows climb. "That's...a coincidence." Sneaky, really vengeful scientists. He was glad they liked him.

"Get some rest." Ronon walked towards the door. He paused there. "Glad you're back."

John smiled. He was pretty happy about that, too.

00000000000

When John woke next, he badgered Dr. Keller until she let him sit by Rodney for a while. Teyla and Ronon came to visit again, and Lorne stopped by to give him an update on off-world missions. It was almost like any other time that he'd bee stuck in the infirmary, with two exceptions. The first was that Rodney wasn't sitting by him, deafening him with complaints about, well, everything. The second was that Samantha Carter paid him a visit. He had a moment of anger, thinking that this was Elizabeth Weir's job, but he tamped it down. Elizabeth was gone, and this was Carter's job, now.

"So, Dr. Keller says both of you will be fine."

"Yeah."

"That's good. John, I have to ask. How did you ever pick Rodney to be on your team? I mean, he didn't have experience, he's rude and uncaring, and... I just wondered." Sam smiled.

John could see for a second why Rodney liked her, but he didn't think she was anywhere near as smart as his scientist. She might have more field experience, too, but to him, she lacked something that Rodney had: energy. She was more placid, more temperate. Rodney vibrated with energy, he was always moving. Carter seemed calm, collected. Able to hide what she thought. He didn't like that, either. But as a boss, she was fair, he guessed, and she wasn't holding Rodney's personality against him, so he could give her the benefit of the doubt. "It seemed the right thing to do at the time."

"I read the reports, and I really thought you'd made a huge mistake."

"Well, I didn't." John felt his hackles rise. It was one thing for him- or Teyla, or Ronon, hell for anyone who knew the truth- to tease McKay, it was another for someone else to talk about him that way. Yeah, he was rude, but he was smart. "And he's not uncaring, just bad at showing that he cares."

She held her hands in front of her. "Wow. I didn't mean that in a bad way." She sat and gave him a look. "Can I be honest? I feel like an outsider."

"Well, could be, in a way, you might be. Maybe." And if that wasn't tiptoeing, this was, "To some of the people- especially the ones who've been here for a few years- you kinda seem to belong to them."

"Them." She leaned forward. "You mean the SGC? Or Earth?"

John bit his lip. In for a penny, he thought. "Both? It's so different here. I mean, we dont' get to go home at night, this is it. And the Wraith, Replicators and nano-viruses kind of make you rely on people."

"And no one relies on me, yet." She seemed to think about it. "I don't think I'll ever be as good at this job as Dr. Weir."

"I don't think anyone could be." John was a little sad, at that.

"I'm a little homesick, too." Carter again smiled at him. "But, hey, once I settle in, this will be home. Right?"

John saw the uncertainty in her eyes. He didn't think she'd really ever feel at home here, but he said, "Sure."

0000000000

Sam sat in her room, trying to feel better for having talked to Colonel Sheppard. He sometimes reminded her of Jack, which made her miss home even more. It wasn't that he looked anything like him. But he had that something- an attitude, a way of keeping people distant. He was a good leader, just friendly enough with his soldiers to keep them comfortable, but not so much that they'd question his orders. But in that instant offense he'd taken when she'd said something about Rodney had told her lots of things.

Rodney was their genius. Not her. Rodney was their team-mate. She wasn't. She was a replacement for a woman they loved and respected. She wasn't the go-to girl here, she was... extra? No, that wasn't quite right. She couldn't put it into words. When an emergency arose, she wasn't called to the labs, or sent to gear up. She went to the control room. They called with updates, not for solutions. It was disheartening. And it made her feel totally alien. This wasn't her world. The members of this expedition, with only a few exceptions, wanted to be here not Earth. These people had made the Pegasus galaxy theirs, and she would either have to do the same, or go back.

She wondered, not for the first time, whether she'd ever understand these people. She hoped that with time, they would accept her, but she also hoped she'd be able to accept them.


A/N: One more to go! Thanks for the reviews!