A/N - sorry this one's a bit late! I've been making lots of Rodney icons/avatars (see my profile pic!) which are over on my LiveJournal if you'd like a peek...

Independence

Rodney finally discovered that would do anything for Elizabeth. Even go it alone and over the head of his team leader and best friend, Colonel Sheppard.

He did not really see that he had a choice. Atlantis was drifting through space after the Replicator attack and they were totally cut off from all help.

He justified that with her out of commission it effectively made him the new head of the expedition. As if that absolved all responsibility. It was a civilian run base after all and the only other civilian department head was Dr Keller. But she had recently arrived on Atlantis and had too much work on her hands to keep her patients alive, let alone have the time or experience needed to run the city.

Rodney was a thinker and a doer, certainly not a voice of reassurance and reason in a crisis. He panicked too much.

He was suddenly all too aware of what it would be like to be Elizabeth Weir. He thought it would be freeing; to have the liberty to do what he thought was right, but he only found that there was solitude in leadership and the knowledge that ultimately all decisions were made alone.

Everyone was now chasing him for the answer; like they always did anyway. But this time he did not have her to go back to and speak with; a peer and point of referral and advice. She never laughed at him, even if she was going to reject his ideas, and he felt completely at ease around her. Sheppard was similar, but John could not make the decisions as well as Elizabeth always did. He was more concerned with the military side of things.

Rodney did not answer to the military unless it was a tactical or dangerous situation, like now. It was the whole principle though. If he could find some way to save Elizabeth, he would use it. Sheppard did not want to admit that he needed Elizabeth too, nor did he have the means to help her. But Rodney did and he ended up having to make the choice on his own, without the backing of his friend and fellow senior staff member. Elizabeth was dying and there was no other option. Sheppard was not there to ask. So Rodney disobeyed.

It hurt him to do such a thing, but he knew it would be worse not to. To know for the rest of his life that he could have done something and yet not to have done it, would tear him up more than any of the anger he was bound to get from Sheppard.

Anyway, he was arrogantly confident in his abilities that nothing could possibly go wrong. The same beings who had nearly killed her, ended up saving her life.

He knew that he was probably being selfish, bringing her back only to suffer the same fate as all of them; death in the vacuum of space. But at least the fearful faces would be turned towards her, rather than Rodney. And if the nanites could bring her back from the dead, at least one good thing would come from this terrible day.

-----

Elizabeth sat up on the bed in the infirmary, fully healed and very much alive. She asked in confusion, "John? Rodney? What's going on?"

It was almost an accusation, but Rodney still sighed inwardly in relief. She was alive, he had achieved one victory, and he was no longer alone in command of the civilian contingent.

There was still hope.