Chapter Nine: People Make Mistakes

Married. They used to be married. This woman was once Rodney's wife.

It had never occurred to him that the man whose social skills were so infamously poor could ever have been married.

His anger flared up. "Then why didn't you try to stop him?" he hissed, trying to keep his voice down with difficulty.

"Do you really think I could have stopped him? Besides, he and Teyla were right. Someone needed to stay with us." She paused. "You're bleeding again, Major."

John was startled – he'd nearly forgotten about the bite, but now that his attention was directed to it, the entire arm throbbed with a vengeance. The bandage was saturated with blood and starting to drip. He felt suddenly dizzy and sick, and leaned into the tree trunk.

Teyla moved from her perch beside Serena to cut his shredded sleeve off and bind his arm tightly with it. He distracted himself by keeping his eyes on Serena.

"You're his wife," he whispered, unaware he was speaking out loud.

"Ex-wife." She shrugged, then winced when the movement jostled her arm. "We were young and stupid. We thought friendship and good sex would be enough. It wasn't; not for either of us. We got a divorce after about a year and a half." She sighed. "He doesn't like to talk about it. He sees it as a failure. I had a hard time convincing him that I still wanted to be his friend, even though the separation was a mutual decision."

He sat and thought about that for a while, waiting for the ache in his arm to subside. "Please tell us, Major, what has happened between you and Doctor McKay?" Teyla asked. "Perhaps we can help. We are your friends as well as his."

"I don't –" He caught the warning expression on Teyla's face and stopped. What more did he have to lose at this point? "I – I'm jealous."

There, he'd said it, and it felt like a weight had dropped from his shoulders. "I'm jealous of you, Serena – of how close you and McKay are. But it's not just that. I did something I shouldn't have. And then I … I threatened to hurt Rodney if he said anything…"

Serena's expression was carefully neutral. "What did you do, John?"

He had to take several deep breaths before he could say it.

"I kissed him."

TBC