Spoilers: Hide and Seek, Underground, and The Defiant One
Sequal/Series: The contining saga...
Feedback: Love it.
Beta: Thanks to Ellex. All further mistakes are mine.
Summary: A lesson can be like a revelation.

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"I'm still trying to understand how you thought it was a good idea to test this device by having someone throw you off a balcony," Elizabeth said to Rodney and John.

Rodney grinned. "Oh, believe me, that's not the first thing we tried."

John looked on smugly. "I shot him."

Elizabeth gave both of them 'the look'.

John added for clarification, "In the leg!"

"I'm invulnerable!" Rodney was beside himself with glee.

"Aren't you the one who's always spouting off about how proper and careful scientific procedure must be adhered to?" Elizabeth asked him.
"In-vul-nerable!" Rodney sang out.

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He could feel his entire body vibrate with the sudden realization of being home as he and Sheppard exchanged friendly barbs. The routine was familiar in its rhythm: friendly prattle as they each scored points off the other. Rodney could feel his heart pounding in his ears at the camaraderie he never expected to develop with his team mates and his chest clenched tightly at the sound of Teyla's indulgent laughter. Home. After being gone for so long, he was shaking with relief.

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"Look, what you people do with your C4 is none of our business. We just need food. As far as your little secret down here goes, well, uh..." John paused.

Rodney quickly picked up the rest of the sentence. "We say, 'What giant underground bunker?'"

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The loneliness had clawed into his body, anchoring itself with barbs so tightly entrenched that he had felt himself stretched out from the tension that was ready to pull him apart. He'd been away for too long, he'd been lost in a numbingly cold darkness that left him fumbling in his attempts to reach the one place he belonged.

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"This is why parents get someone else to teach their kids how to drive," John told him as Rodney flew the jumper.

"I'm both insulted and touched by that," Rodney shot back.

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He had fought that loneliness and desolation with work, as he had so many times before, but back then, he didn't even have the idea of a home, much less one to return to. Now home was all he could think about: vibrant and light and warm and comforting.

It's over, he thought to himself. The nightmare of hopelessness had plagued him for so long that being here now, with these people, felt almost like a religious experience.

Home, home, home. He wanted to sob uncontrollably at the flood of contented warmth that the very idea brought forth. It was not unlike having dreamt of losing a limb, only to wake to the overwhelming relief that the limb was still there, still fine.

Rodney felt as if he'd traveled years away from this time and place, always yearning for it but never allowing himself to really believe he could return to it.

But finally he was home and this time he was damn well going to stay.

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An annoying beeping demanded his attention and Rodney rolled over in bed to reach for the radio. Putting it on, he activated it.

"What?!" Rodney demanded, still half asleep. "What ungodly hour of the morning is it and who's broken what?"

"Dr. McKay, your presence is required in the main lab." Radek's voice was formal, crisp. Distant. The wrongness of his friend's tone woke up the scientist fully as he puzzled over why Radek wasn't offering a returning snark of his own.

Before the retort forming in Rodney's head could fall from his lips, he remembered.

Everything.

--tbc