531 words. MGM owns SGA.

Jennifer sat at her father's desk and sighed at her laptop. She'd been trying for nearly thirty minutes to write Rodney, but every time she'd started she'd immediately discarded it.

It had been three months since she'd left Atlantis- and Rodney- to come home and care for her ailing father. It had been an agonizing decision to leave everything- and everyone- she'd come to love and it hadn't taken her father long to see that his little girl was unhappy, though he'd kept his mouth shut until that very morning.

"You need to go home, Jennifer," he whispered as she fixed the heavy blanket he was under.

Jennifer's brow scrunched together. "I am home, Dad," she replied as she straightened up and placed her hand on his.

His smile was a knowing one. "This hasn't been your home in a while, honey." He squeezed her hand and sighed. "I had Doc Wilson over yesterday."

That surprised Jennifer. Doctor Wilson had been a friend of her father's forever: the brother he'd never had, her father had said on more than one occasion.

"He's arranging for me to go into a- what's it called?- a 'long term care facility', I think he called it."

Jennifer shook her head wildly. "Dad!"

"Jennifer," he said, and Jennifer slammed her mouth shut for that had been the voice of the man who had scolded her on the few occasions she'd given him cause to. "Your life, Jennifer, you put it on hold for me and it's killing me."

Jennifer's eyes misted over as she saw a glint in his eye at the morbid pun he'd made.

"I love you, honey," he said after a moment, his voice serious and void of any amusement he might have been feeling, "and I can't be happy, I can't be at peace, unless I know you're happy." His right eyebrow rose a fraction. "And you haven't been happy since you left…there."

Jennifer thought of Rodney and before she could banish the image of his face from her mind her father added, "Since you left him."

"Daddy?"

"Doc Wilson will be back in a few days to take me to Eau Claire," her father said. "I want you to contact whoever you need to speak with to get back home."

The tears finally spilled from her eyes and her father squeezed her hand again. "I love you, honey," he repeated, "and you need to live your life. For me but more importantly for yourself."

Jennifer sighed again as the cursor blinked at her. She'd tried several more times to talk to her father about it, but his mind, nearly as stubborn as Rodney's, was made up.

So… she was going home.

She reached over and started typing, reading aloud as she did. "Dear Rodney. I've been spending my time caring for Dad and missing you…"

A chime from her laptop informed her of an incoming e-mail. Curious, she minimized her unfinished e-mail and opened the newly arrived message. She read the text and smiled even as the tears fell from her eyes. Never before had a note of seven words touched her so deeply:

'Dear Jennifer. I miss you. Love Rodney."

A/N: "Spending My Time" was written by Per Gessle and released by the group Roxette on their 1991 album Joyride.