Been a long time, eh? This is a McKay Plus Four chapter. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's fic I wrote years ago. To understand everything you would also have to read DaniWilder's sequel. See how I managed a plug for two fics? ;) For those of you who do know, carry on. Slightly over limit and not run through a beta. MGM owns Stargate Atlantis.

Dr. Jennifer Dex sighed as she gently caressed the limp left hand of the man laying motionless in the bed before her. The Sun Tzu had come to Atlantis eight days earlier so fast that her engines had nearly blown apart in an effort to save this man's valuable life. The ship had been attacked by a small fleet of Replicator ships and had taken a pounding. Only Rodney's heroic efforts in the Engine Room saved the ship, but it had earned him some serious injuries that the battered sickbay of the ship couldn't handle in a timely enough manner.

So Rodney had come home as far as Jennifer was concerned. Because of her history with him, Dr. Kingsley had performed the surgeries required to save him and she'd done a marvellous job. He was going to pull through and make a complete recovery.

Jennifer sniffed back the tears as she watched his peaceful face, as she'd done for every night at this time for the past three nights. Her heart still burned with anger at the woman who had replaced her, Jen, because of her insistence of waiting by his bedside twenty-four hours a day for the first few days. Only for the last few nights had the woman left Rodney to get some rest, allowing her to spend some time with Rodney. Even now she had to wait until the very early morning hours to steal this precious time with him. No one on her staff had said anything when she'd changed the schedule to take the night shifts. They all knew. They all worried. But she was the CMO so they wouldn't say or do anything about it.

She glanced at the clock and managed to keep the tears from spilling onto her cheeks, knowing that her precious time with Rodney was at an end for another night. So far Jen had always returned shortly after 0600, and her dimensional counterpart had made it very clear when they'd arrived that she wanted Jennifer to have nothing to do with Rodney while he was here.

Jennifer sniffed again and leaned in closer to Rodney. "I have to go now, Rodney," she whispered sadly. Her left hand lifted up to his cheek and her fingertips gently grazed along the scar on his cheek. She grimaced as the memories of that wound and how she'd closed it momentarily flooded her mind. "I'll be back tonight if I can." She hesitated for a moment but then said as lovingly and sincerely as she was able, "I love you." She leaned in closer and kissed his forehead. She let her lips linger against his skin as she added, "Always."

She moved away from him and let go of his hand, and tried not to shiver at the loss of physical contact with him. She gave him one last look before swiftly moving to the door that led to the lesser used hallway, and not the door that led to the Infirmary proper where Jen would come from.

She moved away from Rodney's room and then, only then, did she allow herself to let the tears fall freely from her eyes.

A/N: "Always" was written by Jon Bon Jovi and released by Bon Jovi as a single in September of 1994 and on the 1994 album Cross Road.