So, now a few things are out in the open. Will any of the emotional fall-out get dealt with? Let's see...

Chapter 7 - Apology

The wind was rising. John heard it in the whispered flurries of willow branches and the rustling hiss of the reeds. He felt it too, in the bend and flex of the cradling branches, their tips wind-tossed above his head.

It was time to go in. Time to stop being a baby, rocking in the tree tops. Time to face whatever came, to work things out, to hold his team together, even if he couldn't hold himself together.

He slithered out from the grasp of the little tree and let himself fall, just a couple of feet, to land in the soft, muddy ooze of the marsh. The sun had gone, hidden by the rise of the hills. The air was growing cold and the marshwater that soaked his boots and calves was cold too. Definitely time to go in.

John waded in a soft sluicing glide, pushing each foot through the liquid ooze on the marshbed, catching hold of branches to one side and then the other. He was wet and filthy enough, without falling full length.

He came to the embankment of the path. The waters rose in the winter, Tanna had said. Would Sumark be an island then? John scrambled up onto the solid land. His pants stuck to his calves, heavy with water and dirt. The wind cut through his clothes and he regretted leaving his cape behind. Except no, he didn't - it was too fine a garment to wear to plunge about in the brushwood and the mire. He would have ruined it, and Breesha's work would have been wasted.

What would she think of him, running away from his team? Running away from his duty?

The sky was darkening and, as John looked up at the steep sides of Sumark Hill, ragged clouds scudded far above, highlighted gold on the sunward side but trailing streamers of threatening purple.

The hill was a dark silhouette and it was hard to believe there were friends inside.

Teyla and Ronon had thought he'd rejected Rodney or that he wouldn't even listen. So, had they been thinking he deserved all the snide comments, then? Or was Teyla preoccupied with her own situation? And Ronon? Huh - maybe he was just enjoying the show.

"Fuck knows," said John.

He'd have to find them. See what he could work out, even when he didn't want to deal with any of that shit, really. Not tonight.

He trudged along the track as it curved around the base of the hill. It rose and he puffed harder and his ribs ached more as he climbed steadily above the wetlands. There was a light twinkling to mark the gate - to welcome weary travellers, he thought.

The light was moving back and forth from one side of the gate to the other. Was it a sentry, pacing back and forth? Or had someone brought a lantern to guide him home?

The path was steeper than he remembered. The lantern danced before his eyes, joined by flashing will-'o-the-wisps that fled when he blinked, and then returned, dancing in the corners of John's eyes, punctuated by jabs of pain in his temples and the greater ache of his labouring ribs.

Then the lantern light rose high and steady and someone was guiding him home.

"John."

He tried to say her name, but it was stuck in his throat.

She held out a hand. "Come on, John. Come inside. Come away from the night and the cold. Come with me."

"My team."

"They are safe. You need to rest."

He took her hand and followed her, like he'd followed little Sellen earlier on. But this time he was the child - weary and overwhelmed with a world and with emotions that he didn't understand.

"Teyla's pregnant," said John. The cot creaked as he sat down. Breesha handed him a bowl of the usual oatmeal stew. He was once more dry and clean and the fire was slowly thawing the chill of his body, if not the cold edges of his mind.

"Yes," said Breesha. She ladled out a bowlful for herself.

"You knew."

"It was not hard to guess."

John shrugged. "I guess I'm just kinda clueless that way."

"No. Just preoccupied," she said.

There was meat in the stew. He chewed and swallowed. "She should be at home, with her husband and her boy."

Breesha's spoon paused on the way to her mouth. "Teyla is a strong woman who makes her own choices, John. I hope you will not tell her that her choice in this case should have been different or that you should have made it for her."

"Uh, no. No, of course not." He smirked around his spoon in the way that used to provoke indulgent smiles from Elizabeth, even when she was really pissed with him.

Breesha's eyes narrowed. She continued to eat, watching him.

"This is nice," he said. "Thanks." What a lame way to change the subject.

"You are welcome."

He stirred the stew, so that the flecks of grain formed galaxy swirls. "I shouldn't've gone off like that, I guess. Should've stayed to face the music."

She sighed. "You are very hard on yourself."

"You heard what happened, then."

"I expect the news has reached both the Hill and the Island by now."

"What?"

"Not really," she said. "Although the fireside gossip will be lively in all the houses of Sumark tonight."

"Great. Fantastic."

John set his bowl down. So did Breesha.

"This storm between you and Rodney - you will weather it, John." She reached out and took his hand, where it dangled between his bent knees.

"Yeah." He pulled his hand away and rubbed at the back of his neck and then pressed his fingertips into his forehead, massaging the painful spot between his brows.

"You should rest. You still have healing to do."

"Yeah." It seemed like he always had healing to do, and before one thing was healed, another came along.

"Goodnight, John."

"'Night."

She left, letting the door curtain fall back into place so that he was alone in a cocoon of orange light once more. And he wanted to be alone, but didn't. He wanted Rodney - the old Rodney, the one who would find half a dozen things to bitch and whine about, flick the fire around until he burnt his fingers or set fire to his clothes, demand a list of John's top ten supervillains with detailed notes and examples, and then fall asleep mid-sentence and snore loudly. All of which would do an excellent job of distracting John from his own thoughts.

Rodney, his friend, had changed into someone else, and John didn't know who. Rodney who hated him? Rodney who loved him. Rodney who loved Jennifer, but loved John more and hated himself and that added up to hating John - which didn't make a lick of sense.

John got ready for bed, taking off his clothes and spending a lot more time than was necessary folding them and placing them in a neat pile. He put on his crazy granny nightshirt thing, pulled back the blankets on the cot and got in. Then he lay on the side of his ribs that hurt the least and stared at the dying flames of the fire and saw Rodney's face and Teyla's and Ronon's. And then he saw Carson and Elizabeth and Ford. And his Dad and Todd. And his Mom.

Then his Mom and Rodney's sister Jeannie got together with Breesha and Teyla and they really laid into John's Dad who'd joined forces with Todd and some of those other Wraith who he'd named and then forgotten. The battle was pretty one-sided. The Wraith never stood a chance.

But winter was coming. He shivered and woke and the fire had died to a faint red glow and the covers had fallen off the bed. But there was someone there - a small, hunched shape in the darkness, sitting on the floor.

John rubbed his face, clearing away the remains of the dream battle.

He reached down and picked up the blankets from the floor.

"If you're gonna sit there, could you put some more wood on?"

There was a huff and the figure moved. Sticks rattled and tumbled, flame spurted, died and then took hold. And Rodney's profile was outlined in yellow.

The cot creaked as John sat up. He swung his legs out of the bed, pulling the blankets up over his shoulders to make a shawl.

Rodney was here. And John didn't feel the urge to punch him any more. Or not yet at least. He might in a minute, though, if Rodney didn't say or do anything and just continued to sit there like a lump of wood.

John rubbed his jaw. He scratched the corner of his eye. He pursed up his lips and wrinkled his nose, then took a deep breath and let it whoosh out through slack lips.

"So…"

Rodney shuffled. He poked at the fire. He might've shrugged, or maybe it was the leaping flames that just made him look like he shrugged. John didn't know. He didn't actually know anything about Rodney any more.

"I'm sorry," said Rodney.

John waited - either for Rodney to elaborate or for him to dig himself a deep hole and then John could just throw him out and he wouldn't ever have to analyse any of this whatever-it-was that had gone on/was going on between them.

"And not just because Teyla told me to say that," continued Rodney. "I really am. Sorry."

"Okay," said John. "Well… yeah. Okay."

Rodney turned to look at John and just his ear and cheek were edged with light and John couldn't see his eyes.

"Okay?"

John shrugged.

"What do you mean 'okay?' Okay what? Okay you accept my apology and everything's magically fixed between us now? Okay you don't know what the hell's going on but just want me to shut the hell up so you can go to sleep? Or okay, here comes the punch in the face I resisted giving you earlier? What?"

"Would you prefer it if I told you to fuck off?"

"It would be less ambiguous at least. Wait. No. Hang on." Rodney palmed his face with both hands and groaned into them. Then he shuffled, on his knees, closer to John.

"Look, can I…?" He pointed at the cot. "Because if this takes any length of time, the consequences for my knees, back and various other parts of my anatomy are going to be dire."

"Sure."

Rodney scrambled up to sit next to John on the side of the cot. At one time John wouldn't have thought twice about sharing his blankets. But now, he gripped the edges close together in front of his chest and eyed Rodney sidelong.

This was probably going to be bad. Or embarrassing at least. Complicated, messy, maybe even incomprehensible - all the kinds of stuff John shied away from and avoided completely if he possibly could.

Rodney's thumbs twiddled around and around. He cleared his throat a couple of times, but said nothing. They were both really bad at this. Stuff had to be said, though. Crap had to be cleared away - to give them a clear run. One piece of crap sprang to mind.

"Teer," he said.

"What?"

"Teer. The Ancient chick? You know, in the time thing with the monster that kept scratching me up?"

"Time thing - oh, the time dilation field, you mean? Huh. A blast from the past. What is that now - five, six years ago? Six. It's six. Earth years. Not that they have much relevance to us. Anyway, Teer? What about her?"

John tugged at the collar of his shirt. He'd worn something similar then, when he lived with the ascended-to-be. "Uh, so, you said that I… and I know a lot of people think that I go round, uh… and it always really pisses me off because I don't. Really. That's not me. That's, you know, some other guy."

"What? You've lost me."

John sighed, long and deep. "Look. This is kinda embarrassing. But, there never have been any… you know - hook-ups? For me? Since… I dunno, since Antarctica, I guess. I've never dated or even had, like, one night things. I just haven't - except Teer."

Rodney was very still - no thumb-twiddling, no twitching. John couldn't even hear him breathing.

"And that was because I didn't think you guys were coming back for me. I thought I was stuck there. And I was, you know… uh…" He shrugged. The word was there, but it didn't want to come out.

"Lonely?"

"Yeah."

"Oh."

So… he'd said that. He'd put that out there. He didn't feel any different.

"Why not?"

"What?"

"Why don't you? Didn't you?"

Why didn't he? Good question. And one that John had never been able to answer to his satisfaction. It wasn't that he didn't have needs. It wasn't that he didn't like sex.

"I dunno. I guess I've just been too busy."

"Too busy."

"Yeah. And sometimes, I kinda get close - some chick's sending me vibes or whatever or just going right ahead and taking off her clothes," - he broke off to sigh and roll his eyes - "but then I think… nah, let's not."

"Oh." Rodney scratched his nose. "Weird."

"Well, yeah, I am. Didn't you know?"

"Ha. Yes, well, weirdness is in the eye of the beholder, isn't it? Speaking as one weirdo to another."

John huffed a small laugh and almost expected Rodney to nudge him in solidarity. Rodney didn't, but the impulse had been there - John could tell.

"Hmm," said Rodney.

John wasn't rising to that. He'd done some of the conversational heavy lifting. Rodney could take the shovel now.

"Well, that's interesting." Rodney's thumbs were twiddling once again. "So, I'm going through a reboot now, reanalysing a whole load of data to fit a different conclusion, which, of course is something one shouldn't do - make your data fit the conclusion you want, that is. But anyway, if what you say is true - and I don't doubt you - this seems to be a night for absolute truth (maybe Breesha put truth serum in the stew) - where was I? Oh yes - if what you say is true, then that demands the extrapolation of various other conclusions. Hmm."

There was a rasping sound as Rodney rubbed his jaw and a flittering of tapping feet.

"So, that's a long time," he said, finally. "To go without. Barring the judicious use of your own right hand - or, who knows, maybe your left?"

John shuffled beneath his blanket shawl. They'd never discussed stuff like that and he didn't want to start now.

"And, apart from any lack of mutual sexual release, that's a long time to be, well, alone."

"I wasn't alone."

"No, not literally, of course. Not when you're rubbing cheek-by-jowl with a whole load of sweaty marines day in day out, or, indeed, sweaty scientists, because let me tell you, you don't want to be pulling an all-nighter with Zelenka when you're out of contact with Earth and Earth deodorants, if you get my drift."

John shook his head. "No. I didn't mean that." You could be alone in a whole barracks-full, or a whole campful of your fellow airmen. He had been, often enough. "I wasn't alone. Because I had my team. I had you."

"Oh."

Rodney was looking at him, scrutinising his profile. But John wasn't going to look back. Oh, no. Eye contact when emotional stuff was on the table? No way.

"Oh. Well. So. But. Hmm." He lapsed into silence.

Inarticulacy shouldn't be a thing for Rodney. It was John's territory. He was good at it, leaving people hanging with just enough garbled suggestion of speech to finish off what he was probably thinking.

Sometimes they got it right, too. Sometimes they got it wrong but were satisfied and went away, which was almost as good. And sometimes John didn't know if his thoughts and/or 'feelings' had been interpreted correctly or not, because he didn't understand them himself, or had put them in a box to be looked at later. A long time later, like a time capsule. Or actually never. Never was good.

Rodney's feet were tapping again. And one of his thighs was trembling, whether a deliberate attempt to syphon off some of his excess thoughts or a nervous twitch, John didn't know. Anyway, it was time for Rodney to spill. John had. It was his turn now. It looked like he needed a prompt, though. Or a kick up the ass.

"I didn't know you were into guys," said John. The kick up the ass could be plan B.

"Oh, yes. Well, I mean, I've never really differentiated. Okay, yes, obviously I know the difference, because women are all-" (He sketched some curves in the air) "-whereas men are… well, you know how men are, being one yourself." He cast a swift glance at the lower half of John's blanket-tent. John drew his legs together. "But anyway, why limit yourself to one or the other?"

"So you're bi."

"If you want to put a label on it, yes. I've never really understood the boundaries." Rodney's chin tipped up and he stared into the rafters. "I first came up against the issue in kindergarten, you know," he said.

And if they were doing this - revelations about their past and sexuality and so on (John didn't think he had any revelations about that but Rodney could go right ahead) - there should be flat, cold metal under his ass and stars above and a stiff night breeze coming off the ocean. And there definitely should be a beer in his hand, and the rest of the six pack close by. Still, they'd have to make do with firelight.

"There was a dressing-up box and all the other boys went straight for the fireman's outfit, or the cop, or the soldier or superhero or whatever." Rodney would've taken a swig of beer at this point, if they'd had any, John thought. "Whereas me? The wedding dress, every time - white and shiny and loads of… fluffy, lacey, foamy stuff. It'd billow around when I ran. Billow. That's the only word for it. I liked the billowing."

John had never been much for dressing up. That was why he'd made sure his uniform was black now. Black went with black went with black - easy. Badass too. Badass and easy. Perfect.

"Of course the girls complained that I was hogging the wedding dress. And the teachers said I shouldn't be wearing it. And eventually they called my parents in who agreed with the teachers. And I said if the dress was for girls, then maybe I was a girl. That didn't go down well."

"No?" said John, thinking he should make some kind of non-commital interjection.

"No." Rodney shook his head. "So I learned that it was one of the things you don't talk about. Which has always been hard for me - to put a whole, fascinating subject in a box and slam the lid down and put a lock on it."

John had a whole warehouse full of boxes like that. Like the warehouse at the end of the Indiana Jones movie, each solid wooden box nailed down and stacked up, to be forgotten about, if you could. And he usually could.

"So, a white wedding then? You and Keller? You could both wear a dress."

Rodney humphed a pathetic attempt at a snigger. Then he sighed a long, hopeless sigh and sagged. "I don't know. I don't know, John. I just don't know."

A miserable, defeated McKay made John uncomfortable. Because yes, John had spent the last several weeks/months wanting to punch him in the face, but that wasn't the point. He had an urge to release his clamped hands from the blankets and put both an arm and half of the blankets around Rodney and draw him into the warmth. But that was an impulse to be resisted, for lots of reasons.

"You know, for a while, I thought I had a chance with you," said Rodney.

John's stomach twisted into the beginning of a knot.

"When DADT was repealed, I thought, 'Hey, maybe it'll be my turn now. Maybe he's been holding back all this time. Maybe this 'just as friends' thing is a cover and we can finally admit it.' But, well, we both know how that went."

John frowned at the fire. He didn't really know how it had gone at all. "You were already with Keller then," he said.

"That wouldn't have made any difference." Rodney put his head in his hands again. "Oh God, I hate myself sometimes. Because she's so sweet and I'm ready to ditch her at the drop of a hat."

The fire was dying. John got up and put more wood on it, holding his trailing blankets out of harm's way, crouching and straightening up slowly and carefully, with respect to his ribs. And his head. Late night confessionals really weren't the best thing for concussion-recovery.

"I should go," said Rodney. "If we were back on Atlantis you'd probably still be in the infirmary and Jennifer would definitely be telling me to leave you alone and let you sleep."

"It's okay," said John. He lowered himself back onto the cot. "I'm fine."

"I'd give you a good hard elbow in the ribs for that," said Rodney. "Except your ribs are a large part of the not-fineness, so that hardly seems fair or just."

"Never bothered you before."

"That's a dig at me blaming you for everything, I suppose."

"Not really."

"Well, it should be. I'm sorry for that too, by the way - in case I didn't make it clear exactly how many things my apology covered. You probably saved us, bringing us here. The Wraith would have been able to track us if we'd jumped anywhere else - I think I could work out a way of getting the system to make longer jumps, or I would have if we weren't stranded here, but anyway, we would have appeared on their long range sensors if you'd gone anywhere else. This was the best you could have done - the asteroid field has its own particular cocktail of magnetic and radioactive ingredients so that it'll shield just about anything - and one piddly little Jumper would just disappear."

John shrugged. "Yeah, well. I shouldn't have trusted Todd. You were right there."

"It wasn't your decision to make. It was Richard's."

"I recommended a course of action to Woolsey."

"And he approved it. And so, if you remember, did I. We all agreed."

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry."

"Jeez, Rodney. Enough, already."

The cot creaked as Rodney shifted around, one leg crooked up onto the bed so he could give John a good hard stare. The stare bored into the side of John's head but he still wasn't going to turn and send one of his own glares in return.

"I don't get you. I just don't. I've been a total piece of shit to you. I've been so fucked up about finally making the decision to give up on you and go with Jennifer and her white picket fences or whatever she's got planned for our future - so fucked up and guilty and angry that I couldn't have what I really, really wanted - because if there's something I really want, you know I'll find a way of getting it - although apparently I wouldn't go as far as altering your genetic coding to make you gay or pulling a gay John Sheppard through from an alternate universe - and don't think I didn't give both of those options some considerable thought, not to say in-depth research and a few tentative experiments."

"McKay, that's -"

"Yes, I know - unbelievably stupid and dangerous, and unethical too, I suppose. Anyway, you don't need to worry, because I decided what was the point? If it's you I love, it's this you here that I want - pure, undiluted John Sheppard, in his original form."

He poked John in his blanketed shoulder.

There were plenty of things about himself that John would want to change if he could. But they say opposites attract - Rodney was a genius and John had done a fair few totally imbecilic things in his life. But no - Rodney didn't suffer fools gladly. So it didn't make sense. Why would he want John, without wanting to change anything about him?

Rodney subsided, sagging into a hunched shape once more.

"Anyway, that's what happened. Years of hope, then an experiment in loving someone who loved me back, then a lot of anger and hurt. And I know I hurt you. I could see it every time I said something shitty to you or sang Jennifer's praises in front of you. I could see it and it made me angry so I did it more, like anger was the result I deserved so I created more of it and then it was a continuous loop." He sniffed and the cot creaked as he shuffled. "So I don't get why you'd just forgive me for that. Why me just saying, 'I'm sorry' makes it all okay again."

The words were on the tip of John's tongue. 'Because I just want you back.' And the fact that the words were actually there, formed and ready to be said and that he knew they were the absolute truth surprised John - his feelings, put into words, right there, like, presumably people like Teyla had them all the time.

He let them slide back inside his mind. And ducked his head and did a half shrug. And maybe Rodney would see the words in those movements. Or maybe he wouldn't.

"I'm sor-"

"I said enough, already."

"No, this is something else - a separate issue, and you have to let me apologise for everything all at once because I need a full and complete purge." Rodney huffed, determinedly. "I really thought I'd made myself clear," he said. "I really thought I'd offered you what I had. And that you'd said thanks, but no thanks."

"I-"

"No, I know not in words. But since when have you ever said stuff like that in actual words, for fuck's sake?"

John grimaced and quirked his head to one side, which Rodney would interpret as an acknowledgement of a hit.

"So by making myself available, not to say actually accommodating, for, what I came to inwardly refer to as 'date nights' and doing all the stuff that might conceivably lead up to a certain amount of depth or even intimacy in a relationship - well, I thought that was enough. Only it wasn't enough. Or it didn't work anyway, because you carried on being the same old John Sheppard, which, as I've said, is the original and best and the only one I could love with all other alternate universe Sheppards being but pale imitations, because you're my John Sheppard, although not actually mine. Anyway, whatever…" He flapped a hand to push the whole confused tangle to one side. "I tried. I failed spectacularly. Miserably. I hurt you, I hurt myself and Jennifer gets hurt no matter what, because I would've either dumped her, making her unhappy or married her, making her spectacularly unhappy. At least this way - getting myself lost - she gets fond memories of me."

The fire was dying again. And John was stiff and sore and tired. He needed to lie down and sleep.

"Oh, and it was me, by the way."

"Huh?"

"That first night. When we were all so cold, except I was more stupid than cold. Because I was so angry with you for stranding us here, and it wasn't because of Jennifer, it wasn't because I wouldn't get to see her again. It was you. It was because I'd be with you all the time, if we survived, and we'd have to stick together to survive, so that I'd be with you and yet never with you."

"Oh."

"So I selfishly curled up next to the fire with the blanket around myself and left you to keep watch, even though I knew you were concussed and freezing cold - and I really hate myself right now."

"Don't."

"Well, anyway, it was me. You collapsed and I curled up behind you and covered us both and made sure you were okay and kept us both warm."

"Oh."

"And then the following day, you thought I was flirting with Legolas, didn't you? Whatshisname - Cullen. And I meant you to think that because I'm a total bastard. But we were talking about you. Just about you. Because he asked and I told him - if it had been anyone else, any other pilot, we'd all be dead. And I knew you were hurt more than you were admitting and I told him you wouldn't let me help you but maybe you'd let him. So he did."

"Oh. Okay, yeah." John rubbed the tight spot between his eyes again. The firelight blurred. He blinked. "I see." His mind was fuzzy with tiredness and pain - and a few things that were good, like the knowledge that Rodney was still his friend and that they were together, properly together again. "For the record, though - were you kinda flirting with the guy? Because the way you were looking at him…"

"Oh, well, yes, of course he's very pretty," Rodney blustered. "And as a connoisseur of both the male and female form, I can't help but appreciate a fine figure - in a purely abstract sense, of course. But I wasn't really flirting as such. Because…" He faltered and drooped again and continued softly, brokenly and John's chest really did ache now. "Because I love you, don't I?"

Poor Rodney. He really doesn't know what to do with relationships, does he? Sound perfect for John! Anyway, the good new is, I've been doing a bit of work on Part Two, so it may eventually happen. I'm not going to make any particular plans, because I suspect it needs to be quite long, judging by the fact that I wrote quite a bit that didn't advance the plot one iota - John and Rodney just get talking and it's fun to write! I'll just keep doing a bit here and there and eventually maybe it'll add up to a complete story. We'll see.