Chapter 9

"Nice." Sam leaned on the rail, staring up at the tower above. She turned, scanning the enormous amount of city they could see from this vantage. Beside her, Sheppard dropped his elbows to the top bar and nodded. The others were amusing themselves in various ways inside - Jackson and McKay were working on an Ancient to English dictionary, Teal'c had expressed interest in Teyla's fighting method - and Sam and John, now long past the awkward stage of rank, were wandering the edges of the inhabited part of the city.

"We like it."

Sam glanced over after a moment.

"I have a question for you, if you don't mind."

Sheppard shrugged. "I'll tell you if I do," he replied.

"Why Rodney?" It took her a few seconds, she'd obviously tried couching the question in different ways in her mind, but in the end she just blurted it.

"On my team, you mean?" He remembered her musing on that while in the infirmary, but she hadn't known he was awake - well, sort of awake - at the time.

She nodded. "I never saw that in him, that ability. How did you? What made you choose him?"

He clasped his hands together, staring past them at the water.

"SG1 is kind of a model, you know. The idea of a scientist on what is, essentially, a first contact team - it's pretty much a requirement. When Elizabeth told me to put a team together, I thought of Radek first; smart, quiet, would likely obey orders."

Sam nodded. "I met him at a conference. I know what you mean." She looked at him expectantly.

"What changed my mind?" he supplied her question easily enough, but then he stopped, stared at a distant tower, at his hands, at the water.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to put you on the spot."

"No, it's no problem," he said, "but I don't know how to phrase it." He rubbed his chin, dropped his head, seemed to come to a decision.

"My granddad raised me," he started, then his gaze drifted and Sam was reminded how recently death had brushed by this man "...this is the second time in two days I've told this story," he mused. "I wonder if he'll remember any of it. He was pretty far gone..." and there was no need for her to ask who 'he' was.

He swallowed, hard, shrugged his shoulders as if shucking a burden, and started again.

"He was a mechanic in a farm town. The man could fix anything. He also ran a crop duster on the side - my first exposure to flight. I loved it, from the first time I went up. My granddad encouraged it. He said I'd found my passion." He smiled. "Told me to follow it, and to try to surround myself with others who'd found theirs, and I'd have a happy life."

"Smart man."

"Yup. And it brings me to the answer to your question. Radek is smart, but Rodney loves science the way I love flying. He's braver than he knows, and I can trust him to do the right thing."

"Did you like him?"

"Didn't have to - I could work with him, he was a pro." He glanced at her sideways, knowing she knew they'd gone far past that. "He grows on you," he admitted.

She smiled at that, not meeting his eyes, remembering the room deep within the city, and a wounded man who couldn't let his dearest friend die alone, no matter the pain it cost him personally, no matter his own crippling injury.

"He does at that," she agreed. "He does at that."

She turned her attention back to the sea, and Sheppard joined her. She eyed him covertly. There was still a tension about him; she'd noticed it before. She'd recognized it, knew what it meant, for she'd seen it in her own team, long ago.

"Don't let this change you," she said suddenly. It wasn't something another man would have said, but Sam didn't disdain tools simply because they could be considered specific to her gender. "Or how you act around him." She avoided the term 'relate', knowing that men tended to shut down when they heard it.

"Huh?" he tried to sound surprised, but there was some relief there too, and she knew she'd read him correctly. It wasn't usual, but by special permission from O'Neill she'd read his file, knew his history.

He knew how quickly friendships developed in teams. She knew he'd faced loss before, and the consequences, and she knew he'd emotionally distanced himself after, trying to avoid any real ties to those he worked with. It was something that had come to worry her. Even in the short time they'd been here, she'd seen that McKay had - well - blossomed. Much of it seemed to come from the respect he was shown, stemming from his reputation as a whiz at solving problems. But much of it was simply the knowledge that his team liked him.

Sheppard's history seemed to indicate he'd try to distance himself – it had happened before. McKay was a big boy, he'd be able to deal if that happened, but it would hurt, and she found herself wanting to keep him from being hurt.

Out of curiosity, shortly after their last experience working together, she'd reviewed the physicists' file, too. Given his upbringing, she was surprised he'd managed as well as he had.

But this time there didn't seem to be any overt evidence of Sheppard withdrawing, and for that she was grateful. In some ways, it was just the opposite - that tension in him now seemed to dissipate when McKay was nearby. She'd seen the same reaction in her own team, after a dire injury, and knew it would wane over time, but Sheppard didn't, and it seemed he'd been hoping for some guidance from someone who'd been there.

"The thing is," she continued "you can't let yourself dwell on what happened - not the physical part, anyway. You can't live in fear of the loss; it'll destroy that trust. That being said," she turned to him "take whatever happened in that cave and cherish it. We're in a weird business and our teams become more than our families. My guys know me better than - well - anyone. They've seen me at my best and worst. As I've seen them. There isn't a word for what we have." She met his eyes; saw understanding, and a measure of relief, too, that he wasn't alone in the experience, not this time.

He nodded, and smiled a bit. "Better head back," he said. "Supper should be ready soon, and Elizabeth wanted to have one 'family' dinner before you had to go. Besides, our respective geeks will be glued to their lab stools if we don't pry them out for a meal."

She turned, reluctantly. "Next time I'll come for a week," she sighed, looking longingly at the rest of the city. "And do some more exploring, maybe."

Sheppard nodded. "It would be fun," he agreed. "Shall we?"

oOo

Weir watched as the chattering group made their way towards the gate. Jacob smiled warmly at her, raising one hand, and she called goodbye to him, and to Selmac. They'd had more than one long conversation over meals, coffee, walks through the city, and she'd grown to be at ease with both of them. Selmac had hundreds of years of experience in the art and science of leading people, and Jacob was charming and smart - an ex-general himself. It was like speaking with two old friends she'd just met.

She would miss them.

It had been nice to renew her acquaintances with the SG1 team, too, under calmer circumstances.

Calmer. It was subjective, that description.

Selmac had healed Rodney. Another gurney had been brought down and Beckett - clearly torn - had decided to dispatch McKay to the infirmary in the company of the doctor and nurse who had come with it. They'd turned their attention to Sheppard, then, and it was painfully evident the wound had begun to bleed heavily. It was all the moving around, Beckett had said, and she could tell he was equally angry with Sheppard, for getting himself down to the stasis room, and himself, for not bringing Sheppard with him in the first place. Selmac had slowed the bleeding but he was tired, and they'd all headed back to the infirmary as quickly as they could.

Beckett had treated Sheppard medically, buying the hour or so Selmac needed to recover. And Selmac had managed another miracle.

She wondered, for a moment, if the Tok'ra knew what it meant to Atlantis, to have the two of them healthy and back to normal.

She saw him standing a bit apart, watching his daughter and her friends. He worried about her, he'd confided to Elizabeth. But he knew her team, and it helped to know they loved her almost as much as he did.

It was something she found, now, that she understood very clearly indeed.

oOo

Saying goodbye was never one of her favourite things. She shook hands with Ford, accepted his salute. Said an Athosian farewell to Teyla, in whom she saw a kindred spirit; promising to return to see the community her people had built. Sheppard gave her a grin and a hug.

And finally she was face to face with Rodney McKay. She knew Daniel was watching her, wondering what she was going to do. Engaged though she was, she had an undeniable, if inexplicable, attraction to him. She couldn't act on it. But she wasn't just going to shake his hand, either.

She smiled at McKay, took his hand, and pulled him into another hug. This one lasted a good few seconds, though, and ended with a kiss on the cheek.

She stepped away, then. "Take care," she said quietly, then joined her father and her team, feeling his eyes on her, as they headed for the steps.

"He seems nice," Jacob observed.

"And he is obviously enamoured of you," Teal'c added, face straight.

Sam said nothing, turning and waving at the group in the control room as if she hadn't heard.

"And he's Canadian," Jacob continued. The affection was in his voice, laced with humour. "You'd be able to live anywhere on the continent. That could be very convenient."

"Dad..." the wormhole opening cut her off.

"Just think how cute your kids would be," Daniel contributed.

"And smart," Jacob added, grinning.

"Ok, that's enough from all of you. Teal'c, Daniel, not another word. Dad, you," she poked him in the chest "are going to meet Pete as soon as possible."

She gestured. "Now, everybody, back to Earth."

Sheppard watched them through the horizon - there had developed somewhat of a system of etiquette around gate travel, and one of the rules was 'see your guests off'. As Jacob, last in line, stepped through, though, he shook his head. Surely he hadn't just heard the resonant voice of Selmac saying something about 'long distance relationships'...

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