Sam Carter had changed out of her uniform, and since twiddling her thumbs until called to the dinner table really didn't appeal, she decided to take a little walk. Rodney had been perfectly civil, if angry, and it wasn't as though she was under house arrest. Maybe she would be able to pick up some clues to their life together.

The corridor outside her room was cool and contemporary like the rest of the house, white walls, which picked up the warmth of the golden wood beams and floors. McKay had had an architect design the space, but it showed Rodney's attention to detail in every possible way. The corridor turned and opened out into the beautiful big living space, but there was a room off the end that had intrigued her as she passed it when they were shown to their rooms. The door had been open and she had been afforded barely a glimpse in passing.

The room was large, light and airy, with a skylight and sliding glass doors out onto the deck. Two huge desks facing each other, with tables and filing cabinets and boxes fighting for space around the walls Apart from one clear expanse of wall. Sam moved closer.

Photographs, and certificates, all framed. The certificate from their civil ceremony announcing Dr M R McKay and Dr J S Sheppard… Doctor Sam froze a little, why hadn't they known that.

"He insisted."

Sam turned. John was standing behind her. She took a moment to really look at him. The strong, confident, brave pilot, he was still all those things, but his courage was coming from a different place these days, and that hurt. The knowledge that he was so damaged.

"He said that I was good enough to finish the PhD, and since I had started and had nothing better to do, I should finish… Rodney's hurting." John moved a little closer, "he sees you come in, and he's terrified that we are going to be sucked back into the craziness and the politics." He stared at the wall, at the certificates and pictures, "you can see it all there. What he did for me. What I owe him."

He was standing beside her now, and she could see the scars, faded now, in some cases corrected with surgery, his temple, cheekbone, the scars continued down, shoulder, arm, down to the damaged leg. He put his hand out and touched his fingers to the frame nearest him.

"Rodney's bragging wall." Said Sam, since the majority of the certificates seemed to have Rodney's name on it.

"Mine." Said John. There was a little catch to his voice, and he put his hand out again to touch the nearest certificate in its neat frame. "My bragging wall. Have you ever had someone love you so much that they will do literally anything to keep you alive, to bring you back and make you whole again." She couldn't mistake the catch in his voice or the tears in his eyes.

She shook her head.

"Rodney did this for me."

Sam peered at the certificate. It announced in fairly bald terms that Dr M. Rodney McKay was certified as a Physiotherapist. Then she started to see. Rodney's PhD certificates were up there, and yes they were impressive, but every other framed certification took her breath away.

"Four years ago, they told him I would be a vegetable if I woke up. He didn't believe them. Then they said I would never walk again. He didn't believe them." Soft, breathy almost-laugh, "He didn't just not believe them, he set out to prove them utterly wrong. You know Rodney, he's so stubborn. He didn't just find the best in their field, he learnt all this stuff for himself so that he could help me. And when they couldn't fix me, he found another way to fix me."

It was hypnotic, hearing the depth of love expressed in John's voice and Rodney's actions. She put her hand on his arm, the left one, felt the warmth of his skin, and something else beneath the skin, her eye shot to the certificate on the wall again, to Dr M. Rodney McKay's third PhD… in robotics.

Sam stared down at John's arm, the warm skin beneath her fingertips, then up to his face, he smiled as the comprehension dawned in her eyes. "I'm still me, but some of Rodney's inventions have helped me in other ways."

"May I?" Sam wanted to feel for herself. "Reconstructive surgery?" John nodded, so she took his hand, and slowly and gently ran her hands up his arm feeling the unnatural structure beneath the skin, the places where the bone was reinforced, "wrist, elbow, shoulder… I didn't think that such reconstruction was possible."

"Without Rodney it wouldn't have been." John voice had a thread of steel, and there was a hardness in the hazel eyes that Sam was certain she had never seen before. She didn't know John could look so cold.

"Without Rodney McKay, I would have lost my left arm and leg. Without Rodney's stubbornness, and brains, and sheer force of will I would have been a forgotten footnote somewhere, kept alive until the insurance ran out and they made the decision to turn off the feeding tubes." He turned towards her, making his point "I will not let you just waltz in here and drag us down again. The IOA and SGC can swivel for all I care. The only way I am going back to Atlantis is if Rodney wants to. And that's a decision only Rodney can make."

Sam felt she should say something, but what to say.

"We're not here…"

"To coerce… I know, I heard the speech." John's smirk was a little cold, but not the hard, dead look that she had just experienced, "but be clear on this anyway Colonel, I will not help you push Rodney into agreement. But if he goes, I go with him as his husband. My military days are over, forever."