Author's Note: Well, here it is. After three years, this has come to a close. Thanks to all those who stuck in there with me and kept on reading! Hope this greatly rewards all your patience that I feel so blessed to have received!

Chapter Twelve: Fallout

On the airport runway another private jet lingered while CIA agents Hampton and Spade waited nearby. As the police car slowed and parked, the haggard agents strode to Rodney and his police chauffer. The door opened before Rodney could place his hand on the latch. Hampton helped him ease his stiff body out of the vehicle while his partner kept her back to them, hand tucked inside her jacket.

Officer Perez bade him a final goodbye. He acknowledged it with a sleepy wave.

"This way," Hampton said. He placed a gentle hand on Rodney's right shoulder and gently guided him towards the plane. Spade trailed behind without a work. The boy assumed she was scouring every person and cranny in her line of vision for any hint of a threat.

As they approached the stairway, Rodney chuckled. "Irony, meet déjà vu. Shake hands. Exchange pleasantries."

Looking over his shoulder, Hampton smiled with tight lips. Douglas' face remained stoic. "Funny," she said. "Well, since we're all practiced, we can cut out the witty repartee and just get in the damn plane, hmm?"

Even as exhaustion and anxiety tugged at his mind, Rodney managed to mock, "But it was so fun the first time around."

She threw him a scowl. "Don't make me use my gun."

Hampton shifted in front of Rodney, facing him but not meeting his eyes. "Don't mind her. She can be a real witch when she hasn't had her four cups of coffee." He turned and glared over his suited shoulder.

Exhaustion made Rodney woozy. The concrete the three stood on started to look comfortable to curl up and doze on. Deciding to conserve his remaining energy, he allowed himself to be hurried up the jet's steps.

As he stepped pass the threshold, Rodney surveyed the cabin. His family was already strapped into their seats. Jeannie rested her head on their father's right shoulder, his other arm bandaged between the elbow and shoulder. Rodney's eyes widened at the white gauze.

The elder McKay looked up. Dark purple bags, almost black in their intensity, marred his face and made the red veins in his glassy eyes stand out with shocking clarity. He gave Rodney a half smile and a shrug before closing his eyes again.

In the row behind them, a woman with ebony skin and bleached yellow hair wrapped in a bun sat up. "Your daddy's gonna be fine. The bullet just shaved off a couple layers of skin. Should heal quick. Got him on some morphine to help with the pain," she whispered.

Rodney snagged the closest empty window seat and almost collapsed into it. Hampton took the aisle seat beside him. As he buckled in, Rodney glanced hopefully towards the cockpit. He couldn't tell from the back of the head, but once he announced the take-off the boy was disappointed to find that it wasn't O'Neill.

He fell asleep the moment he buckled in and reclined his weary head against the plush leather head rest.

Rodney sat on the steps of his new Maryland home, watching the setting sun and reflecting while he waited. It was an adequately nice place; a cozy two-story small like a cottage with a tiny attic only big enough to store boxes of holiday decorations and Canadian keepsakes, and a basement that was really more of a root cellar. The exterior was painted a clean white, the shudders a deep blue and a cherry red door.

Over the last few days, he slowly accepted that the course of his life was altered, and his relationship with the two people he called family with it.

Any other time, he would have literally jumped for joy at the thought of his mother leaving. His dad and sister didn't see it the same way. Though they made some effort to hide it from him, Rodney knew they blamed him for it. He could glean why, even if it was wrong. He didn't force her to do anything. She could have come. It was her choice.

The boy felt the hurt like a constant ache in his chest, but he refused to let it show. Fine, let them be quiet. Let Jeannie stand when he sat and leave the room when he walked in. She'll get over it. And dad… well, he was always the silent type, right? What was the big deal with a little more silence?

Rodney would never let his emotions show, because it was as good as defeat. And he wouldn't lose.

Not even with Jeannie.

His sister had the most difficult time transitioning… more accurately, with the ones responsible for it. The CIA lived up to all their promises, but she still despised them .

The McKays now had dual United States and Canadian citizenships.

Rodney and Jeannie were enrolled in a well-funded and academically excelling private school just thirty miles outside of Washington D.C. He didn't miss the fact that it was also very close to the CIA headquarters.

They were paying his dad a very cushy salary until he could find a job somewhere nearby. He seemed to ignore the money though, living very much the same way that they did back home.

On that note, Rodney's father never looked the same since they told him that they were in a sort of temporary witness protection program, and that they couldn't contact anyone from their former lives for at least five years. The security and technical reasoning and details didn't really matter. The effect did.

They would have no way to try to find his mother, or for her to contact them. If she ever wanted to.

As he turned all this over in his mind, a station wagon rumbled up to the curb. Its headlights were bright against the orange luminescence of the streetlamps. The engine shuddered silent as its driver stepped out stretching.

Doctor Schaeffer looked very much the same as the last time Rodney saw him. The scientist waved to him and he did the same, butterflies fluttering around his insides. Crossing the front lawn, he gestured to the empty side of the step next to Rodney. "May I?"

The boy nodded. "Sure."

Schaeffer lowered himself with a sigh, staring off into the crimsons and golds that played across the western sky as the sun's orb passed below the horizon. Rodney waited and waited, but he didn't say anything.

"Well," Rodney said after the silence stretched. "Are you going to tell me what you came here to tell me, or are we just going to keep enjoying this poignant moment together?"

"Why are sunsets so gosh-darn pretty?"

He watched Schaeffer's face for any sign of a tell. As far as Rodney could tell he was either completely serious or he had an infallible poker face. Rodney frowned. "Dust particles in the atmosphere refracts sunlight differently at that angle, so the red and orange end of visible light are more clearly seen, while the blues are hidden."

Schaeffer chuckled, "Always the scientist." He still didn't look at Rodney. "It's been, what, just over a week since we last spoke."

Rodney blinked, thinking back. Only a week? "Yeah," he said.

"How've you been?"

He snorted. "You mean, how I feel about being chased out of my home country by terrorists, being relocated to Maryland and enrolled in some pretentious private school? Oh, just swell. You just missed me dancing a jig in all my uncontainable ecstasy."

The scientist shook his head. "Think of the bright side."

"And what exactly would that be?" Rodney spat.

Schaeffer glanced from the sky to him and back again. "You're out of danger and you've got a helluva lot of opportunity laid right out in front of you. Besides, over forty percent of the alumni from that school end up going to Ivy League universities. Fresh start with a name already made for yourself."

He sat up straighter. "What do you mean?"

The scientist tossed Rodney a wicked smirk. "Someone has been telling people who work with the US government about a certain smart ass little prodigy that could make it big in a field of science so cutting edge and controversial that it has to be classified… if he can keep his mouth shut long enough to do it." Schaeffer's eyes sparkled. "They're pretty excited about it."

The man shifted to face him. "The reason I came here, young Jedi, was to tell you that if you keep yourself out of too much trouble, I have a job waiting for you. Normally they wait until you become a legal adult so you can sign lots of long-winded confidentiality contracts, but they're willing to make an exception for you when you turn sixteen."

Rodney couldn't hold back the smug grin that spread across his face. "Of course they would. Any self-respected scientific R and D institution would be begging for me." He stretched out his cramping knees looking away. "So, what exactly is this empty space they're reserving for me?"

Schaeffer laughed. "An internship at a top-secret government research center in the American South West that leads up to a peer review and full employment. I can't tell you exactly where, but I'll give you this: it's few notches below the one you thought, but it's the fastest track to it."

His mind buzzed while his body froze. His sarcasm neurons seemed to be preoccupied, and he mustered the brain power to say, "Huh."

The scientist glanced at his watch. The hands pointed to a combination that meant something to him, because he clapped Rodney on the back and stood. "I have to be going. No rest for the intellectually gifted and government owned. But it's all an adventure. Keep that in mind."

Rodney furrowed his brow, but nodded.

Schaeffer took a few steps, then snapped his fingers and turned back to him. "Oh! And one last bit of advice." He paused, seemingly to ensure that he had Rodney's full attention. He did. "I'm sure that your family is having trouble… adjusting, yes?"

His stomach sank at the thought, but Rodney bobbed his head in the affirmative.

He leaned in and murmured, "Don't worry about them. Focus on yourself. Because if you go down the classified brick road, you won't be able to take them with you anyways. It happens to everyone. Sad but true. My advice… watch lots of television. Get obsessed with whatever branch of science gets you hot and live off pop culture. It's educational, fulfilling, and damn entertaining."

"Way ahead of you," Rodney grinned.

With a final laugh and wave, Schaeffer headed back to his station wagon. He called out, "See you in four years!" He swung inside, gunned the engine, and drove into the dusk.

The boy genius sat for a while longer, pondering everything said between them. He craved a Power Bar and had a nagging question about particle physics he felt like researching.

So he got up, went inside, and got to work.

Final Note: Thanks again everyone! Please, please, please review and tell me what you think! Was it terrible, wonderful, or meh? Thanks for reading!