Disclaimer: Not mine!

A/N: Thank you's and thoughts at the end of this epiloque, But I would like to ask you to take this opportunity and review. Even if you never reviewed before, take your chance to tell me what I should work on in the future or maybe even what I should keep doing in future stories. Your advice can only help me to improve!

21. The Morning After

Rodney groaned and snuggled closer to his pillow.

Oh, what a nice dream he'd had!

Sheppard had been there and he had waited for Rodney in his quarters and they had kissed and John had told Rodney that he loved him. Sheppard had even reassured him and told him something like, that he was willing to take the risk...whatever that meant.

The dream had been so nice actually, that he wanted to go back to sleep as soon as possible and he buried his head into his pillow. God, his bed was really warm and seemed even more comfy than usually. Was that even possible? It also smelled different, although Rodney couldn't say why.

"Hmm..." Rodney hummed and smiled dreamily into his pillow. Into his rather hard pillow, which was...laughing?

'What the-?'

"Rise and shine sleepyhead!"

Rodney's eyes snapped open and he stared at his pillow. A pillow that showed a disturbing resemblance to John Sheppard. John Sheppard who smiled down on him and placed a kiss on his temple...

And suddenly, everything came crushing down and Rodney jumped from the bed. The cold air hit him mercilessly and he began to limp through the room.

"My God that wasn't a dream! You were... y-you are really here and you...and I..." He stopped in his tracks as a horrible thought occured to him.

He threw his hands into the air and uttered a strangled laugh. "And I fell asleep on you! The hottest man alive walks into my room and I fall asleep on him! What the hell is wrong with me?"

Somehow he found that even more disturbing than the fact that Colonel John Sheppard returned his feelings.

Okay, so he'd been pretty exhausted at the time, but...but this was Sheppard, for god's sake! You didn't fall asleep on Sheppard! What would the man think of him now?

Strong arms pulled him into an embrace, effectively stopping his inner panic attack. Rodney could feel Sheppard's breath on his neck.

"'Hottest man alive'? You know how to coax a man, don't you Rodney?"

Sheppard placed light kisses on Rodney's neck and the scientist shivered with arousal when he realized that this wasn't just a dream anymore. Sheppard was really here, doing those thing to him.

As if he'd read his mind, John took Rodney's hand and squeezed it a bit.

"It's real Rodney."

Rodney rolled his eyes to hide his embarrassment.

"Of course it is, Colonel! Not even my imagination could come up with morning hair like yours." He pointed to Sheppard's head which was a mess of black locks. They were sticking out at odd angles. Rodney found the sight actually quite endearing, but the peeved look on Sheppard's face wasn't too bad either.

"It doesn't always look like that." John drawled, while he tried to smooth his hair with his hands, "Only when there is a scientist with me, who tries to squeeze the life out of me in his sleep."

Rodney blushed and was about to say something totally smart and witty, when a tender kiss stopped him cold.

'And still no peppermint...'

John pulled away after a few seconds (clearly hestitant, much to Rodney's delight) and began to gather his things.

"I have to go. Elizabeth radioed a few seconds ago. The Daedalus came back early and I have to oversee Jackson's transfer."

Rodney had the distinct feeling that it was more a matter of 'want to' than 'have to', but was too relieved to do more than nod.

In a few hours, this man would be light years away and not even that seemed to be enough when Rodney was concerned. There had been no nightmares, but he assumed that that had more to do with Sheppard's presence than anything else.

"The debriefing is in four hours. Ronon and Teyla will be there too, if that's okay with you?"

Rodney ignored the question. John already knew the answer.

"They are back from the mainland?"

"Yeah." John muttered absentmindedly while he put on his shoes. " Elizabeth apparently ordered them back when it was apparent that you were missing. They arrived shortly after we found you." He finished with his shoelaches and walked over to Rodney with a smirk on his face. "I'll get you for lunch before the meeting. You know, just in case you..."forget it."

Rodney grumbled. The gestured air quotation marks had been unnecessary...

A quick kiss and John was gone.

Rodney stared at the door for a long time, before a smile lit up his face. It had been so natural. To kiss John and to touch John. Like it was nothing unusual, like they had done it for years.

And Rodney was amazed how little their behaviour had changed. They hadn't really acted any different than usual. The banter was still there and so was the familiarity.

It made Rodney wonder if, in a totally weird and unconscious way, they had been lovers all along, just without the physical factor that came with a relationship. It was a mind blowing thought that left Rodney all jittery and excited.

He let himself fall on his bed, the bed where they had spend their first night together....and he had slept through it!

But it didn't bother him as much as it had a few minutes ago, because now he could be certain that it wouldn't be the last time that he and John would wake up together.

And Rodney would make damn sure that, the next time, they would also fall asleep together.

THE END

A/N: Okay I royally suck at endings...ah well.

The journey is over... and what a journey it was! I was going through some really tough times while I worked on this (still am actually) and your support really helped me deal with it a little bit better! I want to thank you all, everyone who reviewed, alerted and favored this story! I'll always be grateful for that and I hope you'll stick with me for my next stories as well! I'm still planning to write some sort of sequel for this (got any plot ideas, tell me!), but I'm working on a NCIS story right now, so maybe you'll only get SGA one-shots for a while...but hey: Nobody knows when the muse will strike, right? Well you folks on will be the first to know!^^

Thank you all, and see you next time (cause there definitely will be a next time!^^)