For the McSmooch lj comm.
Rodney's world has always been bigger than anyone else's. He's always been able to see further, to know more; ever since he can remember he's been able to realize a universe wider, broader, greater than most people are capable of understanding. In fifth grade the teacher held up a beach ball and told the class it was a sun; and then held up a single, tiny dried pea and told them this was the Earth. The other children frowned and stared, awed; while Rodney folded his arms and said that the proportions were off, not believing that anyone could be amazed by something they'd already learned. He'd read the solar system's dimensions in the book; those numbers were as real and comprehensible to him as the beach ball and the pea, and more accurate. More beautiful for being more true.
Then, no matter what they read or were told of it, most people couldn't grasp the Stargate's reality until they had stepped through it themselves, until they had set foot on another world and looked up into an alien sky. But Rodney had never needed to go through a wormhole or see the instrument for himself, when in his mind he could calculate every twisting contour of spacetime; when the truth of the Stargate was writ clear and magnificent in the equations he'd already solved.
Atlantis, however, was beyond even Rodney's ken; he had to go, had to see it for himself, couldn't bear the thought of someone else knowing an entire galaxy that he did not. These days, Earth seems all the smaller whenever he returns, tinier than his teacher's pea, too small, cramped and closed-off. Any words to describe Pegasus are restricted by security classifications and would be hopelessly inadequate besides; and too few people can understand the numbers. Three million lightyears is far beyond what most people are able to comprehend; there's no beach ball big enough to explain it. But when Rodney's on Earth, he always knows where Atlantis is, even if there's no telescope in existence with the power to pick out its star from so far away. He doesn't need to see it with his eyes; his mind can cross the vastness, all that fantastic distance yet encompassed by his thoughts.
Right now, though, right now Rodney's entire universe is the centimeter gap between Sheppard's lips, where no breath is rising; the space between one second and the next as he feels for Sheppard's pulse, fingers sliding on his cold wet skin. The only numbers he knows are the count in his head as he breathes into Sheppard's mouth, tasting the briny sea on his cold lips.
Somewhere beyond the limits of his understanding, he's kneeling on the wave-washed and weather-beaten docks; somewhere past that, Teyla and Ronon are standing braced, weapons raised to hold back the surging, screaming crowd on the shore. The cut on Sheppard's forehead was washed clean in the water, but new red blood is welling up again where the thrown rock struck home.
Sheppard's eyes are closed, clumped lashes dark against his gray cheeks. He was only in the water a matter of seconds, under a hundred, under two minutes. A lifetime, the span of a universe. Rodney's shaking and it's probably from cold but he doesn't remember the water feeling cold; he doesn't know the degrees of this sea, just the way the dark waves blinded him when he plunged under them, reaching. Blindly thrashing deeper, arms spread and grasping until his fingers had brushed against Sheppard's sleeve, until he had grabbed Sheppard's arm and dragged them both up to the surface.
One, two, measured breaths into Sheppard's lungs, and Rodney doesn't know how long it's been, a hundred seconds or a thousand or if he's been here, kneeling over Sheppard, breathing for him, forever. But finally, finally Sheppard jerks, shudders. He's coughing, and Rodney rolls him onto his side, supports him as water rushes out of his mouth, though his eyes stay closed and he's limp afterwards, deadweight. But there's a pulse skipping under Rodney's fingers.
He doesn't understand Teyla's, "Dr. McKay?"; it's not until she says, "Rodney?" that he recognizes his own name.
"He's breathing," Rodney says, rocked back on his heels. Seawater mats his hair, plastering it to his head and dripping down his cheeks, and if there's other saltwater mixed in, if there's something else making his eyes sting, there's no way to tell. He can't tell himself. "He's breathing again."
Their radios crackle to life just as a jumper soars overhead, scattering the gathered mob. They'll have to find other off-world demons to drown; Lorne and his men have come to bring Rodney's team home.
The sight of the sea should be traumatic, after this morning, but it's not; standing out on the balcony with the towers of Atlantis gleaming bright around him, the crash of waves far below is soothing, and the salt-sharp air smells like home. The moons float on the surface of the water, all the endless stars above mirrored below, infinity doubled.
Lost in that distance, Rodney doesn't hear the door behind him open, but Sheppard's sudden presence at his side doesn't make him start. This is home, too.
"So which way's Earth and the Milky Way, again?" Sheppard asks after a moment. He's playing dumb; Rodney knows Sheppard already knows. He raises his hand and points into the night sky anyway.
Sheppard squints in the indicated direction, though their native galaxy isn't visible from here and he knows that, too. The bandage on his forehead shows too clearly in the moonlight, but at least that bright white makes his face look less pale. Everything's relative. "Three million lightyears away," Sheppard says, looking up at the sky. "So, if we had a telescope powerful enough, we might just be able to see Atlantis leaving Earth—that was about three million years ago, right?"
"Give or take a million years," Rodney says, because the Ancients' historical records are shockingly unspecific when it comes to chronology. Like dates didn't hardly matter to them, like time wasn't worth accounting for, when they were all due to become immortal anyway. The Stargates made distance meaningless; Ascension negated the limits of time. An Ascended being could theoretically see the whole of spacetime; how impossibly small everything must seem, with that perspective.
Rodney's hand is curled around John's wrist, fingers burrowing under the wristband to find the flutter of his pulse, steadier and slower than it was on those alien docks this morning. He wraps his hand tighter, presses his fingers into the warm skin to feel that rhythm clearly, counting off the beats in his head, one two three four five.
"Hey," John says softly, moving nearer, his head a silhouette against the stars. "Close one today, huh?"
Rodney doesn't bother to answer; words would be inadequate to describe the scope of the universe now, which is the space between him and John, the contours of their bodies folded together, the warm intersection of their mouths the greatest equation in his world.
fin
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