out of time

The Daedalus sighed. She was ten years old, had survived more than one battle, and traveled the space between galaxies many times. Her dull gray decks sometimes creaked underfoot. The main monitor screen in Engineering Two had a persistent flicker that nothing would fix. But she still flew through the blue shimmer of hyperspace, making the routine run between the Milky Way and Pegasus.

Rodney was still fonder of her than any of the newer, bigger, badder ships that patrolled the front lines these days, ships that had integrated Asgard, Ancient, and Wraith technology. They didn't have history, though. Hadn't proven themselves.

The sound of the hyper-drives shutting down woke him. He checked the clock by the bed: 04:34. A minute ahead of schedule for arrival in-system, nothing to worry about. The arm over his chest tightened briefly, and he relaxed. The Daedalus was good ship, the ship that had saved John. She had a different captain now – General Caldwell had moved on to other assignments – but she was still the same ship.

So much had changed in ten years that Rodney appreciated what had stayed the same, like the Daedalus. That, and the coffee on board, though even coffee was no longer quite...right. On Atlantis, they all drank coffee brewed from beans grown on the mainland, and nothing else tasted as satisfying, but the Daedalus' acrid brew was an old and familiar friend, too. 

Ten years, he thought muzzily, not willing to wake up yet. Ten years in Pegasus, in Atlantis. Ten years of knowing John, eight of sleeping with him, five of not having to hide it anymore. 

He moved closer to John on the narrow bed, sheets shifting under him, coarse military fabric smelling of industrial laundry soap. When had John come back from his evening circuit of the ship? But then, it didn't matter, because he hadn't needed to worry that John wouldn't come back.

On the Daedalus, they were in a little bubble out of time and out of space – in hyperspace, safely insulated from the schedules and duties of the city or the surreal procession of debriefings, meetings, and parliamentary testimonies that took up all their time on Earth. Rodney was never sorry to leave the planet of his birth behind. John didn't look back, either.

They had Atlantis.

Beautiful spires, endless ocean, danger and discovery and adventure; two out of the last three he'd never actually wanted. He'd wanted to plumb the secrets of the universe – but would have been delighted to do it from the comfort of a corner office.

He had a lot of things now that he hadn't wanted. Hadn't known to want. Sometimes the universe smiled for no reason.

He had John.

In a few hours, they would be back home, but for now, Rodney could shift closer to John on a bunk never meant for two. He tucked his nose against John's neck, cheek scraping against stubble. Too dark to see it, now, but John's beard grew out with white streaks that had shown up even before the gray in his hair. Rodney inhaled, savoring the scent of John, clean and familiar and bearing not even a trace of blood or dirt or antiseptics, reeking not at all of cordite or overloaded, burning electronics – no pain, no gut-wrenching terror; just a hint of sweat and salt. John murmured and curled even closer.

Rodney listened to his heartbeat, slow and steady like the rhythm of the fans pumping recycled air through the ship's ventilation system. He stayed where he was, eyes closed, and felt John's chest rise and fall with each soft breath. Someone else was piloting the Daedalus into orbit over Atlantis' planet, someone else was standing in Engineering Command and being insulted by Hermiod, someone else was down in the control tower or the ZPM chamber. For now, it wasn't his or John's problem. For now, all he had to do was run his fingers over John's arm. In the dark, he could feel the rough patch where the first blue scales had once appeared, the last place they lingered, when Beckett's retrovirus almost remade John. There were two bullet scars on the biceps of John's other arm. Rodney didn't touch them  this time, although he would, sometimes, in certain moments. He turned his head and touched his lips to the scar on John's neck. It was a gentle kiss, because John's neck was as sensitive as Rodney's hands had become.  

He lifted his hand to John's face and smoothed over the scar there. 

No matter how many scars marked John, he'd never grow tired of touching him and hated them only for the memory of pain and fear they recorded.

A diagonal score across John's cheek, sunken and pale, where a Wraith talon had laid his face open to the bone. Rodney never looked at it without thinking how much worse it might have been. He kissed it sometimes, which always startled John for some reason, and the skin beneath Rodney's lips would crease as he smiled.

John had more wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. He was a little softer at the waist than he was the first time Rodney saw him stripped down, stepping into the communal shower off the gear room after they had come back from some mission he doesn't even remember now. When Rodney stroked his fingers through John's hair, he thought he could feel the white hairs there. And Rodney had a paunch and a double chin, despite the diet Beckett'd forced on him. None of it made any difference. Just scars of a different kind, scars of time. Records of their survival.

Ten years since he glimpsed something he hadn't even known to look for reflected in John's startled gaze.

In the Daedalus' corridors, beyond their cabin, rattles and bangs echoed, heard through the ventilation ducts. Rodney waited, but the intercoms remained silent.

"Hey," John whispered, turning in the bed until they were face to face, legs tangled, his breath smelling of stale toothpaste, a warm gust of air along Rodney's jawline. 

They kissed, long and slow and familiar. "You should've woke me up," Rodney murmured when their mouths parted.

"Too tired."

"Still."

"Mmn." John kissed him again, and they melted together, drowsy and comfortable and still full of want, sliding into morning sex that they seldom had time for in Atlantis, fitted together on the narrow bed, skin to skin, honey and fire, banked embers fanning into flame, the way they always did.

Panting and content afterward, Rodney held John and looked out the cabin window.

"Almost home," John murmured.

Rodney smiled. "Already there."

The cabin window was dark and still full of stars.