When Elizabeth announced the emergency over city-wide, John was just finishing lathering up his hair. He was looking forward to the rinse and then repeat (optional) part of the process when the emergency status was activated, and turned off all non-defensive functions, such as, oh, running water in personal quarters. He understood the idea; it made sense to save the water for emergencies - what if someone in the infirmary needed it? What if they were stuck in another siege and had to ration? At the moment, however, all John could do was stand in the shower and glare in the general direction of the gateroom.

Elizabeth's voice repeated the message over the speaker: "There is evidence of a Wraith infiltration of the city. All command staff please follow emergency procedures, all non-essential personnel please go to the designated safety areas. We are now on full alert."

John's hair dripped.

He blinked away the soapy water and got dressed. "Emergency procedures for command staff" was code for "Don't do anything dumb. I'm serious, Colonel. Sheppard. You can't do that! Oh, for God's sake," as created and implemented by Dr. Rodney McKay in what he deemed necessary and worthwhile effort to protect his (Rodney's) life and not let anyone (John) get himself killed in a heroic (stupid) effort to rescue (steal) two ZPMs from the Wraith like the last time they had an encounter.

John squinted at himself in the steamed mirror, shrugged, and put on his headset. He paused, took a breath, and connected to city-wide. Rodney's voice shrieked, "No! You morons, why would you do this? Why in the name of all that is holy are you still here? What? Who are you? I need to talk to you right now as much as I need genital herpes! Go sit down and be quiet or leave!" This was another part of the emergency procedures -- Rodney would have his mic on at all times during an emergency, just in case. John could hear the distant murmurs of protest from the people Rodney was abusing, but they were, as always, ineffectual. He listened with half an ear as he made his way out of his room and through the halls. He was heading for the armory, because it would be absolutely paranoid to have extra ammo stashed in his room, right? He resolved to have a chat with the sergeant in charge of inventory, who had searched his room with a fine-toothed comb just last week.

In the armory, he found Lorne and several marines gearing up. Lorne nodded to him. "Internal sensors registered possible Wraith presence in several locations around the city. We're looking at least five Wraith, maybe as many as twenty." John winced.

"How'd they get here?"

"There are several space gates within a few light years. We haven't set up regular surveillance since we came to this planet -- McKay was working on it, but he's not done. They probably just sent some darts through to scout; just our bad luck they found us. McKay's in the lab now, trying to fine tune the internal sensors."

John nodded. "Set up teams, start patrolling. Don't send anyone out far; just make sure the gateroom, labs, and infirmary are secure. No heroics."

Lorne grinned. "'Emergency procedures,' sir?"

"Emergency procedures." John sighed. "I'll head over to McKay and see how long until we can pinpoint their locations."

"Got it, sir."

John nodded again, waved a hand at the marines, grabbed a Wraith stunner, an extra pistol, and more ammo for the P-90, and set out towards the main engineering lab.

*

"Colonel! There you are! Where've you been?"

"I-"

"Never mind, here, hold this." Rodney waved a disturbingly twisted knot of wires at him. "Hold this and don't move any of them."

John looked around. "Shouldn't I, you know, stand guard here? I can't shoot the Wraith if I'm helping you hold wires." Rodney rolled his eyes and took a deep breath.

"Look, I could go through all the billion and one reasons that you should leave the thinking to those of us who do, but I'm sort of running out of time here, so why don't we pretend I gave you the lecture already and you've seen my point and you will do as I say. Look, I'll even turn off my mic!"

John raised an eyebrow. Zelenka looked up from his own wiry mess. "Colonel. We have already set up a warning system around the lab. If Wraith approach, alarm will go off. Now we need to extend the system to the rest of the city -- we need to connect our system to Atlantis manually." He waved a now-connected wire to illustrate his point.

Nodding, John took the mess of wires from Rodney's hands. Zelenka, having apparently connected all of his wires, stood up. "I will go to the gateroom and inform Elizabeth on our progress. Let me know when you are done, Rodney, and I will check the internal sensors." Rodney waved him off, muttering incomprehensibly as he took a wire from the knot to add to the collection he was holding in his hands, mouth, and wrapped around his neck.

The shampoo in John's hair dried slowly. His scalp began to itch. At first, it was just a tingle, here and there. Then it settled in on the side of his head, and got worse and worse the longer he didn't scratch it. The number of wires in his hands seemed to grow instead of shrink, even though Rodney was working with surprising concentration and lack of chatter. John refused to give in. He would resist. He had the willpower. The itching expanded to include his nose, the top of his left foot, and the inside of his right wrist. The sheer perverseness of his body did not escape him.

"I have been thinking, Colonel. It seems that, given the circumstances, it wouldn't make sense for us not to try - I realize it doesn't necessarily work like that, but it also doesn't not work like that, if you know what I mean."

At least the itch on his wrist he could do something about. John shifted, and brought his hands closer together, so he could just reach the inside of his wrist with the tips of the fingers of the other hand. He dragged his fingers down his skin, slowly.

"I mean, just because it wouldn't work for other people, doesn't mean it wouldn't work for us. And even though I'd never tried, I think I would be willing to try if you were willing to try, and I do think you should be willing to try, because it's not like there are a lot of other options out here, you know?"

The itch from his wrist, temporarily defeated, retreated to another location, to his right shoulder blade. He rolled his shoulders, shifted from one foot to the other, and attempted to reach the source - if he could just scratch his head, the offspring itches would go away, he just knew it.

"Not that you should only try because there're no other options, but I also do think I'm a pretty good option!"

John lifted the clump of wires up and to the right, and attempted to rub his head against the top of his arm. Rodney chose this moment to look up. They both froze. "Sheppard. Are you being attacked by space ants?"

John gave up. He handed the knot of wires over to Rodney, who took them mutely. John proceeded to run all his nails over his scalp, harshly. After a minute, when he was running the risk of leaving bleeding wounds on his head, he stopped and took the wires back. The itching was subdued for the moment, no doubt planning a strategic comeback in the near future.

"So? What do you think?"

John blinked. Had that been pay-attention chatter instead of ignore-or-be-insulted-for-the-rest-of-his-life chatter?

"My god, you weren't even listening! How are we supposed to have a relationship if you don't even listen!"

"... Relationship? McKay, when did you turn into a woman?"

"Oh, that's precisely what I should have expected!" Fascinatingly, Rodney seemed to work faster when he was angry. John almost couldn't track the motion of Rodney's fingers as they unattached wires and reattached other ones. "You just have to make jokes about it! Just because I am interested in you does not make me a woman!"

John blinked again, slowly. "Interested in me?" He rewound the last few minutes. "The lack of options, etcetera? That's what you meant?"

"Well, yes, except, no. I just mean. I am willing to go against my natural preferences, as it were. Only for you, you understand. And you should be willing to do the same for me. It's only fair!" Triumphantly, Rodney attached the last wire and stuffed the whole mess behind a panel. He moved over to the next section and unplugged another set of wires. He handed them to John.

John's scalp began to itch.

"Look," he started, somewhat desperately. "It's not that I don't appreciate the offer, if what I think you are saying is what you are actually saying, but I don't... liaison with my team members."

"Oh, whatever! Everyone in the city is on your team, basically."

"Exactly."

Rodney stared at him. "No one in the whole city? Ever? No wonder you go around banging all the alien chicks!"

John winced at the wording. Rodney continued, "Well, I think it's dumb. Also I suspect you are lying. If you're not willing to try the whole guy thing, I guess that's understandable, even though I am willing to try for you, so clearly if you are not willing to try, then I like you more than you like me, which is a concept I am so not comfortable with! But the point is, don't make up ridiculous stories about teams or whatever. At least give me an honest reason."

"That is the honest reason! I won't jeopardize the safety of my team, or of my career. I've too much to lose - I like it here. I belong here. If I get reassigned because I fail to do my job," here John shrugged, at a loss for words. His mental thought process always put a big "Do Not Enter" sign at the end of that thought path.

"So you'd be willing to try the gay thing, then? That's not what's stopping you?"

John frowned. "That's not what's stopping me, no, because the other is more important. If the other were not a factor, then the gay thing would stop me as well, yes."

"Oh, for crying out loud. Fine, have it your way. I'm done here."

Rodney turned his mic on again. "Zelenka. Try the internal sensors now. We'll meet you in the gateroom."

*

Zelenka pushed his glasses up his nose. "There are six of them, four together, other two split up." He pointed to the screen, where four green dots were clustered in one of the lower level labs, and two more were rapidly moving around the city, sticking to the balconies and outer edges.

"It's working, then?" Elizabeth came up behind them and looked at the screen. Rodney sneered.

"Of course it works! Look, there they are. Go get them, Colonel." Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. "Oh, whatever." Rodney waved a dismissive hand at her and turned to the screen.

"Rodney. What do you think they are doing in that lab? That is the environmental systems lab. Worrying, no?"

"Atlantis has safeties in place, I'm sure they can't release anything harmful to us, if that's what you're thinking. In any case, the longer we stand around here talking about it, the longer they have to do whatever it is." Rodney looked pointedly at John and made shooing motions with his hands. John glanced at Elizabeth for confirmation, and at her nod, turned on his mic.

"Lorne, meet me at the gateroom. Assemble three teams."

As soon as he said it, John wished that he'd arranged to meet Lorne elsewhere. Rodney was glaring at him, with complete disregard for their surroundings, and he looked ready to start up the conversation again at any moment. John shifted his weight to the other foot. He looked at his watch. He played with his wristband. Rodney glared. Elizabeth looked like she was hiding a smile behind her hand.

When Lorne finally showed up, out of breath and with eight marines in tow, John had already formed a plan, "I'll take a team to take out the four in the lab, and you coordinate the other two teams to take care of the loners." Lorne nodded, and John tapped the shoulders of three marines and took off out of the gateroom.

At the lab, his display showed two dots outside the actual lab, probably standing guard, protecting the other two. The only clear line of sight was from straight ahead, where they didn't have sufficient cover, so they needed to draw the Wraith out into the main hallway. John sent two of the marines to loop around the lab and approach from the other side. When he saw them, he pulled out a grenade and nodded. They backed up around the corner, and he pulled the pin and tossed the grenade to ricochet lightly off the wall and into the corridor in front of the lab. The resulting explosion took out most of the hallway wall and one of the Wraith. The other came out shooting, but was dead from the crossfire before he could get off a decent shot.

The other two Wraith weren't coming out. John waited for half a minute, then crept up, sliding along the wall. He came around the corner low, just in case, but the other two weren't even paying attention. They had already hooked up some kind of tentacle machine that was doing who knows what to the atmosphere, and they ran around the various consoles, turning off some alarms and setting off others. John picked up a Wraith blaster from the one they'd killed, and stunned one Wraith. The other turned to him, and charged at him, with just his hands extended. The marines shot him dead before he'd taken more than a few steps.

"Restrain that one," he nodded at the stunned Wraith, and turned on his mic. "Lorne? Status?"

"Got one, working on the other, sir. Looks like one was heading to the gateroom, and the other is on his way to the infirmary. We'll cut him off before he gets there. You, sir?"

"Got them all, no casualties. Keep me apprised."

"Yes, sir."

John looked around the lab. The tentacle machine was humming along, and several lights were flashing red from the consoles, but none of it was making much sense, because from what John could understand, the atmosphere concentrations were all fine. "McKay? You may want to get down here. Not sure what this thing is, but it's definitely doing something. You should be safe just going down here. Only one Wraith left, and he's nowhere near you."

"Yes, I can see that perfectly well on the nice little display we've got set up here, thanks to, oh wait, me! I remember the work that I did because, in fact, I was the one who did it! If you keep giving me information I already have, then I may as well institute a new rule in the emergency procedures where you're definitely not allowed to talk."

When Rodney made it down to the lab, assistants in tow, John hightailed it out of there under the pretense of taking the stunned Wraith to the brig and meeting with Lorne and Elizabeth to discuss the security of the city. Rodney waved him off with an eyeroll.

John had the marines take the Wraith to the brig, told Lorne to appoint someone to be in charge of city security, turned off his radio, and went back to his room to finish his shower.

*

The next morning, John walked into his door. And not just sort of stumbled into the door, as he sleepily made his way out into the real world, but full on strode into it, with the sort of purposeful stride that ought to display to the world the readiness and alertness of the military commander of Atlantis. This stride got him a bruised shoulder and a bloody nose.

He tried it several more times, but the door still wouldn't open. Elizabeth's voice chirped from the radio, in the entirely bright tones of one who did not have their morning ruined yet, "Colonel? Are you coming to the meeting? There's somewhat of a situation."

"I would come to the meeting, but I can't seem to get out of my room!"

"Right, that would be the situation. It appears that the ATA gene is not working. Use the manual override."

"...The what? And what do you mean, not working?" He tried the door again, with a concerted effort: OPEN! The panic that had been clawing at the corners of his awareness gained a firm handhold.

"You know, the way the rest of us get around the city. Just push the panel near the door."

John found the panel and pushed on it. The door obligingly slid open. He stared at it distrustfully and edged his way past it. It whooshed closed behind him.

When John finally got to the meeting, Rodney interrupted his presentation in order to give him a death glare. Damn. He'd hoped it had all sorted itself out and he wouldn't have to deal with it, but it appeared as though they might be forced to have a Conversation. John hated Conversations.

"As I was saying," Rodney pointed to a display that showed the tentacle machine, "this lovely little device put an even lovelier little virus in the atmosphere. Dr. Keller there," Rodney nodded to the new doctor, "has found it to be an airborne, fast-acting retrovirus. Our ATA genes are gone, ladies and gentlemen."

"Gone? How gone? What do you mean?"

"I mean, Colonel, no more ATA gene. No more advanced medical procedures, no more puddlejumpers, no more space gates, no more Super Chair Weapon, no more pretty much anything."

Elizabeth frowned. "How do the Wraith even know about the ATA gene? That is, how do they know it's important?"

Rodney and Zelenka exchanged looks. "What does it matter," Rodney started, impatiently. "Any number of ways, really. Michael knew, maybe he told them? Maybe they found some Ancient artifact and figured out that it must be something specific to the Ancients that is needed to operate it? Maybe some Wraith queen pulled it out of Sheppard's head? Or Teyla's? Really, it's remarkable it took them this long to figure it out!"

John found himself still stuck on the "gone" part. "Well, we got the gene therapy before, right? Can't we just do it again?"

"Exactly what part of 'no advanced medical procedures' is unclear to you?"

Elizabeth held up her hand to interrupt. "Gentlemen." She turned to Dr. Keller. "What can you tell us about the gene therapy? You have Carson's notes on it, right?"

"Yes, of course. I have the notes and the schematics, and I could replicate it in about two hours if I had access to technology that he had - he had the ATA gene, remember? He used the equipment here to run through all the trials and to create a suitable way to introduce the retrovirus into the human body. But to do this the old fashioned way," she shrugged, "it's probably doable, especially since there's nothing wrong with the retrovirus itself. A few months, at least. Maybe a year."

"A year?"

Elizabeth put her hand over John's forearm. "Colonel, calm down. We can work around this."

"With all due respect, Elizabeth, I'm going to have to agree with the Colonel on the panicking." Rodney made a face at this. "Without the gene, we are absolutely useless. Um. Not you, of course! And, um. Not Zelenka, either." Rodney smiled weakly. Zelenka raised an eyebrow and smirked. "I mean as a general population. Atlantis won't let us defend ourselves. We need to bring in more people from Earth with the ATA gene so we at least have some protection."

"Won't they just be retro-virused as well?" John asked, a little maliciously.

"No, no. We've turned it off, and recycled the atmosphere. It really is unfortunate that we were using the environmental system - if we'd shut it down and just breathed the planet's air, we wouldn't have this problem."

"You know we couldn't do that, Dr. McKay. The concentrations of gases are not precisely correct. The long term effects-"

"Yes, I understand you don't want to be blamed for what is essentially your mistake, Dr. Keller, but the fact of the matter is that slightly higher oxygen concentration is not as much of a problem as. oh, our inability to defend ourselves from the space vampires!"

Elizabeth stood up. "That's enough. What's done is done, now we have to deal with it. Dr. Keller, if you would please give me an estimate for the gene therapy as soon as possible. Dr. McKay, Dr. Zelenka, please give me a report on what equipment we can and cannot use given our current situation. Colonel Sheppard, please give me a report indicating our current military status and some plans outlining how we will deal with emergency situations should they arise. Also, Rodney, I need to know if we can spare the power from the ZPMs to open the wormhole to Earth - can we even get more people? That's it, everyone."

On the way out, Rodney sent an undecipherable glance his way, but John felt fragile, like if he stopped and thought about what was happening, he might just break apart. He had to keep moving.

*

He found his office, all available surfaces piled with paperwork, and a coating of dust on everything. He grabbed a pencil and a notepad, and took off on a run. After several miles, he stopped before a flight of stairs and wrote down what he knew:

Marines: 126.
Athosians willing and able to fight, according to Teyla: 37.
Ronon: 1.
Civilians with weapons training: 54.
Weapons: P-90s, assault rifles, C4, could assemble some nukes (ask McKay), drones (maybe?).
Shield: up indefinitely, a little over a week at sustained attack.
Back-up power: negligible.

He looked down at the list. As defenses went, it wasn't bad: they would have time to escape if it came to that, and could defend themselves off-world if it came to that. However, they distinctly lacked anything resembling offense, at least of a kind that would let them win a fight in space. Well, maybe Rodney was wrong. He stuffed the notepad into a pocket, and started running up the stairs.

First thing to check was the stardrive - if they had to escape, better to escape with the city than from the city. He ran some more. By the time he got to the engineering lab, he was panting and developing a stitch in his side. He paused outside to catch his breath and because he could hear around the corner - the door must be open.

Rodney's voice was explaining impatiently, "It doesn't matter! We totally don't have enough power to run the stardrive for any length of time!" John closed his eyes.

"Rodney. Listen. It's not like we need to go far. Just look, here - most of the power consumption is in the initial pull away from the planet. Once we're up, it's really not much worse than just running the shield. So, if we could just get into orbit by some other means..."

Silence. John frowned and glanced around the corner. Rodney and Zelenka were bent over a computer, muttering and pointing at various things, slapping each other's hands away. John wrote down,

Stardrive: Maybe.

Next. He got to the control chair room (Room of Death, as Rodney liked to call it), and hesitated before the chair itself. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and sat down. He thought about where he was in the universe. He thought harder, pictured the galaxies and zooming into Pegasus and zooming in further to the star cluster, to the specific star, to their new home. He opened his eyes into the semi-darkness of the room and swallowed. He took out his notepad, and added:

Control chair: no.

He walked out, slowly this time. It took him half an hour to walk back to the gateroom and then down. The puddlejumpers were dark. John walked around one, running his hand along it. He walked into it, sat down, pressed his hands flat against the dashboard, and inexplicably found himself running through a prayer. He swallowed, closed his eyes, and tried to bring up the HUD. After a minute, he got up and walked out.

He opened his eyes when he was out of the jumper, but for some reason, he couldn't see. He leaned back against the jumper, light-headed, and slid down to sit on the floor. He took out the notepad, wrote down,

Air support: none.

His pencil broke. He closed his eyes and covered his face with his hands.

*

The following morning, after he gave Elizabeth the military status report, John spent several hours cleaning his office. He dusted. He sorted the piles of paper into Urgent, Very Urgent, and Oh Dear Lord How Did I Not Get Fired For Not Doing This. He ate lunch. After lunch, he got started on the Oh Dear Lord pile, and made a significant dent in it by dinner time. He skipped dinner, and went to his room to read.

He spent an hour or so staring at War and Peace, but kept re-reading the same paragraph over and over. Eventually he gave up, put the book down, got under the blanket, and went to sleep.

Twelve hours later, it was time to get up, but despite all the sleep, he felt unaccountably tired. He thought about running or working out, but just the thought of using all that energy made him close his eyes and sleep for another half hour. He got up after that, and finished the Oh Dear Lord pile.

Something kept him from skipping lunch. He wasn't hungry, but some survival instinct made him go to the mess and get a meal. A similar instinct kept him from going to Elizabeth and giving her all the completed paperwork. He had the feeling that if he went now, something would happen, and he would be unable to finish the rest of it. This possibility filled him with entirely disproportionate dread.

He begged out of a workout session with Ronon, saying that he had a lot of paperwork to catch up on. He declined Teyla's invitation for dinner, saying that he had a big lunch. He avoided McKay entirely by not answering his door, even when McKay moved from threats to bribery.

"Hm. If Back To The Future didn't do the trick, maybe you're really not in there. Damn." McKay's footsteps retreated down the hallway. Despite the reprieve, John felt empty at the victory. He went to sleep.

Over the next few days, he finished all of his paperwork. His office gleamed. His room was spotless. He had taken complete inventory of the armory. Having run out of tasks to do, he went to visit the captured Wraith.

"How about 'Richard'? Does that work for you, Dick?" He stalked around the cell. "Care to tell me what you'd hoped to accomplish with this idiotic plan?"

The Wraith opened his mouth in a smug parody of a grin. "I suspect you will kill me," the Wraith said, "but my work is complete. The city will not be yours much longer." Suddenly and inexplicably furious, John turned off the bars to the cell and opened fire. He emptied the entire magazine of the P-90. The Wraith lay dead on the ground, his mouth still open, surprised, everything else shredded. John breathed out slowly, controlled. He turned around, and walked to Rodney's room.

*

He carefully avoided thinking about what he would do when he saw Rodney. In fact, he carefully avoided thinking at all - about Rodney, about the dead Wraith, about the dead puddlejumpers... He knocked on Rodney's door. It opened almost immediately.

"Colonel! This is a bit of a surprise. I thought you were avoiding everyone." Rodney moved back into the room, gestured for John to come in, and looked like he was ready to resume talking and continue for the foreseeable future. "I was just mmmphmph! What the hell?"

John pressed his mouth against Rodney's again, better now that Rodney wasn't attempting to talk through it. He pushed, then pushed harder, until Rodney's back was pressed against a wall, and John had Rodney's wrists clasped firmly in his hands, pressed against the wall over their heads. He kept his mouth against Rodney's, afraid that if he were to move away, he would have to talk. Thankfully, Rodney seemed to be going along with it now, and John stopped thinking and lost himself in the movement of Rodney's lips against his and the tensing and relaxing of Rodney's arms under his hands.

He grasped both of Rodney's wrists with his right hand, and slid the freed left one down Rodney's side, and then around, squeezed it in between Rodney and the wall, cupped it around Rodney's ass, pulled him forward. Rodney tensed, and pushed his hands away from the wall. Confused, John moved his head away, and Rodney slipped out to the side, and paced around the room.

"What the hell?" he repeated, dazed.

John wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. "I thought you wanted this; you said yourself you wanted to try it, McKay."

"And you said you can't because we're on the same team!"

"Well, the circumstances have changed, haven't they," and John winced, because he swore that sounded less bitter in his head. Rodney stopped pacing and looked at him.

John ran a hand through his hair. "Well?" Rodney shrugged, and pulled his T-shirt off. John sighed, relieved, and shrugged out of his own shirt. Rodney paused and looked at him, mouth twisted into a sideways slant. Abruptly, he shook his head, and muttered something under his breath.

"What?" John asked, reflexively, but immediately changed his mind. He dropped his shirt on the floor, and headed over to sit on the bed and take off his boots. As he untied them, he glanced up at Rodney, who was still standing in the middle of the room, looking slightly shocked. John stretched out on the bed, and flexed his toes.

Rodney came closer, and reached out a tentative hand to touch John's hair. He paused before he quite got there, "Is this- Are you-"

John lost his patience, and sat up, wrapped his arms around Rodney and flipped them so that Rodney blinked up at him in confusion. John moved his hands to Rodney's belt, unbuckled it, slid the zipper down, and then followed his hands with his mouth, moving the clothing out of the way.

"And you also said the gay thing would be a problem!" John looked up, his mouth an inch above the head of Rodney's cock.

"I lied."

*

John was tying the laces on his boots when Rodney eloquently announced his arrival into the waking world. "...Um."

John straightened. "I'm going for a run. Meet you for dinner?"

"...Um."

"Great, see you around six. Bye!"

After the run and a shower, John made it back to his immaculate office. He picked up the various piles of paperwork (sorted by importance and then by date and then alphabetically) and took them to Elizabeth's office.

"... Colonel? What is this?"

"You know. Mission reports, status reports, personnel evaluations, recommendations, inventory..." John trailed off. Elizabeth alternated between looking at him and looking at the meticulously sorted piles of paperwork. John shifted, feeling vaguely ridiculous. Elizabeth placed her hands on top of the papers, spread her fingers, and stared down at them.

She spoke slowly. "John. I spoke to Rodney this morning. Have you seen him recently?" She glanced up.

John evaded, "I've had work to get done."

She smiled briefly. "I see that." She looked away. "We contacted Earth this morning. They can't spare us any personnel, and the Daedalus will be unavailable until further notice." She looked at him again, her eyes shadowed. "Something is going on there, but they couldn't tell me what. They couldn't even really talk - had to cut off communication after a few minutes."

John took a deep breath. "We're on our own then. We need the shield. Without it, we're vulnerable - the Wraith know exactly where we are and how helpless we are without the gene. We need back up ZPMs."

Elizabeth nodded. "I agree. Have several teams go out and search. Please take care to be careful. We can't afford to take unnecessary risks right now. Get out at any sign of danger."

John spent the afternoon with Lorne, re-organizing teams, since there was no longer a need for a gene-carrier with every team. Afterwards, he walked down to the engineering lab to find Rodney and several engineers peering over a mass of computer parts.

"Heeeey, Rodney," John said, poking at one of the power supplies.

"Colonel!" Fascinatingly, the tips of Rodney's ears turned bright pink. John looked at them and grinned. Rodney slapped his hand away, "Don't touch that!"

"What're you guys up to?"

"We're making a mini-MALP of sorts. Just enough of a system to tell us if the gate is a space gate or a planet gate - we'll lose entirely too many actual MALPs to space if we keep sending those out. It's a waste." Rodney waved his hands over the equipment. "This, we can afford to lose." He looked over at John, finally, but still didn't meet his eyes. "We'll have something ready to test later today. Then we can keep making these until we run out of spare parts."

John nodded and glanced at his watch. It was almost six. He looked at Rodney significantly. Rodney winced, nodded, and made shooing motions with his hands. John raised an eyebrow and left.

*

They had sex at every possible opportunity for the next three weeks: in the morning ("Sheppard, don't even think of kissing me, my mouth is disgusting-"), in the evening ("I'm so exhausted, let's just, come here-"), during lunch break ("I'm eating that muffin, what the, really? The supply closet? Mmph!"), between missions ("You are filthy, how does a human being manage to accumulate this much mud on a desert planet?"), between mission reports ("Did you do the one for MRX-437? No, no, the one with the cannibalistic trees-"), between mission report discussions ("You are so not putting that in the report! Don't even think about... ... What do I have to do?"). For his part, John mostly walked around in a sex-induced haze that allowed him to function by eclipsing from his mind any thoughts relating to flying, Atlantis, or the future. He wasn't sure what Rodney thought because they never discussed it. Uncharacteristically, Rodney seemed content with (or possibly resigned to) existing without analyzing all aspects of the situation.

John started running and working out again, even meditated with Teyla. He instituted training regimens for the marines and introduced a boot camp of a sort for the scientists in order to train them in basic self-defense, or to at least train them in aiming the gun away from their allies. He kept up on his paperwork. He went on missions. And yet, it felt like he was just surviving, waiting, passing time until he could get back what he had before. Everyone else had more or less resigned themselves to living as they did, exiled from their home even as they lived in it. Oh, they still made the token effort to get back the ATA gene, but they had all adapted, and John found himself inexplicably angry at them for giving up so quickly on something so integral to their lives.

Even Rodney, who lamented the loss of the ATA gene daily, did it in the same manner as he lamented his citrus allergy: frequently, loudly, but without real heat, without even paying all that much attention to his own complaints. Under the sex haze, John was perpetually annoyed at everyone and everything; he knew it was stupid and illogical, and tried to suppress it, but he seemed as incapable of that as he was of doing his job without the gene.

It was Zelenka who finally had enough of John's attitude, and pushed his glasses up his nose. "Yes, Colonel, it is sad that we cannot use the ATA gene, very sad. Unfortunate, terrible, bad. But many bad things have happened. We deal with bad things, all the time."

John frowned and forced his hands behind his back, to hide them clenching into fists. "Bad?" he mocked. "The city has shut us out almost completely! What can we do? Basic tasks: maintenance, some research, gate operations. Can we defend ourselves against the Wraith? Can we do anything even remotely interesting? What the hell is the point of being here, if we can't use the city the way it was intended to be used: as a weapon, as transportation, as safety, as a home!" And here John stopped, because he could tell, if he continued, his voice would break. Besides, he was already shouting, and really, getting into a falsetto screaming match was probably a bit undignified.

Zelenka's lips thinned. "You think you are the only one who has lost your home, then, yes?"

"Well, no one else seems to fucking care!"

"That's because everyone else, we have lost our homes long ago, when we came here. Before, even. Bad, unfortunate, terrible, the things that we have lost. But we deal because we must." His mouth twisted. "You want to compare losses? Let's, let's see how many family members you have seen gunned down, or imprisoned because the government is afraid you are selling state secrets because you happen to have American friends, or how many times you have been exiled from your home, forced to live in a foreign country where you do not understand language and customs and are always strange funny man!"

John blinked and stopped himself before he launched into a counter-argument. Clearly, he had to work better at hiding his feelings; it was unreal, unusual, this inability to contain them inside himself. He needed a distraction, and for once, fate cooperated: that night, Lorne radioed the city from a moderately advanced planet.

*

Carelen was the twenty-eighth planet that they'd explored from their new home, and it was the first that had any useful level of technology. The Careleni people were ruthless in a very efficient way - to combat the Wraith cullings, they developed genetic engineering before even the radio. They continually grew babies in incubators, engineered them for intelligence and resistance to disease and illness. Normal procreation was frowned upon - who knows what random genetic combinations would produce? Also, why take some of the population out of the workforce for the purposes of carrying a child to term? They kept all the genetic combinations in storage, and reproduced those that turned out to be particularly smart. John learned of this from Lorne's debriefing, the first one where he felt awake and fully aware.

As the first society that had anything remotely resembling a useful military if nothing else, Elizabeth insisted on going there personally, to ensure an alliance. Lorne had looked at her at this, then glanced at John, "You should take Dr. McKay, too. And Zelenka. Some other scientists."

Elizabeth had frowned. "I don't want to put our entire science team at risk, here... Why?"

Lorne fidgeted. "You have to understand. Intelligence, to these people, it's everything. They'll give you tests before they speak to you on any sort of meaningful level. The only reason they spoke to us at all is that Dr. Parrish is apparently a genius at word puzzles! The more people you have who can pass their tests, the better."

Elizabeth's eyes widened, and she clapped her hands together decisively. "Well, then. It's been a long time since the SATs. Colonel, I believe you're just the man to be our military escort. Let's take Dr. McKay and also Dr. Keller. Major Lorne, Atlantis is yours."

Lorne snapped to attention. "Yes, Ma'am!"

*

"We're very impressed with your people, Dr. Weir," said their escort. "Everyone you've brought with you is very intelligent, and without even the benefit of genetic engineering! We really must talk about a trade of sorts - we would give much for samples of your genetic material." John exchanged a look with Rodney. Rodney made a face that clearly indicated, "You even think about fucking some bimbo here, Sheppard, and I swear to God I will break your soul." John nodded in acknowledgement, although he thought Rodney was limiting himself here - they were clearly more impressed with Rodney than they were with him.

The escort-slash-exam-proctor gathered his papers. "Well, my work is done. Our chancellor will be with you shortly to discuss possible trades and give you a tour. I will see you all at dinner, and please enjoy your stay."

Elizabeth waited until the door closed behind him. "Well, they seem reasonable, and it looks like we could certainly gain favorable trades, if not allies against the Wraith."

Dr. Keller looked at her incredulously. "In exchange for what? Our 'genetic material'? I don't think I'm willing to do that!"

"No one's asking you to, Dr. Keller," Rodney said, "but some of us are perfectly willing to contribute our genetic code for the betterment of humanity. And also for procreation that does not involve me dealing with small useless creatures. And some of us," and here Rodney glared at John, "have made it quite a habit to 'contribute genetic material' to alien cultures whenever possible!"

John rolled his eyes. Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Gentlemen? Behave, please."

Rodney sulked. John tried and failed to find his sulking less adorable.

The Careleni chancellor was a tall man, with graying hair and wrinkles around his dark brown eyes, but he had aged well: it was clear that he had been very attractive, and he still carried himself with an air of quiet dignity and self-assuredness. He spoke softly, but his voice carried.

"Dr. Weir," he started, as soon as he walked into the room, "it's a pleasure to meet you and your people." Elizabeth stood up to greet him, extended her hands to grip both of his in the Careleni version of a handshake. "My name is Marin. I'd like to show you around the complex some, and then start negotiations over dinner, if that's all right with you? We can split up so that all of your people can be shown what they wish to see."

Elizabeth glanced at John, and he nodded, cautiously. He ended up paired with a woman named Elal, who took him to see the planes they had and the schematics for the jets they were designing. They were about thirty years behind Earth tech for planes, but when he looked at their designs, he could feel something in himself unraveling. He ran his fingers over the blueprints, looked up at Elal. "I can help you with this. I've flown many of them, I know what needs to be accounted for."

She grinned at his enthusiasm, placed her hand over his on the paper. "We'll take any help you can give us, Colonel." John raised an eyebrow and smiled, ready to ask her to sit with him at dinner. She continued, "Believe me, with the score you got on that section of the test, we'd probably let you head our entire flight division right now!"

And that was the other thing - he could tell she was flirting, that she liked him, that she wanted him to stay, but the things that she seemed to want were very abstract. She wanted long-term benefits: more knowledge, more technology, eventual destruction of the Wraith. She didn't seem to particularly care about herself, about getting what she wanted because she wanted it. Perhaps she truly didn't want anything for herself - perhaps all of herself was so wrapped around her people that she couldn't differentiate between what was good for her and what was good for the people. John felt like she wanted him to help with some grand purpose, something bigger than individual whim, and he couldn't help but want that too.

It turned out that everyone else was as sucked in by that as he was - and really, it wasn't surprising, given that they had all come to Atlantis, given up what they had for something bigger, an adventure beyond imagining. No surprise that it appealed to them in others, too. Rodney had come to dinner glowing, "Look at what they let me see! Now this is a culture I could get behind - no red tape! Your clearance level is limited only by your intelligence!"

Elizabeth smiled at them indulgently. During dinner, Marin opened negotiations immediately, "What would it take for some of your people to remain here for a time, to help us with research and development?" Elizabeth blinked at him, then looked at Rodney.

Rodney swallowed his mouthful of food, "Do you have any ZPMs? They're the," he snapped his fingers as he looked around, "the person I talked to, I explained it, where is she, aha! You! Have you checked for ZPMs?"

A slender, long-haired woman approached them and nodded at Marin. "My apologies for my lateness, I was searching our archives for records of these ZPMs. We do not appear to have any such records; however, with more time, I would be able to check in with other trade contacts." She slid down on the bench between Rodney and John. John blinked at her.

Elizabeth took over, "We certainly appreciate any help you could get us in finding ZPMs. Other than that, we are always looking to trade for food, perhaps for certain ores and materials. More importantly, I would rather have allies that we could count on in case of Wraith attack - we really would like to have a safe haven to go to in case we need to run."

Marin looked affronted, "Of course you should stay with us! We would gladly provide anything you need."

Elizabeth smiled at him, then turned back to John, Rodney, and Dr. Keller, "Then it's really up to you. Would anyone like to stay here, to help?"

Rodney raised his hand, "Yes, yes please." His tour guide smiled up at him and flipped her hair back.

John raised his hand as well, "They're designing jets now; I could definitely help with the design and then the testing."

Dr. Keller shook her head, "There's nothing I am willing to help with, medically speaking. Their genetic engineering is impressive, but I'm not willing to compromise my ethics."

John blinked. "Their genetic engineering is impressive? Better than ours? Can you use it to help with the ATA gene?" Dr. Keller pursed her lips, disapproving, and opened her mouth to reply, but Elizabeth cut her off.

"Let's discuss that later. Rodney, John, let's say you'll stay here for two weeks. Check in every day. This will be a good training opportunity for Dr. Zelenka and Major Lorne, as well." She paused, "And this is delicious! What is in this salad?"

Elal turned to her with a smile, and John tuned out the rest of the conversation. He watched as Rodney shoveled food into his mouth with one hand while reading design documents he was holding with the other, as Elizabeth charmed Marin and Elal, as conversations swirled around him, but all he could concentrate on was Dr. Keller's disapproving expression, and how much he wanted to hurt her, to make her understand, to make her... He closed his eyes, wrapped his hands around his warm mug, and breathed out.

*

The two weeks on Carelen passed quickly. When John wasn't with Elal, working on the jet designs, he was busy dragging Rodney away from his work, for food, entertainment, sex, and on one memorable occasion, all three. He introduced the Careleni to golf and soccer - he'd tried football, but Rodney had vetoed it, and the Careleni had a disturbing tendency to side with the more intelligent people. Arguing that Rodney wasn't intelligent about sports got him nowhere, but he didn't let it bring him down.

Outside of checking in with Atlantis every morning and every evening, he fairly successfully removed all considerations of it from his mind until it was time for them to leave Carelen. Despite the progress he was making, Rodney was eager to get back, to do more complex work: to research rather than to educate. On the way back to the gate, John was silent, letting Rodney talk about his plans and rehearsing arguments in his mind.

"They're so close to a functioning prototype; they'll need a test pilot. I've flown many jets - both test and combat flights. I'm the best person to do this - I know exactly what to expect and what should happen."

Elizabeth frowned at him, and opened her mouth, but Rodney interrupted, "How come you didn't say you wanted to stay longer?" John blinked. It hadn't occurred to him to talk to Rodney about this. Why hadn't it occurred to him? Rodney's face was scrunched up, and his eyes looked hurt.

He hesitated. "Well-" but Elizabeth was already talking.

"First. It's dangerous, isn't it? Testing a prototype?"

"Well, there's a certain amount of danger involved, yes, but. It's worth it! With jets, they could take out the Wraith darts, at least."

Elizabeth shook her head. "You're the military commander of this city, Colonel. This is an unnecessary risk. If you'd like to send another pilot, that would be acceptable, but I can't let you do this. I need you here, doing your job."

John snorted, suddenly angry, "My job? What exactly is my job?" He jumped to his feet, and stalked around Elizabeth's office -- three steps forward, turn, three steps, turn. Elizabeth stood up as well.

"Rodney. If you don't mind, I need to speak with Colonel Sheppard privately. I believe Dr. Zelenka wanted to debrief you."

With an undecipherable glance at John, Rodney stood up and collected his belongings. He left the room slowly, maybe expecting something, but John didn't understand what it could be. When the door closed behind him, John was already regretting his outburst.

Elizabeth sat back down and stared at the surface of her desk. When she spoke, she spoke softly, "I expected more from you, John." She looked up at him. John froze, mid-stride. He'd expected platitudes, reassurances that everything would be all right, that he could go on without the ATA gene.

"You have duties here, responsibilities. You are in charge. You are asking to what, basically, abandon your post? How would you like me to write this up in your evaluation? 'John Sheppard is a great commander except for actually commanding, or well, in fact, except for being present'?" John flinched. "I want you back here doing your job and I want you doing it well, not this half-assed mockery of following procedure when we both know that if I'd wanted a commander who filled out paperwork, I would have taken Caldwell in a minute!"

She took a breath, and continued more calmly, "I know you're used to flying, and I know that right now you can't do that. But to be perfectly honest, you are acting like a child who has had his favorite toy taken away. Adults have responsibilities. Yours include, among other things, people's lives. Start doing your job again, or I will be forced to ask for your resignation."

John's memory flashed him several instances of speeches like this one. At least he knew how to deal with this. Furious, John schooled his face into blankness and snapped a salute. "Yes, Sir!"

*

Dr. Keller approached John during lunchtime, ignoring the paperwork he had spread in front of him to keep people away. He glared at her. She glared back, and sat down across from him.

"I realize you don't like me, Colonel Sheppard." John raised an eyebrow. "To be perfectly honest, I don't really like you either. However, I understand how you feel," and here, John rolled his eyes and dragged a report closer, to read, but she continued. "I do understand. That's why I'm telling you first. It's not exactly ethical, and Dr. Weir would definitely not let us do this. But. I have, maybe, maybe something ready for a human trial."

John froze, took a breath, pressed his lips together. Without looking up, he assembled all his paperwork, carefully and slowly aligning the edges of the papers. He could feel Dr. Keller watching him, but he couldn't respond, not yet, not while hope was flaring inside him like a supernova, faster than he could comprehend it. She didn't say anything, but she stood up when he did, and they walked to the infirmary, silent.

In the end, it was almost anti-climactic. He got a shot, and remained in the infirmary for observation. He held the control to a MRI-like machine, and waited.

"It could be several hours," Dr. Keller informed him. "You could read a book or something." He shook his head, and stared at the machine, willing it to turn on. Dr. Keller pulled up a chair and stared at him. He didn't know if he was supposed to talk to her, if he was being rude by ignoring her, but he couldn't quite bring himself to care. She didn't object. Eventually, he fell asleep.

Dr. Keller woke him up, later, gently shaking his shoulder. John looked up at her blearily, and noticed, for the first time, that she really was quite pretty. She glanced away and nodded toward the end of the room, then bit her lower lip and smiled. He followed her gaze, and saw the MRI machine lit up like a Christmas tree. He swallowed and gripped her hand.

*

"What the hell were you thinking? And you, who had such ethical problems with the Careleni, how could you even think to do this?"

Elizabeth had been yelling for the better part of an hour now, alternating between yelling at John and yelling at Dr. Keller, but John still felt the grin breaking free. He glanced at Dr. Keller and saw an answering smile on her face. Elizabeth's face turned an alarming shade of red. This had been going for the better part of an hour as well - as soon as she'd start winding down her speech, John would think, I can fly, and there would be the grin again, and there would go Elizabeth again, getting more and more red.

Finally, she took a deep breath, sat on the edge of her desk. "Dr. Keller. No more human trials until we know there are no undue side effects. No more human trials without my permission. In fact, no more any trials of anything without my express permission, in writing!" Dr. Keller nodded. All things considered, John thought she got off fairly easy - Elizabeth, despite whatever she may say, was as pleased to have a gene carrier as everyone else - he only hoped his own punishment would be similarly light.

"Colonel. Since you are now the sole ATA gene carrier in this city, your time will be scheduled among the various departments who need the ATA gene to turn on or off various devices for their research. You will have breaks for meals and sleep; the rest of your time will be scheduled by me. Both of you are dismissed."

*

Even serving as Ultimate-Turning-Things-On-Device, John spent the next two weeks walking on air. Sure, he was busy helping various useless departments do their various useless tasks, and sure, he wasn't flying any more than he had been earlier, but the possibility was there, and it was enough. He spent so much focus and energy just anticipating the flights that it took him an embarrassingly long time to notice that anything was wrong at all.

In fact, when he first noticed any difference at all was on his first entrance into a puddlejumper - Zelenka, God bless his soul, scheduled completely unnecessary jumper check-ups with Elizabeth. Walking into it was heaven. The HUD came up with a thought. He could feel the jumper, ready to do whatever he commanded as soon as he thought it. But. There was something missing. It felt... different.

Zelenka scheduled a flight test for the next morning, and John spent the rest of the day in a happy-haze, agreeing to all manner of things he was going to regret later on. Rodney came in while he was agreeing to supervise training regimens for the scientists who hated all things military and had categorically refused to attend the first seventeen sessions. Elizabeth was making them mandatory. They were going to be a disaster.

"Sorry to interrupt. Colonel, a word?" John waved off Lorne, who looked shell-shocked at his good fortune. Lorne left, but Rodney didn't sit.

"I have to run, actually, I just realize that we haven't seen each other for a while. I know you've been busy and all that, so I just figured, maybe, dinner? Tomorrow night, eight-ish?"

John nodded, agreeably. "Sure thing." Rodney smiled and bounced out John's office.

*

That night, John didn't sleep. He kept looking at the clock by his bed, counting down the hours until it was time for the morning test flight. Zelenka had said that they could begin with the start of the morning shift. By mid-night shift, John was dressed and sitting on the edge of his bed. He pulled his laptop over, checked his e-mail, refreshed. He played minesweeper, then hearts. He attempted to write a report on a device they'd discovered last week. He looked at the clock.

Two hours before they were supposed to start, John found himself pacing in the puddlejumper bay. Thankfully, Zelenka showed up not much after, and smiled at seeing John already there.

"Somehow, I had a feeling I would find you here, Colonel."

John nodded.

"Well, then, let's go. Take a jumper, any jumper. Off you go!" Zelenka made shooing motions with his hands, reminiscent of Rodney's mannerisms. John grinned and ran into a jumper.

"Colonel Sheppard here, requesting permission for test flight."

"Control here. This is Elizabeth. You are cleared for flight. And John - good luck."

John grinned again, and took the jumper out through the roof. The new world was magnificent. They'd put Atlantis in the middle of the biggest expanse of water, but even that was dotted with islands. The world was similar to Earth - also about 70% water - but there were no large continents. They hadn't even named it yet, but John felt a sudden love for it, seeing it from the air.

He flew up above the cloud cover, did some easy rolls, dove down in the clouds, then back up, laughing. He took the jumper into orbit and tried trickier things: reversing course abruptly as if evading enemy fire, skimming across the very edge of the atmosphere, just low enough to raise the hull temps. He frowned, and flew back down, through the clouds, underwater. He lowered the jumper until she was resting on the bottom of the ocean; it wasn't deep enough to even raise pressure alarms. He watched the fish swim by.

He could feel the jumper there, ready to obey his wishes, but that was it, really. She was ready to obey, to do what he said, but she wasn't suggesting anything to him, she wasn't nudging him in the right direction, wasn't enjoying the flight. She was no longer working with him, just for him. It had become a tool, not a partner.

Slowly, he raised the jumper back up, took it back to Atlantis. Zelenka was there, looking at him expectantly, notepad in his hand.

"Didn't expect you back so soon, Colonel. Anything wrong?"

John shook his head. "The jumper is fine. Nothing wrong." He shook his head again, and went back to his room to catch up on sleep. He took a vacation day, turned off his radio, told his door to not open for anyone.

He woke up in the late afternoon, around five, and oddly, still continued to glance at his clock, even though there wasn't anything to look forward to now. He paced around the room. He tried to read War and Peace. He watched a movie, although he couldn't for the life of him remember what it was. He looked at the clock. It was after nine. He went back to bed.

*

He refused to accept it. There must be an explanation for the difference - he could remember, so clearly, the way it felt to fly the jumpers before, like a partnership, a team. He refused to believe that it compared in any way to this, this feeling of using the jumper, like he was forcing it to fly.

He took the jumper out for another flight, tried harder. He thought at it, tried to show it the connection they used to have. He thought, for a moment, that maybe it was working - that the jumper responded to his pleas - but he blinked, and it was gone. He could tell it what to do, and it would do it, but it was no different from flying an F-16, albeit an F-16 with amazing inertial dampeners and the ability to fly in space. He reminded himself that he used to be happy flying those, that he looked forward to it. The resignation burned bitter in his throat.

He tried describing it to Rodney, "It's like. I can't feel it, you know?" But Rodney just looked at him silently, lips twisted, slanted down. John didn't appreciate Rodney sulking when John was trying to figure out something that affected the entire city, so he stopped trying there and talked to Dr. Keller instead.

She nodded. "Yes, that makes sense. I'd heard that the people with the natural gene, especially strong manifestations of it like you had, had different interactions with Atlantis than those with the gene therapy." John frowned, and took a walk around the city, trailing his fingers down a wall. He went back.

"Is there any way to make it better? To make it like the gene I had?"

Dr. Keller shook her head, "This is the best we can do. It's good enough to fool Atlantis, but not completely; there's nothing we can do about the residual traces of artificialness." He looked at her then, as she stood there, hands folded together in front of her, eyes down, clearly expecting him to yell at her. He felt guilty, suddenly.

"Dr. Keller." He waited until she looked up. "Thank you, for everything."

*

John walked to Rodney's room, box of chocolate in hand. He used his passcode at the door, but it didn't open. He tried again, frowned. Rodney must have removed it. He felt odd about that; and then he felt odd about feeling odd. He knocked.

The door slid open; Rodney was blocking it, arms folded at his chest. "What do you want?" John shifted his weight to the other foot. Rodney rolled his eyes, tapped his foot impatiently, and gave up. "Oh, fine, I accept your apology. Stand me up like that again and die." Rodney took the chocolate with one hand, and grabbed John's arm with the other, dragged him in. He pulled John's clothes off, pushed him down on the bed, spread the chocolates one by one on John's body, making patterns.

Afterwards, still sticky and slightly chocolaty, he sat on Rodney's bed, Rodney's head pillowed on his thigh. He looked down, ran a hand through Rodney's hair, bent down and pressed his lips against the soft skin at Rodney's temple. He looked around the room, at Rodney's diplomas hanging on the walls. Maybe it was time to start paying attention to Rodney, who had reason enough to sulk; John felt ill, now, at how he'd used Rodney to forget about his losses, and how he'd abandoned their relationship as soon as the gene therapy worked.

It wasn't such a bad trade, really. He could do his job; he could fly the puddlejumpers; he could control the chair, help defend the city, fight the Wraith. He lost some part of Atlantis, but he had gained Rodney. It wasn't perfect, the trade, but maybe it would be enough. Maybe it would be worth it.

*

Eventually, John convinces himself that it is.

The End

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