Notes: Written for svmadelyn's Under Mistletoe Challenge. Story Notes are available here. Teamfic, plus Sheppard/McKay. NC-17.

This fabulous cover is by Sandra In The Sun — please do send her feedback!

Dawn-sniffing revenant,
Plodder through midnight rain,
Question me again.

                   —from "Casualty" by Seamus Heaney

I.

At noon Atlantis time, the team walks through the 'gate and steps out onto a barren hillside above a dead city, with wind howling and drifts of broken glass littering the streets. The only major energy reading comes from a slowly degrading, wildly contaminated nuclear reactor in the country downstream from town. It's a dismal place.

The Ancient database described the city of Muut-blein as a thriving industrial culture. From their viewpoint, it reminds Rodney a little of Moscow, except entirely dead, and without the onion domes. There are a lot of broken spires and sharp, cathedral-style facades leading up to shorn-off roofs. Squat, concrete tenements divide streets from one another. They look like public housing. There's a noxious-looking river. Saplings are pushing up through the cracks in the asphalt.

"Nice place," John says as Ronon asks, "Why are we here again?"

"I'm beginning to ask myself that very question," Rodney answers. Next to him, Teyla looks like she wants to throw up and Ronon is holding onto his blaster and has his head cocked like he can hear something on the wind.

"Anything, McKay?" John asks, and Rodney's eyes go back to his tablet. "Radiation in our immediate area is fairly tolerable, but down in the eastern end of the valley…well, let's just say you wouldn't want to go down there if you plan on ever producing any offspring." He points the scanner in a wider arc. "No life signs, not even large animals. There is something, though, down in the center of the city that seems to be of Ancient origin. I'm picking up a faint energy signature."

"ZPM?"

John's eyes have gone all hopeful and it's all Rodney can do to retain some semblance of professional decorum. It'll be easier when things aren't quite so new, even though it's been months and he still gets a little weak inside when John makes his cute face at him. Any of his cute faces, rather, and John has an entire spectrum. He thinks that should have worn off already, and the fact that it hasn't…

John's eyes narrow a little and both Teyla and Ronon are looking at him as well. Rodney realizes that he's forgotten to answer. "Ah, yes. Well, we won't know until we check, now will we?"

"Got it." With a smirk, John adjusts his pack and resettles his gun. "All right, then, let's check out the city. Rodney, could you find us the least irradiated way down there that you can?"

"Creepy," Ronon mumbles, and no one disagrees.

There are no life signs anywhere. There aren't even ants on the ground. "This makes no sense," Rodney says, half to himself. "There's plant life. Plants need insects to pollinate them, right? Have you noticed anything, any flies or beetles or anything?" Sheppard, Ronon, and Teyla all answer in the negative and Rodney frowns harder. The city streets are buckled and cracked, but the largest of the gnarled trees growing up between chunks of pavement doesn't look more than ten or fifteen years old. Combined with the half-life of the isotopes polluting the valley…"I don't think this happened more than thirty years ago."

"As far as I know, the Athosians have never heard of this place, Dr. McKay, not even by rumor from other peoples we have visited."

"Interesting," John says before Rodney can argue. "They could have been isolationists. I mean, look at this place, it looks like East Berlin."

"Huh. I was thinking Moscow, but that also works."

Ronon's raising an eyebrow at Teyla, who shrugs back at him.

"Places on Earth that used to have closed political systems," John says. "Limited trade, no freedom of speech…or freedom of much of anything, really. Things fell apart from the inside." John scans the rooftops again and the cloudy sky above them, and shifts around so he's on point and Ronon's at the rear. "It's the same kind of bleak."

"No, Colonel, I think this particular bleak bears a much stronger resemblance to, oh, say…Chernobyl."

"Uh, yeah." John's face twists like now he wants to throw up. "No argument there."

The energy readings are coming from a temple set in a plaza three streets up from the river. Even from there, they can smell the stench of it. It's something acrid and biting on top of the sulfurous reek. Rodney extends the scanner toward it, reads the results, and says, "Disgusting, but not actually deadly unless you get wet…or we get stranded here for more than several hours."

"Great," John mutters.

"Uh, don't get wet."

John makes his 'hello, I'm not stupid' face; then they go into the temple.

It turns out not to be much of a temple at all, at least once they get past the blood-stained altar and the giant pile of decayed animal bones in the front room. It's an old, old Ancient building—apparently the only one in the city. He sends Teyla and Ronon to check their perimeter while Rodney works. Then John turns on some lights, which instantly flicker and sputter out.

"Could you please not use up the last of the available power before we find out what this place is?" Rodney snipes, eyes fixed on a console set in the far wall. He presses a few buttons and feels a low buzz of energy. Nothing else, though, and he doesn't know if it's because Sheppard just wasted the last of a precious ZPM or if it just doesn't like his gene therapy. "Colonel, could you see if you can activate this?" he asks, and he's already reaching into his pack for cables and the adaptor rig.

John stands next to Rodney and lays his hands on the panel. Nothing happens. After a minute, John says, "Nuh-uh. No go." Then he gets a weird look on his face and says, "The thing's dead. I think there's something over here, though."

"Where? What?" Rodney grabs his scanner and crosses the room. John's kneeling down at the center of the far wall, touching the dull gray paneling. There's a soft click and the panel slides back. Inside, there's a carved wooden box, which John opens, and inside that is a single Ancient control crystal. Then the panel shuts.

John frowns. "Okay, that was weird."

"What?"

"That's it. No more power, no more anything. Whatever this is—"

"Whatever this is, this complex has been waiting around for years, possibly millennia, for someone with the gene to come and find it."

"I was getting to that," John says defensively.

"We should go," Ronon says from by the door.

"The sun is getting low, and I, for one, would prefer not to be on this planet after dark," Teyla adds.

Rodney feels a chill go down his spine and starts hastily repacking his equipment.

Back in the lab, Rodney's almost vibrating with excitement. There's no telling who put the crystal in the safe or how long it's been there. It could be Ancient or it could be Ancient technology the Muut-blein people were using. For all they know, it might be the secret to defeating the Wraith, or it could be someone's long dead grandmother's favorite cookie recipe.

But when he plugs it in, all he gets are streams and streams of gibberish. When he tells the Atlantis system to translate, he gets even more gibberish, which is his first clue that it's encoded on top of being in Ancient. Heaven forbid it ever be simple for them.

When Elizabeth comes down to investigate, her eyes light up like Rodney has just given her the best Christmas present ever. That doesn't stop him grousing, though. He likes Christmas as well as anyone, but he watched a ZPM give out its last ounce of power for the sake of this thing, and he wants to know what's on it right now. Then, suddenly, Elizabeth has a whole team of cryptographers and linguists set up in Lab 14-B trying to decipher the contents. Rodney hovers and argues, watching one set of idiots run decryption programs while another decides they can't go any further until Team 2 goes through to collect a sample of late-modern Muut-blein writing.

As it's the middle of the night there, Elizabeth orders the MALP through instead. Unfortunately, none of the magazines or books it retrieves from the still-mostly-intact buildings it enters are written in the same language as the data on the crystal.

Rodney did as much hacking as any geek back when 186 processors were state of the art, and he totally appreciates the need to encrypt top-secret material, especially when it keeps his ground-breaking research safe from prying eyes. He has a Nobel to win, after all.

And yet, while he understands cryptographic theory, he never fell in love with it. If he had, well, astrophysics would be a much poorer field…but what's making him crazy right now is that the holy grail of wormhole dynamics could be encoded in the Muut-blein crystal, he can't do anything with it until they figure out how to crack the damned thing.

That's when John radios him that dinner is turkey surprise, with real turkey, and no, he's not saving him any.

Rodney leaves them to the crystal.

II.

He's still getting used to Atlantis, but he's realized that they are, too. They only use a tiny fraction of the city, given that Atlantis has about fourteen hundred towers, including the small ones. They don't seem to realize the place used to be a full-fledged city—on his runs, Ronon has found concert halls, parks with sculptures designed for children to climb, and quiet rooms where water pours down crystalline walls, glittering as the sunlight shines through.

A month ago Weir opened a big room at the top of another tower, and they called it the grand opening of their new movie theater. It's never been full—it can't be, Ronon's counted the seats. Atlantis averages a population of sixteen dozen people, not counting Daedalus crew or mainland Athosians. There's a movie shown everyday. Sometimes they show as many as five if there's an audience.

There isn't usually an audience; everyone on Atlantis has computers they can watch movies on and the network has a huge library. Even Ronon and Teyla have their own assigned laptops now, so they can watch stuff and play games and, as Sheppard said, maybe start to get Earth culture. What he gets is the city's too big for them. It scares them, so they keep close to the labs and living quarters, only traveling beyond familiar ground when they have to.

Over the past week things have changed, though. The main corridors and mess hall have been decorated in red and green bows and banners that spell out, "Happy Generic Winter Holiday!" He has to ask Sheppard to translate; most of the symbols are the same as on Sateda, but not all. McKay laughs at the barcodes stenciled onto the banners, but Ronon doesn't know what that means. He doesn't understand the "Bah humbug!" graffiti on them, either, but the black ink and dour cartoon faces give him a clue.

Ronon figures it's a morale thing and goes with it. It's confusing, though, because on Sateda, the wintertime return of the sun wasn't a time of celebration; they celebrated the longest day, not the shortest.

Sheppard and McKay argue through dinner about whether to go, and Ronon can't figure out whether they're arguing for or against, since the main point of contention is popcorn, but then they're all being herded toward the transporter.

They walk in on the last minute of The Muppet Christmas Carol, and three separate clusters of scientists and marines are singing along with the strange-looking stuffed animals onscreen. He glances down at Teyla for a cue, but she looks as bemused as he is. Sheppard catches their mystified glance and says, "It's…a thing for kids. I'll explain later."

According to the dry erase board by the door, they're about to see something called Scrooged. Sheppard and McKay are still too busy arguing to explain, but by now Ronon's used to that. Then Lorne arrives juggling several canisters that make McKay's eyes go big and Sheppard elbow him in the ribs and call him "Grabby McGrabby-Pants". Ronon and Teyla get one to share.

They finally settle near the back, with Ronon sitting behind Sheppard and McKay and Teyla on his right. This way, he can kick the back of McKay's seat if he talks too much. Caramel-covered popcorn turns out to taste a like stale, sugar-covered cardboard, but there's something about it that he can't resist. Maybe it's the painting on the side of the fat old man in the red suit surrounded by eager children, snowy evergreens, and weird-looking deer. He figures it's for kids, too, but Sheppard and McKay are digging into their barrel like they're in a race and when he looks around the gathering crowd, he sees they're not the only ones.

The movie is weird. Ronon's seen ninety-three movies so far and parts of sixteen others, although some of them were probably television shows. Sometimes it's hard to tell. Scrooged is okay. He thinks it's a little stupid and a little sweet and he watches Sheppard and McKay sneak looks at each other. From time to time, he sees them holding hands inside the popcorn barrel, and he knows it's forbidden as well as he knows that Teyla sees it, too. He likes knowing he's trusted to guard their secret. On Sateda, if you couldn't trust your squad-mates, you couldn't trust anyone. It's nice that something translates.

The pale woman in the film reminds him of a woman on Sateda who ran the orphanage down the road from his father's house. They have the same eyes, at least as Ronon remembers her. She herded the children up and down the street daily, showing them off to be apprenticed. They all grew up to be servants and soldiers, though she pleaded for the brightest of them to be allowed a real education. It never happened.

The first dead guy makes Ronon uncomfortable. The humor is strange and even though Sheppard explained what golf was a while back, he doesn't understand why that's supposed to make it funny. The thing with the window is fucking creepy.

The other ghosts creep him out, too. The mocking kindness…the makeup that's so thick and consciously exaggerated, Ronon has to believe there's an atrocity lurking underneath. Even the woman, who gets him to laugh a little at one point. By the time Frank opens the faceless one's cloak, Ronon's drawing sahti signs on his left palm with his right thumbnail. He knows it's stupid. Sheppard will probably call this one a thing for kids, too, and yet he hasn't had a reaction like this since the fourth time the Wraith wiped out a village he'd just left.

Next to him, he feels Teyla watching. He's tense and she's responding subconsciously, naturally, like a good squad-mate. She manages to catch his eye, but he shakes his head minutely and focuses back on the movie.

In the city of Sateda, there were temples everywhere. Dropping a coin, seed, or flower in Thesa's basket with a prayer for a wet summer was as natural as invoking Kryon when headed to war. When a woman died in childbirth, her loved ones laid her body to rest with an offering commending her soul to the Mother. When a man died in battle, only the prayers of the living would free his soul from the grasp of the god of war and return him to the Maker.

Ronon ignores the main characters and the overblown ending. All he can focus on are the ghosts watching from the rooftop, waving happily. It makes his stomach churn. There's nothing funny about the restive dead. He knows it's only a story, but the part of him that will always call Sateda home wonders what happened to their bodies and who failed in their duty to set their spirits free.

When Sheppard asks, "You okay?" afterwards, Ronon doesn't know what to say. They're ambling towards the transporter with some of the crowd. There's another film being cued up, but he's had enough of sitting still, Teyla's an early riser, and Sheppard and McKay are so close to rutting he can smell it on them.

Finally he mumbles, "Don't like ghosts."

He can't understand McKay's flippant, "Please, it's not like they're real!" when Sheppard teasingly offers to protect him from the spooky dead people.

He glowers, glad they're going separate ways.

III.

The world flows in and out beneath her. She cannot hear the ocean from her room, but Teyla believes she hears its echoes filtering down Atlantis' corridors and ventilation ducts until they reach her ears. It's soothing.

She takes a long shower, luxuriating in the hot water. She then lights her candles and puts on clothes for sleep. She climbs into bed and sits very straight and very still for several minutes. In the morning she has meetings to attend with Dr. Weir, Dr. Beckett, Major Lorne, and Dr. Heightmeyer. The first meeting will address agriculture, the threat of espionage among potential trading partners, and the destruction of the traditional Athosian way of life. In her head, she has a detailed list of issues that she must discuss.

The second meeting is a review of preventable infectious disease among Athosian children on the mainland with regard to the changes seen since leaving Athos and beginning Dr. Beckett's inoculation program. The third is her bi-monthly appointment with Major Lorne to discuss security and ongoing training. The chain of command remains thorny, given that she is not technically subject to it; if she were or he were not, she suspects things might go easier between them. Things have, at least, stabilized.

The fourth meeting is her standard check-in. Dr. McKay refers to it as their regularly scheduled psych evaluation with some wry humor in his voice. She no longer dreads it, though; rather, she has come to enjoy the quiet hour with the morning sun streaking in the window and shining on Kate's pale hair. They sip tea and chat about the rigors of balancing one's duties, and at the end of the allotted time, Teyla leaves without asking her to dinner or inviting her hiking on the mainland. It's easier.

Except. The initial Athosian security training regimen was expanded to include all non-military personnel. She teaches numerous sessions of Close Combat each week, ranging from beginner to expert, support staff to Colonel Sheppard himself. Twice a week, first thing in the morning, she holds an intermediate level class for non-military female staff members only. Kate never misses a practice.

Teyla clears her mind. She has what she needs for the morning; she does not wish to think about what she may not have.

After a few moments, she extinguishes the candles, retrieves the computer they assigned to her, and returns to lie back against her pillows. In a moment, she's got a movie file open and a woman with a long brown braid and a pair of very large pistols is back-flipping across a room full of inscriptions. If she recalls correctly, Aiden had marked this one 'silly, fun, and too pretty to be real'. She thinks she sees what he meant.

She understands that film is a medium of hyperbole, and she does enjoy it very much, but she also thinks that these human beings from Earth are terribly odd people.

IV.

Rodney sprawls on the narrow bed with John wrapped half around him. They're both slick with sweat and come, but the shower is still too far away to consider. "I can't believe you took me to a chick flick."

"I did what?" John says.

"The movie tonight."

"Since when is Scrooged a chick flick?"

"It's totally a chick flick."

"And yet, you noticed how all of the marines showed up?"

"You're the one who ordered them to do all the holiday morale stuff."

John cranes his neck to stare Rodney in the eyes. "Did I maybe break something in your brain when I made you come just now?" Rodney thwaps him on the head, so John catches his hand and bites the heel of it. "I even shared my popcorn."

Rodney brushes his thumb over John's mouth and changes tactics. "I'm just saying you liked the movie."

"I like Bill Murray."

"Yeah?"

"I like Karen Allen, too. Reminds me of Indiana Jones. I think I saw it a dozen times at the theater when it came out. She was so hot."

"Harrison Ford was hotter."

John laughs softly. "Maybe, yeah."

"You wanted to be him when you grew up?"

"Han Solo, Indiana Jones, Deckard from Blade Runner." John rolls so his legs fit around Rodney's and rests his chin on Rodney's chest. "Didn't everyone?"

"I liked Indy."

John crawls up to kiss Rodney's mouth. "He was sexy. I can really get into the whole eminent-scholar-risking-his-life-for-top-secret-and-incredibly-dangerous-fieldwork thing."

"Yeah?" Rodney kisses him back. "And thank you for not calling him a scientist."

"Yeah. And you're welcome."

"Wanna have sex in the shower?"

"Uh-huh."

Rodney kisses him again. "Good. So get off me already."

John rises up enough to slide their bodies together. "Anyone ever tell you what a romantic you are?"

"Oh, absolutely. Everyday, in fact," Rodney says, reaching down to hold their erections together. John groans, and Rodney speaks against his ear, "Come on. We're gross and I want to lick you."

John doesn't argue.

V.

Running helps. Ronon hates that it helps, since Run or Die was the rule for a third of his life. Still, there's a place where the rhythm of his feet, the lap of the ocean against the city, and the smell of the salt air lull him into a state near sleep. It's a dangerous point to reach. It's the point where he was always nearest capture, when he had to go to ground or else.

There's no ground here. He's traced enough sahti symbols into his hand tonight to leave a lingering red mark—but nothing can bring the ground up through the ocean. Maybe he can get in the way of someone who needs to go to the mainland. Maybe he can wish hard enough and Teyla will invite him. Sometimes it happens like that between them; she watches everyone until she can read them, and then she can see what they need. That's how she knows when he's flanking right and she should go left; it's intuitive. It took him a while to learn that about her.

Before he knows it, he's at the end of the northwest pier. It's dark. The weather's awful. The waves are breaking hard and sending up a fine salt mist, but it's also cold and foggy and he's been running through a dense cloud ever since he stepped outside. He turns, wiping water from his clammy skin, and jogs back past dozens of unused buildings. He ignores the prickly sensation on the back of his neck, telling himself he's only thinking about the movie and Sateda and all he lost there.

Sleep is impossible.

He goes to Sublevel 3, taking the stairs. No one is in the pool this late, which is a lucky thing. He's walked in on people having sex in the pool several times now; he's only now realizing that most of the Earth people don't know there are big and small pools all over the city. He likes this one because it's long and deep. He can swim back and forth until his chest and shoulders ache with the exertion; he can swim until he's exhausted. Then he can sleep.

Tonight no one is there, so he strips off his rain-wet clothes and dives in. It's warm. It's something he never had on Sateda. It's one thing he's gained from staying here.

At the deep end, something grabs his ankle and drags him down.

He can't breathe and the lights are gone, so he can't see either. He thrashes, trying to use his momentum to break free. It's hard not to suck water in as he bucks and twists. His lungs start to burn.

Something happens, he doesn't know what. He's upside down out of the water, then he's being pitched across the room and landing hard on the cold floor. He rolls, but he's naked. Mid-roll, his head tucked, he sees blue, finger-shaped bruises on his ankle. Already.

He rolls to a stop, ass scraping the gritty tile, knees in the air. He sees boots first, stepping out of the shadows to frame his feet. Ronon scoots backwards, but he's too late. Kell's squatting between his calves, and again, he's got an iron grip on his ankle.

Kell is pale blue, not dark blue like Ronon's ankle under the crushing grip of his hand. Kell's eyes are flashing with unnatural light.

"Let me go," Ronon growls.

Kell tightens his grip and grins wider at Ronon's wince. "Belkans don't know how to grieve the dead."

"Let me go."

"I'm going to enjoy this, my boy." Kell traces a long, ragged fingernail up the top of Ronon's other foot, but his eyes are focused on the soft flesh between his legs.

Ronon kicks out, hard, rolling sideways to get his feet under him. "You killed thousands!" he shouts. "You betrayed me and the whole regiment I came of age with!"

"Is this the vengeance you imagined, Ronon?" Kell sneers.

Ronon punches, completely overbalancing when his fist goes right through. Kell rakes long scratches down his chest before he can slide out of reach. Ronon stares at them for a long second, sees the blood well up. Kell has drawn his blood. "You're dead," he shouts. "Why aren't you in hell?"

Kell dips two fingers into the hole in his own chest, the hole Ronon put there. "Why did you think your grief would send me there?"

"Kryon…" Ronon whispers and trails off. He's taking another step back before he realizes his feet have moved.

Kell grins again and he looks more feral than ever. "You failed."

Ronon doesn't stop for his clothes. He dives into the transporter with Kell's laughter trailing after him. Teyla can help, he thinks, and he wonders why these Earth people have no priests among them.

She opens her door, finally, but he doesn't hear what she says. He's on the floor, blood seeping from his chest and his ankle burning with a pain that makes getting shot feel like a stubbed toe. Kell's voice is gone, at least. Then everything goes dark.

VI.

Rodney leaves; it's more reasonable for him to be seen in the corridors in the wee hours, since he half lives in his lab anyway, whereas John has fewer ready excuses. Plus, it's easier to throw Rodney out than to make himself leave Rodney's bed.

John lays there, warm and sated, and replays his fantasy where they get a few weeks leave and fly to some private, sunny island in the middle of nowhere, somewhere no one will care if they spend every moment fucking in a king size bed, maybe with some breaks for eating pizza, surfing, and watching ESPN. Someday he wants to blow Rodney on a beach, with the taste of the ocean everywhere around them. Eventually, he slips into sleep.

He dreams of his grandmother and how she used to make him gingerbread cookies for the holidays and make sure he had a corner of the back room where he could lay newspaper on the linoleum and take his time painting the airplane models he got every Christmastime. He dreams of her, except he's grown now and sharing the narrow bed in the back room with Rodney, and standing in the doorway, she says, "John Sheppard, I never took you for a sinner," and she turns away, scrubbing her hands together as if she's washing herself clean of him forever.

"Grandma, wait!" he calls, scrambling, flushed in his nakedness, hyperaware of how his grip on the sheets at his waist has bared Rodney's ass to her view.

She casts a stony eye on him and declares, "That is an abomination before God. Repent, child. Repent, or all is lost." Then, before he can catch his breath, he's somewhere else.

It's a small base in a desert somewhere; the enlisted barracks are to his right, the mess is to the left, and the command center is dead ahead, where a cluster of officers stands watching him. He counts two generals, some colonels, and a flock of aides. It's not really a surprise that they're blocking the doorway.

He blinks and Dex and Mitch are standing a few feet away, in the shade of a big tree. They're kind of gray around the gills, but they look solid enough, overall. Except for the bullet holes. John's cringing inwardly, certain that if he looks behind him, he'll see Rodney in his bed in the center of the compound, naked and calling his name, so John's trying to project all the fucking attitude he can. No way is he going to take their bullshit—no fucking way. He's vibrating with it, and by now he's daring them to say something, anything, just to give him an excuse to throw that first punch and get it out of his system.

But they don't. They're standing close together, looking at him out of the corners of their eyes, murmuring to each other so low that he can't hear it. He sees their smirking faces, though. He sees them whispering things about him and he watches their remarks start with a couple of snickers and grow until they're throwing rude gestures in his direction and laughing long and hard, supporting each other with hands braced on shoulders and crying, "No way! He did what?" They aren't looking at him anymore.

Finally Mitch turns away, giving one last look over his shoulder, and murmurs a derisive, "Shep." Dex answers him with something John can't hear and the laughter erupts all over again.

A blink later and John's back on Atlantis, standing at attention before Colonel Sumner in his stiff-necked dress uniform. Sumner gives him a look of disgust, but then his eyes track over the silver oak leaf on his collar. His eyes narrow and he shoots John a look like he's swallowing bile. John bites his lip so hard he tastes blood, but he'll be damned if he flinches. He won't fucking flinch. And he doesn't, not that it earns him a thing. Sumner turns on his heel without a word, and John watches him march up the corridor, ramrod straight, and fade away.

John wakes up feeling as if he's been too long underwater and somehow he can't seem to get enough air in his lungs. It's a long time before he gets back to sleep.

VII.

Rodney dreams. He dreams he's playing poker. At the table with him are Collins, Grodin, Abrams, and Gall. They're playing for stars, and so far Rodney has lost Agena, Aldabaran, Menkent, Merope, Procyon, Rigel, Spica, Sirius, and Talitha. He's still got Regulus, Polaris, and Fomalhaut, but he hasn't won a hand yet and he really wishes John were here. John's good at this stuff.

Dealing the next hand, Collins pauses with a wry look in his eyes and says, "Dr. McKay, you do realize you can't win…right?"

Rodney hadn't realized that at all, but hides it under a cover of bluster, or tries to. He sees Peter and Brendan share a knowing glance and cuts himself short.

He says, "Look, I have to try, okay? I just…it's all I can do."

And at that, Collins smiles almost tenderly and deals the rest of the hand.

VIII.

Teyla watches Ronon sleep for a long while before Carson all but orders her back to bed. Ronon had been whispering the name "Kell" over and over, and that shakes her. She is complicit in this; all of Kell's men were, when they stood down and let Ronon go. That doesn't make it right, though; nor does it explain the long, blackened bruises on Ronon's right ankle.

With the sedative, Ronon seems to be at peace, so Teyla finally returns to bed. She dreams at once of Kell, and she is not surprised to find herself in this dream. He is angry with her, shouting and pointing a gun in her face.

She says, "I know you feel betrayed. You are not alone in that." He shoves her to the ground and she shouts at him, "We are each of us betrayed, Kell. You and I by Ronon, as well as Ronon by you."

"You know nothing of that!" he growls at her.

"Who lays the culled to rest?" she asks him, and in her dream-mind she wonders why she phrases it so. He doesn't answer, so she repeats, "When a world is lost, who lays the culled to rest? You murdered thousands."

Kell kicks, sending a hail of sand at her. He's shouting, "Kryon claimed them!"

Teyla gets to her feet. "It was not your trade to make," she says in a voice that isn't her own. It's the voice of her grandmother and the tone she always used to face down the fiercest warrior. Kell does not back down, but neither does he advance on her.

At that, the dream melts away and she sleeps.

In the morning she does not awaken as early as she had wished. In the bathroom mirror as she cleans her teeth, Teyla catches movement out of the corner of her eye. No one else is in the bathroom. Silently, she opens the door and steps out, only to be confronted by the sight of her mother lighting her three largest candles.

"Mother?" Teyla whispers. She has not seen her mother's ghost since the day the Wraith took her.

Her mother turns to her, smiling, and makes the sign of blessing with her right hand. The three flames grow a little taller, and Teyla wants above all things to press her forehead to her mother's. Once, only once more. She's rooted to the spot, however, and her mother's body is fading as the flames grow brighter. Then her mother is gone and the flames slowly shrink away to nothing.

The scent of smoke and beeswax lingers in the air.

"Teyla?" The voice comes from her bed and she spins around, heart thudding in her chest.

"Tahn? Is it you?" It's her brother, looking exactly as he had the before he was culled at age twelve.

He smiles gravely. "It is."

She was a year younger and she remembers the look on his face when the beam came. "This is not a dream?"

He rolls his eyes. "Sister, your boots are muddy."

Her eyes go to her Earth-style boots on their rack by the door. They are not muddy. Neither are her Athosian boots, as she hasn't worn those in several days. She looks back to Tahn, a question on her lips, but she doesn't speak. He's touching his forehead with his fingertips and raising his hand to her in a wave. She matches the gesture, just in time, before he slips away.

When he is gone, she turns a slow clockwise circle, scanning the room for others. There are none, and she is certain that she is wide awake. She then takes a cloth and wipes down her boots with disinfectant. It is wasted effort, probably, but she must do it all the same.

IX.

He wakes up in the infirmary. He wakes up angry. They've stripped him and…no, that's wrong. They've dressed him in scrubs and given him something that makes his head feel fuzzy.

"You are awake," Teyla says from beside him.

He grunts in acknowledgment. He was at the pool on Sub 3. He remembers running to her door. He doesn't know what he told her.

"I believe we are being haunted," she says, and then Carson's there with Sheppard and Lorne a step behind.

"What attacked you?" Sheppard says. He's watching Carson examine the bruise. It's black now. Ronon flexes his ankle, and is careful not to show his relief that he can move it.

"Ronon," Carson prompts.

"Security teams have been sweeping nonstop since Teyla brought you in at 0300," Lorne says.

"You won't find anything," Ronon mumbles, sitting up on the examination table. He swings his legs down. "I'm fine," he says to Carson before he can protest.

"Ronon, something attacked you," Sheppard says, and Ronon knows he's about to launch into the security breach lecture as if he were a child.

"It isn't a threat to anyone but me." He shoots a glance at Teyla and is surprised to find her shaking her head.

"What?" Sheppard asks her.

"Ronon, I disagree," she says.

Sheppard yells, "Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?"

He and Teyla both take a deep breath. She speaks first, though. "I dreamed of him. He did not manifest, but he did attack in the dream."

"Shit," he says.

"Colonel, did you dream?"

"Did I—sure, I dreamed," he snaps at them. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Bad dreams?" Ronon asks. "Dead people?"

Sheppard shrugs. "It's not that unusual."

"If I may ask, what about you and Major Lorne? Did you experience bad dreams?" she says to Beckett.

Lorne shakes his head. Beckett says, "I didn't get much sleep, as you can imagine, but no, no nightmares."

"That leaves McKay," Ronon says.

"Yes, I agree."

"Stop!" Sheppard says. "What do nightmares have to do with anything?"

Ronon looks at his hands for a moment, counting the scrapes and bruises. "Revenants."

"What?" Carson asks.

Ronon takes a deep breath and says, "Last night I was swimming in the pool on Sublevel 3 and was attacked by the ghost of a man I killed."

"That's impossible," Sheppard says.

"I dreamed of him, too," Teyla says, "and this morning was confronted by the spirits of my mother and brother."

"They didn't attack, though, right?" Ronon murmurs.

"No, they seemed…protective."

He nods.

Sheppard looks baffled. "Carson, um, is he clear? I think we need to have a team meeting."

Ronon gets to his feet, staring Carson down. "No blood, full motion. I told you it's fine."

"Well, then," Carson answers, "since you're all experiencing this exceedingly strange phenomenon, I'll just get a quick blood sample from all of you, and then you can be on your way." Everyone groans, and as soon as he's done, Ronon moves past him. He wants real clothes. Teyla's at his side, and he pauses for a split second to argue before he decides it's probably a good idea. If she faced Kell in her dream…it's probably safer this way.

"Get McKay," he calls over his shoulder as Sheppard tells Lorne to call off the extra patrols.

Sheppard calls back, "We'll meet you in ten."

X.

John pulls Rodney out of his lab, or tries to. He's shouting instructions and waving at John to wait while he wraps something up with Zelenka, so he props himself in the doorway and watches the maelstrom of Rodney ordering a long list of things to be completed before the department holiday party, or else he's rescinding everyone's day off.

Eventually he gets Rodney underway, only for one of Carson's nurses to accost them outside the door and demand Rodney give up a vial of blood. She threatens to stick him right there in the hallway, and they're all a little surprised when Rodney sticks out his arm and says, "Fine, you vampire. Here!"

Chuckling, John takes Rodney's laptop and stands back to give them some room. Someone has drawn a large green Christmas tree on the whiteboard by the door, and now it's covered in multicolored ornaments, angels, doves, Santas, Buddhas, Darwinian fish, kanji, and other things John can't name, but some look Hindu and others look vaguely Athosian. It's kind of a surprise to him that the scientists are getting into the holiday spirit so much. It's been decades since Christmas meant much of anything to John, but it's fun to watch. Especially since he knows how much Rodney's looking forward to the pile of loot he's expecting, and that secretly Rodney's allocated an entire, precious bag of Hershey's kisses to the physicists.

Thirty seconds later, the nurse has her vial, Rodney has a band-aid on the inside of his elbow, and John has something new to tease him about. Then they're in the team's little conference room, where Ronon's got his feet up and a scowl on his face and Teyla's gazing off into space as if she's meditating.

"I don't understand. If there are ghosts, then Atlantis should be teeming with them. Not to mention Earth. After all, humanity has been around for millions of years. That's a lot of dead people."

"True."

"We should check the crystal," Rodney says. "It could be projecting something."

"That makes even less sense," John argues. "Only the four of us are being affected."

Rodney glares. "Far be it from me to disagree with you there, but I didn't dream of being attacked."

"I didn't dream at all," Ronon says, and Rodney nods approvingly in his direction.

"See? He was awake. Teyla is seeing things while both asleep and awake. You had a nightmare, and I had a weird dream about poker."

"And something attacked a member of my team! Rodney, did you look at the mark on his leg?"

Ronon grumbles and glares at both of them.

"Do we know yet what is on the data crystal?" Teyla asks.

"No." Rodney shakes his head and resumes pacing around the room. "We still don't know."

"But encryption codes are only algorithms," John says.

"Don't you think I know that? And yet the boneheaded cryptography team says it doesn't make any sense…."

"What if it's something like Navajo—not necessarily with the battle-code part, I mean, but just—"

"What the hell good would it be in…oh." Rodney chews his lip and thinks for a minute. "Okay, that's possible, maybe, but they'd still need the equivalent of a Rosetta stone and it would still take, oh, years to figure out what variables to plug in."

John's radio chirps in his ear, and he has a brief conversation with Beckett before turning back to the team. "It's no surprise, I guess, but the doc says our blood-work is still clear."

"Good to know he has a test for alien pathogens that induce weird dreams and ghost sightings."

"Rodney—" he says, and then they're at it again.

"Let me get this straight," Elizabeth says twenty minutes later. "You're all seeing dead people?"

John smirks at her. "Well, you know us. If it's not one thing…"

"Uh-huh." They're all in the conference room with the triangular table, with Elizabeth seated on one side, Teyla another, John and Ronon flanking them, and Rodney pacing back and forth. Elizabeth looks at them each in turn, spreads her hands in front of her, and asks, "Is this happening right now?"

"No," John says.

Ronon scans the corners of the room, then he shakes his head.

"Of course not," Rodney answers.

"Actually…" Teyla begins, her gaze fixing on a point of empty space several feet away.

"Yes?" Elizabeth's eyes are huge and Rodney has frozen in place.

Teyla shakes her head at Ronon, and he relaxes a fraction. She puts a hand to her brow and takes a deep breath.

"Who is it?" Rodney snaps. "Where is it?"

Teyla raises her eyebrows and says, "It is my father, and he is presently standing across the table from me."

"Is he saying anything?" John asks, and it probably comes out more skeptically than it should, but ghost hunting was definitely not in his job description. On the other hand, neither was protecting Earth's 'gate from a race of matriarchal, cross-dressing, space vampires.

The look Teyla gives him tells him exactly where he can put his skepticism.

"We should go back to the planet," Ronon says.

"Are you insane?" Rodney yells.

Ronon straightens in his chair and raises his voice. "We should put it back. You've already taken all the data from it."

"Hello, the temple's batteries ran out! There's no more power!"

"Rig something," Ronon growls.

Elizabeth interrupts. "Ronon, why do you think the crystal should be returned?"

"The whole world was dead," he says, and John's never seen him this rattled. "For all we know, the place was cursed."

"Cursed?" Rodney says. "What, like King Tut's tomb? You have to be kidding me! You don't honestly expect us to—"

"Teyla?" Ronon asks in a low half-growl. "Your father still here?"

She smiles icily. "He is."

Rodney's face falls. "He is?" He finds a seat and collapses into it. "Okay, he is. Well, let's start over, then."

"All right," Elizabeth says. "Here's an idea. Give me a few hours to work on the linguistics side. Your idea about a similarity to Navajo is worth checking out. Teyla, do you mind if we reschedule our meeting until later?"

"That will be fine with me," she says.

"All right. I'll be in touch." Elizabeth collects her tablet and leaves the room.

"What is Navajo?" Teyla asks.

"It's a language developed by a small, isolated population on Earth," Rodney says. "It's secure because it's complex as hell and isn't related to anything else."

"If you look up World War 2, you can find out all you want about it," John says.

"Codes are essentially mathematical, so something encrypted in one language can be unlocked if you have enough time to plug all possible variables into the right algorithm. But," Rodney says with a flourish, "if you filter the data through a completely different language with a nearly infinite array of available symbols, then you create something only someone with a key will be able to understand."

"Nice trick," Ronon says.

"Which would still take years to decipher," Rodney mutters.

John waits for silence, and then glances at each of them in turn. "Ronon doesn't go anywhere alone."

Ronon scowls, but Teyla says, "That won't be a problem."

"If it isn't the crystal," Ronon says, "maybe it's something else we brought back with us."

Rodney looks up. "Maybe. Or, this is just hypothesizing, but it could have been an area-of-effect thing from the temple. Maybe it was emitting some kind of…I don't know, a ray or something, before the power died. For all I know, we could've been hypnotized and implanted with suggestions to see the dead. If you hadn't noticed," Rodney says imperiously, "weirder things have happened here."

Teyla says, "This morning the ghost of my brother told me my boots were muddy." She looks at John pointedly. "They weren't."

"Metaphorically, maybe?" John says.

"Ritual cleansing?" Ronon says.

Rodney frowns.

"What?" Ronon asks, annoyed.

"I'm sorry, it's just a major disconnect to hear you talking about ritual cleansings and ghosts and things that go bump in the night! You're all Conan the Barbarian and this is—"

"Rodney," John interrupts, "you just brought up hypnosis."

"Perhaps this is why the Earth people do not tend to discuss matters of religion," Teyla says pointedly.

That shuts both of them up. To fill the silence, John says, "Rodney, you know how there's a saying that no one prays harder for peace than a soldier?"

"Yes, yes," he says, making his get-on-with-it face.

"So," John says with exaggerated patience, "warriors, soldiers, praying not to get killed, hoping to die well if you have to…."

Rodney scowls. "The kind of thing I generally have no inclination toward thinking about."

A long silence passes and John guesses they're all thinking more than they want to about the ten thousand and one ways to get killed in the Pegasus galaxy. Teyla finally breaks the silence. "I'm afraid I have several other appointments this morning."

John gets to his feet. "Yeah, I think we all have things to do, but don't go far. Rodney, see if you can come up with a way to hotwire the wall safe, just in case."

At Teyla's glance, Ronon stands up. "I'll be in the gym."

As the door closes, John looks up at Rodney, a little afraid of what he'll see. Rodney's face is drawn and he keeps shaking his head, as if considering and dismissing new ideas in turn.

"I'll be out of my staff meeting by 11:45. Come to my quarters?"

Rodney's lips twist in a half-hearted smile. "Yeah, okay."

John's in his office skimming team reports. Lorne flagged a couple of things for his notice, and he makes himself a note to address them at the meeting later. There are notes on morale and both the official and unofficial holiday festivities the kids are planning. John can tell at a glance which ones he should crash. There are others he'd love to drop in on, but a) it would freak out the enlisted men, and b) Rodney would get pissy.

He hasn't told Rodney what he dreamed about. Rodney asked in the hallway, and John just shook his head slightly and led them on to meet Ronon and Teyla. He's hoping Rodney doesn't make an issue of it, because it's not something he wants to talk about. The part with Sumner wasn't new, after all. He's had that dream dozens of times. He's dreamed about Mitch and Dex plenty, too, though never with a group of top brass standing there glaring at him.

The worst part by far is the image of his grandmother. She died when he was still in elementary school and most of what he remembers about her comes down to holiday gingerbread, yellow linoleum, and the blue locomotive quilt he always slept under at her house. But she was always nice to him, and that's what pisses him off. He wants to go back to the dream and shout, "I'm happy!" He wants to make her see that his relationship with Rodney isn't whatever she thinks it is. Except that he knows better. It's exactly what she thinks it is, because it's his dream, it's his life, and it's Rodney.

He looks at the list of parties again. The only one he knows it's safe to meet Rodney at is the one Cadman's hosting on Friday. The Science Division parties are easier. Zelenka's easy enough to bribe, and they still call John to the lab often enough that he can expect an invite. They treat him like a specimen half the time, pouring Athosian gin into him and prodding him to make the city do new and often completely stupid things. Rodney sits a little apart and watches until John's ready to be rescued, and then he takes him home and fucks him long and sweet and hard.

Discretion isn't that difficult, but he still hates it and the holidays make it harder. As if he's not brooding enough already. He leans back in his chair and rubs his face hard; he didn't sleep well, what with all the dreams. His fingers feel cool against his eyelids, and he wonders how much radiation they were actually exposed to on the mission yesterday.

Then his grandmother is standing in his office doorway, scowling at him bitterly and droning on about Sodom and Gomorrah in a voice that chills him to the bone.

John's halfway down the hallway before he knows it. A minute later, he's looking through the doorway at a room full of hackers and language experts, who all look back at him like he's grown antlers or something. Elizabeth comes to the door.

"Any luck?" he asks her.

She raises her eyebrows in that way she does. "I did say that it would take some time, John."

Over Elizabeth's shoulder, he can see his grandmother gliding slowly up the corridor toward them, disapproval etched deep in the lines of her face. Her mouth is still moving, but he can't hear her voice now.

He sighs and motions for her to walk with him. "Okay, here's the deal. An invisible dead guy with superpowers is trying to kill Ronon any time he's alone. Teyla's seeing dead people left and right while she's awake and asleep. And I think now so am I."

"There's been a change?"

"Yeah, you could say that." Striving to keep his voice steady, he says. "I'm getting the feeling that my grandmother isn't so pleased with what I've done with my life."

"Not like Ronon's—"

"No, not violent, just…there."

Elizabeth ponders that for a moment, and he can see the wheels turning. None of them can afford for him to be distracted. Finally she asks, "How's Rodney?"

"The same, I guess. I don't know. He's the least affected of us, but…"

"But what?"

John stops and leans against the wall. "He's a scientist."

"And…?" She tilts her head, inquiring. "You think he's protected somehow because he views the world from a different—"

"No," he interrupts. "What I mean is—Elizabeth, how many people has he seen die? How many has he killed?"

Her eyes go wide and he sees her swallow. "I think I understand your point."

"Rodney may be okay," John says quietly, "but my team can't function like this. I don't want to wait for Ronon to snap because he can't be left alone. We can't wait."

"How long will it take you to go and come back?"

"McKay will have to jury rig a power supply, but if we take a jumper, then no time at all."

She purses her lips and finally nods. "All right, if we still have nothing at noon, come get the crystal."

XI.

They're three kisses in and Rodney's rock hard when Elizabeth radios John with the call. Rodney looks pleadingly at John—ten minutes, just ten minutes, but it's no go. John does kiss him once more, at least, before saying, "Come on, gear up. It's mid-morning there, and the MALP says it's cold."

The MALP also took an air sample, on the off chance that the dead city contained something like the sentient mist on M5S-224. None of the tests they ran on it turned up anything new.

Twenty minutes later, they're flying through the 'gate with a naquadah generator and two trunks of equipment Rodney fears he'll need to jumpstart the Ancient building's hidden safe so they can attempt to put the damned thing back.

None of it makes any sense. It's a only data crystal. Its contents have all been uploaded to the Atlantean database, and it has been scanned repeatedly for signs of invisible emanations. It has no business being so damned enigmatic.

Rodney looks around at his teammates, then back to the heavy container holding the generator. "Anyone seeing any ghosts?" he asks casually.

Teyla turns around, starts to shake her head, and then focuses on something in the aft hold. "Yes, Colonel; however, this time it isn't anyone I recognize."

"Oookay, that's odd," John says.

Rodney clears his throat and says, "Perhaps we should hurry."

Next to him, Ronon makes a noise that might be a laugh.

The trip's much faster by jumper and has the added benefit of exposing them to much less in the way of residual radiation. They fly right up the cracked and broken avenue to the temple, and after they reconfirm the total absence of life signs, it's only a moment before they're hauling the gear down the ramp and up the building's steps.

"Okay, Colonel," he says, hauling John inside with him, "why don't you try to activate it?" John glares and starts to make the obvious argument, but Rodney cuts him off. "There might be a reserve battery that's had time to recharge! Just because it's not showing up on sensors does not mean it isn't there."

John sighs like the weight of the world is on his shoulders, then he makes a slow circuit of the room, touching the hidden panel, the control console, the four walls…with no result. "It's dead, Rodney. The whole place is dead."

He was afraid of that. With a pry-bar he starts ripping off the light metal paneling, searching for circuits he can tap into. Eventually he finds what he's looking for and hooks in the leads from the generator. He dials in a miniscule amount of power, and with a broad smile tells John to come turn the thing on. John takes out the data crystal and presses it against the place the opening used to be and narrows his eyes. Nothing happens. Rodney increases the power, and still nothing happens.

"Tell me you're thinking 'On' at it!" he snipes.

"What, do I look stupid? Of course I am!"

Rodney cranks the generator up to a hundred percent. It should work, it should work, it should work.

It doesn't work.

"Damn it!" he shouts. Then he sits down in front of it and sets to work taking the safe apart. "Oh shit," he says when he gets the back housing off. "Okay, that's really foul."

"What?" John's looking over his shoulder, his nose crinkled up at the smell.

"There was an organic component."

John covers his mouth and nose with his hand.

Rodney slumps backward and looks up at John. "I can't activate it."

"We're stuck with it?" John says.

Rodney shrugs.

Teyla and Ronon come through the doorway from the outer room. No one says anything for a minute.

"We could…leave it here?" John suggests half-heartedly, and then Ronon makes a noise low in his throat. Teyla turns and her breath catches.

"You see them?" Ronon whispers.

"Yes," she whispers back, and it's the tone of her voice and the unnatural pallor of Ronon's skin that keeps Rodney's mouth shut.

John steps toward the door and gazes out over Teyla's head. "Oh hell," he says, and Rodney can't take it anymore. He gets to his feet and pushes John out of the way.

Through the doorway he sees rows of semi-translucent ghosts standing in the outer chamber, and through the outer door, he sees thousands. Thousands of gray, tattered people standing on the steps, in the streets, in the gaping windows of wasted buildings. "Holy God," he whispers.

"They did not appear until you suggested we leave the crystal here," Teyla murmurs.

"All right," John says slowly, "so does that mean they want us to take it with us or leave it with them?"

The ghost at the altar in the outer room has a knife in his hand and a long, scraggly white beard. He points at them with the knife, then he cuts a symbol in the air in front of his face. The other ghosts in the room shift slightly and Rodney notices that he's forgotten to breathe.

Next to him, Ronon and Teyla are having one of their weird conversations with their eyes, but Rodney can't follow it. All he knows for sure is the ghosts aren't advancing on them, and that has to be a good thing.

"Bring it with," Ronon says, and the old dead guy at the altar looks at them and smiles. He has five teeth, Rodney sees, and the rest is a gaping maw. He retreats back into the inner room, surprised that Ronon follows him.

From the doorway, he hears Teyla telling John, "We should return immediately," and thinks again with stating the obvious, but still, her words help Rodney focus, and he realizes Ronon's standing there waiting for him to pack the generator so he can carry it out to the jumper.

A few minutes later, John is showing the priest guy the crystal and slowly putting it into his vest. The priest smiles his creepy smile again and John says as he backs away, "Okay, then. You guys just…have a nice afterlife. Rest in peace and all that."

Then they're going, going, gone; and as they fly up the street toward the stargate, Rodney watches the rows and rows of ghosts vanish into thin air.

"Metaphysics never made any sense to me, and yet I read the journals and see how they're using M-theory in this ludicrous attempt to somehow shoehorn all that crap into a working model that no one can even effectively test, not withstanding—"

"Rodney—"

They're back, they've debriefed, they've given the damned crystal back to the linguistics team, and wonder of wonders—not only is Teyla still seeing ghosts, but Ronon's invisible stalker tried to garrote him in the bathroom. Elizabeth is finally approaching what Rodney considers an appropriate level of concern, and John's gone way past annoyed into the realm of genuinely pissed off.

Rodney, on the other hand, is simply freaking out, which is how he and John end up in John's quarters, yet again, while they wait for the people who aren't seeing ghosts to dig up a miracle from somewhere in the bowels of the Atlantis mainframe. Ronon and Teyla are over watching the late matinee of A Charlie Brown Christmas, Frosty the Snowman, and Rodney can't remember what else. He and John aren't there because they're not dumb enough to miss an opportunity like this, even though as far as post-mission sex it seems almost incidental. It definitely isn't the usual variety of frantic oh-my-god-we-didn't-die fucking. This time it's rough and slow and tangible, and Rodney thinks that if he never sees another ghost as long as he lives, it'll still be too soon.

Later, after they've resigned themselves to feeling too restless to nap, Rodney scoots down the bed and faces John. He knows he's still freaking out but he can't help it; he has to get the words out of his system before they get any worse.

"I never had any reason to tell anyone this," he says, "but my grandparents died when I was a teenager and I never went to see them, despite my mother's nagging. They smelled funny, you know, and I never knew what to say to them, since my grandfather only ever wanted to talk about hockey and my grandmother only was interested in whether I'd started asking girls out yet. So I didn't go. Starting when I was fourteen, I just flat-out refused." Rodney scrubs a hand through his hair and tries to push the image of his grandparents from his mind. "I know I'm arrogant and I can be a complete ass…but do you think I'm a bad person?"

"Rodney." John's looking at him like he's wondering if the coffee he snagged from the lab was laced with the bad crack. "You know you save at least part of this galaxy on a more or less weekly basis."

Rodney shakes his head. "That is so not the point."

"You're not a bad person," John says, but it's not enough. Rodney can see from the confused look in his eyes that he just doesn't get it.

He takes a deep breath and tries again. "Tell me something. Have you forgiven me yet?"

"For what?" John asks, apparently mystified.

"Blowing up Doranda and most of its solar system."

"Oh," John says after a long pause, "Rodney, I did that a long time ago."

Rodney looks at John and doesn't say anything, he just sits cross-legged on the bed across from John and looks into his eyes. Rodney feels about as exposed as he ever has, what with both of them being stark naked and staring at each other and nervous because neither one of them is much good at this talking thing.

There's so much between them, but there are some things Rodney doesn't dare say. He can't tell John that he's crazy about him; it's too big for the air between them, and he's even worse at declarations than he is at making small talk, and he's really incredibly bad at that. Sometimes, though, he finds himself faced with it despite all his best intentions, and here he is, naked, sitting on the blanket, while John sits half a foot away with his sheet pulled over his lap, which is totally not fair.

He can't say it. He can't even say how relieved he is at being forgiven, but he thinks maybe John can see it. He smiles a shy, lop-sided smile, then takes John's hand in his own and lays a kiss in the palm. John watches and his lips part, but he doesn't say anything, and that's just fine because Rodney still doesn't have words. He reaches forward and cups the side of John's face and kisses him once, even more gently than he'd planned to.

His watch is just beeping five o'clock when he drags himself out of John's arms and starts getting dressed. "I don't care what Elizabeth says, remind me never again to let the Science team observe holidays."

"And why are you going again?" John grins at him from his bed and watches Rodney put on his underwear, socks, uniform shirt, and pants.

"To collect the coffee and chocolate they owe me for giving them the day off tomorrow," Rodney says, eyes skating over John's hairy chest and stubbly face. "I wish I could bring you without it being too…"

"Yeah," John says, looking determined not to think about it. "But you can bring me goodies…just don't let anyone catch you under any mistletoe."

Rodney laughs. "Not to worry. See you later?"

John meets his gaze and says, "Count on it."

XII.

The cartoons are pretty lame, but the second matinee is good. It wasn't what he expected, though.

"Could you understand why it was called 'Blade Runner'?" Teyla asks him afterwards.

Ronon shakes his head. "A run sounds good, though. The south pier and back?" he asks.

"All right," she says, and touches the transporter panel so it will open at ground level.

The sun is sinking and the air is cool on his skin. It feels good. He can lose himself in the feeling and pretend Kell isn't hunting him. He's managed to forget a few times, only remembering when he looked down at the symbols he'd inked onto the backs of his hands and undersides of his fingers. Teyla drew one over his heart when he asked her, but it doesn't feel right. He thinks maybe it only works for a Satedan to do it.

For the first time in his life, he thinks, what he wouldn't give to see a priest.

On the way back in, he stops and holds the outer door ajar, waiting for Teyla. She isn't slow, but her stride is shorter, and he stands in the open doorway for a minute with salty mist blowing on the left side of his body while crisp, dry recycled air blows on the right. Teyla jogs through and he follows, and then they're both flying headlong. Teyla's on her feet first with a knife in her hand; Ronon's stuck in a crouch. The mark on his ankle feels like a brand, the flesh feels like it's burning, and nothing in seven years of running from the Wraith has ever hurt like this. He's gritting his teeth, staring at Kell, staring at Teyla facing Kell.

"You see him?" he grunts.

"Yes." She does something weird in the air with her knife and Kell shifts his stance backward. Squinting a little, Ronon realizes she's drawing a sahti sign in line with Kell's chest.

"Start with the long sweep and go clockwise," he says. "The dot at the top is last."

She does it again and Kell lunges at her, enraged and screaming. She braces to throw him, but he disappears into thin air before reaching her. Instantly, they're both scanning the corridor and the little alcove by the door to the outside. Nothing. He shoots a questioning look at her.

"Something got in his way."

"Another ghost?"

"I do not know. I am seeing many of them now, but I recognize few."

A moment later, she's on the radio to Sheppard and soon they're met by him and two security teams. The marines fan out for a pointless search; Sheppard leads them up to the mess.

The mess hall is half empty. "Science Division Christmas party," Sheppard says when Ronon points at the thin dinner crowd. "Rodney's there, too, but he'll be calling for rescue any minute now."

Teyla's mouth is drawn into a hard line. "I believe we need to look into other options," she says.

"Okay," Sheppard says in surprise. "What do you have in mind?"

"We should begin with a ritual."

"Uh—"

"In the corridor, I cut a sacred character into the air in front of Kell's chest, and it hurt him."

"Let's do it," Ronon says just as Sheppard's radio chirps.

"We must go to the mainland," Teyla says firmly.

"Now?" Sheppard asks.

"Now."

"All right, let's box up dinner and then we'll go get Rodney."

XIII.

"Come," Teyla says, and they take their seats around the small campfire. "We are haunted by our perceived failings, are we not?" John nods as Rodney agrees and Ronon grunts an affirmative. "We must put the dead at ease."

John looks across to Teyla. "All right, so what do we do?"

She takes a deep breath and says, "We remember the people we've known who have died, we name their names, and we commend their spirits to the fire which represents the source of light and warmth and safety, and we wish them peace."

Teyla begins with a long list of names, starting with her parents and brothers and sister, followed by people Rodney has never heard her mention. At last she says, "I will remember more in a moment. Ronon, please take your turn."

Ronon grunts and clears his throat. Rodney again knows none of the names Ronon speaks and finds himself a little lost in the rough cadence of his voice, until Ronon says, "…the people of the villages of Daisheh, Kreg, Meera, Daxo…" and so on. By the time Ronon lists entire planets, Rodney's staring at him agape.

No wonder they're haunted.

Finally, Ronon says, "…and Kell," and glances at Teyla before nodding to Sheppard for his turn.

John doesn't speak for a long time. When he finally begins, he begins with Atlantis personnel, starting with the most recently dead. He reaches Colonel Sumner and pauses, shivering a little. Teyla stretches to the side to add more deadfall to the fire, and it roars up again in response. John gazes into it, reciting more names, some by rank, some by "that guy who stepped in front of the grenade before that-thing-that-never-happened outside Herat." Finally, he names each of his grandparents, his aunts and uncles, his childhood neighbors, and Rodney thinks John is about done and is beginning to get nervous about his own list. But that's when John backtracks. "Steve the Wraith," he says, "Bob the Wraith. Ellia the Wraith-girl. Seventy-two or so Genii, including the ones planet-side. The Hoffans." John trails off, still staring into the fire. Rodney watches the flames reflect in his eyes for a minute, but John doesn't say anything else.

Rodney feels Teyla shift to his left, so he tears his eyes off of John and looks into the fire himself. It's white and yellow and orange and red, and its evergreen smell and steady flicker is soothing to his nerves. It isn't so high that it's uncomfortably hot, and the coals underneath are glowing with fissures of bright rust-red. "Collins, Grodin, Abrams, Gall," he says. He wonders if it's enough, since he hasn't been troubled by thoughts of anyone else. But then he remembers Christmas when he was three-years-old and how his grandfather sat on the floor with him with a pile of Lego's almost as big as Rodney was, and that brings back a flood of people he hasn't thought of in years. His voice is working and the names fall out of his mouth in a semi-conscious litany: his parents and grandparents, the baby cousin with leukemia, the boy who'd given him his first kiss back in Grade 7, and then wrapped himself around a tree driving drunk on an icy road five years later…Hays, Dumais, Wagner, Johnson, Peterson. There aren't a third as many as the others, even including the casualties among the science staff and the few marines he'd known by name. He finally adds, "The three puddle jumpers we've lost, and everything else in the city that doesn't work because of being attacked or because we're too stupid to use it right." He feels self-conscious and looks up to find all three of them with amused expressions on their faces. "What? The city's interactive! There could be—"

"Ghost puddle jumpers?" John asks, smirking.

"I'm sure I don't need to remind you, Colonel, that proving the universal impossibility of a theorized object remains impossible, especially in the Pegasus galaxy." Rodney crosses his arms over his chest and says to Teyla, "I think that's all."

"Very well." She smiles back at him, a warm light in her eyes. "To my own list, I must add Valla, my childhood nurse. Ronon?" Ronon shakes his head. "John?"

"Ryan Smithee," he says quietly. "He got hit by a car in eighth grade."

Teyla nods and looks to Rodney again, but Rodney shakes his head, too. He can't think of anyone else.

"Very well," Teyla says again and adds another branch to the fire. In a steady voice she says, "We commend the spirits of these dead to the afterworld. May they be guided to their destinations and find peace."

"Amen," John answers, as if he's in church, and Ronon and Rodney each nod.

They sit there in silence for a minute, until Rodney can't take it anymore. "So that's it? Shouldn't there be some kind of…um, thing? I mean, well, how do we know if it worked?"

Teyla glances from the fire to Rodney's face and gives a slight shrug. "We sleep."

XIV.

They sit and watch the fire burn down to a pile of dusty coals. Then they pass around a shovel, each of them taking turns dumping a heap of loam on the dying fire. When Teyla declares it done, they trek back over to the jumper and John flies them back to Atlantis.

It's not quite nine when they get back, but it feels like it might as well be midnight. His nerves are jangled, just like when he was a little kid waiting up for Santa Claus, except this isn't even close to fun. This is just grating.

John wants nothing more than to fall into bed with Rodney, but he can't. Rodney went straight to the lab when they got in, claiming he only wanted to make sure no one had destroyed any essential systems while they were gone. John's pretty sure Atlantis would've found a way to tell him that as soon as they got back, if not sooner; but Rodney's Rodney, and when Rodney decides running a full diagnostic is the only thing that will set his mind at ease, there isn't a lot John can do about it.

Resigned, he gets in the shower and tries not to think about how he wishes he could put Rodney's mind at ease. All John has to do is listen for the city's quiet thrum and think, 'Hey, pretty lady, how are things tonight?'

Rodney doesn't have that, so he needs his diagnostics.

Clean and dry, John stretches out under his covers and wonders if Rodney will show up. He doubts it, even while deep down he hopes for it.

And then he dreams.

XV.

In the morning, they meet for breakfast. "So, who dreamed?" Rodney asks. He's already had two cups of coffee and he thinks he's only a little more jittery than normal.

"I did; however, it is not unusual for me to have dreams of my family."

"I slept in the infirmary," Ronon mumbles. "Didn't dream, but I haven't been alone yet."

John makes a grim face. "We're going to have to test that."

Ronon shrugs and takes another bite of his pancakes.

"I dreamed, too," John says, "but before they all had a theme and they were all people from my past. This time it was just the dead priest guy and flying over the dead city. It seemed like it went on forever."

"Huh," Rodney says, "then maybe the effect will fade? In my dream, I was at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, and clearly it was at some point in the future because I was visiting their exhibit on our Atlantis expedition."

John laughs. "And how many Nobels did you have, Dr. McKay?"

Rodney grins. "Three."

"Cool." John smiles at him just a little too long and Rodney goes all warm inside.

At lunch, they hear cheering and something that sounds mysteriously like Christmas carols rolling through the hallways. A knot of linguists erupts into the room, and Elizabeth looks as jubilant as Rodney's ever seen her. She doesn't get a tray; instead she has a seat at their table, grinning goofily at them all. "Well, we were all wrong!" She pauses for effect and it's stretching Rodney's patience to the last degree not to shout, "Hello, we are seeing ghosts here!" But he refrains.

"Well?" John says, laying a calming hand on Rodney's knee under the table.

She takes a breath and puts her calm face back on. "From what we can understand so far, it's a census record. Or rather, it's their entire census record for as many centuries as they kept one."

"Oh," Rodney says, feeling suddenly cold. "But does it say what happened to them?"

"Not yet," she says, with a slight reproof in her voice. "We've been working all night just to get what we do have."

"Any mention of ghosts?" John asks.

"John, there's an enormous amount of data to go through."

"So, no," Rodney says.

John nods. "Well, that could be good. Maybe you're right, maybe the dreams will just fade."

Rodney stabs at his eggs with his fork. "I wish we knew what the console did. That room had to be more than a mausoleum for a data chip."

"It was the only Ancient building in the city," Teyla says.

"But there are Ancient buildings all over the galaxy," John says. "For all we know, it's a weather station."

Rodney sighs. "True."

"Are you still seeing ghosts?" Elizabeth asks Teyla.

"Not since waking up this morning."

"That's hopeful, then," Elizabeth says, shooting John a look.

Standing up, Ronon says in a low voice, "If I'm not back in four minutes…I might need some help." Before they can say anything, he's gone through the kitchen door.

Rodney knows there's a tiny private washroom back there on the other side of the wall from the dishwashing area and the third pantry. He knows this because he and John have had occasion to make thorough use of it. It's small and virtually soundproof due to the kitchen's plumbing and the deep shelves of bulk essentials.

The seconds tick. Teyla doesn't take her eyes off the door.

A few moments later, Elizabeth asks, "Should we maybe…?"

Rodney shares a look with John and Teyla, and he sees the tension written in their eyes. They're all used to letting Ronon go without question when he needs to be alone. It's one of the things Ronon does. He goes. But he comes back. "He always comes back," Rodney says, and ignores the puzzled glance Elizabeth gives him because the team knows exactly what he means.

Teyla takes a deep breath and shifts slightly, angling her chair to give her a more direct view of the door.

Conversation tapers off after that.

John drums his fingers on the edge of his tray. Rodney counts the beats, measuring three point five per second, and eats more of his sandwich. By his side, John's so tense he's about to jump out of his seat, but it's Teyla who speaks. "How long?" She's still got her eyes on the door.

"Another two-and-fifteen, fourteen, thirteen," Rodney answers.

John scowls and changes the rhythm of his thumbs against the plastic. Elizabeth opens her mouth to say something, and then apparently changes her mind. Rodney takes another bite. It's a club, with weird tomatoes and something that looks more like spinach than lettuce, but it tastes okay.

"He said four," Elizabeth says after a little longer, and there's a note in her voice that makes John glance over at her. He doesn't say anything, though, and Rodney doesn't actually need John's heel digging into his foot to keep his mouth shut, too, for once.

At 3:58, John's got his hand raised to key his radio and call Ronon for status. But he doesn't have to. A second later, Ronon appears in the doorway, dripping water from his face and upper body, and he looks pissed.

"You are bleeding," Teyla says, and that's when Rodney sees Ronon's hands.

"He was in the mirror," Ronon says with a dark smile.

"And I'm sure punching the mirror hurt him more than it did you," Rodney snaps automatically. "Will you look at his hands?"

"Infirmary. Now," John says, before turning his head and looking daggers at Rodney.

"What happened?" Teyla asks.

Ronon shrugs. "He was in the mirror. He yelled a lot and shoved his arms through."

"He tried to drown you?" Elizabeth asks in horror.

John folds his arms over his chest. "Again."

"Didn't work," Ronon answers.

"Clearly," Rodney says, thrusting a handful of napkins at him.

Teyla frowns down at his hands. "You have glass in the cuts."

"Yeah. Broke the mirror." He spares a glance for Elizabeth. "Sorry."

"Don't worry about it," she says.

"I don't know if he's gone forever, but when I hit the glass, his arms vanished. And he bled."

"Huh," Rodney says.

Ronon tilts his head and gives Teyla a slantwise look. "You're still not…?"

"No," Teyla says. Then she closes her eyes, opens them, and carefully scans the room. Smiling, she says, "Still no. There are no spirits visible to me here."

"I think he might be gone," Ronon says.

"Good." John's gone around the table and put his hand on Ronon's shoulder. "We are going to the infirmary," he says with a smirk. "Now. Because you're bleeding on the floor."

Ronon looks down and sees the blood-soaked napkins, then he turns to Teyla and nods to his not-quite-empty tray. "I'll be back. Don't let him eat my pudding."

"I will keep it safe from harm," she says solemnly.

He raises his eyebrows at her, and then lets John and Elizabeth pull him a few steps toward the door. A moment later, he's back at the table, his fingers leaving bloody streaks on the white plastic. "McKay." Rodney swallows and puts his spoon and almost-empty pudding cup down on his tray. Sometimes he forgets how big Ronon is until he hovers over him. "Don't let her take my pudding, either."

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Teyla smirking impishly. "Um, okay, understood," he answers, and bites his tongue hard until Ronon's out of earshot. Then they sit and laugh helplessly until Rodney's stomach starts to hurt.

"Wait," she says, and vanishes. A moment later, she returns with three fresh dessert cups.

"Oh, wow," Rodney says in awe. They never let him have seconds, much less thirds.

"Happy Generic Winter Holiday," she says, setting the new pudding down between them.

Rodney grins back. "Merry Christmas to you, too. Do you want Chocolate, Vanilla, or Tapioca?"

"Tapioca, please."

"What does Ronon have?" It looks different than the regular chocolate kind.

"Oreo."

"Oreo? Are you serious? What, is he bribing them?" Rodney asks, outraged. He's never gotten Oreo.

Teyla nods. "I believe he must be."

"That is so not fair." A moment later, Rodney shoots a nefarious smile at her across the table. "You know, we could split it. You defend your half, I defend mine?"

She looks from the pudding cup on Ronon's tray to Rodney and back again. Then she looks back at Rodney and smirks. "No."

"Hmm." He scowls at the offending cup of Oreo pudding. "I suppose you're right. He'd kill us. Then he'd tell Weir. And then we'd get the holiday spirit lecture all over again."

"You would," she says quietly.

"Touché," Rodney says with a startled laugh, and she smiles back. "They really are gone, right?" he asks, waving his hand.

"I believe so. I hope so."

"They didn't look unhappy," he murmurs. "In my dream. The guys were…it was a fun card game…and the stars were amazing—they were floating over the center of the table, rotating in the air."

"It sounds pretty."

He remembers the looks on their faces. How surprised he felt. "They weren't angry," he says, "not even Collins, and if anyone would be, I thought…but no."

She gazes at him for a moment with a strange expression on her face. "I am glad."

Rodney smiles back, feeling a little shy. "Want to go up to the infirmary? Do we have spoons? We should take extra spoons. They might be there a while, after all." He wants to see the look on John's face when he hands him the chocolate one. If he's lucky, maybe he'll get to lick it off him later. Or sooner. Preferably sooner. "It isn't quite Christmas pudding, but it'll do."

He looks around at the red and green festooned room and realizes that he feels better than he has in days. It's Christmas, they're on Atlantis, there's a new, locked shipping case under his bed brimming with yesterday's haul of chocolate and coffee, they're not under attack, and best of all, they're not dead.

"Christmas pudding?" Teyla asks, dividing the cups and spoons between them.

"Mmm, yes. My grandmother used to make it. She took the citrus out of her recipe so I could have it, too." Rodney can almost taste the brandy on his tongue and thinks that if he and John ever manage to get leave together, they'll have to spend the whole time in bed. Possibly with pudding. Definitely with a bottle of brandy, or chocolate liqueur…among other things. He thinks of John laid out before him like a holiday feast and shivers, he can't help it.

"Rodney, are you well?" Teyla asks with yards more tact than he ever would.

"Sorry, yes," he says gratefully, and hurries to take his half of the stack. "I'll tell you on the way."

Story Notes (References, Acknowledgments, Recipes, Links, etc.)
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