Chapter Text
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She let the blade barely scratch her skin, just enough to see a mark, but not enough to draw blood. She moved the blade down her arm a couple of more inches and did it again. She looked at the two marks and thought, "This is how I'll do it," and scratched a long line lengthwise down her arm connecting them. But as she sat there staring at the fading scratches, a little spark ignited in a part of her brain that she hadn't used in a very long time.
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She slammed the door in Samantha Carter's face when she arrived unexpectedly to discuss the math proof Jeannie had submitted. Kaleb was due home any minute and she was terrified that he would find them there and consequentially find out what she had done without telling him.
Her brother, Meredith, however, took a much more direct route than Sam and just had her beamed aboard an orbiting ship.
The instant she saw the big blue marble that was Earth far below them, she knew that there was no place there for her now. But maybe she could find a new place for herself on Atlantis and if not, there was always her original plan.
They beamed her back down and she quickly made list of what she wanted to take with her. What she couldn't leave behind.
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Sam found Rodney in the lab. He was quiet and staring intently at a piece of math on the white-board that he could do in his sleep.
Quietly from the doorway she asked, "Everything alright?"
Rodney turned towards Sam and she could see the pure sadness on his face. It was unexpected.
"Just thinking about my sister. She looked awful earlier."
"I can't imagine losing a child."
"I think it's more than just losing Madison. There's something else going on with her."
"Maybe this project and the time away will be good for her."
"Yeah. I just thought... it's been almost two years, I thought she'd been doing better by now."
"Maybe you can get her to talk to Doctor Heightmeyer while she's on Atlantis."
"That's a good idea, thanks, Sam."
Sam reached over and gave his forearm a little pat and replied, "You're welcome."
Rodney looked down at her hand with a smirk. As she pulled it away she said teasingly, "Forget it, McKay. I'm still not sleeping with you."
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His body was still thrumming with the energy of the hunt and the kill. He turned the shower on as hot as the water would go but didn't get in. Instead he let the room fill with warm steam and turned off the lights to sit naked on the toilet in the dark, just breathing in the heavy, moisture laden air. He hadn't told anyone about this particular urge of his; it would probably just lead to questions he didn't have answers for and tests he didn't want being performed on him.
He let the steam clean him inside and out, settling his mind, before lowering the water temperature to a normal level and stepping into the shower to quickly scrub off the mission grime.
He dressed in a loose, non-binding tunic and pants that Teyla had found for him off-world. They were some of the few pieces of clothing that he had found that didn't rub on his scales and irritate.
He rifled through his food stores and found something to eat, making a mental note to send the mess hall an email with a list of things to restock his room with. He never ate in the mess any more.
He took his food and went and sat out on the balcony. The sight of the sky and the ocean still thankfully brought him peace.
He tried to further quiet himself through the meditation that Teyla had taught him, and though it worked somewhat for his mind, it didn't work for the instinctual urges of his changed body. With a near-physical need he couldn't articulate, he wanted a hive, with others like him around him, and he wanted a queen to serve and young to protect. He didn't want to be alone, but yet he was, and as he was unique, he would always be.
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Jeannie had asked for a week to get her things in order. With a shaking hand she left the divorce papers and her wedding ring on the kitchen table for Kaleb. She startled when Rodney beamed down into her living room. He took a quick look at the couple of plastic totes and one giant suitcase she had packed before looking at her directly.
"What's all this?"
"It's what I need to bring with me."
"Are you all right?"
Flatly she replied, "I haven't been alright in a really long time, Mer, but I am ready to go."
Feeling awkward and not knowing what to say, Rodney hit his radio and informed the Daedalus that they were ready to beam up.
He didn't notice the bittersweet way Jeannie looked around what used to be her happy home one final time.
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Jeannie and Rodney bickered and squabbled the entire trip to Atlantis. It was good in a way, when he was focused on work he wasn't hassling her about what was bothering her or how she was feeling.
Her arrival on Atlantis was warmer than she had expected as she was introduced in person to Radek as well as Doctor Weir and Colonel Lorne. They were all excited to meet her and welcomed her wholeheartedly. She tried to put on a happy face, but it was all a little overwhelming.
As Jeannie was whisked away to a lab, no one noticed John observing from the shadows of the corridor- he had wanted to see McKay's sister. In another time he would have been the one to greet her with a smile as she beamed down, but not now. He stuck to the shadows, not wanting to freak her out her first day on the city, his appearance not for the fainthearted. He ticked his head to the side as he watched her with Lorne and Radek, she was putting on a good front but he could see how fragile it was and the pain that seemed to be permanently etched around her eyes. He was itching to smell her, to imprint on her like he had every other member of the expedition, but it wasn't the right time for that and he slipped back through the corridors to his quarters.
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The door to her quarters closed behind her and she let out an enormous sigh of relief. She was tired, interacting with people for such an extended amount of time was exhausting.
Her brother had taken her request to be housed in as empty a part of the city as possible seriously and according to Radek there was only one other person in the same section as her, that being Colonel Sheppard.
Jeannie wondered when she would get to meet him. Rodney had explained in hushed whispers about Sheppard on board the Daedalus and though she hated to admit it to herself, she was curious about him.
She kicked off her shoes and walked out onto the balcony, letting the night breeze wash over her.
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John was sitting on the floor of his own balcony, his back resting against the railing wall, his long legs stretched out in front of him. No one could see him and he spent many, many hours alone on his balcony reading late into the night, his eyesight just as keen by night as it was by day. He had long since finished War and Peace and had moved onto Crime and Punishment. He often thought wryly to himself that he was going to be the most well-read hermit in the galaxy.
His ears picked up the sound of the balcony door to the quarters next to his opening and a moment later the gentle breeze blew a completely unfamiliar scent in his direction. He inhaled deeply and let his mind catalog it. There was something appealing about it, and he felt a stirring of attraction in him that he hadn't felt since his transformation. He wondered what that meant in the grand scheme. He thought about standing up and introducing himself, but decided against it, the sight of him popping up on his balcony likely to scare her and ruin the moment.
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Jeannie fell asleep with her balcony door open and from his perch on his own balcony, John had heard her softly cry herself to sleep.
When he was sure she was sleeping, he hopped over to her balcony from his with stealthy ease. He stood in the open doorway and looked at her sleeping in the moonlight. He watched her for a few minutes, noting how she appeared unhappy even in her sleep. He frowned, steeling himself against the urge to go to her and hold her close and somehow take away her pain.
She shifted in her sleep and rolled over and John took that as his cue to leave. With the same effortless leap that had got him to her balcony, he landed on his own and went inside to go to bed.
He woke with a start a couple of hours later from the throes of an unexpected erotic dream in which he was wholly human again and passionately making love with a happy and smiling Jeannie. As he blinked in the dark and oriented himself, he realized that he was hard, something that happened only rarely since his transformation. He reached for his dick deciding not to waste the opportunity, but he caught a glimpse of his claw-like hand in the moonlight and it killed the moment for him entirely. He pounded the mattress in frustration with his fists and when that didn't help, his bedside lamp went flying across the room to shatter with a satisfying crunch against the wall. It wasn't the first, or even the tenth, lamp that had suffered a similar fate.