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John hears footsteps behind him and quickly scrambles to his feet, flicking on the light on his P-90.
"Hey," Rodney complains, holding up a hand against the glare of the light. "No shooting the scientist. Especially since I'm the one who has to fix things so you can go back."
"What are you doing out here?" John asks, lowering the P-90. "It's not your watch yet. Is everything—"
"Fine," Rodney replies. "Aside from the jumper, of course. Teyla and Ford are still sleeping."
"So, what, you felt like taking a midnight stroll?" John prompts.
"Couldn't sleep. Also, it's freaking cold out here," Rodney says, holding up a blanket.
John decides not to try working out how not sleeping equates to coming out in the cold with a blanket and instead sits back down on the sand. Rodney settles himself beside John, not quite touching, and arranges the blanket over their shoulders.
They sit in silence for a few minutes, blanket pulled close against the biting wind, waves crashing on the shore ahead of them. John tilts his head back and resumes his quiet study of the unfamiliar sky—no constellations to code directions into stories, no way of telling north from south. There's nothing at all to remind him of home.
"What're you thinking?" Rodney asks, and though he speaks quietly, his voice is loud in the space between wind and waves made by the blanket drawn up around their shoulders.
"Three million light years," John answers, still looking up at the stars but conscious of the heat of Rodney's body beside him.
"Hmm. Technically it's closer to three million and four light years," Rodney corrects, "since we're currently stranded a bit farther along from Atlantis, but I suppose you just mean it's a long way from home."
"No," John protests. He rubs a hand absently against the back of his neck and tries to clarify. "It's just ... so much space."
"Yes, yes," Rodney sighs. "I'll fix the jumper tomorrow and we can at least get back to Atlantis. And then we can continue searching for ZedPMs so we can let the idiots back on Earth know we're still alive here—no thanks to the space vampires and the Amish Manhattan Project psychos—and, you know, keep the city from drowning."
That's not what John meant at all—there's nothing for him back on Earth, no reason to miss it, he cut all those ties long ago. He thinks he probably ought to feel some sort of nostalgia, but, truthfully, the thought of that huge expanse of space between himself and everything that went wrong back there makes him feel nothing but relief. The closest he's ever come to belonging somewhere is here, light years away from anything familiar. But it's not something he can explain.
"I know you'll fix her up, buddy," he says instead. "And the idiots on Earth can wait."
"In th' morning," Rodney mumbles, leaning his head on John's shoulder as if it's the most natural thing in the world.
For the past twenty-odd years, all John wanted was space. First he escaped to Stanford, then the Academy, Afghanistan, Antarctica, another galaxy. He's spent so long putting space between himself and his family, between himself and his past, between himself and any meaningful relationships, that it should be strange having Rodney slumped against his shoulder, snoring softly.
And yet.
He carefully shifts his body, closing the last inch of space between himself and Rodney, so that they're touching from calf to shoulder. He turns his head and presses a light kiss against Rodney's temple, savoring the soft brush of hair against his lips and the ridiculous smell of Rodney's sunscreen. For all the empty spaces he's so carefully put into his life, he feels safest here with Rodney, when there is no space between them.