Because Austin is finally cold, and I'm in the mood for warm, warm fic. And cheerful fic! And fic that was generally posted fairly far back and so I feel it is my duty to make sure every new SGA Sheppard/McKay fangirl reads because wow. The awesome is legion.

Fic to Make You Smile

An Aesthetic, Solitary Thing by eliade - this was posted way back and I seriously don't think you can call yourself a Sheppard/McKay fangirl if you haven't read it. It's pon-farr! Alien!Rodney! Utterly gorgeous and hot and utterly beautiful the way only eliade can really be.

"You have a mating cycle," Elizabeth said, obviously wishing in a heartfelt way that he didn't. John was right there with her.

"I just said that I don't. Except...maybe." He seemed caught by the thought for the first time, interested. "Huh. That might explain the symptoms I've been having."

You've got to be kidding, John thought, fighting dismay. Beckett seemed to be thinking the same thing.

Elizabeth pressed him. "And what exactly does a mating cycle entail?"

He blinked at her. "I need to explain procreation?"

"In this instance? Yes."

I seriously cannot, cannot emphasize the awesome enough here.

A Blue True Dream of Sky by isilya - of all AUs, this one is one of my read-several-times-a-year, because it's just that damn good. It's an original take on the AU with a strong, original plotline and wonderfully realized characteriations. The story is set in the outback with cattle, a terrible disease, a researcher looking for a way to stop it, and a world so well-built I feel like I lived there. This isn't to be missed.

“I am not okay,” Rodney repeats, but he relaxes into Sheppard. Sheppard lets him lean there for a moment, which Rodney really appreciates; Sheppard is warm and strong and being inexplicably nice. Sheppard rubs his hands up and down Rodney’s arms, smoothing away the goose-bumps of Rodney’s chilled skin. Rodney heaves a couple of deep breaths, not failing to notice that Sheppard smells really good.

“Right,” Sheppard says, stepping back and touching the cut over Rodney’s eye gently. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Sheppard gets a flannel and a bucket of warm water. He wipes Rodney down slowly with careful strokes over all Rodney’s bruises. “Christ,” Sheppard says, “You really were almost killed, weren’t you.”

Rodney looks down to see that Sheppard has gone thin-lipped and frowning. Rodney shivers, and Sheppard eases down his shorts, and washes him so matter-of-factly that Rodney can’t even feel embarrassed. He sways forward into Sheppard and Sheppard rinses out the flannel and wipes his forehead. Rodney feels confused, and sore, and battered almost as badly by Sheppard’s soft touches as he felt by the stampeding cattle the night before. He says; “Quit being so nice, you’re making feel like I’m at my own funeral,” but he doesn’t quite hit the tone he was aiming for–it comes out all breathy and pleading.

That's not a quote from the plot; trust me in this, you will love it.

Existence as Interesting As Possible by wax_jism - I can say with honesty that anytime there is trapped on a dying planet that I usually expect a lot more trauma. And there is! But it is minor trauma. There is a dragon and a dying planet and some goat-like things, and Rodney, and John, and it's just--marvelous. Marvelous.

McKay shucked his BDUs and threw them over a branch. His boxers weren't anything funny like Sheppard had hoped. He would have bet money on McKay being the novelty underwear type. "Mutant deerskins, beard like a biker, living on mutant deer jerky and roots, back permanently bent from sitting hunched over that crystal... Is it cold? Piranhas? Embarrassing shrinkage?"

Sheppard stopped watching him undress and instead floated in the shallow water, staring straight up. Birds flew from treetop to treetop. Would there be alien squirrels in the trees?

Loud splashing and some undignified whooping announced McKay's arrival. "It's freezing, are you insane? I'm Canadian, I know freezing."

"You're a sad, pale, indoor Canadian, though," Sheppard said, turning his head to see McKay not far away, looking less disgruntled than he sounded. His arms were covered with goosebumps.

"It's not good to swim so soon after eating," McKay muttered.

"The water is three feet deep!"

"Sure, sure, we can risk our lives, I mean, what's the use of trying to be careful when the universe hates us? They all think we're dead, back on Atlantis. We're dead to them, we're lost in space. 'Oh, the Major and Doctor McKay, did you hear, so sad, eaten by a dragon. Now we must make do with Bates and Zelenka.' Good luck with that, by the way. They won't come looking for us. And if they did, what are the chances they'd look here? And if they did by some miracle look here, the rescue party would be stuck too. This planet is a galactic pitcher plant. Ergo, the universe hates us and wants us to die. I might as well swim now."

Jam Every Other Day by arionchan - two parts, linked. I'll quote my rec originally, because it kind of encapsulates my feelings on the story:

The author said Wonderlandish, and yes, surreal as hell, but it's so damn *good* and easy to follow and just--wow. I loved everything--the virtual environment, the ship, the way Rodney has to succeed and the way that he really needs to move on from that water related death thing--it just works in every way.

Pinched the bridge of its nose and actually, that is a familiar gesture and one he seems to provoke fairly often. Hell, sometimes he does it on purpose, just for the fun of it. "You're not immersed in a virtual environment. You're getting a direct feed of my system data which your brain is interpreting in whatever way is most intrinsic to you. And may I add that I hope you have some kind of psychological training, because that really helps when it comes to being an engineer on the good ship Protection. He, on the other hand, is essentially in here. With me. Which, actually, isn't the way the interfaces are supposed to work, and God only knows how he managed to do it. So what this means is that instead of having to just separate the virus from me and kill it, you now get the fun job of trying to separate it from both of us. And may I add that the odds the virus will still be trying to kill him, specifically, are very high? Or did you get that on your own, genius that you are?"

Okay, now. The formatting is not standard for reading, and it can and does get a little--*see-saws*. I just cut and paste to word and double lined everything to read it and that worked fine for me since I save fic I like anyway. Just--move beyond the formatting, find zen in how seriously cool this is, with a truly interesting plotline.

And...yeah. I am so avoiding work and I don't even care.

I always have a faint suspicion that Child and I sleep on some kind of linked cycle--if one of us sleeps badly, both of us sleep badly. And for some reason known only to the universe, we can and do end up out of our extremely comfortable beds, one of them (mine), pillowtop and soft and marvelous, to sleep on the couch.

It is not, I have to say, a very large couch. My back? Is not amused.

Child had award presentation, where he made the A/B Honor Roll and Perfect Attendance. It was both very boring and disturbingly cute. I just can't get over all these little people in their little uniforms.

I keep being tempted to do a list of Everything in the Universe That Annoys Me, but it starts with the fact that McDonalds never salts their fries nearly enough and they also now taste funny and I'll never get over the fact that they no longer have dark meat chicken nuggets.

So instead.


Raiders of the Seven Systems, Part 4 by ltlj - SGA, gen. More action and adventure and excitement. Happy.

I have an unworthy suspicion that Amazon is deliberately holding my DVDs like, an hour from my house for the next week while I frantically check tracking due to the fact I refuse to get Amazon Prime.

Recs

The Second Terrace of Purgatory by miss_porcupine - SGA, gen. I keep circling back to the point and flail and rescue Sheppard! Which is almost my favoritest thing ever. There is plot and traps and complexities and of course, rescuing. And Lorne, being awesome. And so good.

On third re-read, because any time that everyone is cool and competent and escaping things and with urban warfare? So much win. Per usual.

I shall now occupy myself with work. Or poking things randomly. Both seem like fun.

I swear I had to have recced this, but there's always the chance that circa May, I had some kind of sad hallucinogenic break with reality--though I remember writing the rec. but I can't find it, and it took me ten minutes to remember more about the story than "there was junk. And John fixed things for older people. And something about a casserole".

This is how we get summaries from sga-storyfinders. Right there. Junk and old people and casserole.

Anyway.

Junk Cheap by devildoll - SGA, Sheppard/McKay, and very, very, very funny. And fun! And John fixes things! For pastry!

(mmm. pastry.)

(also, I don't think the story actually contains casserole. That's so sad.)

"I take it your indirection means you figured a relationship with me would be less complicated if I weren't actually involved?"

Reality by resonant8, SGA, Sheppard/McKay

No matter how many times I read this fic, that line makes me giggle hysterically every time.

Ronon had an energy pistol and was as big as a small horse, so he was essentially useless as a role model in scenarios such as this. Sheppard would have threatened to destroy their kingdom, their families, their domesticated pets and their entire stone age subculture, sow the ground with salt and make sure no life ever surfaced on their planet again. But Rodney lacked the edge of insane conviction to pull that one off.

That is possibly my favorite partial paragraph in the history of fandom. Because John totally would. With insane conviction.

Transference by semivowel. eleveninches recced it to me and was like YOU WILL ENJOY HERE IS THE LINK which is second only to svmadelyn's charming habit of pasting bits of fic into my AIM window to make me read something.

Though granted, eleveninches sends me good fic and svmadelyn sends me stuff that's like "and then he slid his thickly ridged emerald shaft into the blond man's slick brown flower while his wings beat a steady rhythm of sexual innocence into the thickly scented air above him. The dark-haired man thought lustfully, he smells like porridge."

(If that is an actual fic and I just randomly plagiarazed, please just shoot me. It would be kinder. I do not want to know this exists.)

ANYWAY.

Fic (the recced one!) is awesome and funny and *Fun* and I just don't think there are enough big gay planets. Not nearly enough. God, SGA. You shock me.

Okay, now that I have time, leisure, my lunch hour, and um. Caffeine.

OH
MY
GOD
SPACE
PIRATES!!!!!

Raiders of the Seven Systems - WIP
Part 1
Part 2

It's like Easter, really. If you are really really good, then God tells ltlj to post more fic.

(this makes as much sense as the Easter Bunny)

Space pirates! Which let's face it, we all have been pretty much waiting our entire lives to read. Or maybe that's just me. Waiting for John. The Space Pirate.

That--seriously never stops getting old. Space Pirate!

AU, gen, action and adventure, spaceships, kidnapping, Genii, John has a knife, Ronon and Teyla and a different universe that sometimes feels a lot the same. It makes me happy. I think it could literally bring world peace.

Maybe. If only more people would read. Still in progress, but being awaited with bated breath and very large, very liquid eyes of hope.

Qui Habitat by miss_porcupine - a Stargate'verse what-if; Ori win control of the Milky Way, and Atlantis houses the refugees.

It's--wow. I started reading at work and kind of didn't *stop*. The casual mix of humor and daily Atlantean life with wartime, the various character pov's, the expansion of the universe, the interesting hints of a possible future--miss_porcupine uses words deliberately and the word 'dominion' in reference to Atlantis and its planet(s) was interesting when paired with use of imperialism. Like ltlj, she really *buils* her worlds right down to the floors and the OCs, each one recognizable and more complicated than expected and interesting. The situations are complex and so are the decisions made. Practical and survival is balanced against right, and it's intersting to watch how the chips fall.

Flawlessly plotted and book one of hopefully many, but pretty complete in itself with anticipation of more to come. This is *good*. It's what I hope for in this fandom to read.

Also, I'm months late. I swear, I was pre-pneumonia or something when this came out; there's no way I would have missed it otherwise.

Okay, when I joke about protective hysterical amnesia after reading certain fic?

That is real!!!!!

Or so a chat a year ago seems to imply, when I was like "I HAVE READ THIS THING WITH ****-***** and there was ** ****** **** and OH MY GOD I WILL NEVER BE CLEAN AGAIN.

And she shows me a conversation....

(wait. I need to take a minute.

....

Okay.)

A conversation. Where we. Talked. About. This. Story.

I'd poll on my rapidly degenerating cognitive processes, but it would be far too depressing.

Right. Onward to other things.

Links

amireal mulls fic tropes: make that *a* fic trope - There needs to be more coming out fic. This used to be a BIG THEME a few fandoms ago, but themes, as we know, come and go. Today it's wings, a few years ago it was pretending to be gay FOR THE GOOD OF THE UNIVERSE.

So I crave old themes in my new fandoms. Mmm. Coming out fic.

I don't just mean "We're gay now!" fic. But-- John is accused of murder and Rodney is his alibi! Only it was night time and they were sleeping together!

Or or! John and Rodney are trying to live their lives after atlantis and they run into parents/siblings/exwives/old classmates etc!

I really like the murder one. Or ooh--both of them accused. Or Rodney or John accused of fathering some alien savior!

Seriously. Where the hell are the saviors? Considering worship of the Ancients? There should be holy born kids already.

(it's already been a long day. I woke up late. My shirt is not dry. It happens.)

Random Questions

There was this fic. Not the bdsm ones. It wasn't in SGA. But it was this entire universe that was gay. And--that probably hits a lot of stories, doesn't it? *sighs* I think this one was possibly in Stargate SG1--i read it, er, about five years agoish.

Random Recs

Extremes by Melanie. Star Trek: Voyager, Paris/Torres, Paris/Kim, Paris/Torres/Kim.

Okay. When I say "gay-making environment", it sounds silly, but this one is kind of cool. They go to this planet, where--okay, I'll quote.

"I went to the Captain to ask permission to ask to study your people," he
informed them. "You're fascinating. You have the same outward appearance as
Earth Humans, but certain factors about you-"

The Pagenisians nodded knowingly and Wani interrupted him. "It is the fact
that our entire population is homosexual."

"That always is of great curiosity for any off-worlders," Sno chimed in.

"Well, it *is* rather unusual," the EMH admitted. "Homosexuality exists in
our home quadrant, yet only on an individual to individual basis, not an entire
planetary population. The closest there is to it is a small number of species
that are androgynous. However, all of them have been androgynous since their
species began to evolve. At least, as far as we have been able to discover. We
don't have any species that exclusively are homosexual. And according to the
Captain, your people were *heterosexual* until forty-seven generations ago when
everyone made a conscious decision to become homosexual? We have never
encountered a culture like yours before. For centuries, scientists have been
attempting and failing to explain, in scientific terms, incidents of
homosexuality in *individuals*. In an *entire planet*, that's more complicated.
It is quite the mystery from a sociological as well as biological point of
view."

The authors' website is down, and I couldn't find it in Trekiverse (which granted, is not the most easily navigatable archive in history), so used wayback. It does make interesting use of the Prime Directive. This also qualifies as literally the first slash story I ever, ever, ever read. Yes. I remember being very surprised.

If anyone has an alternative link, I'd love a better one.

Hmm

I should do work at work today. Let me consider this thoroughly.

ETA

God Chosen by cat_77 - IT IS SO AWESOME! HOLY BORN KID! IN ROBES! AND STUFF!

Okay, I feel crappy, so I like to even out the universe. Per usual, long recs, or, Jenn's Number System of Utter Love For a Fic.

For reference:

Checkmate'verse by beadattitude

There is nothing about this story that I don't utterly love, from the transformation, to John's coping, to everyone else's coping, to Rodney the cat-person and John-person.

( all the things I love. with numbers! )

I'm looking forward to the end of this so much. It's just that awesome.

Other longer recs of fic are under the long recs tag. I think I have most of them under there now, but still hunting them.

Before I forget again.

Checkmate'verse by beadattitude is so awesome it defies words. John! Cat! Rodney! Belly rubs!

If you haven't read it yet, you *need* to. It's adorable and fun and so *cool*. Saying more will spoil, so plz go and *read*.

Healing Scars by liketheriverrun - John/Rodney. Lovely exploration of scars and the memories they hold, set post Tao of Rodney.

An Exchange of Words by kriadydragon - Ronon, John, gen. Set early season two, in the scars challenge. A *good* view of Ronon and John at the beginning of their friendship, still wary and uncertain but learning each other. I just--don't see nearly enough John and Ronon friendship--well, John and Ronon anything--and this one hit the mark beautifully for both characters.

remix_redux names are up!

Okay, the remixer of my fic was by miss_porcupine, which, right, not a surprise, but still utterly, *mindblowingly* perfect.

The Pledge and the Turn by miss_porcupine, remix of What I Look For On the Sides of Mountains.

To me, ideally, a remix is the author taking the original story as their own, doing what the author can't. And in this case, it's utterly true; miss_porcupine does everything I can't and never thought of--the part of Altantis that's reports and explanations and carefully worded summaries and politics, in a very subtle way. And how Lorne does his own kind of remixes, which amusees me a lot on some level.

And I love, love, how Lorne connected the dots using minimal data and a lot of very smart conjecture. And I love how Lorne's learned to read Sheppard by reading his team. It's great.

But short version--it's good. It's awesome. It's pretty much *fantastic*. And Lorne is so perfect he makes me smile.

Thanks miss_porcupine. I'm honored beyond words.

Gift Horse by liketheriver, SGA, Sheppard/McKay. Awesome misunderstanding and warm cuddliness. Actually, despite differences in style, it vaguely reminds me of that one by sleepswithcoyotes, how everything kept going wrong and seriously. This is tea-drinking fic. Settle in and read.

The Life You Lead by , SGA, Sheppard/McKay. Awesome amensia fic, lovely interaction--totally a warm tea-drinking story.

Jelly Side Up by devildoll

I really wish there was a way to summarize this. SGA, Sheppard/McKay, and the Cock of Wonder. Sort of.

I thought it would be fun to write my own version of a Magic Cock, and, well. Blame them, not me.

Yeah. Read now.

always should be someone you really love by thingswithwings, SGA, Sheppard/McKay, which totally restored my faith in genderfuck. Very awesome. And *fascinating* for that matter. It's hot, yes, but interesting as well above and beyond that. I really, really like what she's done with this.

In celebration of being good with labels, I am goign to try *really really hard* and remember that not everyone is psychically attuned to my brain and cannot guess by random squeeing what a story is about or, hell, what *fandom* it is.

So, I'm in the low-appreciation-for-the-world place. So. Comfort fics. Probably have recced before.

Time in a Bottle by astolat - limited holographic environments never get old. I was torn between the claustrophobia of the beginning--which is fairly hard to get across when they're trapped in a beachhouse, but I was totally there with them freaking out--to the widening of the world with their minds. There's some lesson in here about the space within our minds being endless, but honestly, I'm so not in the pseudo-analytical place. I'm mostly in the warm, comfy place. The piano lessons and physics lessons and just--everything. I think this is the one I printed out for my flight to Vancouver a couple of years ago. It still just makes me quietly, quietly happy.

An Aesthetic, Solitary Thing by eliade - Alien!McKay! That is never not fun. And it's sweet, and they're friends and there is pon farr kind of, and wings and how can this not be love? Awesome.

As Lost As You Get by lilysaid - a really awesome Epiphany what if. Rodney is awesome in here, and so are his insights into the society of proto-Ancients wandering around being useless and boring. Loved.

*****

And that reminds me.

One of the few what-if's I've never been curious to write but thought would be interesting is if they hadn't been able to get to John until he'd given up in sheer unrelenting boredom and Ascended. And possible Descended, or whatever the word is, popping up naked and--whoa, wait.

....

Yeah. Good times. Naked in Atlantis after say, three days of him being lost behind the field. Post-Ascension Rodney, otoh, always worries me--unlike John, I'm not sure Rodney would come back. I'm still thinking about it.

You know, I wonder, if say all of Atlantis one day just randomly Ascended, which ones would want to go back.

Kidnapping! Assignations! Romance! Danger! Um--what's the word--INTRIGUE!

A Dangerous Desire or McKay Makes a Match by janne_d -- I have the *hugest* thing for regency romance. Huge. And this? This is *fun*. God so fun. Sheppard/Mckay, and all--with the pants! And cravats! And forbidden love! And etcetera!

So freaking *perfect*. I'm going to wallow now, 'kay?

I feel I should post something more interesting than I bought a new outfit to go with my shoes (that still are hard on the big knuckle of my foot, sadly) or I finally had a cinnabon and totally understand the hype, or that I have Godiva chocolate liquor and it's good, but honestly, not as great as I'd thought. Hoped. Whatever.

So I'll rec.

History of Maps by rageprufrock, Rodney, John/Rodney, sequel to Cartography by Touch. Which isn't up at her new site yet, but I'll be honestly surprised if anyone in SGA reading this hasn't read it yet.

It's even softer than the first, and more abrasive, because it's Rodney and he's merciless with himself, and it's lovely, and it hurts because it's about John, and Rodney's been with him on this journey just as alone and only able to watch. It's different and the same as the first--the same easy pace, the same uncomplicated life being lived, except everything is complicated now. I really--I just really love this story.

( cartography, rape, fic, neuroses )

From 14valentines

Ties by yin_again - Teyla/OMC, Teyla/Ronon, Sheppard/McKay. Highly recced, both for the lovely story and the relevance to women's health. I'll use yin_again's summary: No one was particularly surprised when Teyla started dating. Several people were surprised that the person she was dating wasn’t Ronon.

It's very good, and very team, and very family.

Hmm.

Okay, I'm having one of those days where all the clients who call ask reasonable questions I can answer, no one uses unlikely profanity, and there's a very good chance that I won't speculate that the general intelligence of the population is on a downswing. Well, mostly. I have my doubts regarding certain metropolises and the entirety of the federal agency controlling Medicare. But still.

Huh. So this is what a good day is like.

I should mark this on a calendar somewhere. It's very--weird.

Also, our staff meeting today was funny. Possibly because there was sharing of the naked flashing home visit client and how it a lottery system decided who had to go.

*****

Recs

14valentines got off to a seriously energetic start, with this post from rageprufrock

I wrote, last year today, about women like the burst-open lips of figs, about how women have worn their history as odalisks and sacrifices and mothers and daughters and victims like jewelry -- I wrote about how despite all of this, we sometimes forget how far we have come, and more importantly how far we have yet to go.

And to add in, her first fic offering:

Bang, in which John is not a battered woman. Really.

Seriously. Lots of fic, images, and ideas in there. Check it out.

Benched by cesperanza - Okay, I say angsty, but it's angsty in a very fun, tension-building, no body-parts-removed-in-gruesome-ways type of way.

(...I bet by that you can guess I was reading SPN this weekend and discovered the word angst covered things that maybe sort of kind of traumatized me.)

But awesome. Rodney is very brave, and John is very much a mother hen, and everyone else is just awesome.

Randomly, completely unrelated to the above except for that one scene between Elizabeth and John in there.

I have been wondering just what kind of knots John would tie himself into if he was in charge of Atlantis and therefore never allowed to join a gate team and wander off but had to watch and worry and break items into small pieces when other people went and disappeared. I have this horrible suspicion that John would dig deep into his military surveillance education and lojack everyone. It would totally be 1984, except with--well. Hmm. More attractive people.

Child felt poorly, so stayed home today. Weird side note: I am apparently most inspired to write apocalypse-fic while I'm at work.

That is funny. Admit it. That's *hilarious*. I'm sitting there in my cubicle writing stuff like this:

Dean hasn't seen a calendar in years; he knows the seasons by the movement of the sun, the feel of the earth shifting from warm to cold. The world tastes like September, and Dean remembers west Texas in flat land stretching in marker-thick strips of vivid brown and black, the yellow tops of maize waving in pre-autumn winds, threshers moving complacently through the fields with drowsy men in hats waving at the road. He remembers green and gold fields of cows placid under the sun, half-year calves running on the outskirts of the herds. He remembers these were what he saw between jobs, lives being lived that had nothing to do with creeping twilight and sleeping only behind salt circles and ritual wards.

*****

Words, words, words

One of the things I perenially repress and encourage is my sheer love of building pictures through words. I fight it off for periods of time I like to call phases of insanity, because going too deep that way ends you with stuff like Flight, which I leave up at my website as a constant reminder never to let my passion for overwriting overcome say, writing an actual story.

*eyes it* I swear, I'd use that sucker as a teaching exercise in everything you should never do in writing. Right up there with writing about sex without once ever letting the reader know anyone was having sex and not just a really intense acid flashback.

I was thinking about how I tend to categorize writers into fairly distinct camps. These camps--or you know, groups, what have you--have less to do with fandom, skill level, ability to punctuate properly, or even style. It's--hard to explain except by this idea that there are some writers, good or bad, who write from a place I can comprehend and some from a place I can't. It's a style thing, but it's also something else entirely. It's almost like the equivalent of realizing that your light spectrum isn't theirs. It's has nothing to do with intrpretation of canon, characters, pairing, or even tone of the story, because all of them have and did and will write my OTP at one time or another. It's something they bring into the fic that's more than I didn't see it before they wrote it; it's that before they wrote it, I never knew it was there. More than even that, there is no way as my mind is shaped that I could have seen it. I guess it may have a lot to do with style, but it's more than even that. They're seeing a world I don't, and I can't, not until they show me. And they see it in a way that I never could.

I'm trying to put together a short list of writers and fic that gave me this start of shock, but putting it in words is a lot like trying to describe a visceral reaction--I can't explain my claustrophobia, just tell you it's there, and it will make me go nuts in fairly short order. I can tell you they blew my mind writing the most mundane things in such a way that I saw a brand new world, but honestly, that sounds creepily like some kind of orgasmic-religious experience.

Okay, got one. Below the cut.

( basingstoke, 3jane, kharessa, rachel sabotini )

When I think of Jane St. Clair's Tom Paris in Kiev, I sometimes think of John Sheppard in America. Seventeenish, after Rodney brought him back and brought him up and couldn't let him go. Awkwardly antisocial and still filled with memories he only finds in his dreams of alien skies and worlds his feet have never stepped foot on. Of people that are growing to be more memory than reality when Atlantis went silent one horrified day and Rodney broke down in his office when John came home from classes.

When they told Rodney that the gate wouldn't engage and Atlantis was lost to them.

I think John took it badly.

Like a Dream in the Morning by leahwoof - SGA/Torchwood crossover. Interesting use and combination of both universes, and it was just--wow. I liked this a *lot*.