Fandom: SGA
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: John/Rodney
Length: 3400 words
Summary: P4R-378 was host to ferocious biannual geomagnetic storms that made the surface completely uninhabitable for six weeks. Of course, they had discovered this the hard way.

A/N: For sheafrotherdon's Skin Hunger Challenge.

"Wow, I thought you were pale before," said Rodney, mostly because no one was saying anything at all. No one was moving; they all seemed stricken by paralyzing uncertainty, Sheppard most of all. Elizabeth would have broken form by now, done that thing where she flew at Sheppard with her long graceful limbs and hugged the hell out of him in spite of the warning signs Sheppard was throwing up like jumper shields: maintain a perimeter, danger, danger, danger. But, of course, Elizabeth was gone.

"Let's just get through the gate," said Sheppard, voice scratchy from disuse. "I never want to see this rock again."

Teyla and Ronon exchanged glances and led the way without another word. Rodney instinctively waited because he'd been on away missions enough to know that the most vulnerable team member took up the middle position and, well -- today, for once, that wasn't Rodney, so Rodney would take their six. Except Sheppard had one hand on his newly reacquired P-90 and he was staring Rodney down, daring him to insist. For all that Sheppard looked like he was about to keel over in the dirt, eyes screwed almost shut against the weak morning light -- it was obvious that he was going to take their six in spite of any protests Rodney might lodge.

Rodney acquiesced, but not without an eye roll.

They almost made it to the gate.

Six weeks earlier

P4R-378 was host to ferocious biannual geomagnetic storms that made the surface completely uninhabitable for six weeks. Of course, they had discovered this the hard way.

"A system of underground caverns," Teyla told the rest of the team as they crested yet another rocky ridge and began to pick their way down into a rust-coloured barren gully. "I believe there is a native fungus that serves as a good staple for their diets, and of course there are underground springs. The Illuti are skilled metalsmiths and trade their wares for such food as they need to supplement their meals."

"Native fungus?" said Sheppard, who picked even the canned sliced mushrooms off his pizza in the cafeteria, who had sighed heavily and chosen the notorious beef barley soup over cream of mushroom.

"They have been successful in avoiding the Wraith for generations," said Teyla, but her tone wasn't without sympathy. "I believe they have not been culled for over a cent--"

They stopped and stared at the twisted wreckage that had just come into view: a Wraith cruiser, not ancient and sagging into the landscape like the one where Gall had died, but fresh and sharp-looking. Rodney blinked and realized he was the only one of his team who hadn't dropped down onto his belly. Sheppard yanked at his pant leg and Rodney clumsily joined him on the ground, heart thumping.

Sheppard braced his P-90 against the top of the boulder in front of him and shot a sideward glance at Rodney. Rodney was disturbed to see that Sheppard was half-smiling, the psycho. "Wanna learn how to lob a flash-bang, McKay?" said Sheppard.

Rodney's mouth went dry, because, yeah. He kind of did. He felt his own slightly-psycho smile rise to his mouth.

"In my vest," said Sheppard, "third pocket on this side, just -- be careful."

It was only when Rodney pulled his hand back out of Sheppard's vest, fist closed around the grenade, that he noticed the blue light limned around his skin, the way the hairs on Sheppard's forearm were standing straight up. "Oh, crap," said Rodney, and fumbled for his scanners.

Today

"Dial it up!" Sheppard bellowed from behind Rodney, adding, "Go, go, go!" Up ahead, they could see Teyla standing at the DHD, Ronon tensed with his blaster aimed somewhere behind Rodney and Sheppard but Rodney couldn't pause to see where and how far behind, thinking only of making it to the gate and getting Sheppard home at last.

The wormhole burst to life and Ronon fired twice, did the quick head flick that meant he'd missed and he was angry. Sheppard was right behind Rodney but his breath was coming hard and fast and all Rodney could think was that six-feet-high pitch-black tunnels weren't conducive to jogging as a work-out, and that meant that Sheppard was possibly in worse condition than *Rodney* and why the hell had Rodney let Sheppard get their six?

"Go!" hollered Sheppard again, "we're right behind you, go, go!"

Teyla went, and Ronon lifted his blaster to fire once more before diving after her. Rodney was ten feet away from the event horizon, sprinting heavily past the DHD, eight, seven, six --

"McKay!" said Sheppard, and Rodney reeled around to see that the Wraith almost had John. He was just behind John, reaching for him. Rodney fumbled his sidearm up and out and fired three times, breathing deep and sure and knowing that he could not screw this one up because they'd just gotten Sheppard back.

A fourth shot, more panicked because the Wraith was still moving, ricocheted with a metal whizzing noise. The wormhole flickered out. But the shots had slowed the Wraith long enough for Sheppard to turn around and plug the bastard with a few dozen rounds from the P-90. Not a second too soon, the Wraith collapsed, and Sheppard staggered backwards from the momentum of terror and landed on his back, gun still aiming up.

"Are you okay?" Rodney panted, reaching Sheppard's side, reaching out for Sheppard and then stopping because Sheppard was still radiating aggression and anger.

"I'm fine," said Sheppard, pupils blown and white hands trembling. "Dial the fucking gate, let's just."

Rodney moved towards the DHD. "Oh, no. No, no, no." A tiny bullet hole from Rodney's last ill-advised round, and a darkened control crystal was visible in the DHD's exposed innards. "No," said Rodney, and stuck his hands into the console's guts.

"Don't say that," said Sheppard, almost piteously, "don't you *fucking* dare say that!"

"I killed the DHD," Rodney admitted, and collapsed onto his ass on the hard rusty ground.

Six weeks earlier

"We've got to move, now!" Rodney exclaimed, and stared up at the sky. It had boiled into an ominous split-pea coloured fog sometime in the past half hour and now pink-purple starbursts of energy were spidering across the clouds. "There's a massive geomagnetic storm on the build, I don't know how the MALP missed it but we are so screwed if we don't go this second."

"How long do we have?" asked Sheppard, retrieving the flash-bang Rodney had left on the ground and tucking it away.

"Fifteen minutes," Rodney said, twiddling with his scanner. "If we're lucky."

"It took us twenty minutes from the gate," Ronon said. "Even if we run," he started to say, then stopped and looked up at the sky. "We should shelter in the caves," he said.

"Oh, yes, the fungus- and Wraith-infested caves, great plan," snapped Rodney. "No, we've got to get to the gate, we have no idea how long the storm might last and we've only got provisions for a day trip."

"Okay, let's move," said Sheppard, and waved the team away from the rock outcropping where they'd been sheltering. "With any luck the Wraith will stay put until the storm can kill them." He hauled Rodney upright by his tac vest and patted him on the shoulder, making brief eye contact. "Ready to run for your life?"

"Only if the alternative is dying," Rodney answered, and reached up before he could stop himself, delivering the briefest of hand squeezes with his palm on top of Sheppard's hand.

"It always is," said Sheppard, blinking innocently. "That's sort of the definition of 'running for your life'." He pulled his hand back and hiked his gun under his elbow. "Teyla, you're with me on point. Ronon, you take our six. If McKay slows down, shoot him."

Today

"The Daedalus is in Pegasus," said Rodney, "and even if it wasn't, Lorne could short-cut through the McKay-Carter Bridge and pick us up in less than a day."

Sheppard was slouched up against a rock. "I can't believe you shot the DHD."

"Yes, well, if you hadn't insisted on taking our six like a lunatic," Rodney sniped back, "you could have been the one shooting at the Wraith instead of me. Also? I shot him three times, center mass. And you're welcome."

"I really hate this planet," said Sheppard. "And these pants." He picked at the pants, which were honestly looking a bit disgusting after a six-week sojourn in a dark cave. "I miss my other pants." He looked up at Rodney. "Please tell me you have food."

"Of course I have food," said Rodney, trying to keep up his annoyed tone but falling so short of the mark that he sounded downright consoling. He wrestled with his pack and pulled out a handful of powerbars. "Raspberry granola," he said, and tossed it at Sheppard. "And, oh hey! Yogos!"

"Gimme," said Sheppard, hand out.

Rodney tossed the package of yogurt snacks at Sheppard before treating him to a long visual examination. "You don't have scurvy or rickets, do you?"

"There were storerooms left from the Illuti," said Sheppard, focused on getting into the foil packet. "Canned goods. Jars of preserves. I did okay."

"I can't believe the Wraith survived that storm," said Rodney, brow wrinkled. "Maybe he sheltered in the downed cruiser? Teyla didn't sense him, not before and not this time, but Keller thinks that maybe it's the electromagnetic field around the planet, that it blocks the hive collective consciousness. Which is, of course, a great idea for a weapon, except implementing it on a large scale -- even if we could somehow reproduce the field here -- would be incredibly difficult, but maybe for smaller-scale ops, surgical strikes, that sort of thing." Rodney opened his mouth to go on when it suddenly occurred to him that Sheppard might be a bit overwhelmed by the flow of words after six weeks spent in silence. "I'll shut up now," he offered, looking over at Sheppard again.

"No," said Sheppard, hands stroking over the metal of his P-90. "Keep going. It's good to hear another voice." He smirked and met Rodney's gaze. "Even yours, McKay."

Six weeks earlier

They almost made it to the gate.

There was a blast and Rodney was flat on his face, the wind knocked out of him by Ronon's body over his. "Stay down," Ronon ordered, and knelt up on Rodney's back to fire behind them. "Wraith," said Ronon, flattening himself on the ground next to Rodney while Sheppard and Teyla took their turns rattling rounds into the distance. "Come on," he said, and pulled Rodney's arm as they duck-walked around the rock ridges towards where Teyla and Sheppard were stationed.

The wind was kicking up and now even the bang of the P-90s was almost inaudible over the shrieking of the air.

"Dial it," Sheppard told Ronon, and Ronon ran for the DHD. The blue light that had been faint around Rodney's hand had brightened to a vivid cobalt aura around everything in view. Sheppard's hair was fanning out around his head in unusually symmetrical fashion and Rodney's teeth were beginning to zing around his fillings. "What does this storm do?" shouted Sheppard, between bursts of gunfire. "Are we talking radiation sickness?"

"That's one possibility," yelled Rodney. "There are theories that geomagnetic storms on this scale can scramble brainwave activity and cause neurological problems -- it's like a computer crashing."

"The gate is open!" Teyla shouted at them. She and Sheppard both shoved Rodney to his feet while Ronon provided cover fire, and so Rodney was the first one through the event horizon. He didn't see what happened after that, because he'd barely gotten through the gate when Ronon crashed in behind him, collapsed to the floor of the gate room, and started seizing. Teyla was next, pale but upright, and then the wormhole flickered out.

"John?" Rodney asked, and she shook her head.

Today

"There's a cave entrance about twenty meters that way," Sheppard told Rodney, crumpling up the third powerbar wrapper and nodding towards a cliff face to their right. "I headed straight there because I thought I might be able to shelter under the overhang, protect myself from some of the radiation. Found a hole, crawled in, and kept crawling until it opened up into a corridor."

"We thought," said Rodney, and waved his hand. "Well. Ronon was in the infirmary for two days after we got back. So."

Sheppard nodded slowly. "After the first week down there, I thought maybe the storm wouldn't stop." He unstopped his canteen and tilted a few swallows of water down his throat. "When I woke up this morning and it was quiet, I thought maybe I had just gone deaf."

"We knew," said Rodney, "once we had a chance to scan the planet from orbit and run the data by some xenometeorologists from the SGC, we knew that it would be six weeks. We just didn't know if you." He stopped short and surveyed Sheppard, pasty and thin and angular and isolated. "We're glad to see you," Rodney said, unhappily.

Six weeks and half a day earlier

"I don't know, something about naquadah miners and a potential for trade," John said, hauling on his shoelaces, all elbows and messy bed-head and sleepy morning eyes.

Rodney grunted and burrowed into the warm place John had vacated. "Will there be food?"

"I don't know, Teyla didn't say," John answered, reaching down to pick yesterday's t-shirt off the floor. He smelled it experimentally and then pulled it over his head. "An hour," he said, face emerging from the neckline. "Oh, not mine," he said, looking down in dismay at Rodney's navy t-shirt with the words 'my cat thinks you're stupid' across the chest.

Rodney smirked into the pillow, unreasonably happy that this was finally happening, that it was so easy and unexpected and that John was half-awake and wearing Rodney's t-shirt and frowning with confusion. "Hey," he said, watching John writhe back out of the shirt.

"Yeah," John said, squinting around the floor.

"Hey," Rodney said again, more meaningfully.

"Yeah?" John repeated, turning. "Oh. Hey." He met Rodney's eyes and his mouth twisted like he was trying not to smile. He blinked slowly, dipped his gaze meaningfully, and then leaned in. "Good morning," he said against Rodney's mouth, not quite touching, not quite grinning.

Rodney got one slumber-heavy hand up to fist it in John's hair, hauled him in, threw him off balance so he fell laughing against Rodney. His stubbled chin scraped along Rodney's bare shoulder, and it burned, but all Rodney could think was that John felt nice in the morning, in Rodney's bed, against Rodney's skin.

Today

When the sun set, the heat disappeared from the landscape with it. Rodney huddled deeper into his jacket and watched Sheppard do the same. There were probably blankets underground in the Illuti's desolated homes, but Rodney knew better than to suggest that they go back there, that Sheppard could go underground again for any reason. They'd be better off freezing.

Sheppard had been silent for over an hour. Even in the dark, there was a halo of misery around him, like an invisible version of the blue light that had surrounded him the last time Rodney saw him on this planet. "I'm sorry I shot the DHD," Rodney said, because Sheppard needed to be home so badly that it made Rodney's joints ache with sympathy.

Sheppard bunched his shoulders up in his jacket. "You shot the Wraith," he said.

Rodney shifted on the hard ground, pulled his knees towards his chest to conserve heat the way Sheppard had taught him. "Are you all right? The rock should have shielded you from the worst of the radiation and the EM field, but"--

--"I'm fine," Sheppard bit out, and dropped his head down towards his knees. "I just want…" He trailed off, expression unreadable in the dark.

"To be home, I know," Rodney sighed.

"Actually," said Sheppard, a moment later, his voice almost unrecognizable with the strain in his tone. "Actually, I just want."

"What?" Rodney asked, trying to guess what Sheppard was saying and failing.

"You said it was six weeks?" Sheppard said, clearing his throat. "I lost track, I couldn't tell day from night and all my equipment quit because of the storm."

"Six weeks," Rodney confirmed, but the words refused to come out as matter-of-fact as he wanted, and instead he sounded choked and horrified. Suddenly seized with the panic he hadn't let himself feel since Teyla had made that small sad gesture of negation, Rodney lunged across the space separating him from Sheppard, dipped both hands into the black space around Sheppard's body, grabbed hold of Sheppard's face, pulled him in until he was pressed tight to Rodney's shoulder, cradled like something terrifyingly necessary.

It took the space of three panicked breaths before Rodney could register that Sheppard wasn't tense or pushing away or punching Rodney in the face -- he was breathing fast and shallow and then he was pushing himself closer, arms going around Rodney's torso, body melting into Rodney's space, hands clenching fistfuls of Rodney's uniform. "Oh god, Rodney," said John. "I need"--

"Shh," said Rodney, because he couldn't hear John finish that sentence, couldn't bear that he'd inadvertently left John needing something this badly for the space of hours. Instead he drew back gently, just enough to readjust his hands, to slip his cold fingers up behind John's jacket and t-shirt, slide up the warm smooth expanse of skin, bury his nose and mouth in the hollow between John's neck and shoulder, breathe and seek John's scent and taste as hungrily as John was seeking Rodney's.

"You thought you'd be alone here for the rest of your life," said Rodney, because John couldn't. "You thought we wouldn’t ever come for you."

It was cold in the night air but John pulled up Rodney's shirt, pulled up his own, and made a small noise of bliss when they moved back together and skin kissed skin.

"You thought that after all this time together on Atlantis, we ended up only having one stupid single night after all," Rodney added, because the thought had been crawling through his mind with disgusting persistence since they left John behind. "But we have more than that," he promised fervently. "As many nights as you want, John, as many as we can get, I swear."

John opened his mouth against Rodney's jaw line and exhaled shakily, moving from pressing anxiety to languid joy in the space of the breath. His fingers released their hold, began drifting in circles over Rodney's back, his forehead dropped onto Rodney's shoulder, his whole body dropping into warm bonelessness. For long minutes, they kept touching, Rodney relearning the shape of John's thinner frame, John seeking lazy purchase on Rodney's skin.

"What do you think," said John finally, tilting his head back and quirking his mouth at Rodney, "worst morning after ever?"

"Shut up, you'll jinx it," said Rodney fondly, and moved his mouth down over John's, not quite touching. "Hey," he said, welcoming John back a little belatedly.

"Hey," said John, kissing Rodney neatly. "It's good to see you."

Tomorrow

Tomorrow, when they have time and light and white bright sheets, Rodney will spread John out like a half-read partly-understood thesis, and he will trace his fingertips over every inch until John laughs, until John complains, until John grabs Rodney's hands and guides them where he wants them, until the hungry lean look in John's eyes is submerged under layers of comfort and satiety and familiarity.

I would find a way, Rodney will tell John, if it took six weeks or six years, I would find a way to get you home.

And later, when John is Sheppard again, sitting in the cafeteria in his fresh pants with his fresh haircut, picking the mushrooms out of his omelette and making a face, Rodney will kick John under the table to get his attention -- just long enough to lift the corner of his mouth, asking hey, are you okay?. Sheppard will raise his eyebrow in response (you're such a dork, I can't believe I'm sleeping with you) and Rodney will beam and kick Sheppard again and know that Sheppard is back, safe and sound.