Archive of Our Own

“Leaving?” And as Evan was still trying to get his head around the concept that they were being kicked out of Atlantis by the very Ancients they’d rescued, the rest of what Colonel Sheppard had just said hit him.  “Forty-eight hours?”

Colonel Sheppard’s face was almost completely without expression as Evan parroted him. That in itself was a warning sign.

 “We can be ready in twelve, sir, or faster if we have to,” Evan said, “but the scientists…”

At that Colonel Sheppard’s lack of expression wavered and he stared at Evan with what Evan was pretty certain was a mirror image of the despair on his own face.

“Do what you can, Lorne,” he said.  “And make sure we get all the personnel evacuated. No matter what Rodney says, they’re a bit more important – well, less easy to explain away if they go missing – than his research.”

“Yes, sir.”

As Colonel Sheppard moved away, his stride unusually purposeful, Evan realised he was going to have to get out of all the bad habits he’d gotten into.  Things like not saluting senior officers.  Colonel Sheppard’s preferences wouldn’t wash on Earth, and they were going to be back there in forty-eight hours time.  Forty-seven hours and fifty-six minutes, actually.  And in that time they had a full military contingent to move, with all their kit, and whatever else they’d managed to accrue while in Pegasus.  The problem was, that was the easy part.  Couldn’t Colonel Sheppard have given him a bunch of cats and some particularly vicious geese to herd instead?

***

He’d started off with the geologists, figuring professional courtesy had to count for something.  They’d actually been more organised than they’d appeared.  Or perhaps the horrifying prospect of losing their research had led them to superhuman feats.  Whatever the reason, they’d managed to get it all packed away in the boxes that the QM had supplied within the time that Evan had allowed them.

That experience might have lulled him into a false sense of security because after half an hour in Dr McKay’s lab, Evan wasn’t sure whether to shoot McKay or himself.  But for all that, McKay had seemed less argumentative than usual.  In fact, if Evan was a more fanciful man, he might think that Dr McKay looked somehow lost, standing in the middle of his lab and watching it being slowly taken apart around him. 

But Evan was not a fanciful man, and he didn’t have time to think about the fact they were leaving Atlantis.  He had to make sure they hit the deadline and didn’t leave a single thing behind.  Except for all the things that didn’t belong on Earth, of course, like Dr Parrish’s collection of Pegasus plants.  And Teyla and Ronon.  His ribs still ached from saying goodbye to Ronon, and he wasn’t going to think of Teyla’s expression as she had wished him well, because he didn’t have time for that now. And then there was Dr Parrish. If McKay had looked lost, Parrish had been bereft.

He now got why the place they kept plants was called a nursery, because it seemed as if, for Parrish, every single plant was one of his children. Some better-behaved than others, of course, but it hadn’t stopped him caring for each and every one of them.

“You can’t take them with us, Doc, you know that,” Evan had said, trying to be sympathetic but needing to get the man moving.  Forty-one hours and eighteen minutes were left in which to ensure every last part of the expedition’s belongings were stowed, ready for transport.

“But now we’ll never know if the luna mutatio rubricosa really does change colour on the full moon. And we’re so close, just another few days.”

“I know, Doc,” Evan had said. “But –

“And the williamsonia sewardiana and the way it survived such destructive ionising radiation.  And we still don’t know how.”

“I know –”

“And what about the opuntia pegasus, and who will take care of the camur castaneus vulgaris because they need so much attention until they’re fully grown, and oh, the soldarius absorbio-”

At that point Evan had to step in because seeing tears in a grown man’s eyes over a giant plant that had almost eaten one of the Marines – they’d gotten him out again before the thing had started to digest him, thank God – well, that just wasn’t right.

“Come on, Doc,” he said, putting his hand on Dr Parrish’s bowed shoulder and steering him over to his work desk.  “The Ancients will take care of them.  If you give them instructions about the canur-”

“Camur,” Dr Parrish corrected him absently, then tore his eyes from his collection of plants which Evan had to admit looked rather droopy and forlorn already.  “You really think they’ll be okay?”

“Sure of it,” he said.  “Come on, let’s get the kit squared away before all this starts to affect them.”

Dr Parrish looked at him, obviously not sure if he was being made fun of, or if Evan was just a bit dim.  “They’re not sentient, you know.”

“But they might be sensitive to atmosphere,” Evan pointed out, “like plants preferring classical music to rock.”

“Actually, there are a lot of question marks over the methodology used in that study.  More recent research indicates that sounds at specific frequencies stimulate certain genes.”

“But what if it’s more than that?” Evan said, from where he was currently trying to fit as many stacks of round flowerpots as was physically possible into a square packing case, pleased to have finally gotten Doc Parrish’s attention on shutting down various laptops rather than staring mournfully at the plants.  “I mean, there’s the way that plants signal danger to one another.  They may not be sentient but they react to stimuli.  Who knows what sort of stimuli our emotions might provide?”

“Well I suppose…  That’s an interesting…  Do you like plants, Major Lorne?”

“I guess,” Evan said. He didn’t dislike them. He’d just never thought about them.

Doc Parrish seemed to deflate. 

“A buddy of mine’s got a spider plant,” Evan said, trying to cheer him along again. “It keeps having babies. He gives them away to anyone who’ll take one because he feels bad just throwing them out, though I think that’s mainly because he’s scared of the colleague who gave him the plant.”  Evan didn’t think Megan would waste a second thought on the plant she’d given away during her move, and he didn’t know how she was supposed to find out anyway from her new job in Washington, but that was Colby for you.

“Oh, the chlorophytum comosum will do that.”  And while Doc Parrish explained with great detail and even greater enthusiasm the inner workings of the chlorophytum comosum, they managed to get at least half the lab cleared before he broke off to water the little brown plants he’d been so worried about earlier.  As he watched Doc Parrish run a bony but gentle finger along the spiky leaves of one of them, it almost seemed to Evan that the plant responded. It seemed he wasn’t the only one thinking that, because Doc Parrish’s shoulders slumped again.

“You want to grab something to eat?” Evan asked. He’d been at this for eight hours straight and could do with something.

“Have we got time?”

“I could get a few Marines in to do some more packing while we’re gone, if you tell them what they can and can’t touch.”

Evan’s hopes weren’t high.  The geologists had looked at him as if he’d suggested igneous rock was metamorphic when he’d suggested military assistance, but Doc Parrish surprised him by agreeing.

The mess hall was full – SOPs ruled that it, along with the infirmary and armory would be last to be dismantled – but almost silent. As the dispiriting atmosphere hit Evan, he almost wished he hadn’t come, but his practical side reasserted itself.  He had to eat.  He still had another forty-odd hours to go, give or take some time for sleep.

They got their rations and Evan led the way to a table in the corner, as far away from the balcony as possible. He didn’t want the reminder of what they were about to lose.

Doc Parrish tucked into the fake mashed potato with the enthusiasm of a man who either had no taste buds or was really hungry.  Evan swallowed his own down, though it tasted like cardboard.

“What do you think the Air Force will have you doing back on Earth?” Dr Parrish asked him once the bulk of his plate was cleared.

Evan shrugged.  He had no idea, and that was part of the problem. “Could be anything,” he said.  “How about you, Doc?”

“David, please,” Dr Parrish – David – said.  “I’ll probably return to university life, but it will seem so workaday after Pegasus.”

“Yeah,” Evan said, and pushed his plate away.

“I suppose we’ll get to see friends and family more often.”  David tried to sound positive.

There was that.  There was most definitely that.  Depending on where SGC sent him, he might actually get to see Colby more than four or five times a year.  If he were to be posted to Area 51, he’d practically be on Colby’s doorstep.  Suddenly the bleakness that had been swamping him didn’t feel quite so overwhelming.

“Yeah,” he said again, but this time he smiled at David.

David looked down at his plate, ears pink.  “I – er – We’d better get back to the packing.”

By the time all the botany labs were done, Evan could report in to Colonel Sheppard with a clear conscience that they were about an hour ahead of schedule.  Colonel Sheppard’s eyebrows rose.  “You didn’t just get bored and blow Botany up, did you?”

“Bored, yes; C4, no,” Evan said.  “The botanists are actually okay for scientists.” 

“Seeing as you’re so good with the scientists, you get the physicists next,” Colonel Sheppard said, and pretended not to hear Evan’s faint whimper.

***

They had twenty-two hours left when Colonel Sheppard’s voice came over the city tannoy.

“Okay, so here’s the thing.  If there’s anything you think you might have left lying around in a secluded storeroom somewhere, this is your chance to go get it, no questions asked.  All personnel will be expected to be in their quarters or workspace by 0800hrs.  You’ve got twelve hours, people – get to it.”

And thank God for Colonel Sheppard, because Evan had been racking his brains about how they were supposed to retrieve all the illegal stills out there, let alone the supplies left by amorous couples for future rendezvous, and that was just the stuff he knew about. 

For an instant he stopped in his labelling of the gym equipment, now all broken down and boxed away, and thought about going to find his favourite balcony to check he hadn’t left any paintbrushes out there.  It was only for an instant.  He had too much to do.  Things such as realise that the Marine working industriously next to him had been too quiet for too long. It was out of character for him, and worrying.  Evan glanced over to check, and found the suspicious silence was down to the ferocious concentration Coporal Smythe was employing on his work.

“There’s only one n and no e in Bantos Rods, Smythe.”

“Yes sir.  Sorry sir.” Smythe scrawled black marker pen over his first attempt and labelled the box again.

“And there’s no – you know what, never mind.”  Evan gave up.  He knew when he was fighting a losing battle. “When you’re clear here, you’ve got six hours to go say goodbye to Atlantis. And to disassemble the brewery you and Taylor and the others have got going by the South Pier.”

Smythe’s eyes bugged out of his head.  “Sir. Yes, sir. How did you –?”

“The Air Force sees all and knows all, Corporal.”

Evan got to his feet, glanced round one last time at the gymnasium, and then had to check his tablet to find out what was next on his schedule.  He was getting punch drunk.  Oh joy, the junior ranks’ common room.  He knew it would be immaculate by now under the eagle eye of the Master Sergeant who would have ensured every last semi-pornographic poster had been taken down, but he was the one who would need to sign off on it.  He trudged off on his entirely unnecessary mission.

On his way back, he ran into David Parrish.

“Oh, Major, I was hoping to see you again.”

“What can I do for you, Doc? David,” he caught himself.

“Well I was thinking about the camur castaneus vulgaris, and you know I’m not at all sure the Ancients will take care of them, because they do need a lot of attention unless they’re in their natural habitat and-”

Evan raised his hand to cut off the flow of words, and David obediently stopped talking.  The botanists definitely got Evan’s vote for the best scientists.

“Any of your botanists good at spelling?”

“Well, yes, but I don’t see-.”

Evan tapped his ear piece.  “Smythe?  You’re sprung from gym duty.  I need you to take a puddlejumper of botanists and plants over to the mainland.  Take some spades too – you’re going gardening.”

“Sir, yes sir,” came the mystified response.

“David, I want one of your team down in the gym, making sure the labels on the boxes are in English.”

“Oh, Major, thank you so much – you have no idea what this means, really.”

David’s fervour made Evan suddenly aware of the potential for disaster in his plan.  He was not going to have to explain to Colonel Sheppard how he’d managed to lose half of Botany just because he hadn’t been able to say no to a pair of pleading blue eyes.  “No taking hours scoping out the perfect site for them, okay?  Get over there, dig them into the dirt, and come straight back.” 

“Yes, of course.  But could we take the other plants too, because I’m a little worried-”

“You can take whatever the hell you want so long as you’re back by 0800hrs.”

David grabbed Evan’s hand and wrung it.  “Thank you,” he said.  “Thank you so much.”

Evan couldn’t help but smile because David was so enthusiastic about some small brown spiky plants.  And then he suddenly remembered. “Just keep Smythe away from the Marine-eating one.”

***

Forty-seven hours and sixteen minutes later, Evan leaned against the wall in his quarters and tried to keep his eyes open.  So much for his hopes for at least a few hours sleep.  The pipe work that the engineers had joined in an unholy marriage with Atlantis’s, grafting Earth equipment to the Ancient systems, had decided it didn’t want a divorce.  There had been swearing from the engineers.  There had been banging, lots of banging, and even some blood.  Then there had been floods.  The floods had soaked the sacks of flour and sugar that had been stacked up ready for the Daedalus, and the reaction from the Warrant Officer in charge of the kitchens had brought Dr Weir onto the scene, looking pale and pinched. 

Evan had looked at the corridor that looked like it was swimming in pancake batter and made a command decision.  “The pipework stays.  If the Ancients really don’t know how we make pipes on Earth, then let them chip through six feet of flour paste to find out.  Dr Weir, can you pass on our apologies for the slight mess we made?”

“Certainly, Major Lorne,” she’d said, and for the briefest instant she’d looked like she might even smile. 

There’d been other emergencies, but by the time Evan reached his quarters, they’d all starred to blur into one.  All he had left to do was clear his quarters before reporting to the gate room for the very last time.

Packing his duffle took no time, but packing up the other stuff he’d gathered along the way in Pegasus took a little longer.  They were things he’d picked up here and there – a polished pebble from M4R-576, a fossil from M7V-772, and some hideously bright purple and green pottery dishes from M4F-485 that he’d thought Colby would get a kick out of using now that he cooked.  There was also the leather braided cuff he’d bought; although he knew Colby would never wear anything like that, it hadn’t stopped Evan wanting to see it fastened round his wrist in bed.  He might just have bought two of them, one for each of Colby’s wrists, and then a longer but equally butter-soft leather braid that might be useful for any number of things, such as looping round a suitcase to hold it closed, or using as a belt, or even for tying wrist cuffs to headboards.

He packed it all away carefully into a box. He figured the fossil would probably get confiscated but the rest of should be okay. Any of it could have come from any number of Earth cultures, although the military would probably slap ‘Made in China’ labels on the bottom of the dishes.  He didn’t know what they’d do with his paintings.  They could well be fantasy scenes, but the censors might decide it was too much of a security risk to let them through. He could paint them again from memory, but nothing would match the sound of the ocean as he painted, the slight difference in the air here that was a constant reminder he wasn’t on Earth, and the way the alien sun reflecting from the towers gave the impression of movement, as if the city knew she was being admired and immortalised and was determined to show Evan her very best side.  He rolled up the canvases and packed them carefully in the box.  Whatever happened to the paintings, nothing could take away the experience of painting them.

Once he was done packing, he labelled the box with his service number, name, rank and ‘Personal Effects’ – it sounded better than ‘Stuff I picked up in Pegasus for my boyfriend’ – and then found himself drawn to the floor to ceiling windows that looked out across the city and beyond it to the ocean.  The sun was high overhead and everything about Atlantis glittered, with a beauty that made him ache.

His watch beeped, letting him know it was time.  Turning away, he picked up his belongings, and left.

***

When Evan emerged into the concrete bunker under Cheyenne Mountain, it felt for a moment as if part of him had been left behind. He wondered just how thoroughly Dr McKay had tested his bridge between galaxies.  But there was no time to stand around blinking and wondering – he had civilians to clear out of the way of the next wave of incoming returnees.

After a brisk order to the military to clear the way, he began to organise the scientists, getting them andtheir belongings off the ramp.  A brusque voice over the tannoy stopped him in his tracks.

“Major Lorne, this operation is under SGC control.  We have it now.”

He froze for an instant before joining the military contingent at the side of the room, pride preventing anything from showing on his face. He gained a little petty satisfaction from watching the unherded scientists mill round uncertainly, completely confused by the terse orders being barked at them over the tannoy.  Eventually a sigh sounded, echoing round the room, and a couple of lieutenants came down from the control room and started to try and sort the situation out.  And good luck to them – Evan had seen that sort of recalcitrance on scientists’ faces before and it was only the fact that the scientists were still so shell-shocked at the loss of Atlantis that stopped the briskly efficient lieutenants getting their asses handed to them.  Even the affable David Parrish was looking mutinous.  There was an art to handling scientists.

Evan watched them all come through, with Dr Weir, Dr McKay and Colonel Sheppard bringing up the rear.  As the gate flared and then closed forever on Atlantis, it hit him that this was the future - a concrete  bunker under God knew how many tons of mountain rather than the soaring elegance of the Atlantis gate room that was only a suggestion of what else she had to offer.  Looking round at the other members of the expedition, he saw the same realisation beginning to dawn on their faces. He looked away again. It didn’t seem possible that this was really happening.

He had to wait two hours before he was summoned into an office to be debriefed by some captain with an attitude problem.  He started to tell him about the cargo on the Daedalus.

“That’s fine, Major.  We have the Daedalus’s manifesto,” Captain Snotty cut across him. 

He was finally sent on his way with a very unconvincing “Sir” ringing in his ears from Captain Snotty.  He had no way of knowing whether the guy was just a natural asshole, or if there was something more going on.  Maybe they were in disgrace for losing Atlantis.  Evan had no prospect of finding out in the immediate future if that was the case or not because he had five days leave ahead of him. Presumably SGC hadn’t been prepared for the sudden influx of a shedload of military refugees and couldn’t wait to get rid of them again. 

***

Four hours later, he was standing in line to board his flight to LA, wondering if he’d actually make it to the airplane before falling asleep, when there was an excited voice behind him.  “Major!”

He turned to find David Parrish gesticulating at him from further back in the line.  He left his spot and joined David, earning a glare from the harassed-looking woman who was corralling kids directly behind David.  Which made no sense given that she’d just seen him step out of line further up the queue.  What was it about travel that turned everyone into assholes?  Everyone except David who was saying something about not expecting to see him again so soon.

“Have you got family in LA, Major?”

“An old service buddy I sometimes stay with,” Evan said.  “You?”

“My brother’s living there, so I’m staying with him while I figure out what to do now.”

“Yeah, must be tough,” Evan said.

“What about you, Major?  Where are you posted to?”

“I get my orders in a few days,” Evan said. “And call me Evan.”

David smiled.  “Evan,” he said, as though trying out the name.  “Hey, if you want, we could swap phone numbers, in case – well, with us both in the same city, maybe you might want to meet up some time?”

That wasn’t a bad idea at all.  No doubt David felt like he did, somehow adrift now they’d been cut loose from Atlantis.  He’d just finished putting David’s number into his cell when there was a pointed throat-clearing from the woman behind them.  Evan glanced round to find the queue had moved on without them. 

When they finally got to the plane their seats were on opposite sides, so Evan said goodbye to David and found his seat.  He was asleep almost before he sat down, and only woke as the plane began its descent a couple of hours later.  Yawning, he sat up straight, trying to ease the crick in his neck as the plane approached the ugly, sprawling city.  He’d never been a fan of LA but ever since that time he’d come here to try and prove Colby’s innocence, only to fail, he’d hated the damn place.

He didn’t see David again, concentrating on getting to Colby’s as quickly as possible.  He called Colby from the cab; although he had a key to the apartment, he knew that if he let himself in unannounced and Colby was there, he might just find himself at the wrong end of Colby’s gun.  Getting voicemail, he left a message, and then closed his eyes and let the cab driver deal with the LA traffic. 

The driver woke him at Colby’s. Letting himself in, he made straight for the bedroom, shucked off his clothes and crawled into Colby’s unmade bed.  It smelled of Colby, which was both nice and made Evan think Colby probably should change his sheets, and that was the last thing he knew.

He roused briefly at one point, coming near the surface but not quite out of sleep when the covers were disturbed and he felt Colby climbing in next to him, murmuring something before pressing a kiss onto his cheek. 

Blinking awake some time later, it took Evan a few moments to remember where he was.  Then it all came crashing back in on him.  Atlantis was gone.  He didn’t give any weight to what Colonel Sheppard had been talking about with Doctor Weir; he knew the only people who would ever be allowed to return would be people like Dr McKay or Dr Zelenka, and he didn’t believe they’d be allowed to when it came to it.  It had been a bone the Ancients had thrown them to get them out of the city without any trouble.  And it had worked.  Not that Evan could see what they could have done against the people who’d instantly put the city back under their control, but he didn’t like retreating and he didn’t like surrendering, not without trying.

Punching his pillow, he turned over and came face to face with Colby.  He was gently snoring into his pillow, dead to the world.  Colby was carrying a couple of days’ worth of stubble, something he was usually meticulous about, so he must have been working crazy hours, the way he did when they caught a big case.  He also had new little wrinkles round his eyes, something that made Evan’s breath catch and his stomach twist slightly.  It was one of the things about only seeing one another every few months: they could see the changes.  The reminder that time was passing, even when he was on Atlantis, wasn’t one he welcomed.  He gently ran his fingers over Colby’s cheek, but Colby didn’t so much as twitch.  If he was that fast asleep, it would be best to leave him – he obviously needed it.

Evan slid out of bed and made his way down the hallway to the bathroom.  He needed to piss, he needed a shower, and he needed a mug of strong coffee.  That was one good thing about being back on Earth – no more coffee-rationing.  It still didn’t seem like much of a trade.

It was perhaps an hour later when there was a crash and muttered swearing from the bedroom, and then Colby staggered through into the living room.  Evan glanced up from where he’d been watching the news, trying to catch up on everything that had been happening on Earth for the past four months, and finding out that most of it seemed to revolve around certain reality television stars’ breasts.  Or maybe TV had just dumbed down even further, difficult though that was to believe.

“Zombie’s not a good look on you,” he greeted Colby. He was propping up the doorjamb, hair like a corn field after a high wind, and eyes obviously not quite focusing yet.

“Yeah,” Colby muttered thickly.  “Just wanted to be sure I didn’t dream you.” 

He sounded like a five year old checking his favourite soft toy had been returned safely from the washer, and Evan couldn’t help smiling.

“I’m here,” he said, getting up and kissing Colby.  Briefly.  “You really need to shower.”

“Yeah,” Colby muttered again, and stumbled back down the hallway to the bathroom.

Evan went to put the coffee on, got some mugs out ready, then reckoned that was long enough for the high pressure spray that Colby favoured to have woken him up by now.  He joined Colby in the shower, squeezed some gel onto his hands and set to work.  And it was just the way it always was, Colby’s body under his hands, slippery and wet, and most definitely waking up.  They stroked each other slowly, with gel-slick hands, till Colby gasped Evan’s name as he came, and that took Evan over the edge.  Afterwards they held each other and kissed until the water was getting distinctly chilly. 

Every time he came home to Colby, he remembered all over again.

It was only four pm but Evan was starving, still running on Atlantis time, and Colby had never been known to turn down food, so they ordered some takeout.  It wasn’t really what Evan fancied.  He wanted some good old-fashioned fresh vegetables after so long on mess hall rations but Colby’s fridge was empty of anything remotely edible, unless butter and a jar of picked gherkins counted, and right now going down the grocery store felt like too much effort.  He didn’t have the heart to send Colby out either, because he still looked ready to drop.

“Tough case?” he asked as they settled on the couch, takeout ordered, and beer opened.

“Little kids,” Colby said, his voice raw. It was no wonder he, and the rest of them, had worked every hour there was to solve this one.

“I’m sorry.”

Colby said nothing for a few minutes.  Evan was used to this in him, the way he seemed to take time to organise his thoughts.  But if anyone ever thought it meant Colby wasn’t taking in every bit of what was happening around him, or was a bit slow on the uptake, well, they wouldn’t make that mistake twice.

Colby turned and looked at him when he was ready.  “How come you got leave without any notice?  Everything okay?”

Out of nowhere it hit Evan. Everything was very far from fucking okay.  “We got pulled out unexpectedly.”

Colby was quiet for a moment, evidently hearing the tightness in his voice.  Then he asked, “Did everyone get out?”

“Yeah, it’s not that,” Evan said, knowing that Colby, like him, knew how it could be.  “It’s just none of us saw it coming.”  Because you never did see the freight train that took you down; it all happened too fast.  Evan didn’t even know why this felt like it did.  He moved from posting to posting all the time.  It was no big deal.  This, though – this felt different.  But that was probably just the fact he was about to pass out from hunger if Colby’s damn takeout place didn’t deliver soon.

Right on cue, there was a knock on the door and Colby was getting up to take in a bag that gave off scents of garlic and spices and chicken.  They wasted no time getting the food onto plates and back through into the living room, and Evan ate enough to satisfy even Ronon.  And maybe he was full, or maybe it was at that thought his appetite deserted him, because he found himself putting his  plate down on the coffee table and pushing it away.

He was aware of Colby glancing at him. 

“I had to leave some friends behind,” he said.  “Locals.”

“Sorry,” Colby said, and the silence hung heavy between them.

“Can you see them again when things are different?” Colby asked at last.

Colby meant the question thoughtfully, because he probably thought Evan was stationed at a secret base somewhere in the Middle East and it wouldn’t be out of the question that the political situation would change one day, but it slammed Evan in the gut that he would never see Teyla or Ronon again.  He’d never again listen to her tell one of the tales of her people with an unexpectedly sly sense of humour while he laid colours down on a canvas, and he’d never again get pounded into the mat in front of smirking Marines by Ronon in the name of training.  He didn’t answer, because he couldn’t.

“So where next?” Colby asked after a while.

“Don’t know. I get my orders Thursday.”  It was something else Evan didn’t want to talk about.  Because it could be Cheyenne Mountain, it could be Area 51, or it could be fucking Antarctica.  It all depended how pissed off the IOA were with them for getting booted out of Atlantis, and just how must trust he’d lost from the Air Force because he’d served for some time under Colonel Sheppard without once requesting reassignment.  Evan was under no illusions about how most of the top brass regarded the colonel.

“But it might be a domestic posting?”

“Hell knows,” Evan said.  He got to his feet.  “You finished with that?” and he removed Colby’s plate before Colby even said yes.  Or no, for that matter.  He took the plates into the kitchen to wash them.  He had his hands in the sink – and seriously, when had Colby last done any washing up because the place was a health hazard – when Colby came up behind him and slid his arms round Evan’s waist.  “I’m sorry that happened,” Colby said, and kissed the side of his neck.

Evan sighed, and he leaned back into Colby’s warmth, the solidness that was so very him.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.  It came out more sharply than he’d intended.

“I get it,” Colby said, and his arms tightened slightly round Evan.  “I was just hoping there might be a silver lining, that we might see each other more often.”

“Yeah,” Evan said, but it was more because he had to say something than for any other reason.  Of course he wanted to see Colby, but right now that didn’t make up for everything that had been snatched away from him. Nor did it make up for the prospect of a possible future freezing his ass off, forgotten by everyone until his time was done and they kicked him out.  He’d probably still be a major, too.

“You forget how to wash up while I was gone?” he asked, determined to change the subject.

“What is this, Evan Lorne, Domestic Goddess?” Colby pressed another kiss against Evan’s neck before letting go of him and grabbing a dish towel to start drying up the dishes Evan had washed.

“And what happened to your chlorophytum comosum?” Evan demanded, suddenly catching sight of it on the shelf over the breakfast bar. 

“My what?” Colby stared at him, baffled.

“Spider plant,” Evan said.  “They’re supposed to be impossible to kill, even for you.”

“My chlorothingy whatsit is fine, thank you.  It’s just taking a rest.”

“And turning brown and dying.  What the hell have you done to it?”

“I guess I forgot about it,” Colby said apologetically.

Evan lifted it down from the shelf.  The plant was wilted, with dead, curled leaves in the centre, while the tips of most of its other leaves were brown.  When he felt the dirt it was standing in, it was bone dry, so he tipped a glassful of water into the pot. “Don’t worry, baby. I’ll look after you.”

“Bet you say that to all the chlorothingies.”

“You better believe it.”

And after grinning at each other for a minute, washing up seemed to lose its appeal.  He and Colby ended up making out like teenagers, and thoughts of Atlantis faded into the background.

***

Colby swore when the alarm went off next morning, hit the snooze button and immediately buried his head under his pillow.  Evan was, as ever, more practical.  He wrapped himself around Colby’s sleep-warm body and let Colby feel for himself that Evan was awake.  “You really want to sleep?”

Colby was always so damn easy.  They ended up moving against one another, kissing and hands exploring till they both came, just as the alarm went off again.

“Damn it!” Colby’s flailing arm sent the alarm clock crashing onto the floor.  Out of reach, it carried on beeping loudly and rudely.

“Brilliant, Granger,” Evan said, and pulled the covers over his head while Colby got out of bed and, from the sounds of it, smashed the damn thing to shut it up.

He woke up just enough to kiss Colby goodbye when he came back into the bedroom, dressed, shaved, and judging by the taste of his mouth, suitably fuelled with coffee for a day at work.  He was asleep again before he even heard the apartment door close.

When Evan woke up some time later, he stretched comfortably, enjoying the prospect of a full day ahead of him with nothing to do, except some much-needed laundry.  And maybe some food shopping, if he wanted to eat.  He rolled over to look at the clock only to remember it was no longer in its usual place.  Colby’s blinds were down and he had no way of telling what time of day it was.  Not like Atlantis, where the morning sun shone through the windows of his quarters.  His good mood promptly disappeared. 

Stalking round Colby’s apartment later, he wondered what the hell he was supposed to do now.  After grocery shopping and doing laundry for them both, he was frustrated and bored.  Usually when he got leave, it was with enough notice that Colby got leave too and so finding things to fill the time was never a problem.  He thought about going for a run, but realised it was a stupid idea in the afternoon heat.  He could sit down with one of Colby’s books or DVDs, or go get a newspaper, but he needed to be doing something because if he didn’t, he’d end up thinking about the way his life had changed in just three days.

Damn it.  What did people do in LA?  On Atlantis, the problem was usually having too much to do to fit into his downtime, though that might of course have been due to the regular disasters that tended to keep downtime to a minimum in the first place.  When he found himself contemplating getting Colby’s vacuum cleaner out, he rebelled.  He was going to find something to do or die in the attempt.

As he paced through into the kitchen for the fourth time, the chlorophytum comosum caught his eye.  It looked a little less desperate than it had yesterday, but gravely ill rather than terminal wasn’t much of a cause for celebration. He wasn’t sure what else to do to help it recover from Colby’s tender care.  Then he realised he had an expert on hand and snapped a picture before sending it to David, along with a text. Anything to be done, other than last rites?

Moments later he got a text in reply.  David wanted to know soil condition, the amount and type of natural light the plant had, and when it had last been fed and watered and misted.

Evan read through the wall of text, then called David’s number. He picked up straight away. 

“What does misting a plant even mean?”

“That’s possibly the problem then, if your friend is anything like you.” David sounded as if he was smiling.  “Do you know when it was last watered?”

“Last night. It actually looks better today than it did then.”

“I’d put it in the bathroom for the next day or so.”

“You would?”

“Humidity.  Let it rehydrate itself.  What kind of soil is it in?”

Evan poked at the dirt in the pot.  “Brown?”

David laughed.  “Tell you what, where in LA are you?  If you’re not busy, we could meet for coffee and you could bring a sample.”

Of dirt?  Botanists were weird.  But meeting for coffee would get him out of the apartment, and David was easy company.  Surprisingly easy for an Atlantis scientist.  Out of nowhere, Evan’s stomach clenched at the reminder that those days were gone. 

***

Evan got back to Colby’s apartment four hours later and was met by the aroma of cooking food as he opened the front door.  Colby appeared from the kitchen, dressed in a grey t-shirt and faded old jeans that clung to him in all the right places.

“Hey,” he greeted Evan with a  kiss.  “I thought you’d run out on me.”

“I didn’t think you’d be back yet.”

“Don sent us home early after the last week we’ve had.  All this food seems to have appeared in my absence so I thought I’d do something with it.”

Evan bit back a grin at the casual way Colby said it, like it was something he’d always done.  Almost a year ago, he’d broken his ankle jumping off one building too many, and while stuck at home unable to do much except watch television, he’d gotten hooked on the Food Network.  To Evan’s surprise, he turned out to be good at cooking, give or take one or two complete disasters in the early days.  Like Colby had said, it didn’t hurt to test the smoke alarms occasionally.

“Cool,” Evan said, then mentally hit himself upside the head.  That was one habit he’d picked up from Colonel Sheppard that he had to rid himself of.  That, and the idea that saluting was optional most of the time.  The thing about Atlantis was that the lack of saluting didn’t mean a lack of respect; almost the opposite, in fact.  SGC colonels got saluted up the wazoo whenever they put in an appearance there, but it didn’t mean jack.  At SGC the crispness of your salute was at least as important as the content of what you said, or the quality of what you did.  The heaviness that talking to David had caused to lift descended again.  This was reality now.

“You okay?” Colby asked, looking at him a little too closely for comfort.

“So what exactly are we having?” Evan asked, heading for the kitchen to explore. It was always as well to check ahead of time because when making a meal, Colby tended to put together dishes that he liked rather than following the more traditional groupings of dishes.  Before now he’d served Evan chicken tikka and corn along with mashed potato that had been mixed up with spring onion and cheddar cheese.  It had actually tasted really good, though Evan didn’t expect to see it on any restaurant menu any time soon.

“Sweet potato and roasted beetroot with feta, and beef with pesto.  It’s been that sort of a day.”

Evan wasn’t sure what sort of a day could possibly call for roasted beetroot, but something smelled pretty good.

“You had a good day?” Colby asked, returning to the stove and stirring industriously at the contents of a saucepan.

“Caught up with a friend from my last posting,” Evan said, and tried not to let referring like that to Atlantis sting.  “How was your day, dear?”

“Smartass.”  Colby flicked the contents of the wooden spoon at him. 

The pine nuts didn’t make it as far as Evan, but it was the principle that counted.  He snuck up behind Colby, who was suddenly pretending to ignore him in favour of cooking, and slid his arms round his waist, one hand working up under his t-shirt while he moulded himself to Colby’s back, Colby’s ass fitting so nicely against him.  He nuzzled at Colby’s neck, the place under his ear that never, ever failed, and he hid a grin at the gasp that Colby couldn’t quite disguise with enthusiastic pot-stirring. “You say something?”

“You want to eat or not?”

“Depends,” Evan said.  He started teasing at a nipple, and let his other hand drift down to Colby’s jeans.

“Evan,” Colby protested, but it sounded like he didn’t really mean it. That was confirmed by the way he leaned back against Evan, opening himself up to give Evan full access.  Evan was playing with each of his nipples in turn, something that got Colby going quicker than anything else.  He pressed against Colby’s ass, letting him feel just how hard he already was, and then realised that if they were to have any hope of supper still being edible when they were finished, he would need to do something about it because right now Colby didn’t seem to care about anything except letting Evan do whatever he wanted.  He reached past Colby and turned off the hob and the oven, then tugged him toward the door.  Sex on the kitchen table might sound like fun, if you overlooked the whole hygiene issue, but Colby’s table wasn’t really sturdy enough for the two of them.  So bed it was, because one of the great pleasures in Evan’s life was really taking his time with Colby.  He was always so damned responsive to Evan’s touch, almost like he’d been waiting for it all his life.

***

They’d just finished supper and were relaxing back on the couch with a beer apiece when Evan’s phone buzzed with a text.  After all that, forgot to tell you - needs re-potting in free-draining soil.

Damn. He and David had been so busy talking, reminiscing about some of the odder moments on Atlantis – and there were quite a few to choose from – that he’d completely forgotten too.  How do I tell right sort?

After a few minutes he got a reply.  If you want to meet for coffee tomorrow, I’ll bring some.

Cool, he typed, then winced and deleted it. Okay, he sent back. Same time and place tomorrow.

Remind me to tell you about McKay’s increasingly desperate attempts to grow coffee plants. It wasn’t pretty.

Evan laughed.  He could imagine.

He looked up as he put his phone to one side to find Colby watching him. 

“Good news?” Colby asked, which made Evan realise he was still smiling broadly.

He opened his mouth to tell Colby about McKay’s doomed endeavours in botany, then realised he couldn’t.  “I may have just raised Lazarus,” he said instead, leaning in and planting a smug kiss on Colby’s mouth.

“Do I even want to know?”

“Your chlorothingy.  I just happen to have a world-class botanist on the case, who’s bringing the right sort of dirt to the coffee house tomorrow.”

Colby stilled suddenly.  “I tried to get tomorrow off,” he said, “but Liz had already booked it and–”

“It doesn’t matter,” Evan assured him. Because it didn’t, not now he had something to do with his day. “You didn’t know I was coming.  Hell, I didn’t know I was coming almost till I got here.”

“How come you know a world-class botanist in the first place?”

“He was at my last posting.  He’s the guy I met up with today.  Actually,” Evan admitted, “it was good to be able to talk about it all with someone.  Just don’t ask me why we needed a botanist.” 

Colby’s expression didn’t crack into the smile he’d expected.  He guessed Colby must have ideas about opium poppies or something, making it not quite so ridiculous as it otherwise sounded.

“So he’s how you know that it’s a chlorothingy?”

“Yeah, I was telling him about the way it kept having babies and you wouldn’t just throw them out because you thought Megan would be mad if she found out.”

“You told him about me?” Colby asked.

“Just service buddies,” Evan said, wondering what had caused Colby to get so paranoid.  He’d never out Colby without his express permission.  “You know that.”

“Yeah,” Colby said.  “I do.” 

While Colby trusted his immediate team and the Eppes family enough to tell them, no one else outside Evan’s family knew.  They had to pretend to be just friends even in front of Evan’s nephews in case either of the boys, too young to understand, ever let anything slip.  Evan hated having to hide, but he hated even more the thought of losing the Air Force.

Evan shook off those thoughts and saluted Colby with his beer bottle. “This time tomorrow, your chlorothingy will be back on the road to health and more babies for you to find homes for.  Seems like it’s not just in bed I work miracles.”

“Ass,” Colby said, and took a swig from his beer.

And while there was a sparkling, innuendo-laden comeback on the tip of Evan’s tongue, somehow he just couldn’t make the effort tonight.  Instead he settled more comfortably into Colby’s leather couch, getting himself established for the rest of the evening.  He probably shouldn’t get too used to this lifestyle, which reminded him.

“Can I borrow your gym pass tomorrow?”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Evan glanced sideways at him.  It wasn’t like Colby to be grumpy, apart from early mornings.  Colby evidently realised, because he made an effort.  “You want to do something tonight, to go out somewhere?” he asked.

“Let’s just find a film we can ignore while we make out on the couch,” Evan said, because that was his idea of a damn near perfect evening with Colby.

***

Next morning Evan got up with Colby because, nice as lazing around in bed was for a while, it got old pretty fast.  It also didn’t seem fair to Colby when he had to get up for work for Evan still to be lying there in bed.

“You want to do something tonight?” Colby asked as he tore into his second muffin in as many minutes.

“If you want to.”  Evan wasn’t sure where this sudden urge of Colby’s to ‘do something’ was coming from.  When he visited, they usually either kicked back in Colby’s apartment, or, if they had long enough, took themselves off for a few days of camping or skiing, depending on the time of year.

“Only if you do,” Colby said, and Evan decided it was far too early in the day to try and work out what was going on in Granger’s brain.  Because Colby was rarely diffident, and almost never indecisive, and if he was, that indecision was normally related to food – whether to go for pepperoni or meat lover’s topping on pizza, and usually resolved quickly enough by deciding on both.

He snagged Colby’s gym pass and took himself down there soon after Colby left for work.  The place was just the right distance to make running there a good warm-up, which was probably why Colby had chosen it.  The good, hard workout turned out to be exactly what he needed, even if it wasn’t as good as the gym on Atlantis. 

He came back and had a shower, though it didn’t seem to have any immediate effect on Lazarus who was now sitting rather sadly on the glass shelf where Colby kept his toiletries, and went off to the coffee shop to meet David.  He knew he was early, but he reckoned he could get a paper on the way and grab lunch there while waiting for David.

It turned out David was early too, already sitting at a table, deeply immersed in a book.  Evan sat down opposite him.  “Life in LA really that boring?” he asked.

David jumped, and looked up.  A smile lit his face.  “Evan.  I didn’t know you were here.”

“It’s all that expensive training in sneaking we get to do.  You want another coffee?”

“Actually, I was thinking about lunch.”

“A man after my own heart,” Evan said, and turned to examine the board listing the various organic, locally-produced dishes on offer.  The coffee house had been David’s suggestion; he used to come here when he was doing his doctorate, and while Evan wasn’t sure how any student could afford the prices, he reckoned the food sounded good.  And it ticked all David’s boxes about the way it had been produced; David had waxed enthusiastic over it yesterday.  Actually, he’d been enthusiastic about everything.  It wasn’t just plants - he seemed to find reasons for delight in the most mundane things in life.

They ordered, then Evan tapped David’s book.  “What’re you reading?”

David obediently held it up so Evan could see.  “Bugs?  You’re about to eat and you’re reading about bugs?”

“Not bugs, beetles.  Did you know the goldenrod soldier beetle is the primary pollinator for the solidago shortii?  Without that beetle, it might have died out already.”

Evan blinked slightly, then sat back for the ride because David was only just getting going, hands waving enthusiastically as he made his points, and a smile that was as far from the rather lugubrious impression his long face gave that could be imagined.  His enthusiasm was infectious, and Evan ended up not only learning more about beetles than he ever thought he wanted to know, but enjoying it.  And you never knew when such knowledge might come in useful – next time his CO got turned into a bug, perhaps.

Or not.  Because that was never going to happen again.  Which was probably just as well for Colonel Sheppard’s sake, but the reason for it sucked.  David, even in mid-flow, picked up on Evan’s sudden change of mood.

“Something wrong?”

Evan shook his head.  “Just thinking about the iratus bugs, and how impossible they were to kill.”  Nothing short of riddling them with bullets before ejecting them from a spaceship had done the trick, but Evan didn’t like to mention that, with the whole being in public thing.

Inevitably, talk turned to Atlantis, although heavily disguised because there were other people in the shop.  The only time they stopped talking was when the waitress came along to bring them more drinks, as she did regularly.  It was when Evan caught a glimpse of his watch that he realised suddenly the afternoon had almost disappeared.  Crap, he’d meant to cook something tonight for when Colby got in from work. 

“Damn it, I didn’t realise the time,” he said, putting some bills down on the table to cover the check and getting to his feet. “I better go.”

“Don’t forget the soil,” David pushed the plastic bag he’d brought with him across the table at Evan and really, eating when surrounded by dirt and talking about bugs?  They might as well have beenin the Pegasus galaxy.  “We could always meet up for coffee again so you can let me know how the chlorophytum comosum gets on,” David said. “If you want,” he added quickly. 

Evan nodded.  “I’d like that.”

And he would, he realised, on the way back to Colby’s.  It was good to be able to talk to somebody who knew about Atlantis; talking to David, it felt as if it wasn’t completely gone.

It was just as well Colby was late back from work, because on his return to Colby’s apartment building, Evan was spotted by a delighted Mrs Clark.  She insisted he join her in Apartment 21B for afternoon tea.

By the time he extracted himself and reached the safety of Colby’s apartment, Colby should have been home, but wasn’t.  He checked his phone, and found a text saying he was running late, which gave Evan time to throw together a pan of chilli.  He’d just sat down on the couch when the apartment door opened.  Colby looked tired, but the strain on his face melted as he smiled at the sight of Evan.

“At the risk of sounding like a 1950s housewife, d’you want a beer?” Evan asked as he got to his feet.

Colby came over and kissed him.  “You make a lovely housewife, and God, yes, I would love a beer.”

“Bad day?”  Evan disappeared into the kitchen and re-emerged with a cold beer in hand just in time to see Colby drop down onto the couch like his strings had been cut. 

“Why do they always run?” Colby groused.  “Why, just once, can’t they put their hands in the air and stay where they are?”

“Because that would make life boring?” 

“I could live with boring.”  Colby twisted the top off the bottle and took a long draught.  “So what have you been up to?”

“Being entertained in 21B.”

“What happened to all that training in sneaking?”

 “I know, but it had its upside.”

“It did?”

“Lemon drizzle cake.” 

Colby sat bolt upright. “Seriously?  Don’t tell me you ate it all,” he begged, eyes fixed on Evan’s face.  “She makes it for me, you know.  She knows it’s my favourite.”

“Yeah, I can see why.  It was pretty good,” Evan said, patting his belly.  Which might be a little bigger than it had been that morning because damn, that had been good cake.

“You think I should go and thank her for looking after you?” Colby asked, and for the love of God, he was serious.  Outside of an interrogation, the concepts of subtlety and nuance were a complete mystery to Colby.  Maybe that was part of why Evan loved him so much.

“Well, yeah, you could do that.  If you want to make me sound like a stray dog.  And if you want to be completely obvious.  And if you really think there’s any cake left,” Evan said. 

Colby slumped back into the couch, looking so disappointed that Evan couldn’t keep it up.  “Tell you what, you go check on the chilli and I’ll pick something to watch while we eat.”

Colby levered himself off the couch with a sigh and made his way to the kitchen, while Evan sat and waited.

“You bastard.” Colby reappeared in the doorway, clutching a Tupperware container which Evan knew damn well was full of Mrs Clark’s lemon drizzle cake, with Colby’s name on a piece of paper taped to the top.  “I hate you.”

Colby’s hatred seemed to disappear under the dual onslaught of chilli and lemon drizzle cake.  By the time they were stuffed rather too full of both, topped off with beer, Evan was leaning into Colby’s side, Colby’s arm round him as they watched Top Gun. Colby insisted on watching it at least once a year.

Halfway through the volleyball scene, Colby’s favourite part of the movie, Evan’s cell buzzed with a text.

Forgot to say, don’t let the plant stand in water.

Evan sat up.  “Crap.” 

“What is it?” Colby asked.

“I forgot to re-pot Lazarus.”

“That your botanist friend?”

“Yeah.” Evan decided he was far too comfortable to even think about engaging in horticulture at this time of night and settled back against Colby’s warmth.  “He gave me some dirt today but I forgot about it.”

Colby was quiet for a while, no doubt caught up in the naked and sweaty posturing on-screen.

“Does he live in LA?”

“Who?” Evan asked, lost.

“Your botanist friend.”

“David?  No, he’s just here while trying to decide what to do next.  Like we all are,” he said, on a sudden sigh.  Damn.  He’d been doing so well not thinking about Atlantis.

“Sorry,” Colby said, his arm tightening round Evan.

“Yeah,” Evan said on another sigh.  “I just miss it, you know?  To go from there to here….”  He stopped himself saying anything more, about how much he hated LA because the place was Colby’s home now, but he was pretty sure some of it had come through in his voice.

Colby didn’t say anything further, though he pressed a kiss into Evan’s hair.  Later, in bed, his kisses on Evan’s skin were tender and filled with such solicitousness that Evan realised he was trying to make up to Evan for what he’d lost.  The problem was, he couldn’t.

***

Next morning, Colby greeted the sound of the alarm with his usual lack of enthusiasm.  It was when he hit snooze for the second time and muttered something about why wasn’t it Saturday yet, that Evan’s brain went into overdrive.  He’d been coasting along, enjoying being with Colby, and trying not to think about the future, and he hadn’t realised he was running out of time.

He snagged Colby by his belt loops when he was about to leave, and pulled him in close.

“I just realised, I should go and see the folks in case I get posted somewhere I can’t get back from for months.”

“The boys are going to be so pumped when they see you,” Colby said, smiling at the thought.  He’d ended up spending more time with Evan’s family in the past couple of years than Evan had managed, but apparently his nephews looked on him as a very inferior replacement.  That was Colby’s story; Evan’s sister said they’d adopted him as an honorary uncle who might not quite reach the dizzy heights of Uncle Evan, but wasn’t far off.  Especially when he let them catch him when they played chase, then tackle him to the ground and climb all over him.  “You make him sound like an oversized pet dog,” Evan had said.  “Pretty much,” his sister had confirmed, before adding with a grin, “I’ve got video.”

Evan didn’t want Colby to lose that smile, but he needed to tell him.  “The problem is, if I’ve got to be back in Colorado for Thursday morning, I should go up there today.”

The shock on Colby’s face made Evan feel even worse about his abrupt departure than he already did.  “I’m sorry,” he said, leaning in and kissing Colby.  “I lost track of the days.”

“No, that’s fine, I get it,” Colby said, even while his eyes were saying something else.  “And maybe your next posting’s going to be better than you think.”

Evan kissed him again, because Colby was ever the optimist when it came to the military, hope triumphing over any number of experiences.  It turned into a long kiss, and despite Colby’s hopeful words, it had the sort of desperate undertone that always accompanied their goodbye kisses.

“Love you,” Evan said when at last he pulled back, because after everything that had happened two years ago, he never left without saying it.

“Love you too,” Colby said.  He turned to leave, then paused at the door. “Let me know what you can about the posting, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Evan said.  And wondered, as the door closed behind Colby, why Colby had felt the need to ask.

***

Evan was back in LA on Friday night.

Colby had sounded delighted when Evan had called to say he was posted to Colorado.  Evan had reserved judgment on whether or not it was really good news, and it turned out he was right to have done so.  Because Major Lorne, Second-in-Command of the Atlantis military contingent, F-302 pilot, expert in rescuing Colonel Sheppard from the clutches of hostile alien races and not so hostile female aliens, was now responsible for SGC’s supply chain management. 

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Colby said, sitting on the couch and watching Evan pace round his living room.  “I mean, it doesn’t sound exciting, but-”

“Colby, I’m in charge of paperclips.  You know what I spent today doing?  Accounting for every last rivet that the SGC procured from the DOD.  That’s what I went through the Academy for?”

Colby didn’t say anything, because really, what was there to say?  Evan knew exactly why he’d been given this rôle and it had nothing to do with his proven expertise when it came to logistics on Atlantis.  It was all to do with the fact he was now associated in the minds of the SGC brass with Colonel Sheppard, which made him potentially unreliable.  Nothing he’d done before serving under the colonel and nothing he’d done while on Atlantis counted against the fact he might suddenly start leaning against walls rather than standing upright, and might even grow his hair a fraction past the regulation length.  Though he supposed there was also all the running off and disobeying orders thing that the colonel did, which meant the brass might have a point in looking at Colonel Sheppard askance, and he hated that he could be so damn reasonable sometimes.

He heaved a sigh and stared at Colby.  “How the hell am I supposed to keep sane for the next three years?”

“I know it sucks,” Colby said, “but at least we’ll see each other more now.”

Evan snorted and swung away, because not even that could make counting paperclips less of an insult, or less of a clear message that his career was going nowhere fast.

“I think,” he decided, “that I need to get very, very drunk.” 

“I’ll break out the tequila then,” Colby said, and Evan turned to look at him because his voice sounded odd.  When he saw the lack of expression on Colby’s face, he realised how he must have taken Evan’s reaction. 

“For God’s sake, Colby,” he said, “it’s not that I don’t want to be with you, it’s just –paperclips?”  After Wraith and Replicators and a city that responded to his thoughts,  he was stuck in a nine to five pen-pushing job in a concrete cubby hole underneath a mountain.  And he couldn’t explain a single word of that to Colby.

“I know,” Colby said.

Evan couldn’t tell if he did or not. 

***

“Fuck.” 

Evan woke halfway through the night to a pounding head, and Colby trying to put his pants on and apparently failing miserably.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Work,” Colby said, finally getting his pants untwisted and pulling them up.  “Terror plot – they need everyone in.”

“Fuck,” Evan said, and pulled the pillow over his head.  There went his weekend.

***

Several hours, a whole lot of coffee and some painkillers later, Evan was so bored he was practically climbing the walls of Colby’s small apartment.  He’d heard nothing from Colby, which probably meant they were run off their feet – presumably if LA had been blown up while Evan had been asleep, he’d have noticed – and he figured Colby wouldn’t be back for hours.

For something to do, he took a picture of Lazarus, who was now back in the kitchen and starting to look happier, and sent it to David.  He didn’t really expect a response, and the swift reply asking if that meant he was in LA took him by surprise.  They met for coffee, and it was exactly what Evan needed.  He hadn’t intended to rant at David, because there was still that great divide between the scientists and the military and he didn’t want to add fuel to the scientists’ poor opinion of the military generally, but despite his best intentions he ended up venting his frustrations. David knew what his job had been and would have some idea of how damn idiotic this whole thing was.

“I need to make an official complaint to the government,” David said, when Evan had finally run to a halt.  “They’re my tax dollars they’re wasting, putting someone like you in a job like that.”

“Could be worse, I suppose,” Evan said, feeling unaccountably better for having someone understand how ridiculous the situation was and be on his side.  “I could be counting paperclips in Antarctica.”

“I’ve heard that penguins like to sneak them out of the stationery cupboard when no-one’s looking.”

As he looked across the table at David’s laughing blue eyes, Evan was suddenly thankful that he’d been the one responsible for clearing the botany labs.  David  had become a good friend.

Finally, Evan decided he should head back to Colby’s.  He didn’t hold out much hope that Colby would be there, but he’d kick himself if he was and Evan had missed seeing him.  Because Colby did have a point; about the only thing that might make it possible to survive three years of paperclips would be seeing Colby at weekends.  FBI allowing, of course.

It seemed like the FBI weren’t going to play ball, because Colby finally crawled home a little after two on Sunday afternoon, and Evan’s flight was at seven that evening.  He joined an exhausted Colby in the shower, dried him off afterwards while he fell asleep on his feet, then took him to bed.  Evan didn’t need any more sleep – he was itching with the need to do something, having spent all Saturday night and Sunday morning confined to Colby’s apartment – but he wasn’t going to miss out on being with Colby, even if that meant just holding him while he snored and maybe drooled a little on Evan’s shoulder.

When the alarm Evan had set went off a couple of hours later, Colby woke up enough to know what was going on, and to wrap his arms round Evan and murmur how he didn’t want Evan to leave.  And Evan didn’t want to leave, because naked Colby, however sleepy, was one of the best things in the world.  But he had to, so he kissed Colby goodbye and told him firmly to carry on sleeping when he protested drowsily about driving Evan to the airport.

And then Evan’s flight was delayed, because that was his life right now.  He finally got to his military issue single bed in his military quarters that had been built by the lowest bidder just five hours before he needed to be up and counting paperclips.  For the first time since ending up on his face in the mud three times a day in basic training, he found himself wondering why he’d joined the Air Force.

***

The following week provided him with no clues as to why he’d ever joined up.  It wasn’t just the job, nor the fact he spent all day underground, nor the fact that no-one except the clerk delivering the internal mail ever came into the rabbit hutch they’d given him as an office.  It was the way people looked at him when he emerged from the rabbit hutch.  It seemed like the IOA’s attitude had been passed right down the food chain: the Atlantis expedition had failed.  They had failed, of course, managing to get themselves kicked out of the city without raising a finger to stop that happening, but he didn’t need the reminder.  And he didn’t need the sidelong glances and the comments that were just too quiet for him to hear but not so quiet he didn’t know they were being made.  On top of that SG-1 seemed to lose every single piece of kit they’d ever been issued with, and there was nothing on the multitude of forms Evan had in front of him to account for the loss that ever came anywhere near their excuses of gun-melting alien rays, kleptomaniac pterodactyls, or hungry giant clothes moths.

By the time Friday evening came, Evan felt like he’d worked at least three months.  He couldn’t wait to get away and see Colby for some relief in the midst of the mind-numbing boredom.  It reminded him of what David had said about everything being so workaday after Atlantis; it wasn’t a word he heard often, but it fitted perfectly.  He sent David a text as he waited for his flight because he needed an injection of sanity.  Talking about Atlantis should be torture because it was gone, but instead it put him back where he needed to be, away from the goddamn soul-destroying reality of his life now.

He didn’t think to turn his cell back on till he’d got to arrivals in LA and found no Colby there to meet him.  He guessed he was running late and he’d probably get a frantic text to that effect.  Instead, when he looked at his messages, along with a chatty reply from David there was one from Colby saying that he’d been pulled in on a raid that evening, and wouldn’t make it to the airport.

The temper that had been dogging Evan all week surged as he stalked out to the cab rank and joined the long queue.  Couldn’t Colby have given him some more damn notice?  Maybe David could have come to pick him up if he’d known in time.  As he threw his duffle onto the back seat of the cab, having finally gotten to the front of the line, he knew his reaction was out of proportion given the offence.  He also knew this wasn’t him.  He didn’t lose his shit like this, and he never did it over the small stuff.  He needed to find a way to deal with being booted off Atlantis before he turned into someone he didn’t recognise. 

Once he got to Colby’s he ordered a pizza and ate it while watching some crap so-called comedy show, and wondered just how his evening had turned out the exact same way it would have done if he’d stayed in Colorado.  At least there he’d have had his things with him, books he might want to read, or his painting supplies.  His paints that he hadn’t wanted to so much as look at since coming back to Earth. 

He dumped the plate in the sink and checked on Lazarus.  He was definitely looking more sprightly. At least something had benefited from the whole Atlantis fiasco.  He couldn’t resist running his finger under one of Lazarus’s leaves and smiling slightly at the feel of vigorous, strong growth.  He was beginning to understand David’s attitude in the botany lab a little better.  He stroked Lazarus a little longer, and was willing to swear the plant looked more cheerful and alert afterwards.  Evan took a photo and sent it to David.  L is living up to his name.

His phone buzzed with a text just moments later.  I’m impressed. Might have to recruit you to the botany side.

I’ll never join you he sent back, and only afterwards wondered if botanists watched Star Wars.

Apparently they did.  I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Things got progressively sillier from there, till it was almost midnight and Evan was beginning to yawn between texts.  See you soon, he sent, and headed off to bed.

He woke some time later to Colby climbing in next to him, putting his arms round him and whispering “Sorry.”  The acrid tang of weapons discharge clung to Colby’s skin and hair, and Evan held him tightly in return.  

He let Colby sleep on the next morning – he didn’t know what time it was he’d gotten to bed in the end, but he knew it had been late – and found himself once again bored.  He’d read all of Colby’s books that appealed to him, he had no interest in the stack of magazines on firearms that Colby swore he needed to keep up with in order to do his job but which Evan was pretty sure he bought just for the cute guys they had posing with the guns in some of the pictures, and Saturday morning TV was Saturday morning TV.  For the first time since coming back to Earth he itched for his paints, because there were so many things he’d wanted to capture about Atlantis, and so few he’d had time for.  The next thing on his mental list had been the view from the west pier as the sun rose behind the control tower, and the light and shadows that changed constantly as it did so, even though he knew anything he could produce would be a poor representation at best. He could never capture that moment as the sun cleared the top of the tower, that infinitesimal instant before it was too bright to look at. 

Damn it.  He texted David, asking if he wanted to meet up, because he needed to talk to someone about Atlantis; he couldn’t let it go as though it had never been.  And when David, who seemed to have limitless free time on his hands, said he could meet straightaway, Evan left a note for Colby telling him where he’d gone, and took a cab to their coffee house.

“You okay?” David asked, as he saw Evan, and Evan guessed he wasn’t hiding things as well as he’d thought.

“How do you move on from something that was everything you wanted and it was just taken away?”  He hadn’t meant to say it, but it had been building in him and spilled out.

David took his time opening a paper twist of sugar and pouring it into his cup before stirring it.  Finally he looked up at Evan.

“Plants have to adapt to changing situations in order to survive.  If you spend the whole time thinking about what was, you end up missing what is.”

“Have you got the gene?”

“No.”  David’s lips pursed.  “You think that makes a difference?”

“I think,” Evan said, slowly, “there’s no other explanation for why a simple posting has gotten inside my head like this and won’t let me go.  I miss her, the city.” 

David was silent for a long time.  “I don’t have the gene, so I don’t know,” he said at last, “but is it really the city you miss or are you holding on to what it meant to you?  Something you haven’t got here?”

“Like spaceships I can control with my mind, you mean?  Because yeah, I’m pretty sure I don’t have those here.”

As he saw David’s crestfallen look, he felt like the biggest prick alive.  “Sorry,” he said.  “I’m just–  I don’t even know what the problem is.  I hate that we can’t go back there.  I hate that we got kicked out and ran away with our tail between our legs.  And I fucking hate counting paperclips.”

David nodded, and they sat quietly.

“When we came back from the mainland after taking the plants,” David said after a while, “I saw the city as we came in over the ocean and I realised it was the last time I’d ever see Atlantis like that. I got to thinking about everything, about how wonderful and terrifying my time there was, and that it was over.  Whenever I saw you those last two days, you were running round with a clipboard in your hands.  Did you get the chance to say goodbye?”

All of a sudden Evan wished he hadn’t come here, that he was still curled up in bed with Colby.  Scientists were supposed to be interested in science, not people.  They certainly weren’t supposed to ask questions that Evan wasn’t ready to answer.  In a clumsy change of subject he asked David about what the rest of the botany team were doing now.  He tried to be interested in the response.

After a while, when David had finished talking about his fellow team members, he pushed his chair back and stood up.  “I should get back.  Colby will be awake by now.”

“You’re staying with him again this weekend?”

 “It’s handy for seeing my family without having to stay with them,” he said, suddenly realising he’d forgotten to be careful, “and Colby doesn’t mind me crashing there.  It’s not like there’s anything to do round the mountain at weekends except drink too much.”

As he heard the words come out of his mouth, only knowledge of what was at stake stopped him from showing his dismay.  For God’s sake, Evan – there’s nothing to do in Colorado, outdoor adventure nirvana? 

David, thankfully, appeared to take his statement at face value. 

“Thanks for this morning, David.”

“Any time,” David said.

On the way back to Colby’s, Evan knew he had some thinking to do about what David had said, but he didn’t want to do it yet. Maybe part of what David had said was true and he didn’t want to let go of Atlantis.

He got back to Colby’s to find Colby was up and drinking coffee on the couch.  

“You okay?” he asked, because Colby looked on edge about something.

“Yeah.”

But his body language said something different.  Evan bit down his annoyance at Colby’s moodiness and went to make himself a coffee.  He didn’t particularly want more caffeine but he still felt unsettled from the conversation with David, and Colby’s tenseness was likely to rub him raw if he didn’t put some space between them.

Having taken as long as he decently could to make it, he brought the coffee back through and sat down on the couch next to Colby.

“Sorry about last night,” Colby said.

“You couldn’t help it.  Everything go all right?”

“Yeah.”

Evan knew Colby wasn’t particularly good with mornings, but this was extreme even by his standards. 

“You want to do something today?” Evan asked. 

“Sure,” Colby said, and he seemed to relax all of a sudden.  “I can’t go too far though, in case I get called in.”

Sudden anger flared in Evan.  For God’s sake, were they ever going to get a weekend together?  “Did you sign away your soul when you joined the Bureau?”

“Feels like it some days,” Colby said ruefully.  “I guess we’re never going to have nine to five jobs, are we?”

“I can’t see the country being threatened by an imminent paperclip shortage if I don’t get to Form 39/A/002 on Friday and it has to wait until Monday morning.”  Evan’s lip curled at the thought. 

“But that’s only temporary,” Colby said. 

“Hope so.”

“Of course it is.  They’re idiots if they can’t see what they’re missing out on, having you stuck in a job like that.”

“Thanks,” Evan said.  It was cold comfort, but nice to hear anyway.  “Do they always work you this hard, or is this just a bad time?”

“Bit of both.  It’s not always this bad, but unless I’ve booked leave, my time is the Bureau’s.  It doesn’t matter when it’s just me here.”

“It should.  When the hell do you get to sleep?”

“That’s what paperwork days are for,” Colby said with a grin. 

“Does Don know that?”

“Don’s the one who told me.”

“Figures,” Evan said.  Then he sighed slightly.  “It just feels like we saw more of each other when I wasn’t stationed in the States, which makes no sense.”

“I know,” Colby said.  “But we should make the most of today.  What do you want to do? Surfing or hiking or looking at clapped-out aircraft?”

“If you’re referring to the Museum of Flight, I wouldn’t sully its doors by turning up with a grunt in tow,” Evan said loftily.  “Hiking sounds good.”

And it was good, being in the outdoors after spending a week buried under a mountain.  Colby was quieter than usual, and a few times Evan glanced up to find his eyes were fixed on Evan’s face with a look he couldn’t identify.  He thought about asking him if anything was wrong, but he knew Colby of old – if he felt cornered, he’d close up quicker than a mimosa leaf, and Evan grinned suddenly at the thought he’d been spending way too much time with botanists.  No, whatever was going on in that head of Colby’s would stay there till he was good and ready to do something about it, and there was no forcing it out of him before then.

They ended up pitching the tent in a secluded corner of a campsite with a breathtaking view, hills and valleys stretching as far as the eye could see.  Colby always said this area reminded him of Winchester, Idaho.  One day, Evan thought, he’d have to get Colby to take him to where he grew up, and show him what went into making Colby Granger the man he was now.

They lay on the rug Colby had brought, looking up at the stars as they came out.  Much as he wanted to pull Colby into his arms he couldn’t take the risk in a public place like this, even after dark.  Their shoulders were touching, pressed together warmly, and it was enough to have that connection to Colby next to him, and to hear his soft breathing.

“Feels like it puts it all in perspective,” Colby said.  “It doesn’t matter what goes on down here, the killing and the hate, the stars are never going to change.”  He huffed suddenly, annoyed.  “Well, obviously they will and they are, but we’re not likely to see it in our lifetime. God, I hate being round cosmologists who insist on accuracy.”

Evan could identify only too well with that.  “Sounds like you’ve been working a tough case,” he said after a while.

“It’s getting harder to shake off what people do to each other.  Some days I want to go back to a time when I didn’t know what I do now.” Colby’s voice was rough and honest, and Evan would have sacrificed anything to give that to Colby.

“Yeah,” he said instead, because some of the things they’d seenwould never leave either of them. 

He looked up at the constellations, so familiar here on Earth, and remembered the first time he’d seen the same stars from a different planet.  It had nearly blown his mind.  That, not the fact that the vegetation and the local insects were different, had brought home to him what it meant to travel through the gate.  And in Pegasus, it had been even more awe-inspiring, looking into the night sky and not seeing a single familiar marker.  They’d been slowly mapping the Pegasus galaxy, naming some of the constellations there, though Evan was fairly certain that some of the names Colonel Sheppard came up with wouldn’t pass the approval of whatever official body decided what stars could and couldn’t be called.  He had a sneaking suspicion that the same would be true of the grouping of stars he thought of as Colby’s Ass, curving as nicely as it did in the night sky.

Everything there had been new.  A whole universe to explore, apart from the bits Dr McKay had blown up.  Earth, even the Milky Way, felt tame and hemmed in by comparison.  Not that he was ever going to go off-world again, so far as he could see, not unless one of the gate teams ran into some equipment emergency on one of their jaunts.  And even then, they’d probably only want Evan to provide the paperwork.  He sighed. 

“What’s up?”  Colby’s voice was low.

“Just thinking.” 

“Your last posting?”

How did Colby do that?  “Yeah.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“You know I can’t.”

“No names, no pack drill, just in general.”

But there was no point.  Only those who’d been to Atlantis could ever understand what its loss meant.  “That’s okay.  I need to think about something David said this morning.”

Colby said nothing for a moment.  Then he got abruptly to his feet.  “Guess I’d better leave you to your thinking then.”

“Colby-”

But he was already gone, wriggling into the tent.

Evan let his head thump back on the ground.  Damn it.  He didn’t know what had gotten up Colby’s nose.  And he still couldn’t make sense of why it felt like he was in mourning for something.  Of all the things Evan was, sentimental was not one of them.  He knew his superior officers thought highly – had done, anyway, before the Colonel Sheppard contagion struck – of his calmness, long fuse, and ability to look at situations objectively.  Not one of those things seemed to apply to him any longer.  It felt as if he was in one place, and his heart was in another.

***

They got back to Colby’s late the following afternoon, footsore and a little sunburned but relaxed and happy.  Colby had once again been quieter than usual when they’d started off that morning, which hadn’t helped Evan banish his brooding thoughts about Atlantis and how much it sucked being back on Earth, but then they got to a bluff that overlooked the valley where Colby’s team had been involved in a manhunt with the legendary Ian Edgerton.  He’d started telling Evan about it with an enthusiasm that reminded him of David.  It seemed for all his hard-won knowledge of LA, Colby’s heart still lay out in the countryside, where he’d been raised.  As his narrative continued, Evan was glad he wasn’t the jealous type - Colby’s account of Agent Edgerton’s wilderness prowess was beginning to border on breathless crush material.

They’d scarcely gotten through the door when Colby’s cell rang.  He looked at it like it was a cobra, hooded and ready to strike, but took the call anyway.

“Fuck it.”  His shoulders slumped and he shook his head as he thumbed the call finished. 

“Don’t tell me, the world’s going to end if you don’t go into work now this minute.”  Evan couldn’t disguise the anger and frustration in his voice.  “For God’s sake, Colby.”

“You know I have to,” Colby said, defensive and belligerent at the same time.

“Yeah,” Evan said, suddenly weary.  He hated the fucking FBI. 

Colby pressed a brief kiss on Evan’s lips, his mind all too obviously already elsewhere.  Then he picked up his keys and was out the door.  It was only as Evan was packing his duffle, he realised.  Love you he texted to Colby.  He didn’t get an answer, but Colby was probably already in the thick of whatever he’d been called in for. 

Packed and ready, with another two hours before he had to check in, Evan played with his phone.  He’d been going to call a cab, but hesitated.  If David wouldn’t mind taking him, at least he’d have someone to talk to.  So he called David, who sounded as if he thought it would be the biggest treat in the world to brave LA traffic on Evan’s behalf.  Evan was grinning as he hung up.  He’d been accused of being annoyingly cheerful before now, but he wondered what it must be like to go through life with the delight that seemed to inform David’s every waking minute.  Before he left, he snapped a picture of Lazarus, who was getting perkier by the day.  He might just have stroked him too, because Lazarus did seem to like it.

They got to the airport with time to spare, so David parked his brother’s car and they found a table at one of the many featureless bars in the airport.  Evan checked his cell as they waited to be served and he’d gotten an answer back from Colby.  Love you too.  You get to the airport okay?

David brought me, he sent back, and grinned as he saw David engaged in excited conversation with the bar tender over who knew what.  Knowing David, it could literally be about anything.

“Thanks for the lift, David, “Evan said once they were settled with a beer.  “I really appreciate it.”

“Any time,” David said sounding like he really meant it rather than was just being polite, before he concentrated on his drink.

“Any news back from your applications?”

He’d expected David to launch into an excited, if one-sided, discussion of the delights of the botany faculties at each of the universities he’d applied to, just in case Evan had forgotten these already, but he just shrugged slightly.  “I was thinking I might stay here a while longer,” he said.  “See how things pan out.”

Well, that was specific.  “Whatever works for you,” Evan said, because he was the last person who’d recommend rushing into a job right now.  That thought promptly raked it all back up again.

“You’ve really moved on, from there?  You could just walk away and leave it behind?” Evan asked, because that was the impression David had given yesterday.

“It wasn’t easy, not like you make it sound.  There, I spent half the time terrified I was going to die horribly, and the other half was the most exciting thing I’d ever known.  Everything was new, different, with discoveries to be made and secrets to be uncovered.  And here – there’s nothing new under the sun.  That’s what I thought at first,” David confided, leaning forward, “but then I realised what it is that I know now: things which seem impossible aren’t necessarily so.  We’ve deduced all our theories from an information set that we only know now was incomplete.  So maybe I won’t ever discover a new species here, but that doesn’t mean I can’t find other new things, or ways to apply them, the cure for cancer or global warming or –anything, really.”  David’s eyes were alight with excitement, and his hands punctuated each statement he made.

“Or raising spider plants from the dead.”

“That too,” David said with a smile.  “How’s Lazarus doing?”

Evan leaned over and showed him the latest photo on his phone.

“It won’t be long before he’s reproducing again,” David said, then winced.  “That sounds so wrong.  It’s much easier when you don’t give them names.”

“Why David, I never knew you were such a player,” Evan said, shock in his voice.

David blushed, a bright blotchy red that should have been unattractive but somehow managed to be endearing.

“Guess that means Colby’s going to be looking for homes for them all soon,” Evan said, and wondered how he was going to dodge being sent back to Colorado with a duffle full of baby plants every Sunday night.  “You know anyone who needs any spider plants?”

“He can always compost them.”

Evan rolled his eyes.  “You haven’t met Colby.  Maybe I did the wrong thing asking you for help in the first place.  Maybe I should have just let Lazarus die.”

“I’m glad you did ask,” David said, warmth in his voice.

“Yeah,” Evan said.  “It’s too easy to lose touch.”

“You and Colby obviously didn’t.”

“And that’s despite the fact he’s a grunt.” Evan’s nose wrinkled in fastidious distaste.  “I guess even I have my lapses.”

“I suppose the two of you go way back.”

“Afghanistan.  I was part of a chopper team that got sent in to pull his patrol out of a sticky situation, and afterwards he came to find me to say thanks.”  If yelling at Evan for putting himself in danger by leaving the aircraft when Colby allegedly had the situation covered counted as saying thanks, but David didn’t need to know that.  He also didn’t need to know that they’d met once before that, one night on the beach in Hawaii, with Colby’s mouth just as talented then as now.  He was suddenly aware of the intensely inappropriate grin on his face, and fought to bring it under control. 

What had David been asking again?  “Uh, yeah, so we kind of stayed in touch when we both got back to the States,” he said.  “And his apartment is handy for visiting the folks.”  Or had he already told David that one?  Maybe he’d better just shut up.  He drained his beer.  “Guess I should go check in.”

There was a thin smile on David’s face.  “I’d better let you go then.”

“Thanks again for the lift.  If I can do the same for you any time, just let me know,” Evan offered as he stood up.

“That’s okay,” David said, getting to his feet.  “I think I might be leaving LA soon.”

“Oh.”  Evan was surprised.  “I thought you were staying here a while.”

“I changed my mind,” David said

Evan realised he shouldn’t really be surprised at the sudden switch, given how erratic he’d been since they’d been thrown off Atlantis.  “Stay in touch,” he said.  “Lazarus may still need you – I don’t think I can trust him to Colby’s tender mercies.”

David’s smile looked slightly sad.  “Take care, Evan.”

When Evan looked back from the check-in desk a few minutes later, David’s tall figure was already lost in the crowd.

***

Back in Colorado that night, Evan found it hard to sleep.  He felt as if he’d said goodbye to his last real link to Atlantis.  As he thought that, David’s earlier words came back to him.  The whole thing about saying goodbye to the city had sounded a bit too much like tree-hugging mumbo-jumbo to Evan, but compared to a suspicion that had begun to percolate in the depths of Evan’s sleep-deprived brain come morning, it was beginning to sound quite sane.

He spent the day counting paperclips, then came home and unpacked his art supplies.  He set up his easel, and then sat there in front of it for the longest time, remembering Atlantis, her beauty in the dawning day, the way the light blazed off some surfaces while softly caressing others.  He put the first brushstrokes down on the paper, and as he did, something eased in him. 

Five hours later, he sat back, neck and shoulders screaming from where he’d been hunched so intently over his work.  The unmistakable shape of Atlantis was looking back at him.  He cleaned his brushes, realised belatedly he didn’t have any food in the place, and went to bed. 

The next day was a repeat of the first, except this time he was layering in detail. He remembered just how she looked and how she felt, as well as the things that had happened while he’d been there - the good, the sometimes ridiculous, and the unbelievably bad. 

When he sat back at the end of another long evening he felt the picture was almost done.  And he felt that once it was, he could let Atlantis go.  And the bit that he couldn’t tell anyone, ever, was that she would then let him go.  He hadn’t said goodbye, so she’d stayed with him, even to the next galaxy. 

He shook his head.  Obviously the fumes from the paints were getting to him.

Sometime after midnight on Wednesday, he finished it.  It might not be the most technically perfect picture he’d ever painted, but it had everything he felt for Atlantis poured into it.  He poured himself a glass of whisky and raised it to the Atlantis in the picture in a final salute.

Maybe he should have left it at that, but he ended up having a few more whiskeys, and there might have been a moment where his eyes stung a little because it hurt, leaving the city, leaving the expedition, and the best damn posting he’d ever had.  But he could accept now that it was over.  Maybe in time he’d be able to look back and be thankful he’d had it at all.

Next morning, Evan managed to sleep through his alarm, and stumbled into his rabbit hutch forty minutes late.  He still hadn’t fully woken up when there was a knock on the door and Colonel Sheppard wandered in.

“Hey, Lorne.”

He propped a hip on Evan’s desk and started playing with the F-14 pencil sharpener Colby had got him.  Pencils were sharpened by being pushed up its afterburner.  He didn’t want to think too hard about what might have been going through Colby’s mind when he chose it.

“So how’s the supply chain thing going for you?”

“Super, sir, if you don’t count the sixty dozen bales of toilet paper that have gotten lost somewhere in the Milky Way.”

“I was only asking to be polite.”

“In that case, super, sir.”

Colonel Sheppard seemed fascinated by the pencil sharpener’s swing wings.

“I hear you’re leading an off-world team, sir.”

The pencil sharpener got returned to Evan’s desk with a decided click.

“You say leading, I say nurse-maiding.  You’re not missing out on anything there, Lorne.”

And though Colonel Sheppard held his gaze for the merest instant, Evan knew he meant it.  He also saw, with the clarity of a recovering addict, the thing in Colonel Sheppard that he’d only just gotten clear of himself.  He wondered how to say it, then realised he couldn’t.

“Dr McKay, sir?” he asked instead.  “Where’s he at?”

“Rodney’s failing to create havoc at Area 51, which might just mean the pod people took over in our absence.”

Because Dr McKay’s middle names were havoc and mayhem.  That was odd, though.  Evan hoped Dr McKay was all right.  And then he realised what he was doing and shook himself.

“I should get on, make sure my teamhave all washed behind their ears before we go out,” Colonel Sheppard said, and took the three steps that got him from Evan’s desk to the door. 

“Thanks for dropping by, sir,” Evan said.  And he meant it.  That was the thing about Colonel Sheppard – he never left a man behind.

***

Friday morning, Evan was up earlier than usual and had his duffle packed for the weekend trip with time to spare before he had to get to the rabbit hutch.  His office, he mentally corrected himself.  Because resenting the whole paperclip thing wouldn’t change it - he was stuck there, and would have to make the most of it. 

He felt balanced again, for the first time since returning to Earth.  Colonel Sheppard’s visit had helped; at least he knew that being on a gate team didn’t make up for everything.  He’d just have to strike the right balance between doing a good enough job of paperclip husbandry to make sure he impressed the right people with his dedication and ability, but not so good a job they decided they couldn’t afford to move him.

Sitting at his desk that afternoon, taking a break from spreadsheets and forms, he wondered about getting one of Lazarus’s babies set up in here.  It seemed cruel to take it away from natural light, but he could always get a special lamp for it and it was only going to be temporary.  Three years at most.  He could do that.  The plant would be company, and David had said they enriched the air.  And Colby would be thankful to have found another home for one.  Evan’s thoughts wandered slightly as he wondered precisely how thankful Colby would be.  Perhaps he wouldn’t offer to take a baby but just set the seed in Colby’s mind so he thought he had to persuade Evan.  Bribe him, even.  Because Colby’s idea of a bribe usually involved a spectacularly drawn-out blow job, and Colby did excel at giving blow jobs.  Oh yeah, Evan could let himself be persuaded to take quite a few of Lazarus’s babies, given the right inducement.  Maybe he could start giving them away round SGC; that way he could keep Colby permanently grateful.  And busy.

He was still thinking of Colby’s mouth when the klaxon blared, making him jump, and sending adrenaline racing.  A tannoy announcement followed immediately – the base was on lockdown.  All personnel were to stay in their area of operation until told otherwise.

An hour later, Evan was beginning to wonder if everyone had forgotten about the paperclip section of SGC.  Despite keeping his office door open – and his sidearm to hand because he knew what could come through that gate – he hadn’t seen a soul.

Eventually Colonel Sheppard showed.  Yet again the colonel was breaking SOPs because it should have been the military police letting Evan know what was going on, but Evan was so damn relieved to see anyone that he wasn’t going to quibble.

“Half of SG-3 keeled over minutes after getting back from P7X-809,” Colonel Sheppard said, propping the doorway up because he obviously thought it looked dangerously unstable.  “They think it’s some sort of alien virus so we all get to stay here till they get it cleared up.” 

Evan groaned, and let his head drop forward onto his desk. 

“Couldn’t have put it better myself. Mess hall is open 24/7, and they’re doing the usual thing with sleeping arrangements.”

“Friday,” Evan said, and it came out muffled by the stack of paper he’d face-planted into.  “Why does it have to be Friday afternoon?”

“Because this galaxy hates us,” Colonel Sheppard said.  “Try not to commit hara-kiri with your stapler, Lorne.  The cleaning staff get tetchy.”

Evan stayed where he was.  Friday afternoon.  Four hours from seeing Colby, and four and a bit hours from getting the blow job to end all blow jobs.  He hated his life.

***

Quarantine was finally lifted on Thursday morning.  After all that, it turned out there’d been no alien pathogens; it had simply been a case of good old Earth flu.  The unintended consequence of the quarantine had been that almost half of SGC now seemed to be going down with the flu, having been stuck in such close quarters for so long.  For once Evan seemed to be having some good luck, because so far he hadn’t had so much as a sniffle. 

When he got back to his quarters on Thursday night, he called Colby but got voicemail.  With cell phones forbidden inside the mountain he’d been reduced to sending Colby an email on the official system, in which he’d only been able to say he wouldn’t be able to make it this weekend because of work.  He knew Colby would understand the strictures on communications but he’d hoped to speak to him.  Instead he ended up leaving a message for him, giving his flight details for the next day.

***

On Friday evening, as he made his way determinedly through the crush that was the arrivals hall at LAX, he saw Colby waiting for him.  He was wearing a white shirt open at the neck and grey dress pants, which meant he must have come straight from work.  He looked tired and anxious, and was clearly searching for Evan in the midst of the crowd. 

Evan stopped dead, causing the businessman hurrying behind him to bounce off his back with a loud curse before he stepped round Evan, glaring at him on his way past.  But Evan scarcely noticed because he was rooted to the spot, looking at Colby.  In the midst of a mass of people, in one of the busiest airports in the world, Evan suddenly knew.  Atlantis had grown from a simple posting to so much more.  But even Atlantis had never felt like this. 

He was home.

He’d wiped his face clean of all expression by the time he started moving again, because they couldn’t risk being seen as anything other than casual friends.  They shared a quick, back-slapping hug, then made their way to Colby’s car, talking about the journey and how bad traffic was and everything two straight buddies might be expected to talk about.

“Sorry about last weekend,” Evan said, once they were in the privacy of Colby’s car. 

Colby didn’t answer immediately, concentrating on reversing out of the parking space.  He’d used his FBI credentials to park somewhere he shouldn’t have.  Evan thought it was only fair that they should get some benefit given the way the Bureau routinely ruined their weekends. 

When Colby glanced over at Evan a few minutes later, the strain Evan had seen on his face earlier was even more pronounced.  “I thought there was no such thing as a paperclip emergency.”

“You’d think,” Evan agreed, not sure what the tone in Colby’s voice meant.  “The base went into lockdown for a few days.  Just my bad luck it happened when I was there.”

Colby’s expression lightened slightly.  “Oh,” he said.  “Everything okay?”

“Just a precautionary measure.  Everything turned out fine.”

“Good.”

“How was yourweek?” Evan asked, trying to lighten an atmosphere he didn’t understand.

Colby glanced in the mirror before overtaking a car that was taking the speed limit a little too seriously.  “Would you believe, I didn’t get called in once the whole of last weekend.”

Evan groaned and let his head thump back against the head-rest.  “What the hell?” he asked rhetorically.

“Yeah,” Colby agreed.  “Don’s promised this weekend he’ll only call me as an absolute last resort.”

“Thank God,” Evan said.

“There’s an exhibition on the French Impressionists at the Museum of Art,” Colby said a few minutes later, his eyes trained on the road.  “I got us tickets, in case you want to go.”

Evan got the feeling he’d stepped into the twilight zone.  “But you hate art exhibitions.”

Colby shrugged slightly.  “Maybe I didn’t give them a fair chance,” he said.  “I’ve been reading up on the Impressionists and the way they tried to show light, and their use of colour.  I never knew they changed art forever.”

Scrub the twilight zone, this was bizarro world.  “Sorry, what?  You’ve been reading up on the Impressionists?”

Colour stained Colby’s cheeks.  “I thought you’d like to go,” he said quietly.

“Well yeah, it’s just…”  Evan trailed off, because Colby’s concentration on the traffic was suddenly ferocious.

“Thanks,” Evan said, realising he’d somehow managed to put his foot in it.  “I’d like that.”

And then there was an awkward silence the rest of the way to Colby’s, which was weird because the one thing they never were was awkward with one another.

As soon as they were through the front door, Evan wanted to push Colby against the nearest wall and kiss him hello properly, but Colby was already throwing his keys onto the table on his way to the kitchen.  Evan followed him, and Lazarus caught his eye, looking particularly green and healthy.  It wouldn’t hurt to start his campaign for bribery and general corruption of an FBI agent right now.

“How’s Lazarus?”

“You need to let David know?”

Evan stared at Colby in shock. 

“Sorry,” Colby said.  “Sorry.  You want supper?”  He turned away to open the fridge door.

“You’re not jealous of David, are you?” he asked Colby’s back as he was rooting around in the fridge.  Because that would be ridiculous but what other reason could there possibly be for what Colby had just said?

“Course not,” Colby said, pulling some covered dishes out and setting them on the counter.  The only problem was, he didn’t sound in the least bit convincing.

“He’s a friend,” Evan said.  “You know that.”

Colby paused, and took a breath.  Then he turned round and faced Evan.  “He’s a friend you talk to about what’s going on with you,” he said.  “That’s more than you do with me these days.”

“He had the same posting as me,” Evan pointed out, irritated.  “You know the rules - I can’t talk to you about it.” 

“I know that,” Colby snapped.  “But you don’t tell me anything.  Maybe it’s not the posting you have the problem with,” he said, and turned away.

Evan stood there and wondered what had just happened.  “What the hell, Colby?” 

Then he saw the defeat in Colby’s slumped shoulders.  “Hey,” he said, moving up behind Colby and wrapping his arms round his waist.  Colby didn’t lean back into Evan the way he usually did.  “Come on, Colby, you know better than that.”

“Do I?” Colby sounded bitter.  “It’s obvious you don’t really want to be here.”

Evan froze, because damn it to hell, Colby had a point.  A ridiculously exaggerated one, but a point nonetheless.  Up until now, he hadn’t wanted the life he’d been catapulted back into with no choice.  It had been a consolation prize, and not even a very good one.  But it had never been about Colby.  He could neverbe a consolation prize.

His hand covered Colby’s where it was clenched on the counter.  The warmth of his grip slowly persuaded the muscles to relax so that Colby’s knuckles lost their whiteness and he could take hold of Colby’s hand.  “Come on.”

“Where?” Colby asked, but didn’t sound like he really cared as he let Evan lead him to the bedroom.

“Evan-”

“Just get on the bed,” Evan said. “I want to tell you about my posting.”

“Evan, you don’t-”

“I do,” he said, heeling off his shoes and nodding to Colby to do the same.  They lay on Colby’s bed -  which for once had been made – and Evan put his arms round Colby and started to tell him about Atlantis.  As much as he could, without breaching military secrets.  He told him about the beauty of the place when the sun came up, how there wasn’t a sound except the breaking of the surf and the occasional wild cry of a seabird.  How the sun seemed clearer there, the air sharper.  He told him about Teyla, despite the way his voice thickened as he did so, and  about Ronon,and Dr Zelenka and his well-founded mistrust of children, and Corporal Smythe and his challenges with spelling, and Lt Cadman and how badly she unnerved Dr McKay simply by existing.  He told him about the dysfunctional but supportive family they’d become, all the ties and bonds as well as the irritations, and that he’d never fully recognised that until it had been torn away without warning.

Colby was tense in his arms at first, but slowly relaxed as Evan kept talking.  The unhappiness on his face was finally banished completely when Evan told him about how Colonel Sheppard pretended not to notice that he left at least half the local population swooning in his wake, but how put out he was when a thirteen year old girl set her sights on Rodney instead of him.  Evan’s impression of Colonel Sheppard pretending not to care might have gotten him KP for the year had the colonel witnessed it, but it made Colby laugh.

“I see why you were happy there,” he said, when Evan finally stopped speaking. 

“Don’t get me wrong – there was still bad stuff and dirt and bullets, but the other things made up for it most of the time.”

“I get that. I’m sorry you had to leave.”

“I always knew it wasn’t permanent,” Evan said, “but no-one expected us to get pulled out with no notice.  I guess I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.”  And perhaps as importantly, it seemed like the city hadn’t been either.  “But in the end it was just a posting.  This, you – it’s home.”

He leaned in and kissed Colby, gently, but with the sure knowledge that what he'd said was true.  And Colby kissed him back, hand coming up to cup Evan’s jaw as they explored one another’s mouths again, so familiar and always right.

Eventually he drew back.  He could kiss Colby all night – maybe he would, later – but there was something he wanted to clear up first. 

“Did you really think I’d cheat on you?”  Evan thought he should be mad about that, but all he felt was hurt.

“I know you wouldn’t,” Colby said, quickly and firmly. “I know you, Evan.”

“So what was your problem with David?”

Colby wouldn’t meet Evan’s gaze. 

“Colby?”

“You wouldn’t cheat, but what’s to stop you falling in love with someone else?” Colby finally muttered.

“Oh God, you are the biggest, dumbest grunt there ever was.”  Evan hauled Colby in close against him, hand on the back of his neck, and held him there despite Colby’s protest, muffled in his shoulder.  “How the hell do you think I’m going to fall in love with someone else when I’m totally in love with you, you nitwit?”

He felt Colby huff into his shoulder, and the tension that had been in Colby’s body suddenly fled.  Evan let him pull back.

“Did you just call me a nitwit?”

“If the cap fits,” Evan pointed out, before his voice failed him completely.  Nitwit or not, Colby’s eyes were shining brighter than ever Atlantis had done in the morning sun.

They never did get to the art exhibition.  Colby’s attempt to look disappointed by that fact was possibly the least convincing thing Evan had seen since Dr McKay’s protestations of innocence over Colonel Sheppard’s missing dessert.

Late on Sunday morning, Evan came through from the shower to get dressed, to find Colby emptying his sock drawer and trying to cram its contents into his underwear drawer.  And it was a bit sad that they’d been together so long Evan knew the contents of Colby’s dresser drawers.

“What the hell are you doing, Granger?” he asked, because some days the workings of Colby’s brain defeated him.

Colby looked a little self-conscious as he turned to face Evan, though that quickly faded as he took in the fact Evan was naked.  “Colby,” Evan said, snapping his fingers as he saw Colby’s eyes following the trails of water that had dripped from his hair and were now sliding down his chest and stomach.

“What?  Oh.  You should have your own space here.  I cleared out half the closet while you were caterwauling.”

It wasn’t Evan’s fault he liked to hum in the shower.

“This place is half yours, you know,” Colby said, turning back to his overflowing drawer and trying to jam it closed.  Not legally, I know, but in the ways that matter.”

Evan sat down on the bed, suddenly winded.  It wasn’t right that after all this time Colby could still surprise him.  There was no chance of them buying a place together so long as Evan was in the Air Force.  They couldn’t even make a private arrangement, because Colby’s finances were subject to annual checks by the FBI.  But this – this could be their space, together.

“You could keep your stuff here that you don’t need during the week, and maybe put some of your paintings up,” Colby said, obviously trying to make it clear it was more than just socks and a toothbrush he was talking about, just as he finally managed to wrangle the drawer shut.

“You’ll have to share the lemon drizzle cake,” Evan pointed out, because it was either that or say something embarrassingly emotional.

“You get cake or blow jobs, not both.  You decide.”

Despite his nagging suspicion that Colby’s choice would have been different from his, Evan found he didn’t really mind.  Not with the way Colby went so easily to his knees for him.

***

Two weeks later, Evan had just hung his painting of Atlantis on the wall in Colby’s bedroom – their bedroom, he guessed he should call it now – when the front door opened.  He heard Colby’s keys land on the table in the living room.

“In here,” he called, and Colby came into the bedroom, undoing his tie.

“Sorry,” Colby started.

“No problem,” Evan said, because there wasn’t.  There’d been developments in the case Colby’s team were working, which had stopped him from meeting Evan at the airport.  Evan had taken a cab because, even if he’d felt it fair to ask David for such a favour again, David was now at a university in Germany,  He seemed to be happy but very busy there, judging from the couple of short replies Evan had gotten to his emails. 

No sooner had he gotten to Colby’s apartment building than he’d been seized upon by Mrs Clark.  She had a dripping tap, which Colby had been saying all week he was going to fix for her but had been kept too late at work to do so, apparently.  Evan had come back from her apartment with an improved knowledge of plumbing and a tub filled with coffee walnut cake.  He wasn’t going to mention that latter fact to Colby yet because he didn’t want to be abandoned in the bedroom while Colby tore off to the kitchen.  Evan’s ego wasn’t particularly fragile, but there were some things it didn’t need to be subjected to.

“What do you think?” he asked, and tried not to let Colby’s answer matter too much.  It was just a painting.

Colby stood back and looked at it for a few moments. “I didn’t know you painted fantasy,” he said in the end, “but it really works.  It looks foreign, like something from a different time or place.  Something about the light’s different.  Is it a castle?”

He guessed it was difficult to tell scale if you didn’t know Atlantis.  “A city.”

“Yeah?  It looks almost alive, like it’s stretching to the sky, reaching for something.”

Something like the cold vastness of space, perhaps - Atlantis was designed to fly.  What Colby saw in it made sense.  It also made him look at Colby closely.  It had never before crossed his mind that Colby might have the gene.  And that reawoke his fantasy about Colby one day leaving the FBI to work for the IOA’s Field Operations Division and being posted to Atlantis as their representative.  He wouldn’t need the gene for that, but if he had it, that would definitely tip the scales in his favour.

“I really like it,” Colby concluded.

Because Evan couldn’t possibly convey what that meant to him, he changed the subject.  Sort of.  “One day I’m going to get that nude portrait of you done, and then that can go up there too.”

“Like that’ll happen. You have absolutely no willpower when it comes to me naked.”

Unfortunately that was true.  Evan didn’t want to waste time painting Colby when he could be touching him.  Maybe now they were spending more time together, things would be different.  Though as Colby grinned at him, looking disgustingly self-satisfied, Evan couldn’t imagine ever taking this for granted, the ability to kiss him and touch him, and maybe shove him backwards onto the bed and climb on top of him to wipe the smug smile from his face.

Colby was halfway through assembling the ingredients for another questionable combination of dishes when he suddenly stopped what he was doing and turned an indignant glare on Evan.  “What’s Lazarus doing back in the kitchen?”

“I’d like to know what he was doing in the bedroom to start with,” Evan said. “He is not getting to watch us having sex.”

“The light in there’s supposed to be better for him and – hold on, he’s a plant, you freak.”

“Yes, he is,” Evan said with a smirk.

He got a dishcloth in his face for his trouble, and retreated to the living room while Colby continued his labours over a supper that was almostguaranteed to be delicious.  The fact that his amalgamations were occasionally unspeakably awful gave mealtimes that interesting edge.

When his cell went, Evan was thinking more about Colby and supper than why Laura Cadman would be calling him, which left him seriously confused and also alarmed at what he did follow of what she’d just said.

“Cadman, Laura, back up a minute.  What have turtles got to do with Colonel Sheppard going AWOL?”

He sank onto the couch, his legs refusing to hold him as she told him about the plan to nuke Atlantis, and then the way Colonel Sheppard and his improbable rag-tag strike team – Dr Beckett, for God’s sake – had destroyed the Replicators and reclaimed the city.  All expedition members were now being offered the opportunity to return.  The hurt he’d felt at not being part of Colonel Sheppard’s strike team evaporated as he realised.

“All of us?”

“Everyone who wants to.”

He thanked her and hung up, head spinning.  He was going back.  Holy crap, he was going back.

He looked up to find Colby standing in the doorway.  “Any particular reason you look like the cat who got the cream, the canary, and disposed of the dog all at the same time?”

“My last posting - we’re going back.”  And even though he said it out loud, he still didn’t believe it.

Colby froze, and that’s when Evan realised.  Everything he’d started to take for granted, the weekends with Colby, their mid-week phone calls, all of that would be gone.  They’d be back to seeing each other four or maybe five times a year.  All other contact would go through the military censors, meaning they could never say anything without thinking it through at least twice, and then once more just to be sure they weren’t betraying themselves.  He could have Atlantis or Colby but not both, not the way they’d begun to get used to.  He closed his eyes for an instant because there was no doubt which he chose, but it hurt so very much to let Atlantis go again.

“It’s an elective posting.  I don’t have to go,” he said, and his voice didn’t sound like him.

Colby crossed the room and crouched in front of him, his large hands warm on Evan’s thighs.  “Yeah, you do,” he said, his eyes steady on Evan’s.  “You love it there.  And it’s what you’re goodat, not counting damn paperclips in an office all day.”

Evan drew a breath that was unexpectedly shaky, because how the hell had he gotten so lucky? 

Colby smiled at him, his eyes full of love and a hint of sadness.  “Just make sure you come home to me.”

He cupped a hand to Colby’s jaw, his thumb tracing his cheek, willing Colby to understand how much he loved him.  “Always,” he promised.

***

Five days later, Evan was waiting with the rest of the expedition for the gate to dial.  He’d exchanged greetings with David, who was looking even more excited than usual, and with Cadman, who for some reason he wasn’t going to ask about was carrying a bowl of baby turtles.  He adjusted his duffle, hoping that its cargo would survive the trip to another galaxy - Colby had insisted he take Lazarus’s new baby with him. 

As the gate dialled and a connection was established, Evan took one last look round.  He wouldn’t miss Cheyenne Mountain and all that went with it one little bit.  He’d miss everything else he was leaving behind, but he’d be coming back.  Atlantis was still Atlantis, with all it meant to him, but even that didn’t match up to what he had on Earth.

“All right, people, move out.”  The grin in Evan’s voice came through loud and clear.  It was the same grin he could see on so many familiar faces around him as they obeyed Atlantis’s military Second-in-Command.

And when they were all were finally gone, their faces bright and eager, Evan followed them through the gate.