A Life Revolutionary

"What if he's the last human left?"

Jennifer glares at him from the other side of the table.

Rodney knows he shouldn't have brought it up again, but he can't let it go. John is out there somewhere, 48,000 years in the future, without anyone, without his team. Without Rodney. It's wrong and he knows Jennifer knows it's wrong.

"You have to let this go. You did what you could and now you have to let this go, for your own sake," she says it gently, but there's more than a hint of exasperation in her voice.

Rodney nods, because he does know. But that doesn't mean he can do anything about it, can stop his mind from spinning out a hundred different scenarios, ninety-eight of which result in John meeting a lonely, painful end.

Reaching across the table, Jennifer squeezes his hand, and Rodney tells himself to focus on the now, on the smart, beautiful wife who loves him, on all the things he thought he'd never have. Squeezing back, he gives her a small smile and picks up his wine glass.

***

"She wouldn't have wanted this," Jeannie says and Rodney stiffens. He knows exactly where this conversation is going.

"You can't live your life trying to change the past," Jeannie continues.

It's the fifth anniversary of Jennifer's death and Jeannie has come to see him. Rodney suspects she thinks there's a timer on grief, that he should be ready to move on now.

One year. It wasn't enough and it was still too long.

"Leave or help," Rodney says, and picks up his laptop, sitting on the couch to work.

***

Radek comes back the following year. His hair is more gray than brown, more white than gray. Rodney doesn't tell him that he looks like Einstein because he doesn't. Einstein's hair was kinetic, like some kind of extension of the energy from his brain, at least that's how it looked in pictures.

Radek's hair has seen too much.

"Is crazy idea," Radek says, examining the equations scribbled across Rodney's whiteboard.

Rodney opens his mouth to argue when Radek says, "I will help."

He's taken a position at some European university Rodney has never heard of and has no desire to visit. But Radek's emails arrive every Tuesday and Saturday, regular as clockwork, some are more helpful than others.

Radek doesn't mention Atlantis and Rodney doesn't ask.

***

"Do you have any idea how arrogant you're being? You're trying to change an entire time line, Mer."

The argument has been brewing for months, maybe years, but Rodney still doesn't want to have it. "Everyone changes the time line," he replies, arms folded across his chest. "When I was at the grocery store yesterday a bag boy stopped a woman from stepping in front of a car. Changed the universe."

"It's not the same thing and you know it," Jeannie replies, heat in her voice.

"Isn't it?" Rodney asks. He doesn't tell her that he thinks about it all the time. Thinks about what Elizabeth did when she spent her life in a fucking stasis pod to save the rest of the expedition. In that universe, the one where they all died within hours of entering Atlantis, Teyla is probably a grandmother by now, living on Athos with Kanaan. And Ronon is still on Sateda with that woman whose name Rodney doesn't know because Ronon never talked about her. Rodney only knows she existed because Jennifer had told him all of Ronon's secrets after Ronon died, at least the one's she'd known.

Elizabeth had done the best she could with the information she had, and it comforts him, a little, to think of that universe, where the Wraith are asleep, the Replicators are still trying to become real boys and girls, and he's been dead for twenty years, drowned by an alien ocean.

But in this universe he's alive and all he can do is follow her example. John's example.

You don't leave people behind.

"I won't change this universe," Rodney says. "This universe, this time line, will continue to exist." But out there, somewhere a new one will start. A universe where John saves Teyla, and Ronon and Sam don't die in a futile attempt to stop Michael. Where John doesn't remain trapped at the end of the universe.

"Which is why you should stop." Jeannie moves closer, rests a hand on his arm. "It's not too late. You could still have a life, a real life, with friends, someone to love. You can't spend your entire life trying to save the dead. Do you honestly think this is what Jennifer would have wanted?"

Rodney's had a real life, and he loved his wife, but when he lays down to sleep and closes his eyes it isn't her face he sees.

"This is what I want."

Jeannie squeezes his arm and turns away.

When the door closes behind her Rodney knows she won't be coming back.

***

Rodney pulls the covers up to his chin and closes his eyes. He can see him, clear as day, John Sheppard, sand on his face and in his hair, suspended in time. But alive.

John's alive. He didn't die alone. And John will save them all because it's what John does.

Rodney's pulled off a miracle. It's the ultimate Hail Mary, and John's the ball. Rodney just tossed him back in the game.

For the first time in twenty-five years Rodney falls asleep with a smile on his face.