Title: the taste of the sky

Disclaimer: not my characters; just for fun.

Warnings: spoilers for season two

Pairings: none

Rating: PG

Wordcount: 545

Point of view: third

John

The first time John ever went on a plane he knew he'd come home. He didn't feel like that again until he set foot on Atlantis. He wanted to find a corner and curl up, soak in the city's presence, wrap her around him like a handmade quilt.

Even flying the puddlejumper to a possible battle felt comforting-part of Atlantis traveling the stars with him.

Atlantis was like his mother, pulling him into a full-body embrace, picking him up in her arms.

Atlantis welcomed him. Lit up for him and filled him with warmth. Like no place ever had except the sky.

Rodney

Rodney never belonged-too young for his true peers and too smart for his age-mates, he had nowhere and no one.

He had felt a connection with the piano, but it apparently wasn't for him, so he turned to science. It never fit like music, but nobody could deny he had a gift for it.

He sailed through school, often smarter than his teachers, and he learned to push people away since no one would accept him. He had no friends, no one who understood him-no one who wanted to understand him. He taught himself to be fine with it; he didn't need anyone, after all.

Sometimes, though, he still missed the piano.

Teyla

Teyla does not have any point of reference for the Atlantians. They are a resourceful, clever people-and arrogant. They have technology she has never seen, and some of them treat her like a child, incapable of understanding. But Dr. Zelenka is patient and shows her how to work the machine-box called computer, and Major Sheppard teaches her to shoot a gun.

Teyla has always been a quick study and she knows the Atlantians have come to lead the way to the future. They are not the Ancestors-instead, they are the Ancestors' heirs, Major Sheppard especially. Teyla is a leader, yet she would follow still follow Major Sheppard into the belly of a Wraith hiveship. Major Sheppard reminds Teyla of her father, the kind of man who never asked for power but commanded it with ease.

Teyla is not Atlantian. But no longer is she fully Athosian, either. Atlantis is not home, but anywhere Major Sheppard is, she will stay.

Ronon

Ronon was civilized once. He's tried to forget those days.

Atlantis is no Sateda, not home in the least. The people, most of them, are soft. They wouldn't survive a one-on-one encounter with a Wraith. Some, though, are soldiers-not quite up to Satedan standards, but close.

He misses his mother, his brothers, and Melena. He hates the Wraith and Kell, and himself for surviving that final attack.

But after that, he chose to live. He kept running and fighting, killing any Wraith he could.

And now he stands still, on Atlantis, City of the Ancestors. They have taken him in, offered him a place to sleep in safety. They are not home. Atlantis is not Sateda. But he can see how, one day, the Atlantians-Sheppard, above all-might become his family. They won't replace what Kell and the Wraith stole, nothing could ever do that. But they might ease the loss, might help him to live again.

He'll give Atlantis a try.