The controls of a Black Hawk hadn't changed. John's radio crackled instructions, and he chafed under the belts holding him to his seat. He dreamed the preflight, checking gauges and switches. When he was cleared for takeoff, he opened the throttle like a green pilot on his first solo flight. The helicopter churned air, pitched forward, the rotor blades blurring. John waited for the muscle-deep memory of flying to embrace him, eager and fierce. He waited for the helicopter to welcome him, to send joy-in-movement singing through his senses. But the Black Hawk hadn't changed, and John ached for home.

"Wrong wrong wrong," Rodney says, "what do they dump here, toxic waste? Did Godzilla wash up and rot?"

Jeannie sniffs. "It's the Pacific."

Rodney waves disgust. Half his brain is calculating the Daedalus's load limits, three-eighths is writing rants to international science journals, but one sixteenth remembers Atlantis, clean water and sharp air. "Don't let your kids in it; I know mortal danger and the pollution--"

Jeannie catches his fingers before he snaps. "I'm glad you're here."

Yes, yes, it's been wonderful bonding, but this isn't Rodney's ocean, and the remaining sixteenth counts down by primes until he's home.

"I think you'll find, Colonel, that my mandate can't be dictated by the military." Elizabeth refuses to break Caldwell's gaze. Again and again, she hears her voice on tape, mourning those she's lost. "It is clear you would veto my choices for your self-importance."

"My concerns--"

She's lost so many. She poured compassion into each message, emptying herself. "I'm sorry, Colonel." She wants to close her eyes. The world shimmers before her, like an event horizon. "This briefing is over."

From the control room, she watches the Stargate ripple. Instead of missions and aliens, she sees her pathway home.

"It sounds as though you're doing well, Carson?"

"Is that a question, Mum?" Carson smiled as she presented him with the pot roast. "I can tell you, it is going well."

"And you're happy, are you?" She fluttered about, bringing vegetables, warm butter, thick dark bread. "Did those military boys get my woollen socks to you?"

"Yes, Mum." Carson put his fork down and laid his hand over hers. She smiled, uncertainly, but her eyes were warm. Aliens, he thought; galactic wars, nanoviruses, inoculations that killed. "I am keeping warm."

She talked of other things, and Carson thought of home.

Radek hunched over laptops for many hours and muttered. Raised head now and then, surprised to be not interrupted by Rodney snapping fingers and yelling insane brilliance. He reconfigured puddlejumpers, tweaked shields, but with Major Sheppard not there for testing he must shoo away unqualified pilots, all who thought they could not blow up. He woke up at desk, forgot eating, woke up at desk again, and wondered why Beckett did not drag him to messhall. Teyla forced meetings on him to settle dispute; he rolled eyes and wished for Weir.

Only when Daedalus landed, he knew Atlantis was home.

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July 26, 2005