Life, as a gathering of moments, leads us not to one conclusion but to many. A single step in either direction could draw one into fortune or failure, love or heartbreak. The one unchangeable instance is that the moments go ever onward; like water unto earth, falling down because gravity defines its forward momentum. Time marches onward and the past stays in the past.

##

After the quarantine ends, after the congratulations to Zelenka and the suddenly halting conversations following his movement around the city, Rodney goes looking for Teyla. He has no reason for it, no history that would defend his footsteps up to her door, but in some ways it feels inevitable. The quarantine is over – and Rodney has to force himself not to capitalize that word, has to make it just another day instead of another failure. This isn’t the first and the ones that were lost feel like a lifetime ago; Dumais and Peterson and almost him, almost a third of their people. But today Radek is a hero and Ronon smiles nervously at Keller and Katie sees him, finally, for what he truly is – so it’s Teyla that he goes looking for. He isn’t sure why, though he supposes it’s for the comfort that wouldn’t come from awkwardly drowning his sorrows while Sheppard tries not to make things worse, the cheap American beer hidden on the balcony cold and flat on his tongue.

The inside of her quarters smells sweet, some anonymous candle flickering vanilla scented flame in the shadows. Teyla doesn’t look up when he walks inside, the door sliding open on its own even though she doesn’t have the gene. For half a second Rodney wonders if he’s forced himself in here, but she doesn’t speak to turn him away, still sitting cross-legged on the floor with her eyes closed in silent meditation. Rodney takes that for acceptance and settles himself down on the floor beside her, resting his hand against her palm when she offers it to him; warm and dry against the contrast of his own while the quiet of her breathing centers him.

He pictures a velvet box sinking, salt water pushing inside to wrap around metal and diamond promises that come up short and lets the ache in his chest fall away for a minute.

##

Sparring with Teyla has never been anything but difficult, every move a hairs breadth away from stinging knuckles and bruised elbows, the wash of air rushing past his ear as she lays out the control held in her hands, narrowly missing the tip while the sticks fall and spin away. Rodney isn’t part of her normal rotation – not enough challenge in his attack, not enough defending in his defense – but pregnancy has her usual partners sidestepping her approach and casting worried glances where she sees no need in their concern. In this, somehow, Rodney has no concerns; his lack of skill is no match for Teyla one handed, distracted, blindfolded, or hugely pregnant. So he doesn’t hold back, not that it matters in one direction or the other; all she wants is someone who will watch her sticks instead of her stomach for five minutes out of the day.

Rodney’s gotten used to not looking at her body at this point, he knows that Teyla isn’t some random sexy alien that he could watch from afar, isn’t someone that he could fantasize about without his face flushing red when he looked in her eyes. He sees her –, he’d have to be blind not to – but he’s learned not to look, not in the way that others do, new recruits and strangers on other planets. He sees the way her eyes narrow as theirs wander and counts himself lucky to have learned the lesson early on. Besides, there’s more beauty hiding in the shifting glance of her eyes when she truly smiles than could possibly be found in the fleeting curve of her hip or the tease of her breasts from beneath leather and sweat.

She’s always told them, Sheppard and Ronon and him alike, that the purpose of practice isn’t to win. He’s always felt that it was directed more at Sheppard and Ronon, at those who at least have some sort of chance at beating her. Sheppard once asked her what was the point, the thrill of competition and victory thrumming in the air around him, but whatever her answer – it wasn’t true for Rodney.

It’s taken almost four years for Rodney to figure it out. For him, the point is not to win, but in finding the rhythm of this - for the reverb of wood against wood coiling down his arm and the smile on Teyla’s lips when he slides through the transition of movement correctly, half speed but more coordinated than he’s felt in most of his life before now. He remembers a piano teacher’s words to his thirteen-year-old self - technically perfect, but without passion – and he finds that in this he has passion, and more so because he is imperfect; in this there is joy.

##

When the Athosians return to the city, their numbers have dwindled enough that they hesitate to start rebuilding on the mainland. Carter smiles at Halling obligingly, her gaze concentrated intently on his face and not on the Nazi-esque shave that Michael had subjected all the Athosian men to, probably as some sort of retaliation for the loss of his Wraith dreads or something. Rodney wants to ask Ronon about that, if there’s some sort of cultural deal with his hair, but then he remembers the number of knives he’s seen come out of that mop and he thinks better of it. Rodney really likes all the parts of his anatomy to remain attached where they are.

The Athosians claim some rooms in the east side of the city, farther away from the transporters than most personnel will bother with and the only part of the city where the windows actually open. Rodney thinks about Jinto during their first weeks in the new city, afraid because he couldn’t hear the wind and he thinks he understands. He stands on one of the balconies sometimes, wishing he could smell the grass from the mainland on the wind here. He’d almost put up with the allergies to have that small comfort of a reminder available on the edges of his life.

Rodney is convinced that Atlantis wasn’t designed for children. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he believes that the Ancients raised their spawn on some distant outpost, where things don’t try to kill you on a semi-daily basis, not here in a city of glass and metal surrounded by nothing but ocean and sky. Of course that doesn’t explain why Sheppard sleeps in a bed that was clearly built for a twelve year old, but he tries not to think about it too much. Trying to understand half of what Sheppard does could cause a spike in the rate that his hair is falling out, and he’s really trying to drag that out for as long as possible considering the number of times he’s almost died since they set foot in this galaxy.

##

Rodney watches Teyla’s face from his bed in the infirmary, an unmoving profile of ashen skin. His cuts are healing, fading from angry red to the soft silver of scar as each day passes. The transition matches the scars on her own body, the lines arcing across her abdomen where her child was cut from her womb. Vanity would make most women ashamed of such things, but Rodney knows that Teyla won’t let something so superficial bother her when she finally wakes. The child tucked safe in the makeshift bassinet is beautiful enough to make up for anything she could have lost.

He watches Teyla’s chest, rising and falling with rhythm of the machine that counts the measure of her life. The nurses come, daily, to wash her wounds, stripping away the bleached white scrubs of the infirmary and the bandages wrapped around the clean black lines of stitches, laid out by Dr. Keller’s careful hand. He should look away, give her privacy in this, but instead he gathers her son into his hands and prays to a god he doesn’t believe in that her eyes will open today.

He watches, waiting for her head to tip to the side, to seek out her son. He doesn’t know what he’ll say when her eyes open; apologies seem insignificant drawn up against the loss that she’s suffered, against the names that Halling listed out in the dirt on a planet halfway across the galaxy, do not return now listed next to the gate address on the city’s database. The only thing he knows is that he’ll accept anything, as long he gets to see her eyes open.

##

Once Teyla’s released from the infirmary, it’s not unusual to see her walking around with the baby strapped to the front of her with a strange hammock like scarf that’s been wound around her body in some intricate pattern. Rodney isn’t sure how the kid can breathe in there, but if it meant having his face pressed in between Teyla’s breasts like that he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t be complaining either.

She names him Caden, after some ancestor down the line; an intricate ceremony that Sheppard drags the team to one night, incense smoke floating up to the ceiling and seeping into the fabric of Rodney’s uniform jacket. It clings there, subtle, and even the Ancients super-washers can’t take away the underlying musk. Truth be told, Rodney doesn’t mind it that much and he secretly thinks that Caden watches him closer whenever he wears that jacket, recognizes the smell and the taste of his own name on his tongue.

Eventually, Caden graduates from his sling to a normal baby carrier, peering at the world from behind the coppery strands of Teyla’s hair or chewing wetly on the ends of Ronon’s dreads. Sheppard takes him occasionally, though it seems to make the Marines nervous to have their CO doing his rounds of the city with a baby on his back and a P-90 strapped to his chest. Carter gives him an odd look the one time she catches him, something that makes Sheppard look sheepish, clicking on his radio to hand the kid off to Ronon, who just shrugs and grins at Caden in a way that makes him look like a kid himself.

For a while Rodney worries, because Teyla hasn’t asked him to take on any of the babysitting duties. He’s not sure if he was supposed to sign up or if he just wasn’t on the list of people deemed appropriate to handle an infant. When he finally stumbles his way through asking Teyla about it, she just smiles, standing up from the rocking chair that they’d managed to requisition on the Daedelus with the last supply run. Rodney sits down, thanking himself in his head for remembering to insist on the padded cushions for the chair when they had ordered it. Teyla hands Caden to him, half asleep from the combined forces of breast-feeding and the smooth rocking motion of the chair. Caden shifts at the exchange, his mouth opening and closing in an imitation of suckling as he squirms closer to where Teyla’s breasts would be.

When he doesn’t find his food source in the right place, his eyes crack open drowsily, going wide and round when he sees that Rodney is the one holding him. His face starts to flush red, mouth twitching into the beginnings of a whimper. Rodney looks up at Teyla for help, remembering how quickly Jeannie had gone from a whimper to full out blood curdling screams as an infant, but Teyla just places a hand on Rodney’s arm, stilling his attempt to get out of the rocking chair.

“You should speak to him. I believe he likes the sound of your voice,” she says, her voice hushed and an odd smile curling up at the corners of her mouth.

Rodney draws his eyebrows together in confusion. “Well, I suppose I could tell him about the modifications I’m working on for the jumper, not that he’ll understand me, but maybe he could absorb something. I suppose that’s the intent behind having babies listen to music in the womb, absorbing information before they can fully comprehend it. It seems absurd to me, but medicine’s so inexact, they can’t say for sure if it makes a difference or not....”

Rodney trails off as he realizes that Caden has gone silent again, his eyes drooping back into sleep in hitching increments.

“Hey, it worked.”

Carefully stopping the rocking of the chair, Rodney cradles Caden against his chest so he can stand. He walks over to Teyla’s bed, laying the baby in the middle. Caden squirms, curling his legs up to his stomach like he’s trying to turn over. Rodney freezes, his hands hovering in the air. Suddenly, Teyla steps up behind him, her hand brushing down his arm to guide his palm to rest against Caden’s back, holding it in place until his movements stop and he falls back asleep.

“Your touch is more calming than you know.” Her voice is almost a whisper now, whether for his sake or for that of the sleeping baby, so close that he can feel the vibration against his shoulder.

Rodney looks down at the baby, at Teyla’s hand covering his own against Caden’s back. “Look, I - I know I’m not good at this, but…what happened to Sheppard - it feels like a second chance, like we get to hit some sort of reset button. And - I don’t want to waste it. I don’t want to miss…” He looks down at Caden sleeping, no fears chasing through his dreams yet, no loss or guilt in his heart. “I don’t want to miss anything,” Rodney whispers.

Teyla doesn’t say anything, a small mercy in Rodney’s mind. He turns around, overly aware of how close they’re standing, bringing his hands up to rest on her shoulders. He tilts his head down to press their foreheads together, a million thoughts of how much he could have lost running through his mind, his own words through John’s mouth forty eight thousand years in the future and back.

Rodney pulls back to look in her eyes, at the wash of happiness colored over the loss of a life that she’ll never have and the hope sleeping inside the baby on her bed. His voice cracks as he says her name, but her hands are already pulling him back down, her mouth pressed to his more familiar than the touch of their foreheads. He doesn’t want to miss anything, so he slides his hands around to the small of her back, the curve of her jaw, cataloguing this moment in his brain like another equation that will save his life one day.