Alienation (Rodney)

It's strange being back on Earth after all these years- through extensive effort and not a few near-miracles, he and John have avoided being forced back even briefly for the last ten years, and even before that they'd only come back a maximum of once a year, and now they're back permanently.

Somehow, it all feels unreal.

After twenty years of cool blue and the ever-present touch of the city when they were on Atlantis, it's a shock to find themselves in grey corridors that the back of his mind keeps insisting are Genii even if he knows with the more logical parts of his mind (which means most of it) that they aren't. There isn't any sunlight down here, even in the middle of the day, which makes him twitchy after a few hours, because sunlight's something he's used to seeing, on Atlantis and offworld, and it's strange to not feel it on his skin at least once a day even if that does mean he won't burn like he always does unless he's careful.

He knows Earth should feel like home, but it isn't, not anymore; it's just the place he used to live and is probably going to be forced to live again. When they're cleared to leave the Mountain (more because the SGC doesn't have the space for hundreds of people to stay than because of any inherent trust; he's seen the way they eye the Lanteans, like they're maybe dangerous, like they're defectors or broken in some dangerous way), it doesn't disturb him that he can't hear the ocean even though he's heard it semi-constantly (with breaks to go offworld) for so many years, but only because, as he realizes when he automatically calls John "Sheppard" and falls into their usual informal offworld walking formation, Earth feels like offworld to him, and they've rarely been on ocean worlds other than Lantea.

It hits him hardest that this is Earth when they're in a crowd, and their little group are the only ones scoping the exits (though not carrying firearms; someone at the SGC had taken one look at the Lanteans and forced them to surrender their sidearms. It feels strange to be without a pistol at his side (which is slightly disorienting when he remembers who he'd been before Atlantis, how he'd happily never fired a gun), to be offworld without a gun, but at least they still have knives; they'd learned that lesson from Ronon) and nervous in the press of people, and he realizes that this isn't even a crowd for most of the Tau'ri, that it's only a drop in the bucket of the world's population, and everybody looks carefree because they are, they all plan to live 80 or more years and not get their lives and the lives of their friends and families sucked away by space vampires. Many of them have only lost loved ones through old age and accidents.

He isn't certain he understands Earth anymore, much less will be able to fit in even to the meager extent he had before.