John hardly had to beg at all to get Elizabeth to let him take one of the Jumpers out for the afternoon. Just said, Elizabeth, if you can spare me, I— and maybe it was that he hadn’t had a true day off in three months, or maybe, as much as he hoped it wasn’t true, the sudden, terrible tension rolling around inside of him was showing on his face, in his eyes. Whatever it was, though, she said yes.

She said yes, he had a go, and that was all he really needed to hear.

An hour and one stop by Bates’ office later, to tell him that he was in charge now, John is in the air. He circles the planet twice, letting his speed inch up farther and faster than he would have if he had any passengers with him. He spins loop-de-loops, he flies past the Athosian settlement once, and then when the children run out of their tents to chase him, he flies by a second time, faster than before but completely out of reach, and then again, slowly, so that he can wave goodbye. He’s not able to hear their shrieks of laughter through the walls of the Jumper, but he can see them and when he finally lands on the beach a few miles away, he’s smiling, too.

The sand is soft beneath his boots, coating the black leather with a layer of fine, pale dust, and he only takes a few steps before he sits down where he is and pulls them off, his socks, too. He carries them in one hand as he walks down towards the water again, and he uses the other to pull off his zippered sweater. He’s wearing a black T-shirt underneath and that’s appropriate beachwear. He feels a little silly wearing long pants, but while it might be the middle of the summer back on Earth, it’s not so warm here.

He walks until he comes down to the tide line, until his feet start to stick in the cold, wet sand, little pools of water rising up from below to fill in the trail of footprints behind him. The sand tugs at his feet as he walks, tries to hold onto him with every step that he takes, and eventually he gives in, stops. He tosses his boots and his sweater further up on the beach, then bends down to roll up the ankles of his pants. When he stands back up again, he keeps still, watching the water as it comes in towards him.

It rolls over the sand, quickly at first, but by the time it reaches him, it is soft, gentle, and it laps at his skin. When it rolls out again, he sinks down a bit. Again, again he lets the tide come up to meet him, until his feet are covered by sand, until he feels the water circling his legs just above his anklebones. He closes his eyes, listens to the sound of the tide, and thinks that he can feel the very planet moving beneath him. That sensation isn’t so different from Earth, not at all.

The few times he got to the beach as a kid, he remembers, he used to do this. He used to stand at the water’s edge and lose himself in that—imagined? Not imagined?—movement until he thought he was going to fall over. Sometimes he would, and then he’d giggle, splash in the water, and all of a sudden he can’t take it anymore.

It’s too much.

It feels like vertigo, the world reeling around him, so he shakes his head and opens his eyes and then he pulls his feet free from their prison and trudges back up to where his shirt and shoes are. He spreads the shirt out, sits down on it, and just watches the ocean stretching out in front of him.

John’s not quite sure why he came here—no, that’s not true. He knows why he’s here. What he doesn’t know is why it hit him so hard, realizing that tomorrow would be the Fourth of July, because aside from a burger, a beer, and maybe taking in some fireworks, he hasn’t celebrated in years.

If he hadn’t checked the Earth calendar on the computer network the day before, he never would have remembered, even. But he did, and he does know, and suddenly he wanted—wants—that: the long weekend, all of those specials on TV, where they shoot off the fireworks to the 1812 Overture. He wants the grill, and the sun, and that general happy, relaxed feeling of it being a holiday.

He wants to wallow in it and he’s not going to be able to, because tomorrow he has a mission, and when he gets back, it’ll be the 5th, holiday done with.

So he’s here, now, acknowledging while he can.

Every year, his mom, she used to say that they were going to spend the Fourth at the beach. She made the plans, always, but then inevitably his dad would be called away, would have to leave, and he and his mom, they’d end up eating barbecue in the neighbors’ backyard. Three times they made it to the beach before John left for college, three days he’d turned red as a lobster, too sore to lie down on the sticky plastic of the car’s backseat. Three times they’d watched the fireworks burst out over the water, standing on the porch of their hotel room.

Three times he’d seen that look of bliss and utter contentment on his mother’s face, like a kid who just worked her way through the candy store.

It’s been a long time since John’s been homesick. It’s been since his first tour of duty, in Germany, where he didn’t speak the language and no one outside of the base really wanted to speak his. He knows that twisting in his gut, though. That feeling that he’ll never be happy again, and those three Fourths? Those are happy memories.

They’re why he’s here.

As he sits there, though, he realizes that it’s not the same. No matter that he’s surrounded by sand and water and no Ancient tech (except for the Jumper), it’s not the same. It won’t ever be the same, and as he watches the sun start to set, the tide lapping at the beach, his footprints long gone, that homesick ache claws its way up into his lungs, into his throat, tightening there, and he decides that he was wrong to come.

It’s worse, somehow, being here and having it not be what he needs. Needed. It makes it hurt more.

Maybe, he thinks, it wasn’t the beach that made the memory so happy after all. Maybe it was that he knew it made his mother was happy. Or maybe it was something else, the company, maybe, that he was there with people who he wanted to be with—

—and as if on cue, just as he’s about to stand up, walk back to his Jumper, return to Atlantis, he hears a soft hum. A hum that should not be there, but is, because he sees another one of the Jumpers coming up and over the rise, flying towards him. From the way that it’s weaving through the air, he can tell that it’s Rodney at the controls, but what they’re doing here, he doesn’t know.

Curious, he stands up, brushing sand from the backside of his pants, and he walks towards them, watching as the Jumper lands with a little bump. More than a little bump and he can’t help but smirk.

Definitely Rodney.

He watches as the hatch opens. Ford is the first to step out, followed by Teyla, and between them they’re carrying a cooler. Rodney follows a few moments later, and once he’s outside, he looks back at the Jumper and gives a satisfied little nod of his head, as if admiring his parking job.

John rolls his eyes.

"Lieutenant. Teyla. McKay," he says. "Fancy meeting you here on this nice, deserted stretch of beach."

"It’s just the damnedest thing, Sir," Ford says, and he’s grinning widely, too widely, like maybe he’s trying not to show that he’s worried, or like he’s got something up his sleeve. Maybe both, but before John can think about it too hard, Rodney asks, "Did you know that the Jumpers have tracking devices? I didn’t know that the Jumpers had tracking devices—basically, I just punched in the—"

"McKay," Ford interrupts, and Rodney gives a sort of startled hop, and then he says, "Oh, yes, right. You were missing the party, so we decided to bring the party to you." And he’s smiling widely, too, and now John is starting to think that maybe he didn’t do such a good job of hiding his inner turmoil from Elizabeth after all. He wonders if she sent them, or if they chose to come on their own. He’s not sure it really matters, because they’re here.

"Party," John says slowly, but it’s sort of a question. There wasn’t a party planned when he left, he knows that much.

"It was sort of a spur of the moment thing," Rodney answers. "Apparently someone looked at the calendar today—after you left all by yourself, may I add—and realized that tomorrow would be the Fourth of July. Since a bunch of us are going to be off world, Elizabeth declared a mini-holiday. For those who wanted to celebrate it, anyway. Thus, party."

"Dr. Weir said that it is only the Americans who celebrate this Fourth of July?" Teyla asks, and John nods.

"It’s great," Ford says. "Food—"

"And that’s the important part—" Rodney, of course, and John rolls his eyes. As he does so, he realizes that the terrible twisting in his gut is suddenly pretty much gone, as if someone has rubbed a salve over it. It’s still twinging a bit, but just peripherally; it’s not consuming him, like it was before.

"—and fireworks," Ford continues, as if Rodney had never said a thing. "And if you escape without a sunburn, you really haven’t done it right."

Teyla doesn’t quite look as if she believes him, but it’s okay, because Ford is kneeling down on the sand, opening the cooler, and he’s pulling out meat that’s already been barbecued. John sees drinks in there, too, and now McKay is back in the Jumper, pulling out blankets for them to sit on and another bundle of something that John can’t quite make out, except then he sees one of the tell-tale strings hanging out of the blanket.

No, he thinks. It can’t be.

He asks, "McKay, are those fireworks?"

Rodney blushes slightly, but he nods briskly. "Olsen made them a few weeks ago, put them away for the Fourth, and then promptly forgot about them. They’re going to shoot some off over the city tonight, but we managed to snag a few for out here."

"God," John says, and he really is smiling now, grinning so widely at his team that he thinks his face is going to split in two, because they’re all looking at him so hopefully, and maybe Elizabeth wasn’t the only one to notice the homesickness building up inside of him. Maybe it’s been building for longer than he even realized.

This, he thinks, this is—

"But we can’t shoot them off until after dinner, Colonel, so may I suggest that we begin eating? Some of us have been smelling this food for over an hour, I’ll have you know."

"Heaven forbid," John says, and Ford laughs.

They sit down on the blankets that Teyla has spread out, and as they begin working their way through the food, John listens as Ford tries to explain to Teyla what fireworks are. He illustrates the blossoms and flourishes with his hands, and just about every other sentence Rodney interrupts him, adding his own two cents.

As he watches them, his team, John thinks, this is good. This, he thinks, is what happy memories are made of.

Then, still listening, he turns towards the ocean and he smiles.