powerful stuff. even though it took a little effort to follow, i liked the way it flashed back and forth. great job!

At first I wondered why you called this story a 'darker piece'. Did I ever laugh during the first scene! ^.^ And the second.

It's a pity I'm simply not getting most cultural references like 'Connect Four' (Is that a game?) or what behavior characterizes Carmen Sandiego. Jon Stewart, for that matter. Damn, I think I might have to pay Wikipedia a visit …

The time jumps confused me a little. I wasn't sure at first if they were actual time jumps or Rodney's memories or possibly imaginations … Maybe some kind of annotation might have been helpful, or a warning in the author's notes that you were going to write thus.

Also, were the first two scenes before 'The Shrine' and everything else later? Just how much time passed between the limp and her remembering it? Also, I don't understand the confession: For whom was it, and what was confessed?

Impeding the man's path 'on instinct' was lovely, really, and should have made him see that it's not the action of a 'coward at core'.

Cool - a perfect balance between whump and McKeller. I don't know any of the songs, but the words go well with the story.

Awesomeness...this is really great!!

Very very good. I must say, I love your darker stories. They just contain so much insight about the characters... But what I loved most about this story is how you wrote it non-linearly, how when I read it the first time there were some scenes with Rodney and Jennifer I interpreted one way, but after finishing the story I wondered if they actually happened -after- the scene at the end and it made me see it in a new light. I think it's great that you gave it that twist. You give the reader something to come back to and wonder about.

Oh. Ah.

Very nice. It's people like you that make the prospect of life without new SGA episodes not quite so terrifying.

Thanks for sharing.

Painfull but lovely.

You don't ever write anything bad which I love you for because this was fantastic.

Dark in tone and broken in form...kind of like Rodney. So I enjoyed the parallel there. You meant to do that or am I just reading too much into this?

Regardless, the prose was marvelous. My only qualm...and it is a little one...is in your characterization of Keller. It's not bad, never. But I do find that you tend to write her as very calm amd composed a lot of the time.

Maybe you do this because so much of the time Rodney isn't and he needs a balance, but I do wonder sometimes what she'd be like, and consequently what Rodney would be like, if she weren't.

I'm not talking outright hysterical, just...rattled?

Oh, I thought this was very nice! I enjoyed the intertwined now-and-then structure. Thanks!

Oh WOW! That was awesome! So very well written and so very capitvating. I am so loving your McKeller stories. Thank you for sharing another one with us!

Well, I don't know what to say.. cos I so loved this, and it just kept getting better and better.
So I'll just put down some of the lines that I found so true and brilliantly chosen:
"...in the corner of his mind where the Curious Scientist was hiding out"
" Was she in love with some empty space that just looked like it was full?"
"she could almost inhale his anger, like a kind of secondhand smoke."
Thanks, Chase!

wow. that was amazing.

That's amazing on so many levels.

The way you portray Rodney's angst and Jennifer's steadfast commitment to help him is superb. Add to it the little splattering of humor here and there and is all together brilliant.