Disclaimer: It may have been awhile, but it’s still not mine.

AN: I’ve been meaning to write this for three years. Post-Trinity.

Some part of him that thought he knew Rodney rather well can’t believe this is happening. Anyone who has ever met the great Rodney McKay knows what an arrogant bastard he is. Knows his ego is about the size of the Milky Way and still growing. But John, who knew his teammate rather better than most (if not all) of those people, had never thought he was this arrogant.

He thought, for a moment at least, that Collinsdeath would be the end of it. But Rodney had sounded so sure and John figured he owed him the benefit of the doubt. So he had agreed. Hell if that was going to happen again anytime soon.

It wasn’t that he didn’t just not trust Rodney anymore. If it was just that, the next near-death-Rodney-to-the-rescue scenario would have put the whole thing behind them. No, it was more than lost trust. Because Rodney had honestly thought it was alright; that he was brilliant enough to make it work. And he wasn’t. And it was going to be sometime before either of them came to terms with that revelation.

Rodney was brilliant, but apparently not brilliant enough. He could not wrap his rather sizable brain capacity around the concept that some things really were completely impossible.

And that was the problem. John knew a lost cause when he saw one, although as he has said to Elizabeth their first day here, if there was even the smallest possibility he would take it. But he wasn’t willing to lose anyone to the impossible.

But Rodney did not understand; could not tell possible from impossible and until he could, John would not be able to take his word as truth. Which was going to complicate things.

And he wasn’t sure how Rodney was going to be able to prove himself. To show John he had learned his lesson, because quite obviously he had not. He didn’t understand. The genius didn’t understand.

And that was the problem.