It was the way Rodney had looked when he jumped up from the gate room floor with a delighted smile on his face. It was that, not the fear on that same face when the entity had surrounded Rodney, and his own fear that he'd never see him again, that this was it. It was that smile. He had no choice but to smile back - not his usual thin-lipped smirk, but his real smile, the one that few people had ever seen.

John only smiled that particular smile when he fell in love, so he'd only smiled it about three times in his entire life.

That night, after Carson had pronounced Rodney fit to go, John led him out, past Rodney's door and to his own.

"This isn't my room." Rodney sounded tired.

"No, it isn't."

"Why?"

John answered with the smile, followed closely by the sort of kiss he'd been wanting to give Rodney since the day he'd sat in that stupid chair and looked up to see a scientist standing there with a look of surprise, envy and awe on his face.

"Wha...? Why?" Rodney spluttered once John let him up for air.

"Stay with me tonight?"

Rodney nodded, and let John lead him inside.

The next morning, John watched Rodney from the same balcony, and he could just barely see a curlicue of red ink on the back of his neck. John remembered drawing a smiley-face on the smooth skin between Rodney's shoulder blades; making the circle in black, coloring the eyes blue and scrawling the curved, red mouth before getting distracted by the need to kiss the soft, red curve of Rodney's mouth again.

Rodney must have felt him watching, because he raised a hand to rub his neck, just over the mark before looking up at John and smiling.

When they passed later in the hall, Rodney stepped up close. "The red one wasn't washable, Major."