@a-storm-of-roses I saw your "Rodney as a cat guy" tag, and my brain just gave me an AU where Rodney runs a cat cafe. I just thought you should know.
Ok well I love this! Obviously Rodney starts with one cat, because he's sensible like that. Only then he finds a stray and then that stray has kittens and he can't give them to a shelter because the no-kill ones are full and he has no friends to pawn them off on and now he just has a cat cafe, because hey he likes coffee too, right. Only it's definitely not a cat cafe, it's a cafe that happens to have a lot of cats.
And John lives around the corner and is a recovering vet and he also just loves coffee and maybe some animal therapy and also maybe Rodney.
Rodney starting with one cat, then a cafe of cats, then waking up one day with an unofficial animal therapy programme and staff (and perhaps a boyf..guyf...person he is seeing in a romantic context) is the sort of cascade effect I am totally down for.
Radek, Miko, and Simpson come in and are like..."You were supposed to be on sabbatical??"
You may be wondering: what about the rest of our intrepid explorers? Well, I have thoughts!
Ronon, as mentioned, works part time at the cafe. He and Rodney go way, way back, having both been on the University of Alberta's hockey team (Go Golden Bears!). Ronon is getting his Ph.d in Music, and his thesis is on Native Hawaiian Ethnomusicology. Rodney moved into Ronon's spare room after Rodney nearly blew up his lab, and was ordered to take a vacation. Ronon is married to Melena, who is a doctor and works with Carson.
Ford is John's roommate. He wanted to join the army, but sustained an eye injury. Instead, he became a mechanic. He mocks John mercilessly for moving to Canada, despite having also moved to Canada. He sometimes helps at the cafe, if Rodney needs it.
Teyla is a former interpreter who worked with John's unit overseas. When he was injured and had to have a medical release, she let him move in while he found his footing. Teyla works as a translator now, and staunchly refuses to adopt any of Rodney's critters, despite Torren and Kanaan's entreaties. Torren and Maddie are best friends, and Jeannie visits Teyla all the time. Teyla has arranged to have the leftover food and coffee fron the cafe to be sent to a food kitchen instead of thrown out.
Elizabeth was Rodney's boss, and was the one who ordered him to deal with his burnout. She didn't mean "quit his job and start a cafe/animal therapy program while also working at the local science museum", but hey. He's a lot happier now, and still does contract work for her, so she can't complain. Much.
Laura Cadman runs the animal therapy at the cafe, being a veteran herself. She didn't ask, just showed up with the paperwork and told him what the deal was going to be. Rodney let her, and is secretly pleased.
Radek is now head of the secret government lab. He calls Rodney weekly, and they have a fight about physics. This is fun for them. Sometimes Miko and Simpson join in. If Jeannie is around, she also participates. Everyone else leaves.
Jeannie and Rodney go to family therapy once a week, because Rodney wants to be a better brother, and Jeannie wants to give their relationship a healthier foundation than "our parents sucked".
Evan is John's friend who works for a local helicopter tour company. He has some pretty serious PTSD, but is an organizational genius. He does a lot of artwork for the cafe, and set up an art therapy program for troubled youth there. Rodney isn't sure when his cat cafe became part of a social safety net, but he doesn't complain. His accountant, however, does. (To herself, because Rodney pays her very well to deal with it all).
Currently waiting on the vet, so here, have more background while my cats undergo peals of suffering, like no cat has ever undergone before. I'll have this under "Cat Cafe AU" if people want to block the tag.
I have well-documented my issues with Rodney's canonical sexism, and have opted to address it.
Since Ronon was Rodney's freind and didn't tolerate sexist comments from either Rodney himself or Rodney's engineering cohort, Rodney didn't internalize it the same way. When he started working with the US military--curly haired, pretty, smart, clearly neurodivergent--he still tried to be as Heterosexual As Possible, because he was afraid of what can happen to queer, neurodivergent people in certain spaces.
But hey, Ronon is in the Canadian Special Forces and has been posted to Colorado for reasons! And he meets Teal'c, who is sometimes called Murray and Ronon has opted to Not Ask. But between Ronon and Teal'c, Rodney is bullied into learning self defense, and no one on that specific military base cares overmuch about deviation from the norm, because. Well. So he learns not to try quite so hard. And he and Sam become, if not freinds, then friendly coworkers. He still has a crush, but is significantly less creepy about it. (Yes, the timeline here is janky. I haven't cemented the details)
He still has that fight with Jeannie. He still thinks she's wasting her potential and her future. He thinks Caleb is going to drag her down, make her less than what she is, what she could be. Of course he wants his baby sister to be happy, but doesn't believe she will be, because how could she be?
He tells this to Radek. Radek actually thinks he's probably right, but also thinks he shouldn't feel that way. It's complicated, and messy. Jonas asks earnest questions and the base amusedly observes how Rodney peacocks for him and Sam. Rodney is many things! Subtle is not one of them!
But when Sam marries Jack a few years later, Jack having retired and Sam being a colonel, Rodney gifts them a beautiful, expensive, violently yellow coffee maker, because yellow is good luck for marriages, right? Vala said so, and Vala is good at people (and possibly an internationally wanted jewel thief). Rodney doesn't believe in that nonsense, but pilots are superstitious, aren't they? Mitchell backed her up, and Mitchell is a pilot too, he would know.
It's very thoughtful! Everyone is both appalled and amused! Jack plots revenge on Mitchell and Vala, because it's just. So yellow, you guys. So, so yellow. And Daniel is still laughing, and is no help at all. (But Daniel doesn't laugh much, since his wife died. Sam and Jack will take it.)
Teal'c is just quietly amused. Teal'c also has a lifetime supply of ice cream, because he saw what happened at Sam and Jack's reception, and knows why Mitchell cannot look at Rodney without blushing. Mitchell does not want this to be common knowledge.
But what about John?
John grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth. Unfortunately, John fell in love at 18, and rejected spoons of all types in favour of a blue sky and the wind.
John falls in love again in Afghanistan, with helicopter blades, good friends--Dex, Mitch, Holland, Teyla. He finds love and companionship in the blue skies and rocky deserts of Afghanistan, and Iraq, in tents and homes and bustling markets.
Then Teyla's mother is ill, and she returns to Canada--tired, too, of blood and death and suffering. Aching to mitigate it, however she can.
Then John loses all of his friends, and starts going to other war zones, obvious and clandestine. Other miseries.
And then his helicopter goes down, and John nearly loses his leg.
With the injury and the black mark, his military career ends. So he bums around California for a while.
Teyla bullies him into coming for Christmas, meeting her son.
Teyla then bullies him into applying for a work permit. Her friend Richard has a helicopter touring company and needs the help, what with everyone going to the oil patch. John can fly still. Richard would appreciate it. It's just for a while.
"A while" ends up with John getting permanent residency, and his own apartment downtown. It's soundproof, so he doesn't wake anyone up with his nightmares.
And then he's wandering around, enjoying a decent spring day, and he sees "Atlantis Cat Cafe" is now open.
It's a start.