Bonus rec! (With a theme, even.)

Title: Not Quite an Explosion by Lavvyan
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Categories: Angst
Length: Medium
Warnings: n/a

Author on LJ: lavvyan 
Website: http://lavvyan.jerah.com.au/

Review:
Post-Inferno, Rodney decides that he has finally had enough and resigns. You also get John's POV, from which the resignation comes utterly out of the blue.

This is, by far, my favorite episode tag fic ever, one that I've read several times now and will likely read several more. Not only is the transition from the episode to the tag seamless (I actually went online afterwords to see if Rodney had really resigned in the episode), but the characterization just blew me away. As anyone who reads epic_rantsknows, I pretty much loathe John Sheppard, for all of the reasons that Rodney thinks of in this fic. At the same time, the John POV version of this story manages to give me some insight into why he behaves the way he does and, while he's not going to become my favorite character any time soon, I came away from reading these stories feeling far more charitable to Sheppard than I ever have before (at least after he's done a bit of introspection on his own). In fact, my only quibble with this fic is that the romance aspect of it comes pretty much out of nowhere and isn't necessary to the story, but that's a minor issue next to the sheer awesomeness of the whole.

An intriguing look at how to people can experience the same situation and yet come to completely different interpretations.

Not Quite an Explosion (pt. 1) (pt. 2)