Hope That Holds.

I had a heads up from you personally going into this, and it still hit me like a sucker punch. I didn't cry, which is strange, because generally this sort of thing makes me sob all over myself, but it did give me nightmares, so-- strong reaction garnered, check. (Note to self: don't read potentially demoralizing stories at bedtime.) I think the eerie all-too-possible horror of the story really weighed on me, and the early, sweet grace notes of John and Teyla's balcony scene and "phone-foolin'" only made it that much more real, and therefore awful. You also succeeded in doing something I wouldn't have believed possible: you gave me a Carson I liked enough to actually believe and like Cadman with-- and that whole scene with them was superb. God, Ronon in bed teasing John about the needle, Rodney refusing to go to see him because it's fucking ridiculous and man, it IS, Rodney risking death in his own Rodneyish way to smuggle John in some orange juice-- and yet refusing to visit poor, shorn, longing Ronon and jesus, Teyla and her people choosing death behind door number one and/or two, because the people on the mainland had had no choice at all, and because it was "not the death Teyla'd promised them".

Well holy sweet goddamn, man.