They used to joke about it when they first came to Atlantis. "I think she has a crush on you, look at the way she lights up when you enter the room." He laughed then, and he still smiles when he thinks about it now, but now it's because he thinks maybe they were right.

Oh, it's ridiculous, really - completely unscientific. They've met sentient machines, after all, and he kinda thinks Rodney would have told him (in very loud tones, with large hand gestures) if Atlantis were actually self-aware.

But every craft he's ever flown has had its own personality so he doesn't see why this one should be any different, just because it's a city.

It's there, in the way the city instantly reacts to his very thoughts, doors sliding open in welcome and lights coming on the moment he enters the room, like the city had been waiting just for him all this time.

It's there in the way he never feels alone, even when he's the only person in the room. He can always feel the city around him. Sometimes it's like the city is a part of him, another limb. He misses it a little when he goes off-world.

The city has also never told him off for getting popcorn between the cushions on the sofa or for staying up all night watching football and drinking beer, but negatives don't prove anything.

For his part, the city is best thing to ever happen to him; the home he never had; a dream come true and any number of other greeting-card-worthy expressions.

Before he came here, if you'd asked him about his one true love, he would have said "things that fly" without a second's thought. But it seems Atlantis gave him that too - the Puddlejumpers are like a fantasy come to fantastic, responsive, amazingly fast life, and having the city itself capable of space travel on top of that? It's like they read his mind.

He just knows he'd do almost anything to keep her safe, to keep her from sinking under the sea to sit there, empty, collecting dust and drifting back into legend. (He tries not to think about the possibility of her being destroyed, her magnificent spires reduced to dust and rubble and all that knowledge and technology lost forever.)

He kind of wants to prove himself worthy of all the respect and responsibility the city gives him. It should seem ridiculous, he has enough to prove to everybody else without adding an ancient alien city to the mix, but there you go.

Sometimes, when it's late at night and he can't sleep, he travels up the spire to the balcony and leans over the city, breathing the salty air. Other nights he travels to the very edge of the city and opens the doors so he can hang his feet over the side into the ink-dark water. He trusts the city to let him know if danger approaches.

The best part of any mission is stepping through the gate and seeing his city come back to life around him.

--

Bonus Outtake

Sometimes, when it's late at night and he can't sleep, he leans his forehead against the windows overlooking the main sprawl of the city from the centre spire and watches until his breath steams up the window.

He writes in it with his fingertip:

JS
♥
A

A line of water drips from the final stroke.

He stares at it for a moment before scrubbing it out.