My Time of Dying
Author: J.L.
Title: My Time of Dying
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: None to speak of. Would fit anywhere in S. 2 or S. 3.
Summary: John and Elizabeth are trapped in a cave after an earthquake. The rest of the team fights to rescue them before it's too late. Gratuitous Shep Whump.
A/N: A huge thank you to my beta, Rink Rat for all her work to make this story better. You rock!
Present
Elizabeth bit her lip to keep from crying out at the soft rumble that caused the ground to shudder and more rocks to skitter down the walls of the cave. She pressed her hands against the soft dirt of the cave floor to steady herself. The light from the electric torches flickered, but remained strong, keeping the inky blackness at bay. Shadows danced across the walls of the small cavern, walls that became more oppressive with each passing hour. Elizabeth shivered and prayed that the lights didn’t go out.
“The aftershocks are getting smaller,” John observed softly.
Much of the chamber had disappeared under a ton of rock, but part of it remained virtually untouched, the ceiling arching high overhead. The room had been designed as a rest area for the villagers seeking shelter from wraith attacks. The cave system held many rooms such as this, all supplied with benches and tables, food, water and blankets: basic necessities to help the villagers wait out a prolonged attack. The benches and tables had been mostly overturned by the quake, but Elizabeth was profoundly grateful for the blankets, food, and water. The air had already grown quite cool.
Elizabeth turned, tears of relief springing to her eyes. “John!” she said. She reached under one of the blankets covering him and grasped his hand. “How are you feeling?”
John smiled weakly. He attempted a shrug, which caused a wave of pain to cross his hazel eyes. “Never better,” he gasped. He leaned back against the blanket cushioning his head, tightly closing his eyes.
“Why do you always do that?” Elizabeth rubbed her thumb gently over the top of John’s hand. She could feel his body trembling; with cold, pain, or fear, she didn’t know which.
“Do what?” John breathed through the pain.
“Employ sarcasm as a means of deflection.” Elizabeth crossed her legs Indian fashion and tried to catch John’s eye.
“What would you rather I do?” he asked, studiously avoiding Elizabeth’s gaze, instead staring at the walls of their prison.
“Tell the truth, John,” Elizabeth squeezed his hand. She placed her other hand gently against his cheek. His skin was warm. Too warm. And it was hard to tell in the dim light of the cave, but she thought his skin had grown more waxen.
John turned his head into the palm of her hand, resting there a minute, before turning his eyes up to catch hers. “Okay,” he nodded, “the truth. The cave-in might have been so catastrophic that even if Ronon and Teyla survived it, they won’t be able to dig us out. Even if the Daedalus left Atlantis when we missed our first check-in, it’s still at least twenty-four hours away. The rest of these walls could come down on us before they’re able to beam us out, or we could run out of air.”
“That wasn’t the question I asked,” Elizabeth said resolutely. “I know we’re pretty much screwed. I asked how you were feeling.”
John stared wordlessly at Elizabeth. He felt her grip on his hand like a vise. “I’ve got some pretty intense pain in my lower back, abdomen and flank. Not sure if my shoulder’s broken or just bruised, but either way I can’t move it. Think I busted a couple ribs; I’m kinda having a hard time catching my breath. Oh and if I didn’t have a concussion before, pretty sure I do now.”
“John!” A tear trickled down Elizabeth’s cheek.
Carefully John extricated his hand from Elizabeth’s. “There’s a very good chance I’m going to die here, Elizabeth.”
“No!” Elizabeth protested.
“That’s the truth,” John dropped his hand to his chest and coughed weakly. “You need to wrap your mind around it if you’re going to survive.”
Elizabeth shook her head and wished, not for the first time, that they’d never come to this planet.
Earlier
Lt. Colonel John Sheppard gazed across the brilliant azure water and smiled. The surfboard he straddled bucked gently beneath him, reacting to the swells from the near thirty foot wave currently racing towards shore, the wave Ronon was riding like a pro. John grinned as Ronon whooped triumphantly. He rode the giant wave as if he’d been surfing his whole life, belying the fact that John had only just taught him how to surf that morning. Once again the big man had proven there was nothing physical he couldn’t do.
John glanced towards the shore where Elizabeth and Teyla were sunbathing. Elizabeth was perusing what John guessed were mission reports. He was pretty sure Teyla was reading a romance novel she’d picked up from one of the female Marines. She was laughing much harder than he was sure the writer had ever intended. As if she could feel his eyes on her, Elizabeth glanced up. She smiled warmly and waved. John didn’t think he’d ever seen her so relaxed, and he was glad he’d pushed her into joining his team for a little R&R. Well, his team minus Rodney, who’d turned his nose up at a trip to the beach and headed for his lab instead. John waved back before lowering himself to his board and paddled towards the next wave.
When his team had first visited M39 315 to establish trade relations, John had immediately noticed the beaches and the most amazing waves John had seen since leaving the Milky Way. He’d been itching to get back ever since, this time with a surfboard. He’d been back several times since that first visit to supervise the fortification of the caves behind the village as a defense against wraith attacks, but he hadn’t had a chance to head to the beach until Elizabeth had ordered his team to take a day off. Since Beckett was already coming to the planet to help the villagers with a vaccine for a measles-like childhood disease, they’d come along for the ride.
John squinted into the sun, gauging the speed of the wave. He smoothly paddled towards the wall of water forming ahead of him. He leapt to his feet, crouching sure-footed on the board. He rode up the swell, his body and the board moving as one. When he got to the top, he twisted, coming off the wave for half a second before dropping back to the water. He hurtled down the length of the breaking wave, white water crashing behind him. He spared one glance at the beach. Elizabeth and Teyla were both sitting up, watching him. John grinned. He aimed the board back towards the top of the wave. Kept going and did a 360 degree turn, his feet never leaving the board. He landed light as a feather back on the top of the wave. Again he shot down the side of the wave, but he’d lost momentum in the jump, and he was further back than he liked. He heard whoops and hollers from the beach. John feared he’d pushed his luck; he was getting caught in the wave’s churn. If he didn’t outrun it, the wave would take him out for sure. He gripped the top of the board, stabilizing it against the choppy water. He gained momentum. At his back, the curl of the wave crashed in on itself, but John gathered speed, staying just ahead of it. It felt like he was flying as he rode the base of the wave all the way in to shore, coming to a stop just a few feet from the shoreline. Elizabeth and Teyla were on their feet, cheering. Ronon grinned widely, then grabbed his board and made a running jump back into the surf.
“Well done, Colonel,” Elizabeth clapped her hands, her brown eyes sparkling.
“I’m a little out of practice,” John shrugged modestly.
“Well, if that’s out of practice, I can’t wait to see you when you’re back on top of your game,” Elizabeth laughed. “I had no idea surfing involved such showmanship.”
“Sure you don’t want me to teach you? Either of you?” John asked.
“That’s all right,” Elizabeth shook her head. “Sunbathing is more my speed.”
“Don’t worry about us John,” Teyla smiled warmly, “We’re fine.”
“Okay,” John grinned like a little boy, snagged his board and charged back into the water.
It was the last wave that did him in. It was a massive one, looming above him like a three story building. And he didn’t catch it right, so instead of riding the current of the wave down, he was struggling almost vertically against it, putting him at a ninety degree angle to the ocean. If one could be said to fall off a wave, that’s what John did. His feet came off his board, and he went tumbling head over heals underneath a ton of heavily churning water. He let his body go limp as it was driven further and further downward by the crush of water on top of him. He didn’t panic. Panic was what drowned surfers. And he knew the water would eventually let him go, and he could rise back to the surface. Of course he didn’t count on his surfboard colliding with his skull, causing his world to go spinning into black.
~_~_~_~_~_
John floated weightlessly. There was an urgent reason why he needed to wake up, but he couldn’t think what it was. He drifted. His limbs grew heavy; the world was fog and haze. Sinking, he felt himself slipping further and further away.
Then large arms encircled his waist. He was dragged upwards. He felt light and warmth on his face.
“Sheppard! Sheppard, wake up.”
He groaned, and began to cough, spitting up what felt like a gallon of water. His head felt like it had been split open.
“C’mon, breathe man. Just breathe.”
“Ronon,” John spluttered.
“Take it easy. I got you.” Ronon’s growl sounded soothing to John’s ear, and he found himself relaxing in the larger man’s sure grip.
“Ronon, over here!”
Teyla? John cracked his eyes open, wincing at the light. She had a hold of his surfboard and was motioning Ronon to set him on it.
“I’m fine you guys,” John protested, unwilling to allow himself to be towed in like a child.
“Uh huh,” Ronon grunted, unceremoniously dumping John flat on his back on the surfboard.
“Dr. Weir has gone to get Dr. Beckett,” Teyla helped guide the surfboard towards the beach.
“Now that’s totally unnecessary,” John griped. “I get knocked on the head all the time. I hardly even notice anymore.”
Ronon ignored his friend, continuing to swim the surfboard to shore. Despite his protests to the contrary, John knew he was better off riding rather than swimming back to the beach, but as soon as Ronon and Teyla got close enough to shore to set their feet on the sandy bottom of the ocean, John rolled off the board, slogging determinedly through the waist high surf until he reached dry land. He was sitting with his head in his hands when Elizabeth returned with Carson in tow.
“How are you doing, Colonel?” Carson asked. With a penlight he quickly checked his patient’s pupil responses.
“I’m fine,” John said. “Just got dunked.”
Carson carefully kneaded John’s head, smiling sympathetically at Sheppard’s wince when his fingers found a tender bump. “Seems you got knocked on the head.” After checking for spinal injuries, Carson quickly ran John through a brief neurological exam, lightly patting his shoulder when he’d finished. “Well, I think you’ll be all right, son, but we should get you back to Atlantis and put you under the scanner just to be sure.”
Helping his patient to his feet, Carson asked, “Are you going to be okay walking back to the village or would you like a ride?”
“A ride?” John asked indignantly, imagining himself being carted back to the village over Ronon’s shoulder. He shuddered with embarrassment. “I can walk,” John glared at his doctor. Carson bit back a grin as Ronon silently took position next to John. By the time they reached the village, John was leaning heavily on Ronon’s arm.
The Secorans were a farming community, which was what had made them initially of interest to Atlantis. The Secorans provided many of the fresh vegetables and meat that saved the people of the Atlantis expedition from a life of MRE’s. In exchange, Atlantis was helping the society to reach the technological advances years of wraith cullings had inhibited.
The main village was situated on the bluff overlooking the sea about a half mile from the Stargate. Most of the time the village only housed the old, the young and the sick. Villagers spent much of their time further inland, either in the fields tending the crops or out herding a creature that bore a striking resemblance to a bison. But they’d just had a harvest, so other than a few villagers that remained with the herd; most of the community had come together for a day of feasting and trading.
The medical building was situated at the far end of the village. It housed a lab and several exam rooms. Natal and Lansing, the village healers, were already quite proficient with the use of herbs to treat illness and injury and had proven themselves agile students in the science of medicine Carson and his team were teaching them.
“You guys can change in there,” Carson pointed his team to the exam rooms. He busied himself finishing up the last of his packing. He’d check in with Natal and Lansing in several weeks and see how the vaccinations were going, but for the time being, his work here was done. He’d actually been looking forward to joining his friends on the beach when a panicked Elizabeth had burst into the medical building. Carson sighed; he didn’t care much for surfing, but he’d been looking forward to ending his day with a nice swim, and not to mention the feast they’d all been invited to.
One by one his team filed out of the exam rooms, back in their normal clothing.
“You ready Carson?” Elizabeth asked.
“Aye,” he nodded. “There are just a few things to take back to the jumper. I’ll say my good-bye’s to Natal and then we can go.”
John nodded, reaching for one of the bags. “I got it.”
“Not so fast there lad,” Carson scolded the Colonel. “You need to take it easy.”
“I got it,” Ronon grinned at his friend, easily slinging the bag over his shoulder. John glared at Ronon ineffectually.
Carson slung the last bag over his shoulder and headed for the door. “I think we’re ready. This is the last of it.”
Then the earth started to move.
“What the hell?” Elizabeth shouted, trying to find purchase in the pitching room.
Crates and boxes lining the walls of the infirmary flew to the ground. Lab equipment toppled off the tables. Crashing sounds came from the exam rooms.
Ronon and John shoved Carson, Elizabeth and Teyla into the middle of the doorframe. After what seemed like an eternity, the shaking stopped.
“What just happened?” Carson asked, shell-shocked.
“Earthquake,” Teyla said in a clipped voice. “A pretty big one, I think.”
“We need to check on the village,” Elizabeth said. “Our return trip is going to have to wait. We should establish contact with Atlantis-we may need their assistance with search and rescue.”
His dunk in the ocean forgotten, John began issuing orders. “Everyone gear up. Teyla, dial in to Atlantis from the jumper. Carson and Elizabeth, help the villagers set up a triage area. Ronon, you’re with me. And everyone please be careful. There are bound to be aftershocks.”
Teyla took off at a dead run for the jumper. The rest of them went the other direction, into the village. A large quad-like area separated the medical building from the marketplace. They sprinted across the expanse. The village seemed to be in shock. Several of the buildings had completely collapsed, but most of the structures in the marketplace remained standing. Slowly, the sounds of disaster awakened: wailing babies, cries of pain, panicked screams as people realized loved ones were missing.
“Vaneer,” John called, recognizing the village leader. He and several villagers were struggling to remove a heavy beam from one of the demolished buildings. Someone inside the wreckage groaned. “Let me and Ronon help with that.”
“This seems as safe a place as any to set up a triage unit,” Carson said, motioning for Elizabeth to help him start unpacking supplies.
“Colonel Sheppard, come in please,” Teyla’s voice sounded over the radio.
“Go ahead, Teyla,” John responded.
“I can’t dial in from the jumper. I’m going directly to the gate.”
“Check in when you get there,” John said. “And Teyla, be careful.”
“Understood.”
With a grunt, Ronon and another villager, Barcley, freed the beam, pulling it away. Carson slipped in and with John’s help, freed the man who’d been trapped inside. Immediately, they carried him to the aid station. Ronon, Barcley and Vaneer continued to sift through the debris, but they only found one other woman alive.
“Dr. Beckett,” a man dressed in a white smock rushed over.
“Natal,” Carson waved the village healer over. “We’re setting up for your injured here. Where’s Lansing?”
“I don’t know,” Natal shook his head. “We separated after you finished showing us how to mix the vaccine.”
John directed several villagers to another area of the quad to start a makeshift morgue. “Vaneer,” he said, “we need to start an organized grid search. When my people come from Atlantis, they can help.”
“Thank you,” Vaneer rubbed the crown of his head, clearly overwhelmed.
Just then a child, John guessed she was about eight, came tearing down the path from the caves at the rear of the village.
“Daddy,” she screamed. She threw herself into Barcley’s arms. “In the caves; they’re trapped.” She burst into hysterical sobs.
“Who Bitty?” Barcley picked the girl up, rubbing her back soothingly. “Who was with you?”
“Zander, Risella, and Dante,” she sobbed. “The entrance fell down. They can’t get out.”
“We need shovels, picks, anything we can use to dig through the entrance,” John started grabbing up supplies. “Elizabeth, when the teams arrive from Atlantis, tell them we need help at the caves.”
“No,” Elizabeth objected. “I can help. I’m coming with you.”
“It could be dangerous up there, Elizabeth, and I don’t have time to argue.”
“You need all the help you can get, Colonel. I’m coming with you.”
“Colonel Sheppard.” Teyla’s voice was breathless.
“Go ahead, Teyla.”
“It’s gone.”
“What’s gone?” John asked.
“The gate, John. The gate is gone.”