There and Back Again (1/2)
Title: There and Back Again
Word Count: 19 k
Warnings/Rating T
Summary: Ronon POV. John is taken while on a routine mission. Getting him back is just the beginning. AU S5. Donation fic for Help Japan.
Thanks to kristen999 and my beta coolbreeze1 . And thanks to black_raven135for her generous donation to Help_Japan. A donation fic from Leverage is next on my plate.
***
Every Hive’s a floating graveyard. The cocoons hold shriveled human husks; the air is heavy with stale rot. This one’s no different. Ronon charges through every corridor, searching every cell and crevice for signs of life. Nothing. Not a single living soul.
His hand touches the necklace around his neck, fingering the ten teeth dangling under his shirt. By the time he reaches the end of the last sector, knowing there’s nowhere else to search, the halls fill with his howls of frustration.
Gripping his gun with white knuckles, he heads towards the strike team huddled around the ship's control consoles. “Anything?”
There's an echo of 'no, sirs' from the Marines, their grim faces barely holding back the fire burning deep inside.
Giving them each a curt nod, he stalks over to a familiar set of hunched shoulders. Rodney's fingers smash at the keyboard of his computer. “Before you demand the impossible from me, I've got nothing. There are no additional life signs beyond the crew’s. Most of which are dead.”
“Most?” Ronon prods.
Swallowing with his head still bowed, Rodney clears his throat. “One Wraith's been left alive for questioning.”
Holstering his gun, Ronon pulls out one of his knives, curling his fingers around the handle until it digs into his palm. “If he knows anything, I'll get it out of him.”
***
Sitting inside his quarters, Ronon dictates his latest mission report into his voice recorder. Another set of ruins, another waste of time. He doesn’t speak the truth, unwilling to threaten his deal with Woolsey. Tomorrow he’ll head out on a jumper, investigate the Wraith activity around PM2-754, follow wherever the trail takes him. Cruiser or Hive. Doesn’t matter.
Pulling out the black velvet pouch from last week’s search, he dumps the newest tooth onto the table. Using a stiletto tool he bores a hole through the root, and, unclasping his necklace, he threads it through the molar.
Seventeen teeth and counting.
He once wore a necklace of Wraith finger bones. They were worn proudly, proof of his kills, for everyone he encountered to see, so they’d know the monsters could be defeated. And for the Wraith he faced to recognize that he’d taken down their kind - to maybe give them that spike of fear they saw in their victims’ faces before he finally dispatched them to whatever Hell they went to.
The teeth are just for him. And he’ll keep adding to them until he finds what he seeks.
***
Stars move position in the sky; the number of bad storms tapers off and the wind feels a bit warmer than before. But other than those slight differences, there are no seasons on Atlantis. Without the celebration of planting season, the reaping of the harvest or the hunkering down for winter, time blurs.
“I have been looking for you.”
“Thought you were going to New Athos with Torren?” he asks before looking up.
The landing bay by the west pier is isolated most of the year; it’s a perfect place to lay low but still re-enter the city in an emergency. The breeze plays with Teyla’s hair as she walks towards him.
“I was hoping you would come with me. Visit Halling. He has brewed another batch of fire ale and hopes you would be there to taste it.”
“I’ve got somewhere else to be tomorrow.”
“Did you find a pilot?”
His cheeks burn hot at the unspoken doubt. “You think I can’t find a volunteer?’
“I do not think anyone wants to tell you no.”
“You mean like you did?”
Teyla flinches like she’s been slapped, but before Ronon can mumble an apology she closes the distance between them in barely controlled fury. “Your heart is not the only one on Atlantis that carries hope!”
“I know.”
“I was held by Michael for weeks.”
And that’s the reason why Ronon doesn’t understand, why of all people she’s stopped coming with him. He wants to sound bitter, let his voice reflect what he feels deep inside. Instead his words sound pathetic. “Then why am I doing this alone?”
Anger melts into sorrow and Teyla wraps her arms around his back, rests her head against his shoulder. “Because understanding will not change what we all know to be true. No matter how much we pray otherwise.”
Holding her close, both their bodies tremble in grief. “I can’t stop.”
“I would never ask you to, but Ronon… How many failures will you wear around your neck? How many months?”
He doesn’t know, but he fears the morning he wakes up and makes that decision.
***
It’s not until the muzzle of his gun is buried under Todd’s chin that Ronon’s brain catches up to his heart.
“Do you not think I would tell you if I knew anything?”
Shoving the barrel harder into the soft flesh, Ronon growls, “I think you’d say whatever I wanted to hear to stay alive.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“John Sheppard is dead,” Todd hisses.
“You’re lying!”
“I have spoken to all my allies and spies,” Todd explains calmly, his body perfectly relaxed. “He is not on any Hive. If he were, I would know. What Wraith would not claim ownership of such a valued prize? Would not have sent the boast across the minds of every Hive?”
During all those countless days and weeks of chasing leads, threatening and bribing sources. Tracking trails long gone cold. He’s never admitted defeat. Not when people whispered in the halls or when his friends quietly begged him to consider other possibilities.
Only now, face to face with a sworn enemy-- a Wraith-- does Ronon finally listen to what he’s been hearing all along.
Weapon falling limply at his side, Ronon takes a heavy step back. “Go.”
Tilting his head in curiosity, Todd narrows his gaze. “Why?”
“Because it’s what Sheppard would do.”
***
Ronon doesn’t bargain with Woolsey anymore. No more trading missions for manpower and jumpers to scour the galaxy. He throws himself into the needs of Atlantis, going on special assignments into unfriendly territory. There’s some kind of interplanetary coalition forming to challenge Atlantis and he can gather intel where other off-world teams are unable to.
He doesn’t wear a patch on his sleeve; his first allegiance is tattooed into his skin but is easily covered when needed. Cold dark caves or a blanket on the dewy ground are more familiar than his quarters these days. Out here-he can be the hunter.
So it’s a surprise when hears the familiar drone of a jumper overhead and he walks over to a nearby clearing to meet it. Breath misting in the chilly air, he greets a familiar figure coming out the back hatch.
“Teyla,” he greets her, their foreheads touching. “Something wrong?”
“We need you back on Atlantis; we believe the Wraith are re-gathering.”
***
The air is thick with smoke as they pass down what used to be a bustling village square. The buildings still smolder and hiss as a light rain bats at the embers. A few of the greener Marines swallow hard against the stench of burnt hair and flesh. Ronon strides up to a body, black with char but the form still immediately recognizable to him. Wraith kill. Even before the fire the corpse was a withered shell.
“Looks like they put up a good fight at least.”
Ronon looks over at Lorne. The major toes the corpse of a Wraith drone. The neck beneath the bone-caged face has been slit. “Good for them,” Lorne adds quietly.
Ronon scans the ruins and counts bodies. Only a few are human, the rest culled for the storage cells on board the Hive. But there are at least a dozen dead Wraith.
Jennifer stands by, her kit still slung over her shoulder. She has no one to help.
***
Rumors of the coalition become strangely quiet in the wake of this up swell in Wraith activity. Woolsey holds meetings where they sit and discuss plans and look for explanations. One seat remains empty until there comes a morning when specialists and a diplomatic party from an allied planet fill the room. There is a brief hesitation before the ambassador is ushered into the chair. Then the room erupts in a chorus of voices and the hesitation is soon forgotten. By all but a few.
After two hours of useless talk the crowd finally reaches an agreement and break for coffee and tarts and a chance to stretch their legs.
Ronon is battling the desire to skip out and head for his pier when Rodney approaches, his expression grim. Another planet, another culling.
It had only been visitors to the first few culled worlds that had found the carnage and reported back to Atlantis through their allies. This time, at least, there were survivors, able to contact them directly for help.
A still shell-shocked member of the governing council greets them at the Ring of the Ancestors. He stutters out a short bow before turning and heading up the muddy path towards a spot on the horizon still spouting inky smoke.
Lorne radios for an additional team of engineers as they follow behind the governor. He’s not an especially tall or fit man but adrenaline still fuels his stride and the team hustles to keep up with him.
He stammers out thanks for their quick arrival but Ronon shakes his head angrily. Not quick enough. The sickly sweet smell of charred flesh is here too, but no one is unfamiliar with it now.
Teyla touches Ronon’s arm and inclines her head towards a pile of Wraith corpses before raising an eyebrow. This planet was known to them, had supplied them over their years in Pegasus with fruits and vegetables. They were simple farmers, without weapons or army.
The governor finally comes to a halting stop at the intersection of two muddy, wheel-rutted roads. His face is pale, tear tracks running through the soot on his face.
“They came, so fast, so many of them,” he almost sobs. “We couldn’t - there was nothing--” He coughs harshly and wavers on his feet. Jennifer unslings her bag and pulls out a canister of oxygen, unspooling a mask and rushing to his side. Lorne is there in a flash as the man’s knees give way and the two lower the man to the muddy ground.
Teyla crouches in front of him as Jennifer pulls equipment from her bag. “You did not do nothing. You fought back.”
The governor’s eyes widen over the plastic mask as he shakes his head. “It wasn’t--” Before he can finish a coughing fit overwhelms him. His lips go blue and Lorne waves a Marine over to help him carry the man to the gate at Jennifer’s order.
“Over here!” comes Rodney’s panicked voice.
Ronon pulls his blaster out, the whine of the weapon powering up loud against the silence of the ruined village.
The physicist is standing in front of what had been a shop, its walls now blackened and collapsed in on themselves. He has an LSD in his hand and is pointing at the shop. “There’re life signs coming from in there!”
Ronon knows that the LSD can’t differentiate between Wraith and human. He growls, tightens his grip on his gun and strides over to begin ripping the boards away with the other hand. His palm is burned on still smoldering wood, his fingers speared with splinters but he keeps tearing through. He only eventually recognizes that Teyla and Rodney are on each side of him, flinging broken boards behind them.
They finally breach the interior. There’s a rough wooden counter and shelves of blackened and shriveled fruits and vegetables, but nothing else.
Teyla enters first, her P90 held out at the ready as she scans a 360. As she rounds the counter she shouts. A trap door in the floor is cleared of debris and opened. The light mounted on the gun’s barrel shines on four scared and dirty faces. Human faces.
Jennifer and a medic bustle around the four, the shopkeeper and his wife and children. She pronounces them completely unharmed. The kids are resilient, already talking freely and they are gushing about a man who warned them the Wraith were coming and gave them time to hide in the cellar.
Rodney stands nearby, grinning, completely oblivious to the gash a nail has ripped in his palm. Ronon walks up to him, pulls a field bandage from Rodney’s vest and wraps it around the dripping wound. And Rodney keeps grinning. Teyla joins them, a smile on her face too. “Nicely done, Rodney,” she says, a hand on his arm. Rodney’s grin falters a little and he clenches the bandage in his palm, finally wincing at the pain. “Yeah, it was pretty cool, huh?”
Their team is only three now and the absence is most keenly felt when they are the closest.
***
It’s been eight months and twice that number of cullings. Each planet blurs into the next. Villages left in smoking ruin, shell-shocked survivors picking through the remains of their homes and livelihoods. Atlantis responds with medical teams and engineers. They set up first aid areas and rebuild houses and dig trenches to bury the withered corpses left behind.
Leyjac is a mountainous planet. Its inhabitants already scratched out what were barely subsistence farms in the rocky soil. The culling has destroyed their meager food stores and the growing season has already passed.
Botanists and agricultural specialists from Atlantis are working on re-seeding with plant samples gathered from throughout Pegasus, looking for hardier grain plants that could thrive in the coming colder months.
Ronon and Lorne walk together through the capital city, surveying the work done so far. The meeting hall had been the largest building and its stone walls still stood. But the stench of death had filled the great room. Leyjacs had worked side by side with Marines, scrubbing down the walls and floors and repainting in flickering torch light.
As they enter the dark hall, Ronon breathes deeply. Fresh paint and bleach have freshened the air, but Ronon’s sensitive nose can still sense the acrid burn of Wraith blood.
And only Wraith blood.
No human remains had been found, only Wraith. Most of the Leyjacs had survived, had made their escape to the great labyrinth of caves under the mountains where they were safe from the culling beams and could evade capture by Wraith troops on the ground. When asked, the survivors all told a similar story. A man had come to them, warned them that the Wraith were coming, and saved all their lives.
Here, at the great hall, Ronon’s well-trained, experienced eyes had told him a tale that still has no end, a mystery unsolved. The Wraith had entered in force, likely expecting the hall to hold a cowering smorgasbord of tasty Leyjacs. Instead, something had wiped them out, leaving their corpses splayed out all over the floor. Without humans to feed on, their wounds had been unable to heal. They were felled by stab wounds, slit throats and broken necks. Two had been found with their heads still smoldering in the embers of the massive fireplace that flanks the back wall.
Lorne steps in beside him, raises his flashlight to scan the room. “What the---“
Ronon follows the beam, adds his own to the wall at the front where the elders’ table still stood.
A massive mural has been painted there, a triptych. In the first section the mountains loom large in the background, the city in the fore. Wraith darts with white culling beams fly overhead. A tiny curlicue of smoke rises from the chimney of the largest building- the meeting hall. The second shows a plowed field, green shoots rising against a clear and sunny sky. The third is the form of a man. He is tall, dark haired. He wears a long leather duster that Ronon immediately recognizes as a Wraith officer’s coat. His eyes are in shadow over a dark beard and he holds a knife that drips silvery-green Wraith blood. Under his image is written, Death Bringer.
***
The year anniversary passes as just another day. The cullings continue, one on top of the other, the Wraith in a feeding frenzy Ronon has never seen the like of.
The reason becomes quickly apparent. Several of the planets attacked suffer no loss of human life, not a single human taken or fed on. But the Wraith fall in droves. Jennifer takes two corpses to perform autopsies on, back on Atlantis. By the time she manages to excise back the bony exoskeleton she finds the drone had been felled with a single knife thrust to the gut. She clinically points out the withered limbs and the long white hair falling out in clumps. This Wraith was starving to death before the blade ever pierced his flesh. The officer’s face shows hollowed cheeks and cracks in his skin along with a slit throat.
A picture is taken of the officer and Ronon returns to Todd with it. He hates the sound of the Wraith’s voice, his condescension, the very stink of Wraith on him. But he hates mysteries more and he can’t fight the itch he’s had at the back of his brain since seeing the mural on Leyjac.
Todd growls on seeing the face, the shadows under eyes glazed opaque in death. “Why do you show this to me?” he demands, thrusting the photo back into Ronon’s hands. “Are you now torturing Wraith? Starving us into talking to find your precious John Sheppard?”
Ronon grabs his non-feeding hand, slaps the picture back into it. “We didn’t do this! I don’t care that he’s dead, I’m happy one more of you’s been exterminated. But I do want to know why.”
“Why?” Todd echoes. “Why he clearly hasn’t fed for some time,” he chuckles darkly.
“Our docs examined him. He didn’t have the virus; his - hand-- was operating just fine.”
“Perhaps he was weak,” Todd muses. “Even Wraith, so superior to humans, have genetically inferior specimens. It is best he died. We can only hope he did not pass on any of his inferior genetic code.”
The side of Ronon’s mouth curls and he takes a step closer, pushes his face in until revulsion threatens to make him shiver. “He’s one of a hundred of you we’ve found like this. Maybe you’re all his bastard spawn.”
Todd’s feeding hand stretches, his fingers clawing at the air. The clicks of safeties being thumbed away sound off from Lorne and his men flanking Ronon.
With a grunt of frustration Todd drops his hand and backs away. “You’ll pardon me, but the smell of human was a bit too strong. Not offensive, necessarily, but even Wraith can give in to temptation.” He shrugs. “I have seen this happen. A new Queen perhaps, a new Hive. They are… clumsy, undisciplined. Without proper direction from a Queen a Hive can fail. Can die off. Perhaps their Queen has been killed.” He drops his eyes back to the photo now crumpled in his fist. Smoothes it out and traces the tattoos on the officer’s face with a fingernail. “I do not recognize these Hive markings.” He lets the picture fall to the ground. “I grow tired of our meeting. You call upon me, show me unseemly pictures of dead brethren and offer me nothing but insults.”
Ronon unholsters his blaster. “Fine. Go. But it’s the last time. Next time I’ll offer you a face full of this.” His gun glows red as it whines out its charge.
Todd just smiles enigmatically as several Wraith officers emerge from the trees behind him. “I never thought I would say it, but I rather miss dealing with Sheppard. You lack his wit.”
***
Poch is a small rock, barely a planetoid, according to Rodney. But it has a gate and suffers a culling much like all the rest. In fact, worse than most of its Pegasus neighbors have suffered of late. Fifteen people are killed, but none taken. Their dried up husks litter the ground, some with crude weapons still clutched in curled, bony hands. Survivors tell of an army of Wraith descending on the town, through the gate and dropped from darts. None taken away, all fed upon by ravenous Wraith.
Carson has been brought back into the fold, helping with first aid and repairs to secure healthy food and water supplies on the ravaged planets.
He’s working on a young man seated on a table in the first aid tent, wrapping a bandage around a splinted arm as Ronon and Rodney approach them.
Ronon takes in the damage wrought as corpsmen begin wrapping the bodies in sheets. At least a dozen Wraith corpses have been pulled off and piled to the side for burning.
“You guys did good,” Ronon tells the young man. “Don’t usually see people fighting back.”
“Young Krev here got a broken radius for his troubles,” Carson sighs. “Why didn’t you run with the rest of them?”
Krev winces as the splint is jostled and his face blanches. But he looks Ronon squarely in the eye. “A man came to the village. Told us the Wraith were coming. My family and me, we were headed for the hills. But the man, he just… he stayed. I told him he could come with us where he’d be safe. But he just shook his head. Said we wouldn’t be safe with him around.”
A cold chill runs up Ronon’s spine at the words and another piece clicks into place. “Did he say why?”
The young man shakes his head then grimaces as Beckett pulls the ends of the bandage tight. “Sorry, son. I’ll get you fixed up in a tick.”
Krev nods and swallows hard. “He wouldn’t say. Just said he was going to stand and fight. My brothers came over while we were talking and heard him say he was going to fight Wraith. The man didn’t look like much - tall but thin. And he looked hurt already.
Then the Wraith came, too fast. Silver metal birds in the sky, troops of them marching up the road from the Ancestral Ring.” He shivers and drops his head in shame. “We started to run but the man just stood there while the monsters closed in.”
Carson pats the young man on the shoulder consolingly, shows him an ampoule of morphine. This’ll tide you over until I can get you some place safe to set that break. Just a pinch now,” Carson soothes as he jabs the drug into the man’s thigh.
The morphine eases the lines of pain in the young man’s face and he sags a little in relief. Then he looks up, steels his back. “My father did not raise us to be cowards. We sent our families on and we picked up whatever weapons we could. Others joined us and we fought at the man’s side. And I killed Wraith,” he crows, even though it’s dampened with the narcotic’s effects. Then his eyes drag over to the sheet-wrapped bodies and he begins to sob.
Ronon recognizes grief exposed by the powerful drug. But he grabs Krev’s good arm and shakes him. “What happened to the man?”
Krev just continues sobbing, shakes his head.
“Did you ever get his name?”
The kid starts to list to one side and Carson catches him, easing him over on the table to rest. But as his eyes slide shut Ronon hears him whisper, “Sheppard.”
***
The planet is much like hundreds of others Ronon has seen over his years of running. Some were a little colder, some a little hotter. Wetter, drier. Some had populations still managing to thrive, rebuild; others were nearly abandoned, only small outposts of stragglers left to claw out sustenance from the native plants and animals.
This one, PM3-2R3, known as Jurania to the locals, is slightly more advanced. Nothing compared to Sateda or even Hoff or the Genii homeworld. They have some industry, produce goods for trade among the gate-linked worlds-cloth and an herbal drink that is only tolerable to drink once fermented.
A brutish man, the pungent scent of the herbal alcohol oozing from his pores, had sworn he’d seen a man who looked like the one in the picture when he’d visited Jurania the day before. Rodney had expressed doubt over the veracity of the account, that he’d only told them what they wanted to hear. Ronon had been a bit rough with the drunk, but he believed the man had spoken the truth. The glaze over the drunkard’s eyes had sparked briefly on seeing the picture.
So they’d sent a small squadron of jumpers through, four in total, each taking a quadrant of Jurania to scan.
Ronon and Teyla had insisted on taking the city where the brute had bought his liquor. Feet on the ground, eyes in the crowds. They couldn’t count on the sub-q transmitter and life signs all looked the same, even after Rodney’s tinkering with calibrations based on DNA sequencing being fed to the detectors.
Juranians bustle about the marketplace. Most are dirty, dressed in leathers and rough-hewn cloth. A few, mostly the proprietors of some of the nicer shops, wear finer clothing and various forms of jewelry.
As Ronon and Teyla weave their way through the crowds, eyes follow them with suspicion but no one approaches them.
Ronon nods agreeably at a woman who clutches her two children closer to her skirts as they near. Teyla attempts a weak, reassuring smile as well but the woman turns and melts into a group surrounding a cart laden with bumpy-skinned yellow fruits.
The cart’s owner is hawking his wares with flair - a machete chops one of the fruit in two, spraying some of the patrons closest to the cart with droplets of thick scarlet juice. But instead of the jeers and threats Ronon expects to hear, there are cries of delight and people crowd closer, hands outthrust, begging for a sample of the fruit. A woman, pretty despite the hollows in her cheeks, is given a small chunk. She shoves the fruit into her mouth and chews greedily, finally spitting out the knobby yellow rind before grinning with bright red teeth. The crowd maddens with jealousy and swarms the cart; Ronon and Teyla slip away before being overwhelmed with new arrivals.
Ronon dashes a look at the watch on his wrist. A gift from Lorne once he’d returned to the fold on Atlantis, it no longer feels foreign to him; thick leather band, large brass face with the time and date synced up with Atlantis. It melds into the patterned tattoo on his left forearm.
Teyla wears a smaller version of her own. Thin leather band, copper face. And now, just as normal a thing to see on her wrist as on the rest of Atlantis. Just another of a myriad of changes set in over the past year.
He doesn’t need to tell her it’s time for another check in with the jumpers, another report of failure. Her hand rises to her ear, subtly, as if tucking away a strand of hair, a wary eye cast about for Juranian onlookers. She mutters softly then drops her hand back to her side with a sigh and another weak smile of encouragement for him.
Two days they’ve been in the city and their questions and the picture bring only blank stares from those they can get to actually stop and talk to them.
Ronon’d had high hopes for the marketplace. An older man in a meager, dusty library had actually recognized some of Ronon’s tattoos as Satedan, had known of the planet before its annihilation by the Wraith, and while he had never seen the man in the picture, he told them that in the morning the market would bring farmers and traders from all over the area.
The prospect of having a concentration of people in one limited area could help narrow their search. So they’d taken a small, cramped room in the local inn. The noise and smoke from the tavern on the first floor made sleeping difficult. The thought that their search might finally gain ground kept his head buzzing through the night until he’d finally given up, snuck out of the room silently with the hope that Teyla’s unmoving form meant she was sleeping, and went down to quiet his nerves with some of the local ale. The hangover the next day lingers and he is still fighting a nagging headache.
Swallowing back the rise of acid in his throat, Ronon grabs the shoulder of a man laden down with crates of green leafy vegetables and stops him as he attempts to pass by.
He thrusts the photograph in front of the startled man’s face. “Have you seen this man?” The Juranian stares at the picture with disbelief, not at the subject but at the strangeness of a portrait so life-like and alien. Even with the ragged edges and bent corners, the photo is still clearly beyond their technology.
Ronon sighs in frustration, though this is not the first reaction of its kind, and shakes the picture. “This man. Have you seen him?”
The Juranian shakes his head and pulls free of Ronon’s hand to scuttle off with his boxes.
The rest of the afternoon passes in much the same way. The sky darkens overhead and the early moon trades places with the sun. Vendors begin packing up their carts and closing up their storefronts as the crowds thin and people scatter back to their homes.
Ronon and Teyla stop under the long shadow cast by a gas lamp. A small, pale blue moth flits around the light, stuck in its circuitous path, trying to navigate by a false beacon.
Teyla watches the moth for a moment before dropping her gaze to watch the last of the shop doors closing up. Are they too stuck on a path to nowhere, following false hopes again? Should they risk re-opening old wounds that had only just begun to heal? Ronon had believed the drunk, had sensed that genuine reaction had been the first real lead in over a year.
As if reading his thoughts, Teyla shakes her head. “I believed it too. But perhaps Rodney was right.”
“No. McKay wasn’t right and we both saw it.” Ronon turns and scans the nearly empty plaza. A few of the cart vendors remain, struggling to pack up the goods they didn’t sell. Two men are arguing by the cart with the lumpy fruit.
Ronon strides over, the photo clenched in his hand. As he nears he sees it’s the seller arguing with a man in a well-worn pair of leather overalls. The coat he wears over them is patched, the sleeves frayed.
“We agreed on a price! I want my share!”
The vendor slams the lid shut on a wooden box. “Your share? A share of nothing is nothing!”
“You took the entire harvest! You insisted they would all sell!”
“Maybe if you grew a better product they would have! I barely made enough to cover the market fee and the taxes. The rest is for my costs,” the seller says with a proprietary pat on the box lid.
At Ronon’s approach the vendor smears on a greasy smile for him. “Good sir, you look like a man who enjoys the finer things in life.” He peels the canvas back from a crate of the yellow fruit. “You have caught me as I am midst closing but I could be persuaded to -“
Ronon cuts him off by shoving the picture in his face. “Have you seen this man?”
The vendor doesn’t give the photo even a glance. He scowls and turns his attention to securing a metal padlock on his moneybox.
Raggedy man reaches in and grabs a hold of the box and the two men commence wrestling it back and forth. The vendor has the better grip and is behind the stand but the other man is clearly more well-muscled, used to hard, manual labor.
Impatience burning hotter than the acid in his throat, Ronon reaches over and wrests the box from both of them. He slaps the photo on top of it and growls through clenched teeth. “Have either of you seen the man in this picture?”
“Give that back, immediately!” the vendor demands haughtily.
The farmer looks at the photo but it’s clear his eyes only stare through it, at the moneybox. “Look, sir, that money is mine. My family grew and harvested that whole crop.”
Ronon senses an approach from behind him, glances peripherally to see Teyla slide up next to him. She puts a calming hand on his arm. “We only wish to know if either of you have seen the man in the portrait,” she soothes in her best diplomat’s voice. “My friend has no desire to take your money. Just tell us if you have seen the man and you can go back to your former discussion.”
“Just give me back the box and I won’t call the guards,” the vendor replies coldly.
Ronon’s answering grin has teeth. “I’ll be gone with the money before a single guard shows up.”
He knows it’s foolish. The renewed frustrations after a more than a year’s worth of grieving and dashed hopes has brought him to the point of risking what will at the very least be problems with the local security and at worst risk Teyla’s life. And she has Torren waiting for her, back at Atlantis.
But part of him itches for this. Confrontation. Forcing an issue. Starting a fight or a manhunt. Doing something.
Ten years of schooling. Six years of service in the Satedan armed forces, a member of the rank and file and proud of it. He’d always had a leader. Someone who recognized and valued his skills and knew how to use them. Someone to rein in his more violent impulses, and direct them where they were needed.
Seven years on the run, he’d lost that direction. Alone, hunted, his actions were guided only by the need to run. And kill Wraith. By the time the team had found him he was a shell of the man he’d once been.
It had only been the guidance of a new leader that had brought him back.
He needs that command now, even if it’s couched in laconic sarcasm. Easy there, buddy.
Sheppard is alive. He’s more certain of it with every planet they visit. The cullings continue, some worse than others, some with more human loss than Wraith. But there are always dead Wraith left behind, along with tales of a tall man dressed in a black leather coat. His presence always brings a warning of Wraith attack, saving thousands of lives throughout the galaxy as the darts scream over vacated towns and empty fields.
But he’s made no attempt to contact Atlantis or even leave word of his survival with any of their allies.
Sheppard’s ghost on his shoulder, whispering in his ear, Ronon relents, shoves the box back at the two men with a dismissive hiss through his teeth. They fall back into grappling for the money and Ronon turns to head back to the inn and douse the burn of frustration with as much ale as he can drink.
Movement behind the cart catches his eye. It’s a blur of black against black, a flash of pale in the lamplight. He sees a hand reach out of the darkness and snag a piece of fruit from the uncovered crate.
There is the slightest rustle of leather, barely audible under the continued arguing - like a nightbird taking flight from a branch.
He murmurs Teyla’s name then takes off into the shadows of the darkening plaza.
Footsteps, quick and light on the cobblestones, sound in front of him. Teyla hasn’t asked a word, just follows him as his eyes strain through the dark.
He feels a breeze, a wake, kicked up by a body fleeing through the still night air.
It is only the smell that finally convinces him he isn’t chasing a phantom. The acrid metallic stench of Wraith blood hits his nose and he begins shouting. “Sheppard!”
He hears Teyla’s gasp but his ears are trained on keeping up with the footsteps. They pause for the span of two heartbeats, then begin pounding even harder on the cobblestones.
“Sheppard!” he tries again but the form continues to run, still a black shadow against the night sky.
He loses the footsteps, almost stumbles when a moment later his own feet hit the soft grass. He curses the sound-dulling ground but his eyes are adjusting in the dark. The treeline is ahead and any chance of seeing a man dressed in black will be gone if he can’t breach the distance.
Before he can even get his fist flung out Teyla is taking off to his left. She’s smaller, lighter on her feet and will be better able to wind her way through the close-set trees of the forest.
He pauses, searching for any sign. A branch still has the tiniest tremor in it - a body has passed by cleanly but Ronon’s eyes are accustomed to picking out the smallest of clues.
Sight is removed from the equation; it’s instant inky black as he enters the forest. The planet’s early moon’s light doesn’t penetrate through the thick leaves overhead.
He stops, holds his breath and waits. Waits for the snap of a foot breaking a fallen stick or the soft rustle of movement in the dead leaf cover. He’s done this before; only then, he’d been the hunted.
Radio hiss rasps once, twice in his earpiece. Teyla signals no joy. Ronon makes a decision based on the fresh green smell of broken leaves and bears right.
He weaves his way through the trees, basing his directional decisions on sounds that could easily be animal life and the faintest of scents. His hand rests on a large fallen trunk as he prepares to mount it - he feels the moisture of smeared moss - his fingers, raised to his nose, bring the smell of fresh, rich soil. A dirt-caked bootprint brings a small charge of hope, badly needed. He’s heading in the right direction.
Teyla keeps up her radio signaling every few minutes. He can only hope that she is flanking him as his certainty that they are closing in grows.
The map in his head has them heading north, paralleling the road from the gate to the city. A flash of dim light to his right confirms this - they have been skimming the edge of the forest following alongside the road and moonlight glows beyond the trees.
Making a snap decision, Ronon veers right, bursts out of the forest and onto the strip of knee-high grass that runs between wood and road. Pouring on speed he heads north, a conviction that he can’t explain growing that Sheppard is headed for the gate. And that if they lose him through the gate, he’ll be lost to them forever.
Risking the briefest of sound, he pops on his radio and whispers, ‘gate’ for Teyla.
He rounds a bend and the gate is in view. A dark form emerges from the forest a hundred yards ahead, pauses only briefly before heading for the DHD.
“Sheppard!” Ronon shouts and then again, over the mechanical whine of chevron glyphs being entered.
A form easily recognizable as Teyla emerges from the woods behind the gate. Her voice joins the chorus, frantically shouting, “John!”
The man stops, one hand hovering over the DHD. Ronon and Teyla close in, hands held away from their guns. Ronon’s face splits in a wide grin.
For it is John Sheppard. Long dark hair, cropped dark beard, and clad in Wraith leathers. But there is no doubt, even as John shakes his head and turns back to the DHD.
Desperation has Ronon thumbing his blaster on to stun; he shoots once, a bolt of energy, loud and close enough to make the target’s hair stand on end.
John pulls a gun from his belt, Genii tech by the look of it, and levels it at Ronon. “Look, buddy -“ and Ronon’s heart soars and sinks as the familiar sound of his friend’s voice rasps thickly at him- “don’t make me shoot you. I don’t know what you want, but I have to leave - right now- or there’s gonna be a whole mess of trouble real soon.” And his other hand fumbles to enter another glyph on the DHD.
Teyla takes another step forward, hands aloft. “John, please. It is us - Teyla and Ronon. We do not wish to hurt you. We have been looking for you -“ -her voice breaks - “for so long. Please.”
John’s hand pauses again. It has a tremor, noticeable in the blue glow of the DHD. He shakes his head as if to clear it and the gun pointed at Ronon wavers for just a moment. But then he steels his back and his grip. “I’ve been here too long,” he says. “They’ll be coming. I have to leave or people will die.”
“Who will be coming, John?” Teyla asks but Ronon knows- recognizes the guilt and exhaustion- the need to run.
“Wraith,” Ronon says simply.
John sags a little, and nods. “Just go back to your homes and let me leave. You and your people will be safe once I’m gone.”
“Our people?” Teyla chokes out. “John, you are our people. Come home, with us.”
John peers intently for a long moment at Teyla before his free hand rises to plant the heel of his palm at his temple. He presses there, hard, and groans.
The next seconds are a blur. Ronon takes the momentary distraction to raise his gun, intending to stun him. John shakes his head and leans towards the DHD, only one final glyph to be entered before the gate opens and they lose him again.
Before either action can take place the gate wooshes to life and a dozen Wraith drone soldiers flanking a smaller cadre of leather-coated officers come piling out, stunners aloft.
In the next heartbeat the Wraith realize that the object of their hunt is right there, at the gate. Still in their entry formation, grouped together, they are easier pickings.
Ronon’s blaster is thumbed on to kill and he begins firing, bursts of red energy enveloping the bone cage-faced grunts. They fall and their ranks are filled with the new bodies that continue to pour out of the gate.
John fires his gun, methodically, coldly. Bullets find their marks in Wraith chests, streaming silver-green blood. A chunk of Wraith skull is obliterated - the officer keeps walking for a few feet before finally dropping. Drones march right over his corpse.
The magazine empty, John drops the gun and pulls another free from within his coat and begins firing anew.
Teyla has been unseen, hidden behind the gate. She comes up from behind and begins strafing the Wraith with her P90 as they come through the gate. The bodies pile up like cord wood and still more Wraith come. The incoming troops stumble on the dead as they step through.
Two more guns emptied and John enters the fray, each hand carrying a long curved blade. He slices at throats, at limbs. Guts the Wraith as blue stunner fire lights up the sky. He’s hit, left leg, and he drags the numb limb with him as his arms continue their frenzied work. An officer backhands him, sends him flying several feet, but he crawls to his knees, pushes off and launches back into the fight.
With Teyla and John in the mix Ronon can’t use his blaster for fear of hitting his friends. With a bellowed growl he pulls his own sword from off his back and joins John in the bloodbath.
Then it’s nothing but the clang of metal on bone, the whine of stunner fire and the odd harmonic sound of Wraith screams. At some point in the melee Ronon realizes that the gate has shut down. It renews his energy, gives strength to his slashes. He pulls the blade free from the bony cage covering the Wraith face he’s just split in two and wheels about to take on the next. But there isn’t one.
Teyla stands on the other side of the massacre, breathing heavily, her empty P90 still slung around her neck, a thick tree branch held in each hand. She nods acknowledgment at him and throws the sticks down before wiping the sweat from her face. Then he follows her gaze as she turns her head.
John is limping, badly. Blood pours from his hairline and he’s favoring his left arm. And he’s hauling Wraith corpses off the gate platform.
Ronon joins him, Teyla too. There’s something clearly wrong - Ronon has known it since hearing John call him ‘buddy’ - only without friendship, affection. Or recognition. John continues working without speaking and Ronon and Teyla labor at his side, passing questioning looks at each other. The concern in Teyla’s face grows with every halting step John takes. With every wince as he drags away another Wraith.
When the platform is clear enough to use John turns without a word and heads back to the DHD, and presses in an address. As the gate opens again, its blue light shines off his pale skin.
Teyla steps in front of the shimmering pool. “John, where are you going?”
“Thank you, both, for your help,” John says. “Once I’m gone the Wraith won’t come back. You’ll be safe.”
“Sheppard, I don’t know what’s happened to you, but we’ll make it right. You need to come home with us,” Ronon says, stepping towards his friend.
Teyla’s pleadings join his. “Please, John. Come home with us.”
“I can’t stop -“
“Can’t stop running, Sheppard?”
John wavers on his feet but he takes another step towards the gate.
“I know what it’s like,” Ronon says quickly. John stops, wipes the blood from his eye, but he’s listening.
“I was like you, once. Running, every day, every night. No rest, no time to heal, no friends, no connection with anyone. Fighting and watching people around me die because of my mere presence.”
John nods, almost unconsciously.
“Someone found me, helped me. After seven years of running, I slept in a bed. I ate a hot meal, had my wounds tended to. I had friends. Family.”
“We are your family, John,” Teyla says quietly. Tears, reflected in the gate light, stream down her cheeks.
Something flickers in John’s eyes - a glimmer of recognition- before he moans and drops his head into his hand. Ronon is at his side in an instant, there as John’s knees fold and he falls to the ground, gasping in pain as he digs his knuckles into his temple.
Teyla is radioing the jumpers and running for the DHD as Ronon lowers John to the grass, holding him to his chest. John’s body is hot and tremors wrack his frame.
“Time to stop running, buddy,” Ronon whispers in John’s ear. “We’re taking you home.”
***
Rodney holds a crystal he’s pulled from the gate dialing mechanism and stands watch, slack-jawed and eerily quiet. For a man who’s rarely at a loss for words, the only ones he’s been able to voice are ‘it’s really him.’
Jennifer gates through with an escort of Marines and Marie. Rodney’s hasty act of temporary sabotage gives them time to remove the tracking device.
John is face down on the gate platform, his coat and shirt removed. A medic has started an IV and stopped the bleeding from his head wound. John’s quiet now - too quiet, but Ronon can see tension thrumming through the ropy muscle that covers his shivering frame. His skin shines palely in the beams of light from the flashlights Teyla and Ronon hold; scars that Ronon once shared on his own back are evidence of John’s attempts at self-surgery.
Jennifer looks up from the scanner she holds over the top of his spine. “It’s too deep, and it’s wrapped around his spinal cord.”
“Can’t be helped, Doc,” Lorne says. “We can’t compromise the city’s safety.”
“What about Colonel Sheppard’s safety?” she whispers, cognizant of her patient’s awareness.
“The colonel would be the first man to agree with me,” Lorne replies evenly.
“What about the Alpha site?” she tries again. “We have shelter there, and equipment.”
“You get it out or we don’t get him back,” Ronon says quietly.
Jennifer nods with a sigh but quickly orders 10 migs of morphine and has Marie begin swabbing iodine over the breadth of John’s back. The medic unspools a length of tubing and lifts John’s head to place a cannula for oxygen under his nose. Some of the Marines break off from their guard posts and form a circle around their commanding officer, shining their own Maglights to supplement the meager light.
Lorne kneels down and holds the scanner for Jennifer while she begins cutting.
There is silence save for the medic’s clipped reports from the BP cuff wrapped around John’s upper arm.
Ronon remembers the feel of every slice of Beckett’s scalpel; he closes his eyes and says a small prayer of thanks that John is snowed under.
After the better part of an hour Jennifer sits back on her heels and wipes sweat from her forehead with the back of a bloodied, latex gloved hand. She waits through an update on the colonel’s vitals and returns to her task with steady hands.
“It didn’t take this long… before…” Rodney says nervously.
“You weren’t there, Rodney,” Teyla says with a small smile.
“Yes, well, I heard about it, from Carson… or you guys. It’s a bit of a blur. But this is definitely taking longer… … isn’t it?”
“Doctor Keller is just being thorough,” Teyla says reassuringly. But concern furrows her brow.
Rodney is right. Ronon had counted through every minute of his removal and this is taking much longer.
But before he can voice his own concerns Jennifer sits back again, only this time she holds a pair of forceps clamped around a bloody, tangled mess of hooks and wires and tendrils of organic material that look like muscle fiber. “What do I do with this?”
Ronon reaches out a hand and takes it from her. He stares at it - it’s simple technology, meant to do only two things. Bind itself to its victim and transmit its location. He’d borne one for seven years -and it had brought death and devastation to dozens of planets.
He tosses it onto the ground and unleashes his blaster, fires once, twice, again, and again until there is nothing but a smoldering black stain, flames licking at blackened blades of grass.
Behind him he can hear Jennifer and her people packing John up for transport.
Ronon can finally fulfill his promise to bring John home.
***
Word travels fast in as tight-knit a community as Atlantis. Even as they unload the back of the jumper, John well-covered, laid out on his stomach on a gurney, people are gathering. Woolsey insists on a security team accompanying them to the infirmary. Ronon knows it’s protocol and Sheppard himself would probably have done the same thing but he also knows John wouldn’t like being paraded through the halls for gawking eyes.
Lorne gathers some of the Marines that helped on the planet and takes advantage of Woolsey’s order. He has Chuck announce a citywide security alert, all non-emergency personnel to their quarters or labs. John might be snowed under with morphine, but Ronon knows he’d appreciate the gesture all the same.
Once they get into the infirmary Lorne makes a good attempt at having guards follow them to triage. Jennifer makes the expected protests and Lorne taps Ronon on the shoulder with a knowing look. He’ll make up the token security presence.
Ronon tries to stay out of the way as the medical team begins their work. They set John’s shirt and coat to the side and there is the rattle of metal on metal. A knife falls free from one of the sleeves. A nurse goes to pick the coat up and Ronon stays her hand. Easing the sleeve towards him he peers in and grunts out a laugh. An intricate spring-loaded sheath has been sewn into each arm. The one still holds a small, sharp blade. He recognizes the weapon’s design as similar to one he’d carried.
The nurses slide scissors up each of John’s pant legs. He’s still wearing his BDUs - the heavy material has held up over more than a year’s wear through dozens of battles. Ronon makes a note of it and considers trying a pair for himself one day.
He turns away as they divest John of the remainder of his clothing, set him up with medical equipment and begin a rundown of his vitals for Jennifer.
The only thing that Ronon gets from the numbers is that John is running a high temperature - something he could’ve told them after one touch of his friend’s heated flesh.
He gets the clear from Jennifer that they’re going to run some scans and turns to see John has been laid out on the table and covered to the waist with a sheet. A doctor runs an Ancient scanner down the length of John’s body, murmuring his findings to Jennifer as he goes.
The wound along John’s back is still open, packed with gauze. Jennifer explains she wants to sew him up in a sterile surgical theatre- especially since he’s going to be headed there anyway. The scans have found the source of the infection. John’s left ulna is cracked and infection has set in. Ronon looks at the arm and sees discoloration and a deep purple bruise. He recognizes it as a defensive wound; John’s left arm flung up to protect him from a blow had absorbed a hard impact. As he continues to look he sees a raised knot on John’s clavicle- sign of another break that healed without being properly set.
The muscles of John’s chest, back and shoulders have been built up from a year of wielding heavy blades and hand to hand combat and it’s likely only this extra support that allowed the collarbone to stabilize and heal at all.
Ronon rubs at a lump under the skin over his own clavicle, at an ache he hasn’t felt in years.
He startles at the touch of a hand on his arm and looks down into Jennifer’s eyes.
“You said he didn’t recognize you or Teyla?”
He called me ‘buddy’… “No. No…. I’m not sure. I don’t think so.”
“Well, the scans don’t show any traumatic brain injury. The scalp laceration is superficial - a few stitches will fix it. I don’t show an organic reason for his possible amnesia.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“Well… if it were organic I’d have something I could possibly fix. When he wakes up after surgery I’ll run a battery of neurological tests. Maybe with the fever he just wasn’t tracking properly. It isn’t uncommon, although his fever isn’t that high right now.”
“What are his chances?”
“For what?”
Ronon breathes deeply, exhales loudly. “Living.”
Jennifer smiles. “He’s actually pretty healthy, Ronon. Aside from the break in his arm, he appears well-nourished and strong. A course of antibiotics should perk him right up.”
“And then what?”
“Then?… I’m not sure. But you brought Colonel Sheppard home after all this time. Let yourself enjoy the small victory. We’ll deal with the rest later.”
Ronon nods but doubt lingers - that they’d brought home John Sheppard’s body but not his friend.
“Conclusion”
Word Count: 19 k
Warnings/Rating T
Summary: Ronon POV. John is taken while on a routine mission. Getting him back is just the beginning. AU S5. Donation fic for Help Japan.
Thanks to kristen999 and my beta coolbreeze1 . And thanks to black_raven135for her generous donation to Help_Japan. A donation fic from Leverage is next on my plate.
***
Every Hive’s a floating graveyard. The cocoons hold shriveled human husks; the air is heavy with stale rot. This one’s no different. Ronon charges through every corridor, searching every cell and crevice for signs of life. Nothing. Not a single living soul.
His hand touches the necklace around his neck, fingering the ten teeth dangling under his shirt. By the time he reaches the end of the last sector, knowing there’s nowhere else to search, the halls fill with his howls of frustration.
Gripping his gun with white knuckles, he heads towards the strike team huddled around the ship's control consoles. “Anything?”
There's an echo of 'no, sirs' from the Marines, their grim faces barely holding back the fire burning deep inside.
Giving them each a curt nod, he stalks over to a familiar set of hunched shoulders. Rodney's fingers smash at the keyboard of his computer. “Before you demand the impossible from me, I've got nothing. There are no additional life signs beyond the crew’s. Most of which are dead.”
“Most?” Ronon prods.
Swallowing with his head still bowed, Rodney clears his throat. “One Wraith's been left alive for questioning.”
Holstering his gun, Ronon pulls out one of his knives, curling his fingers around the handle until it digs into his palm. “If he knows anything, I'll get it out of him.”
***
Sitting inside his quarters, Ronon dictates his latest mission report into his voice recorder. Another set of ruins, another waste of time. He doesn’t speak the truth, unwilling to threaten his deal with Woolsey. Tomorrow he’ll head out on a jumper, investigate the Wraith activity around PM2-754, follow wherever the trail takes him. Cruiser or Hive. Doesn’t matter.
Pulling out the black velvet pouch from last week’s search, he dumps the newest tooth onto the table. Using a stiletto tool he bores a hole through the root, and, unclasping his necklace, he threads it through the molar.
Seventeen teeth and counting.
He once wore a necklace of Wraith finger bones. They were worn proudly, proof of his kills, for everyone he encountered to see, so they’d know the monsters could be defeated. And for the Wraith he faced to recognize that he’d taken down their kind - to maybe give them that spike of fear they saw in their victims’ faces before he finally dispatched them to whatever Hell they went to.
The teeth are just for him. And he’ll keep adding to them until he finds what he seeks.
***
Stars move position in the sky; the number of bad storms tapers off and the wind feels a bit warmer than before. But other than those slight differences, there are no seasons on Atlantis. Without the celebration of planting season, the reaping of the harvest or the hunkering down for winter, time blurs.
“I have been looking for you.”
“Thought you were going to New Athos with Torren?” he asks before looking up.
The landing bay by the west pier is isolated most of the year; it’s a perfect place to lay low but still re-enter the city in an emergency. The breeze plays with Teyla’s hair as she walks towards him.
“I was hoping you would come with me. Visit Halling. He has brewed another batch of fire ale and hopes you would be there to taste it.”
“I’ve got somewhere else to be tomorrow.”
“Did you find a pilot?”
His cheeks burn hot at the unspoken doubt. “You think I can’t find a volunteer?’
“I do not think anyone wants to tell you no.”
“You mean like you did?”
Teyla flinches like she’s been slapped, but before Ronon can mumble an apology she closes the distance between them in barely controlled fury. “Your heart is not the only one on Atlantis that carries hope!”
“I know.”
“I was held by Michael for weeks.”
And that’s the reason why Ronon doesn’t understand, why of all people she’s stopped coming with him. He wants to sound bitter, let his voice reflect what he feels deep inside. Instead his words sound pathetic. “Then why am I doing this alone?”
Anger melts into sorrow and Teyla wraps her arms around his back, rests her head against his shoulder. “Because understanding will not change what we all know to be true. No matter how much we pray otherwise.”
Holding her close, both their bodies tremble in grief. “I can’t stop.”
“I would never ask you to, but Ronon… How many failures will you wear around your neck? How many months?”
He doesn’t know, but he fears the morning he wakes up and makes that decision.
***
It’s not until the muzzle of his gun is buried under Todd’s chin that Ronon’s brain catches up to his heart.
“Do you not think I would tell you if I knew anything?”
Shoving the barrel harder into the soft flesh, Ronon growls, “I think you’d say whatever I wanted to hear to stay alive.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“John Sheppard is dead,” Todd hisses.
“You’re lying!”
“I have spoken to all my allies and spies,” Todd explains calmly, his body perfectly relaxed. “He is not on any Hive. If he were, I would know. What Wraith would not claim ownership of such a valued prize? Would not have sent the boast across the minds of every Hive?”
During all those countless days and weeks of chasing leads, threatening and bribing sources. Tracking trails long gone cold. He’s never admitted defeat. Not when people whispered in the halls or when his friends quietly begged him to consider other possibilities.
Only now, face to face with a sworn enemy-- a Wraith-- does Ronon finally listen to what he’s been hearing all along.
Weapon falling limply at his side, Ronon takes a heavy step back. “Go.”
Tilting his head in curiosity, Todd narrows his gaze. “Why?”
“Because it’s what Sheppard would do.”
***
Ronon doesn’t bargain with Woolsey anymore. No more trading missions for manpower and jumpers to scour the galaxy. He throws himself into the needs of Atlantis, going on special assignments into unfriendly territory. There’s some kind of interplanetary coalition forming to challenge Atlantis and he can gather intel where other off-world teams are unable to.
He doesn’t wear a patch on his sleeve; his first allegiance is tattooed into his skin but is easily covered when needed. Cold dark caves or a blanket on the dewy ground are more familiar than his quarters these days. Out here-he can be the hunter.
So it’s a surprise when hears the familiar drone of a jumper overhead and he walks over to a nearby clearing to meet it. Breath misting in the chilly air, he greets a familiar figure coming out the back hatch.
“Teyla,” he greets her, their foreheads touching. “Something wrong?”
“We need you back on Atlantis; we believe the Wraith are re-gathering.”
***
The air is thick with smoke as they pass down what used to be a bustling village square. The buildings still smolder and hiss as a light rain bats at the embers. A few of the greener Marines swallow hard against the stench of burnt hair and flesh. Ronon strides up to a body, black with char but the form still immediately recognizable to him. Wraith kill. Even before the fire the corpse was a withered shell.
“Looks like they put up a good fight at least.”
Ronon looks over at Lorne. The major toes the corpse of a Wraith drone. The neck beneath the bone-caged face has been slit. “Good for them,” Lorne adds quietly.
Ronon scans the ruins and counts bodies. Only a few are human, the rest culled for the storage cells on board the Hive. But there are at least a dozen dead Wraith.
Jennifer stands by, her kit still slung over her shoulder. She has no one to help.
***
Rumors of the coalition become strangely quiet in the wake of this up swell in Wraith activity. Woolsey holds meetings where they sit and discuss plans and look for explanations. One seat remains empty until there comes a morning when specialists and a diplomatic party from an allied planet fill the room. There is a brief hesitation before the ambassador is ushered into the chair. Then the room erupts in a chorus of voices and the hesitation is soon forgotten. By all but a few.
After two hours of useless talk the crowd finally reaches an agreement and break for coffee and tarts and a chance to stretch their legs.
Ronon is battling the desire to skip out and head for his pier when Rodney approaches, his expression grim. Another planet, another culling.
It had only been visitors to the first few culled worlds that had found the carnage and reported back to Atlantis through their allies. This time, at least, there were survivors, able to contact them directly for help.
A still shell-shocked member of the governing council greets them at the Ring of the Ancestors. He stutters out a short bow before turning and heading up the muddy path towards a spot on the horizon still spouting inky smoke.
Lorne radios for an additional team of engineers as they follow behind the governor. He’s not an especially tall or fit man but adrenaline still fuels his stride and the team hustles to keep up with him.
He stammers out thanks for their quick arrival but Ronon shakes his head angrily. Not quick enough. The sickly sweet smell of charred flesh is here too, but no one is unfamiliar with it now.
Teyla touches Ronon’s arm and inclines her head towards a pile of Wraith corpses before raising an eyebrow. This planet was known to them, had supplied them over their years in Pegasus with fruits and vegetables. They were simple farmers, without weapons or army.
The governor finally comes to a halting stop at the intersection of two muddy, wheel-rutted roads. His face is pale, tear tracks running through the soot on his face.
“They came, so fast, so many of them,” he almost sobs. “We couldn’t - there was nothing--” He coughs harshly and wavers on his feet. Jennifer unslings her bag and pulls out a canister of oxygen, unspooling a mask and rushing to his side. Lorne is there in a flash as the man’s knees give way and the two lower the man to the muddy ground.
Teyla crouches in front of him as Jennifer pulls equipment from her bag. “You did not do nothing. You fought back.”
The governor’s eyes widen over the plastic mask as he shakes his head. “It wasn’t--” Before he can finish a coughing fit overwhelms him. His lips go blue and Lorne waves a Marine over to help him carry the man to the gate at Jennifer’s order.
“Over here!” comes Rodney’s panicked voice.
Ronon pulls his blaster out, the whine of the weapon powering up loud against the silence of the ruined village.
The physicist is standing in front of what had been a shop, its walls now blackened and collapsed in on themselves. He has an LSD in his hand and is pointing at the shop. “There’re life signs coming from in there!”
Ronon knows that the LSD can’t differentiate between Wraith and human. He growls, tightens his grip on his gun and strides over to begin ripping the boards away with the other hand. His palm is burned on still smoldering wood, his fingers speared with splinters but he keeps tearing through. He only eventually recognizes that Teyla and Rodney are on each side of him, flinging broken boards behind them.
They finally breach the interior. There’s a rough wooden counter and shelves of blackened and shriveled fruits and vegetables, but nothing else.
Teyla enters first, her P90 held out at the ready as she scans a 360. As she rounds the counter she shouts. A trap door in the floor is cleared of debris and opened. The light mounted on the gun’s barrel shines on four scared and dirty faces. Human faces.
Jennifer and a medic bustle around the four, the shopkeeper and his wife and children. She pronounces them completely unharmed. The kids are resilient, already talking freely and they are gushing about a man who warned them the Wraith were coming and gave them time to hide in the cellar.
Rodney stands nearby, grinning, completely oblivious to the gash a nail has ripped in his palm. Ronon walks up to him, pulls a field bandage from Rodney’s vest and wraps it around the dripping wound. And Rodney keeps grinning. Teyla joins them, a smile on her face too. “Nicely done, Rodney,” she says, a hand on his arm. Rodney’s grin falters a little and he clenches the bandage in his palm, finally wincing at the pain. “Yeah, it was pretty cool, huh?”
Their team is only three now and the absence is most keenly felt when they are the closest.
***
It’s been eight months and twice that number of cullings. Each planet blurs into the next. Villages left in smoking ruin, shell-shocked survivors picking through the remains of their homes and livelihoods. Atlantis responds with medical teams and engineers. They set up first aid areas and rebuild houses and dig trenches to bury the withered corpses left behind.
Leyjac is a mountainous planet. Its inhabitants already scratched out what were barely subsistence farms in the rocky soil. The culling has destroyed their meager food stores and the growing season has already passed.
Botanists and agricultural specialists from Atlantis are working on re-seeding with plant samples gathered from throughout Pegasus, looking for hardier grain plants that could thrive in the coming colder months.
Ronon and Lorne walk together through the capital city, surveying the work done so far. The meeting hall had been the largest building and its stone walls still stood. But the stench of death had filled the great room. Leyjacs had worked side by side with Marines, scrubbing down the walls and floors and repainting in flickering torch light.
As they enter the dark hall, Ronon breathes deeply. Fresh paint and bleach have freshened the air, but Ronon’s sensitive nose can still sense the acrid burn of Wraith blood.
And only Wraith blood.
No human remains had been found, only Wraith. Most of the Leyjacs had survived, had made their escape to the great labyrinth of caves under the mountains where they were safe from the culling beams and could evade capture by Wraith troops on the ground. When asked, the survivors all told a similar story. A man had come to them, warned them that the Wraith were coming, and saved all their lives.
Here, at the great hall, Ronon’s well-trained, experienced eyes had told him a tale that still has no end, a mystery unsolved. The Wraith had entered in force, likely expecting the hall to hold a cowering smorgasbord of tasty Leyjacs. Instead, something had wiped them out, leaving their corpses splayed out all over the floor. Without humans to feed on, their wounds had been unable to heal. They were felled by stab wounds, slit throats and broken necks. Two had been found with their heads still smoldering in the embers of the massive fireplace that flanks the back wall.
Lorne steps in beside him, raises his flashlight to scan the room. “What the---“
Ronon follows the beam, adds his own to the wall at the front where the elders’ table still stood.
A massive mural has been painted there, a triptych. In the first section the mountains loom large in the background, the city in the fore. Wraith darts with white culling beams fly overhead. A tiny curlicue of smoke rises from the chimney of the largest building- the meeting hall. The second shows a plowed field, green shoots rising against a clear and sunny sky. The third is the form of a man. He is tall, dark haired. He wears a long leather duster that Ronon immediately recognizes as a Wraith officer’s coat. His eyes are in shadow over a dark beard and he holds a knife that drips silvery-green Wraith blood. Under his image is written, Death Bringer.
***
The year anniversary passes as just another day. The cullings continue, one on top of the other, the Wraith in a feeding frenzy Ronon has never seen the like of.
The reason becomes quickly apparent. Several of the planets attacked suffer no loss of human life, not a single human taken or fed on. But the Wraith fall in droves. Jennifer takes two corpses to perform autopsies on, back on Atlantis. By the time she manages to excise back the bony exoskeleton she finds the drone had been felled with a single knife thrust to the gut. She clinically points out the withered limbs and the long white hair falling out in clumps. This Wraith was starving to death before the blade ever pierced his flesh. The officer’s face shows hollowed cheeks and cracks in his skin along with a slit throat.
A picture is taken of the officer and Ronon returns to Todd with it. He hates the sound of the Wraith’s voice, his condescension, the very stink of Wraith on him. But he hates mysteries more and he can’t fight the itch he’s had at the back of his brain since seeing the mural on Leyjac.
Todd growls on seeing the face, the shadows under eyes glazed opaque in death. “Why do you show this to me?” he demands, thrusting the photo back into Ronon’s hands. “Are you now torturing Wraith? Starving us into talking to find your precious John Sheppard?”
Ronon grabs his non-feeding hand, slaps the picture back into it. “We didn’t do this! I don’t care that he’s dead, I’m happy one more of you’s been exterminated. But I do want to know why.”
“Why?” Todd echoes. “Why he clearly hasn’t fed for some time,” he chuckles darkly.
“Our docs examined him. He didn’t have the virus; his - hand-- was operating just fine.”
“Perhaps he was weak,” Todd muses. “Even Wraith, so superior to humans, have genetically inferior specimens. It is best he died. We can only hope he did not pass on any of his inferior genetic code.”
The side of Ronon’s mouth curls and he takes a step closer, pushes his face in until revulsion threatens to make him shiver. “He’s one of a hundred of you we’ve found like this. Maybe you’re all his bastard spawn.”
Todd’s feeding hand stretches, his fingers clawing at the air. The clicks of safeties being thumbed away sound off from Lorne and his men flanking Ronon.
With a grunt of frustration Todd drops his hand and backs away. “You’ll pardon me, but the smell of human was a bit too strong. Not offensive, necessarily, but even Wraith can give in to temptation.” He shrugs. “I have seen this happen. A new Queen perhaps, a new Hive. They are… clumsy, undisciplined. Without proper direction from a Queen a Hive can fail. Can die off. Perhaps their Queen has been killed.” He drops his eyes back to the photo now crumpled in his fist. Smoothes it out and traces the tattoos on the officer’s face with a fingernail. “I do not recognize these Hive markings.” He lets the picture fall to the ground. “I grow tired of our meeting. You call upon me, show me unseemly pictures of dead brethren and offer me nothing but insults.”
Ronon unholsters his blaster. “Fine. Go. But it’s the last time. Next time I’ll offer you a face full of this.” His gun glows red as it whines out its charge.
Todd just smiles enigmatically as several Wraith officers emerge from the trees behind him. “I never thought I would say it, but I rather miss dealing with Sheppard. You lack his wit.”
***
Poch is a small rock, barely a planetoid, according to Rodney. But it has a gate and suffers a culling much like all the rest. In fact, worse than most of its Pegasus neighbors have suffered of late. Fifteen people are killed, but none taken. Their dried up husks litter the ground, some with crude weapons still clutched in curled, bony hands. Survivors tell of an army of Wraith descending on the town, through the gate and dropped from darts. None taken away, all fed upon by ravenous Wraith.
Carson has been brought back into the fold, helping with first aid and repairs to secure healthy food and water supplies on the ravaged planets.
He’s working on a young man seated on a table in the first aid tent, wrapping a bandage around a splinted arm as Ronon and Rodney approach them.
Ronon takes in the damage wrought as corpsmen begin wrapping the bodies in sheets. At least a dozen Wraith corpses have been pulled off and piled to the side for burning.
“You guys did good,” Ronon tells the young man. “Don’t usually see people fighting back.”
“Young Krev here got a broken radius for his troubles,” Carson sighs. “Why didn’t you run with the rest of them?”
Krev winces as the splint is jostled and his face blanches. But he looks Ronon squarely in the eye. “A man came to the village. Told us the Wraith were coming. My family and me, we were headed for the hills. But the man, he just… he stayed. I told him he could come with us where he’d be safe. But he just shook his head. Said we wouldn’t be safe with him around.”
A cold chill runs up Ronon’s spine at the words and another piece clicks into place. “Did he say why?”
The young man shakes his head then grimaces as Beckett pulls the ends of the bandage tight. “Sorry, son. I’ll get you fixed up in a tick.”
Krev nods and swallows hard. “He wouldn’t say. Just said he was going to stand and fight. My brothers came over while we were talking and heard him say he was going to fight Wraith. The man didn’t look like much - tall but thin. And he looked hurt already.
Then the Wraith came, too fast. Silver metal birds in the sky, troops of them marching up the road from the Ancestral Ring.” He shivers and drops his head in shame. “We started to run but the man just stood there while the monsters closed in.”
Carson pats the young man on the shoulder consolingly, shows him an ampoule of morphine. This’ll tide you over until I can get you some place safe to set that break. Just a pinch now,” Carson soothes as he jabs the drug into the man’s thigh.
The morphine eases the lines of pain in the young man’s face and he sags a little in relief. Then he looks up, steels his back. “My father did not raise us to be cowards. We sent our families on and we picked up whatever weapons we could. Others joined us and we fought at the man’s side. And I killed Wraith,” he crows, even though it’s dampened with the narcotic’s effects. Then his eyes drag over to the sheet-wrapped bodies and he begins to sob.
Ronon recognizes grief exposed by the powerful drug. But he grabs Krev’s good arm and shakes him. “What happened to the man?”
Krev just continues sobbing, shakes his head.
“Did you ever get his name?”
The kid starts to list to one side and Carson catches him, easing him over on the table to rest. But as his eyes slide shut Ronon hears him whisper, “Sheppard.”
***
The planet is much like hundreds of others Ronon has seen over his years of running. Some were a little colder, some a little hotter. Wetter, drier. Some had populations still managing to thrive, rebuild; others were nearly abandoned, only small outposts of stragglers left to claw out sustenance from the native plants and animals.
This one, PM3-2R3, known as Jurania to the locals, is slightly more advanced. Nothing compared to Sateda or even Hoff or the Genii homeworld. They have some industry, produce goods for trade among the gate-linked worlds-cloth and an herbal drink that is only tolerable to drink once fermented.
A brutish man, the pungent scent of the herbal alcohol oozing from his pores, had sworn he’d seen a man who looked like the one in the picture when he’d visited Jurania the day before. Rodney had expressed doubt over the veracity of the account, that he’d only told them what they wanted to hear. Ronon had been a bit rough with the drunk, but he believed the man had spoken the truth. The glaze over the drunkard’s eyes had sparked briefly on seeing the picture.
So they’d sent a small squadron of jumpers through, four in total, each taking a quadrant of Jurania to scan.
Ronon and Teyla had insisted on taking the city where the brute had bought his liquor. Feet on the ground, eyes in the crowds. They couldn’t count on the sub-q transmitter and life signs all looked the same, even after Rodney’s tinkering with calibrations based on DNA sequencing being fed to the detectors.
Juranians bustle about the marketplace. Most are dirty, dressed in leathers and rough-hewn cloth. A few, mostly the proprietors of some of the nicer shops, wear finer clothing and various forms of jewelry.
As Ronon and Teyla weave their way through the crowds, eyes follow them with suspicion but no one approaches them.
Ronon nods agreeably at a woman who clutches her two children closer to her skirts as they near. Teyla attempts a weak, reassuring smile as well but the woman turns and melts into a group surrounding a cart laden with bumpy-skinned yellow fruits.
The cart’s owner is hawking his wares with flair - a machete chops one of the fruit in two, spraying some of the patrons closest to the cart with droplets of thick scarlet juice. But instead of the jeers and threats Ronon expects to hear, there are cries of delight and people crowd closer, hands outthrust, begging for a sample of the fruit. A woman, pretty despite the hollows in her cheeks, is given a small chunk. She shoves the fruit into her mouth and chews greedily, finally spitting out the knobby yellow rind before grinning with bright red teeth. The crowd maddens with jealousy and swarms the cart; Ronon and Teyla slip away before being overwhelmed with new arrivals.
Ronon dashes a look at the watch on his wrist. A gift from Lorne once he’d returned to the fold on Atlantis, it no longer feels foreign to him; thick leather band, large brass face with the time and date synced up with Atlantis. It melds into the patterned tattoo on his left forearm.
Teyla wears a smaller version of her own. Thin leather band, copper face. And now, just as normal a thing to see on her wrist as on the rest of Atlantis. Just another of a myriad of changes set in over the past year.
He doesn’t need to tell her it’s time for another check in with the jumpers, another report of failure. Her hand rises to her ear, subtly, as if tucking away a strand of hair, a wary eye cast about for Juranian onlookers. She mutters softly then drops her hand back to her side with a sigh and another weak smile of encouragement for him.
Two days they’ve been in the city and their questions and the picture bring only blank stares from those they can get to actually stop and talk to them.
Ronon’d had high hopes for the marketplace. An older man in a meager, dusty library had actually recognized some of Ronon’s tattoos as Satedan, had known of the planet before its annihilation by the Wraith, and while he had never seen the man in the picture, he told them that in the morning the market would bring farmers and traders from all over the area.
The prospect of having a concentration of people in one limited area could help narrow their search. So they’d taken a small, cramped room in the local inn. The noise and smoke from the tavern on the first floor made sleeping difficult. The thought that their search might finally gain ground kept his head buzzing through the night until he’d finally given up, snuck out of the room silently with the hope that Teyla’s unmoving form meant she was sleeping, and went down to quiet his nerves with some of the local ale. The hangover the next day lingers and he is still fighting a nagging headache.
Swallowing back the rise of acid in his throat, Ronon grabs the shoulder of a man laden down with crates of green leafy vegetables and stops him as he attempts to pass by.
He thrusts the photograph in front of the startled man’s face. “Have you seen this man?” The Juranian stares at the picture with disbelief, not at the subject but at the strangeness of a portrait so life-like and alien. Even with the ragged edges and bent corners, the photo is still clearly beyond their technology.
Ronon sighs in frustration, though this is not the first reaction of its kind, and shakes the picture. “This man. Have you seen him?”
The Juranian shakes his head and pulls free of Ronon’s hand to scuttle off with his boxes.
The rest of the afternoon passes in much the same way. The sky darkens overhead and the early moon trades places with the sun. Vendors begin packing up their carts and closing up their storefronts as the crowds thin and people scatter back to their homes.
Ronon and Teyla stop under the long shadow cast by a gas lamp. A small, pale blue moth flits around the light, stuck in its circuitous path, trying to navigate by a false beacon.
Teyla watches the moth for a moment before dropping her gaze to watch the last of the shop doors closing up. Are they too stuck on a path to nowhere, following false hopes again? Should they risk re-opening old wounds that had only just begun to heal? Ronon had believed the drunk, had sensed that genuine reaction had been the first real lead in over a year.
As if reading his thoughts, Teyla shakes her head. “I believed it too. But perhaps Rodney was right.”
“No. McKay wasn’t right and we both saw it.” Ronon turns and scans the nearly empty plaza. A few of the cart vendors remain, struggling to pack up the goods they didn’t sell. Two men are arguing by the cart with the lumpy fruit.
Ronon strides over, the photo clenched in his hand. As he nears he sees it’s the seller arguing with a man in a well-worn pair of leather overalls. The coat he wears over them is patched, the sleeves frayed.
“We agreed on a price! I want my share!”
The vendor slams the lid shut on a wooden box. “Your share? A share of nothing is nothing!”
“You took the entire harvest! You insisted they would all sell!”
“Maybe if you grew a better product they would have! I barely made enough to cover the market fee and the taxes. The rest is for my costs,” the seller says with a proprietary pat on the box lid.
At Ronon’s approach the vendor smears on a greasy smile for him. “Good sir, you look like a man who enjoys the finer things in life.” He peels the canvas back from a crate of the yellow fruit. “You have caught me as I am midst closing but I could be persuaded to -“
Ronon cuts him off by shoving the picture in his face. “Have you seen this man?”
The vendor doesn’t give the photo even a glance. He scowls and turns his attention to securing a metal padlock on his moneybox.
Raggedy man reaches in and grabs a hold of the box and the two men commence wrestling it back and forth. The vendor has the better grip and is behind the stand but the other man is clearly more well-muscled, used to hard, manual labor.
Impatience burning hotter than the acid in his throat, Ronon reaches over and wrests the box from both of them. He slaps the photo on top of it and growls through clenched teeth. “Have either of you seen the man in this picture?”
“Give that back, immediately!” the vendor demands haughtily.
The farmer looks at the photo but it’s clear his eyes only stare through it, at the moneybox. “Look, sir, that money is mine. My family grew and harvested that whole crop.”
Ronon senses an approach from behind him, glances peripherally to see Teyla slide up next to him. She puts a calming hand on his arm. “We only wish to know if either of you have seen the man in the portrait,” she soothes in her best diplomat’s voice. “My friend has no desire to take your money. Just tell us if you have seen the man and you can go back to your former discussion.”
“Just give me back the box and I won’t call the guards,” the vendor replies coldly.
Ronon’s answering grin has teeth. “I’ll be gone with the money before a single guard shows up.”
He knows it’s foolish. The renewed frustrations after a more than a year’s worth of grieving and dashed hopes has brought him to the point of risking what will at the very least be problems with the local security and at worst risk Teyla’s life. And she has Torren waiting for her, back at Atlantis.
But part of him itches for this. Confrontation. Forcing an issue. Starting a fight or a manhunt. Doing something.
Ten years of schooling. Six years of service in the Satedan armed forces, a member of the rank and file and proud of it. He’d always had a leader. Someone who recognized and valued his skills and knew how to use them. Someone to rein in his more violent impulses, and direct them where they were needed.
Seven years on the run, he’d lost that direction. Alone, hunted, his actions were guided only by the need to run. And kill Wraith. By the time the team had found him he was a shell of the man he’d once been.
It had only been the guidance of a new leader that had brought him back.
He needs that command now, even if it’s couched in laconic sarcasm. Easy there, buddy.
Sheppard is alive. He’s more certain of it with every planet they visit. The cullings continue, some worse than others, some with more human loss than Wraith. But there are always dead Wraith left behind, along with tales of a tall man dressed in a black leather coat. His presence always brings a warning of Wraith attack, saving thousands of lives throughout the galaxy as the darts scream over vacated towns and empty fields.
But he’s made no attempt to contact Atlantis or even leave word of his survival with any of their allies.
Sheppard’s ghost on his shoulder, whispering in his ear, Ronon relents, shoves the box back at the two men with a dismissive hiss through his teeth. They fall back into grappling for the money and Ronon turns to head back to the inn and douse the burn of frustration with as much ale as he can drink.
Movement behind the cart catches his eye. It’s a blur of black against black, a flash of pale in the lamplight. He sees a hand reach out of the darkness and snag a piece of fruit from the uncovered crate.
There is the slightest rustle of leather, barely audible under the continued arguing - like a nightbird taking flight from a branch.
He murmurs Teyla’s name then takes off into the shadows of the darkening plaza.
Footsteps, quick and light on the cobblestones, sound in front of him. Teyla hasn’t asked a word, just follows him as his eyes strain through the dark.
He feels a breeze, a wake, kicked up by a body fleeing through the still night air.
It is only the smell that finally convinces him he isn’t chasing a phantom. The acrid metallic stench of Wraith blood hits his nose and he begins shouting. “Sheppard!”
He hears Teyla’s gasp but his ears are trained on keeping up with the footsteps. They pause for the span of two heartbeats, then begin pounding even harder on the cobblestones.
“Sheppard!” he tries again but the form continues to run, still a black shadow against the night sky.
He loses the footsteps, almost stumbles when a moment later his own feet hit the soft grass. He curses the sound-dulling ground but his eyes are adjusting in the dark. The treeline is ahead and any chance of seeing a man dressed in black will be gone if he can’t breach the distance.
Before he can even get his fist flung out Teyla is taking off to his left. She’s smaller, lighter on her feet and will be better able to wind her way through the close-set trees of the forest.
He pauses, searching for any sign. A branch still has the tiniest tremor in it - a body has passed by cleanly but Ronon’s eyes are accustomed to picking out the smallest of clues.
Sight is removed from the equation; it’s instant inky black as he enters the forest. The planet’s early moon’s light doesn’t penetrate through the thick leaves overhead.
He stops, holds his breath and waits. Waits for the snap of a foot breaking a fallen stick or the soft rustle of movement in the dead leaf cover. He’s done this before; only then, he’d been the hunted.
Radio hiss rasps once, twice in his earpiece. Teyla signals no joy. Ronon makes a decision based on the fresh green smell of broken leaves and bears right.
He weaves his way through the trees, basing his directional decisions on sounds that could easily be animal life and the faintest of scents. His hand rests on a large fallen trunk as he prepares to mount it - he feels the moisture of smeared moss - his fingers, raised to his nose, bring the smell of fresh, rich soil. A dirt-caked bootprint brings a small charge of hope, badly needed. He’s heading in the right direction.
Teyla keeps up her radio signaling every few minutes. He can only hope that she is flanking him as his certainty that they are closing in grows.
The map in his head has them heading north, paralleling the road from the gate to the city. A flash of dim light to his right confirms this - they have been skimming the edge of the forest following alongside the road and moonlight glows beyond the trees.
Making a snap decision, Ronon veers right, bursts out of the forest and onto the strip of knee-high grass that runs between wood and road. Pouring on speed he heads north, a conviction that he can’t explain growing that Sheppard is headed for the gate. And that if they lose him through the gate, he’ll be lost to them forever.
Risking the briefest of sound, he pops on his radio and whispers, ‘gate’ for Teyla.
He rounds a bend and the gate is in view. A dark form emerges from the forest a hundred yards ahead, pauses only briefly before heading for the DHD.
“Sheppard!” Ronon shouts and then again, over the mechanical whine of chevron glyphs being entered.
A form easily recognizable as Teyla emerges from the woods behind the gate. Her voice joins the chorus, frantically shouting, “John!”
The man stops, one hand hovering over the DHD. Ronon and Teyla close in, hands held away from their guns. Ronon’s face splits in a wide grin.
For it is John Sheppard. Long dark hair, cropped dark beard, and clad in Wraith leathers. But there is no doubt, even as John shakes his head and turns back to the DHD.
Desperation has Ronon thumbing his blaster on to stun; he shoots once, a bolt of energy, loud and close enough to make the target’s hair stand on end.
John pulls a gun from his belt, Genii tech by the look of it, and levels it at Ronon. “Look, buddy -“ and Ronon’s heart soars and sinks as the familiar sound of his friend’s voice rasps thickly at him- “don’t make me shoot you. I don’t know what you want, but I have to leave - right now- or there’s gonna be a whole mess of trouble real soon.” And his other hand fumbles to enter another glyph on the DHD.
Teyla takes another step forward, hands aloft. “John, please. It is us - Teyla and Ronon. We do not wish to hurt you. We have been looking for you -“ -her voice breaks - “for so long. Please.”
John’s hand pauses again. It has a tremor, noticeable in the blue glow of the DHD. He shakes his head as if to clear it and the gun pointed at Ronon wavers for just a moment. But then he steels his back and his grip. “I’ve been here too long,” he says. “They’ll be coming. I have to leave or people will die.”
“Who will be coming, John?” Teyla asks but Ronon knows- recognizes the guilt and exhaustion- the need to run.
“Wraith,” Ronon says simply.
John sags a little, and nods. “Just go back to your homes and let me leave. You and your people will be safe once I’m gone.”
“Our people?” Teyla chokes out. “John, you are our people. Come home, with us.”
John peers intently for a long moment at Teyla before his free hand rises to plant the heel of his palm at his temple. He presses there, hard, and groans.
The next seconds are a blur. Ronon takes the momentary distraction to raise his gun, intending to stun him. John shakes his head and leans towards the DHD, only one final glyph to be entered before the gate opens and they lose him again.
Before either action can take place the gate wooshes to life and a dozen Wraith drone soldiers flanking a smaller cadre of leather-coated officers come piling out, stunners aloft.
In the next heartbeat the Wraith realize that the object of their hunt is right there, at the gate. Still in their entry formation, grouped together, they are easier pickings.
Ronon’s blaster is thumbed on to kill and he begins firing, bursts of red energy enveloping the bone cage-faced grunts. They fall and their ranks are filled with the new bodies that continue to pour out of the gate.
John fires his gun, methodically, coldly. Bullets find their marks in Wraith chests, streaming silver-green blood. A chunk of Wraith skull is obliterated - the officer keeps walking for a few feet before finally dropping. Drones march right over his corpse.
The magazine empty, John drops the gun and pulls another free from within his coat and begins firing anew.
Teyla has been unseen, hidden behind the gate. She comes up from behind and begins strafing the Wraith with her P90 as they come through the gate. The bodies pile up like cord wood and still more Wraith come. The incoming troops stumble on the dead as they step through.
Two more guns emptied and John enters the fray, each hand carrying a long curved blade. He slices at throats, at limbs. Guts the Wraith as blue stunner fire lights up the sky. He’s hit, left leg, and he drags the numb limb with him as his arms continue their frenzied work. An officer backhands him, sends him flying several feet, but he crawls to his knees, pushes off and launches back into the fight.
With Teyla and John in the mix Ronon can’t use his blaster for fear of hitting his friends. With a bellowed growl he pulls his own sword from off his back and joins John in the bloodbath.
Then it’s nothing but the clang of metal on bone, the whine of stunner fire and the odd harmonic sound of Wraith screams. At some point in the melee Ronon realizes that the gate has shut down. It renews his energy, gives strength to his slashes. He pulls the blade free from the bony cage covering the Wraith face he’s just split in two and wheels about to take on the next. But there isn’t one.
Teyla stands on the other side of the massacre, breathing heavily, her empty P90 still slung around her neck, a thick tree branch held in each hand. She nods acknowledgment at him and throws the sticks down before wiping the sweat from her face. Then he follows her gaze as she turns her head.
John is limping, badly. Blood pours from his hairline and he’s favoring his left arm. And he’s hauling Wraith corpses off the gate platform.
Ronon joins him, Teyla too. There’s something clearly wrong - Ronon has known it since hearing John call him ‘buddy’ - only without friendship, affection. Or recognition. John continues working without speaking and Ronon and Teyla labor at his side, passing questioning looks at each other. The concern in Teyla’s face grows with every halting step John takes. With every wince as he drags away another Wraith.
When the platform is clear enough to use John turns without a word and heads back to the DHD, and presses in an address. As the gate opens again, its blue light shines off his pale skin.
Teyla steps in front of the shimmering pool. “John, where are you going?”
“Thank you, both, for your help,” John says. “Once I’m gone the Wraith won’t come back. You’ll be safe.”
“Sheppard, I don’t know what’s happened to you, but we’ll make it right. You need to come home with us,” Ronon says, stepping towards his friend.
Teyla’s pleadings join his. “Please, John. Come home with us.”
“I can’t stop -“
“Can’t stop running, Sheppard?”
John wavers on his feet but he takes another step towards the gate.
“I know what it’s like,” Ronon says quickly. John stops, wipes the blood from his eye, but he’s listening.
“I was like you, once. Running, every day, every night. No rest, no time to heal, no friends, no connection with anyone. Fighting and watching people around me die because of my mere presence.”
John nods, almost unconsciously.
“Someone found me, helped me. After seven years of running, I slept in a bed. I ate a hot meal, had my wounds tended to. I had friends. Family.”
“We are your family, John,” Teyla says quietly. Tears, reflected in the gate light, stream down her cheeks.
Something flickers in John’s eyes - a glimmer of recognition- before he moans and drops his head into his hand. Ronon is at his side in an instant, there as John’s knees fold and he falls to the ground, gasping in pain as he digs his knuckles into his temple.
Teyla is radioing the jumpers and running for the DHD as Ronon lowers John to the grass, holding him to his chest. John’s body is hot and tremors wrack his frame.
“Time to stop running, buddy,” Ronon whispers in John’s ear. “We’re taking you home.”
***
Rodney holds a crystal he’s pulled from the gate dialing mechanism and stands watch, slack-jawed and eerily quiet. For a man who’s rarely at a loss for words, the only ones he’s been able to voice are ‘it’s really him.’
Jennifer gates through with an escort of Marines and Marie. Rodney’s hasty act of temporary sabotage gives them time to remove the tracking device.
John is face down on the gate platform, his coat and shirt removed. A medic has started an IV and stopped the bleeding from his head wound. John’s quiet now - too quiet, but Ronon can see tension thrumming through the ropy muscle that covers his shivering frame. His skin shines palely in the beams of light from the flashlights Teyla and Ronon hold; scars that Ronon once shared on his own back are evidence of John’s attempts at self-surgery.
Jennifer looks up from the scanner she holds over the top of his spine. “It’s too deep, and it’s wrapped around his spinal cord.”
“Can’t be helped, Doc,” Lorne says. “We can’t compromise the city’s safety.”
“What about Colonel Sheppard’s safety?” she whispers, cognizant of her patient’s awareness.
“The colonel would be the first man to agree with me,” Lorne replies evenly.
“What about the Alpha site?” she tries again. “We have shelter there, and equipment.”
“You get it out or we don’t get him back,” Ronon says quietly.
Jennifer nods with a sigh but quickly orders 10 migs of morphine and has Marie begin swabbing iodine over the breadth of John’s back. The medic unspools a length of tubing and lifts John’s head to place a cannula for oxygen under his nose. Some of the Marines break off from their guard posts and form a circle around their commanding officer, shining their own Maglights to supplement the meager light.
Lorne kneels down and holds the scanner for Jennifer while she begins cutting.
There is silence save for the medic’s clipped reports from the BP cuff wrapped around John’s upper arm.
Ronon remembers the feel of every slice of Beckett’s scalpel; he closes his eyes and says a small prayer of thanks that John is snowed under.
After the better part of an hour Jennifer sits back on her heels and wipes sweat from her forehead with the back of a bloodied, latex gloved hand. She waits through an update on the colonel’s vitals and returns to her task with steady hands.
“It didn’t take this long… before…” Rodney says nervously.
“You weren’t there, Rodney,” Teyla says with a small smile.
“Yes, well, I heard about it, from Carson… or you guys. It’s a bit of a blur. But this is definitely taking longer… … isn’t it?”
“Doctor Keller is just being thorough,” Teyla says reassuringly. But concern furrows her brow.
Rodney is right. Ronon had counted through every minute of his removal and this is taking much longer.
But before he can voice his own concerns Jennifer sits back again, only this time she holds a pair of forceps clamped around a bloody, tangled mess of hooks and wires and tendrils of organic material that look like muscle fiber. “What do I do with this?”
Ronon reaches out a hand and takes it from her. He stares at it - it’s simple technology, meant to do only two things. Bind itself to its victim and transmit its location. He’d borne one for seven years -and it had brought death and devastation to dozens of planets.
He tosses it onto the ground and unleashes his blaster, fires once, twice, again, and again until there is nothing but a smoldering black stain, flames licking at blackened blades of grass.
Behind him he can hear Jennifer and her people packing John up for transport.
Ronon can finally fulfill his promise to bring John home.
***
Word travels fast in as tight-knit a community as Atlantis. Even as they unload the back of the jumper, John well-covered, laid out on his stomach on a gurney, people are gathering. Woolsey insists on a security team accompanying them to the infirmary. Ronon knows it’s protocol and Sheppard himself would probably have done the same thing but he also knows John wouldn’t like being paraded through the halls for gawking eyes.
Lorne gathers some of the Marines that helped on the planet and takes advantage of Woolsey’s order. He has Chuck announce a citywide security alert, all non-emergency personnel to their quarters or labs. John might be snowed under with morphine, but Ronon knows he’d appreciate the gesture all the same.
Once they get into the infirmary Lorne makes a good attempt at having guards follow them to triage. Jennifer makes the expected protests and Lorne taps Ronon on the shoulder with a knowing look. He’ll make up the token security presence.
Ronon tries to stay out of the way as the medical team begins their work. They set John’s shirt and coat to the side and there is the rattle of metal on metal. A knife falls free from one of the sleeves. A nurse goes to pick the coat up and Ronon stays her hand. Easing the sleeve towards him he peers in and grunts out a laugh. An intricate spring-loaded sheath has been sewn into each arm. The one still holds a small, sharp blade. He recognizes the weapon’s design as similar to one he’d carried.
The nurses slide scissors up each of John’s pant legs. He’s still wearing his BDUs - the heavy material has held up over more than a year’s wear through dozens of battles. Ronon makes a note of it and considers trying a pair for himself one day.
He turns away as they divest John of the remainder of his clothing, set him up with medical equipment and begin a rundown of his vitals for Jennifer.
The only thing that Ronon gets from the numbers is that John is running a high temperature - something he could’ve told them after one touch of his friend’s heated flesh.
He gets the clear from Jennifer that they’re going to run some scans and turns to see John has been laid out on the table and covered to the waist with a sheet. A doctor runs an Ancient scanner down the length of John’s body, murmuring his findings to Jennifer as he goes.
The wound along John’s back is still open, packed with gauze. Jennifer explains she wants to sew him up in a sterile surgical theatre- especially since he’s going to be headed there anyway. The scans have found the source of the infection. John’s left ulna is cracked and infection has set in. Ronon looks at the arm and sees discoloration and a deep purple bruise. He recognizes it as a defensive wound; John’s left arm flung up to protect him from a blow had absorbed a hard impact. As he continues to look he sees a raised knot on John’s clavicle- sign of another break that healed without being properly set.
The muscles of John’s chest, back and shoulders have been built up from a year of wielding heavy blades and hand to hand combat and it’s likely only this extra support that allowed the collarbone to stabilize and heal at all.
Ronon rubs at a lump under the skin over his own clavicle, at an ache he hasn’t felt in years.
He startles at the touch of a hand on his arm and looks down into Jennifer’s eyes.
“You said he didn’t recognize you or Teyla?”
He called me ‘buddy’… “No. No…. I’m not sure. I don’t think so.”
“Well, the scans don’t show any traumatic brain injury. The scalp laceration is superficial - a few stitches will fix it. I don’t show an organic reason for his possible amnesia.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“Well… if it were organic I’d have something I could possibly fix. When he wakes up after surgery I’ll run a battery of neurological tests. Maybe with the fever he just wasn’t tracking properly. It isn’t uncommon, although his fever isn’t that high right now.”
“What are his chances?”
“For what?”
Ronon breathes deeply, exhales loudly. “Living.”
Jennifer smiles. “He’s actually pretty healthy, Ronon. Aside from the break in his arm, he appears well-nourished and strong. A course of antibiotics should perk him right up.”
“And then what?”
“Then?… I’m not sure. But you brought Colonel Sheppard home after all this time. Let yourself enjoy the small victory. We’ll deal with the rest later.”
Ronon nods but doubt lingers - that they’d brought home John Sheppard’s body but not his friend.
“Conclusion”