SGA fic - First Impressions Pt. 2

[kriadydragon]

There came moments in life when looking a gift horse in the mouth might not be a bad idea, moments in which that awesome distraction really was too good to be true. The camp was in chaos, men and women scattering like cockroaches under a light, not giving a damn about the escaped prisoner and the guy helping him out, and for good reason. Night was here; the predators had come out to play. The camp was under attack and anything not eight feet high with six skeletal limbs and bad-ass claws was fair game.

Adrenaline did wonders for a toxin-addled brain, pushing back the pain and clearing John's senses. He was able to focus a little better, hear a little better and mostly ignore the way the ground tried to drop out from under him. He could see the creatures, corpse-white in the growing darkness, like dingoes without ears or discernible eye sockets. Whatever they hunted with worked better than any visible appendage, letting them zero in on their prey with unfailing accuracy.

Ronon switched his weapon from stun to kill and blasted two holes into the creature barreling toward them.

“To the rocks!” John gasped. “We gotta get to the rocks!” They veered south, and the more they ran, the harder John's heart hammered pushing blood and adrenaline through his body, the better he was able to pump his legs and keep up.

But the pale bastards were everywhere. Two came at them from either side. Ronon took them down fast and easy. Then an impact from behind knocked them apart. John slammed shoulder first into the ground and went rolling down an incline. He landed on his back, only to roll onto his stomach and puke as the world not only lost focus for good but would not stop spinning.

“Son of a bitch!” John tried to growl but, once again, ended up with a whimper. Saying his head and ears hurt was putting it mildly. This was a flu and ear infection and sinus infection all having a love child together. He tried to stand, but the dizziness and pain got the way and shoved him back to the ground. Crawling it was, then, the loss of focus not so bad that he couldn't see the watery shimmer of glassy rocks under the fading sky about twenty feet away. Or was it thirty feet? Okay, so he couldn't judge distance -

Just like he couldn't judge what was an illusion of blurred vertigo and what was really moving.

John listened instead. He could hear, subdued by the distance, the screams of dying people and hunting animals. Then he heard breathing, and the crunch of white grass.

Ronon?. He opened his mouth, about to call out, then snapped it shut. If those things really were blind, that meant they relied on sound, making any kind of noise a very bad idea.

The breathing and grass-crunching came closer. Every muscle in John's body locked, holding him as still as a body could get. The owner of the breathing moved within sight across John's path, only eight feet away, probably more, most likely less. It was too tall and too pale to be Ronon.

John held his breath.

The creature scuttled forward like something out of an HP Lovecraft story. It moved haltingly as though unsure, but its direction was pretty damn clear - it was heading right for John.

Go away. Nothing to hear here. Nothing at all. Go away...

The creature stopped, hissed, scuttled forward, stopped and hissed again. It was five feet from John, four, three. At two feet it stopped, its blurry head tilting to one side.

Nothing here. Just a rock. Go away, go away, go away...

It didn't go away. It tilted its head to the other side, like it was considering. Then it reared up, spreading all four of its forward limbs, claws out, mouth full of teeth wide open in a screech that was a bullet through the ear drum. John couldn't stop himself from covering his ears and screaming with it. The pain of that noise was too much, going straight to his brain and expanding until his skull felt ready to explode.

Then the shrieking stopped. The pain ebbed enough for John to open his eyes and see the creature dead on the ground, a hole blasted in its chest.

A heavy hand landed on John's back. He jumped with an unmanly yelp.

“Easy, Sheppard. Just me,” Ronon said, infuriatingly calm.

“About damn time,” John panted, his heart refusing to slow down.

Ronon shrugged. “Was a little busy. Come on.” He took John by the arm. “Let's go.” And without warning hauled John to his feet. It was a good thing Ronon's grip was so strong or John would have crumpled back to the ground. The world was still spinning, the pain still throbbing even if it wasn't crippling any more, and he doubled over puking up bile and spit. Once again, he was forced to cling to Ronon as they made their way to the rocks.

The six-legged hell hounds were shrieking closer behind them.

“Move it!” John called out, easier said than done for him. The pain and dizziness had reached the point of no return and his legs weren't going to take it anymore. Ronon dragged him the rest of the way, literally, the hot breath of the hell hounds right on their necks. John pictured a gaping mouth and reaching forelimbs, and it shot enough adrenaline into his legs to help push for that final dive through the entrance of the Maze.

Ronon landed on his feet, John not so much with Ronon holding him halfway up and hauling him deeper into the maze. It wasn't until the angry shrieks of defeat were just another noise in the background that they stopped, Ronon holding John up against the smooth wall of glass to keep him steady as they caught their breath.

“Okay,” Ronon panted. “We're alive. What the hell is wrong with you?”

John took a moment to swallow back the burn of bile in his throat before answering - damn, stupid vertigo. “”Worm,” he gasped out. “They put some kind of... worm-thing in me. Messes up your head. Supposed to make you talk... oh, crap!” The bile won; John doubled up and dry heaved.

Ronon helped lower John gently to the ground. “Better?”

“A little,” John said, and it wasn't a lie. The less he moved and the lower to the ground he was, the less his stomach bucked. It was many kinds of messed up. A six-foot pilot who got vertigo just from standing up. That damn worm was a tenth level bastard.

“Your... turn...” John said between coughs that made his head spin faster.

“Huh?” Ronon said, brow furrowed. “Oh, yeah. Found Sergeant Telby.”

John snapped his head up so fast the world not only spun but tilted, making his body tilt with it. Ronon caught and righted him.

“Turns out they were ambushed. Barely escaped. He took out the guards near the maze, giving me the distraction needed so I could slip in.”

“Where is he now?”

Ronon arched his thumb over his shoulder. “Probably went back to where the others were hiding. He feels bad about not responding to your call but--”

John nodded, squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed - crap, he hated this. “I know. The hostiles managed to get hold of a couple of our radios. We're compromised.”

Ronon nodded. “Telby's team got separated, had to fight their way back to each other. Most of 'em either lost their radios or ended up breaking them in the fight. By the time they got a working one, they were too late to warn us.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “What do these guys want?”

“They wanted to know how to survive here,” John said. “I'm thinking a dispossessed bunch, probably run off their world by the Wraith, or planet hoppers trying to avoid the Wraith.” He winced, and not because of the headache from hell. “Damn it, I told them about the maze! We’re not only compromised; we're stuck here. Those bastards are going to be all over the place looking for us.” He slammed the meat of his fist into the wall behind him. “Damn it!”

“Don't worry about it,” Ronon said in that neutral tone of his that gave nothing away. He took John by one arm and, slowly, eased him back to his feet, keeping a tight hold on him until he was as steady as he was going to get. “We need to find Teyla and McKay. Think you can find them again?”

John snorted, wincing when it spiked the pain. “Ronon, buddy, I can't even see straight.” But he took a deep breath, slow and long, closed his eyes and forced his throbbing brain to think. “We headed north from the base camp - our base camp. We kept in a straight line best as possible so... our path was mostly unmarked.”

“We're at a northern entrance,” Ronon said.

“Yeah,” John said, knowing better than to nod. “Therefore, obviously, we need to start heading south and,” he sighed, “hope I spot something familiar.” Because radio contact asking for directions was so far out of the question he shouldn't have even considered it. But he had to cut himself some slack for that one. His brain was turning into mush, after all.

Ronon gathered John against him to lean on as they followed their current trail. It was one more slice of hell for John, any adrenaline still pumping through him doing squat against the pain, vertigo and nausea. His stomach kept rebelling, but so far past the point of bringing anything up that John told Ronon to keep going no matter how badly John gagged.

It was also getting harder to see, the world growing more blurred than focused. It was hard to think, his skull not only cracking but filling with wet cotton.

“I hear something,” Ronon said. “Think you can stand if you lean against the wall?”

“One way... to find out,” John panted, though a part of him wasn't looking forward to the result. But it was with mild and short-lived surprise that John remained upright propped against the wall. He kept going, knowing Ronon would keep him covered.

“Just an animal... no, wait, Sheppard,” Ronon said. A heavy hand landed on John's shoulder and he jumped, arm swinging drunkenly in defense. Ronon caught it easily and lowered it back to John's side. “You were about to go east. This way.” And with a gentle shove Ronon propelled John in the right direction.

If Rodney were here, he would be bitching about how this was nothing more than a lesson in futility. And it probably was. John's eyesight was not only growing worse, but the moon had risen, spilling its silver light onto the maze in a dazzling display of refracted and reflected light. At any other time, it would have been beautiful. To John, it was a poker dipped in dry ice to the retina and into the brain. A gentle turn brought them to a wall with twice the refraction, twice the dazzle, and John cried out in pain.

“Sheppard?” Ronon hissed, warning and concern packed into that one word. John nodded carefully. He might be going blind, but he could still hear, and what he heard was the squeak and patter of boots on glass rocks possibly heading their way.

“This isn't working,” John said. He hated himself for saying it. He wasn't a quitter, and sure as hell wasn't a pessimist, but he couldn't see, couldn't think and it was only a matter of time before the enemy found them.

Or, worse, found them right when they found Teyla and Rodney.

“This way,” was all Ronon said, tugging John by the arm away from the wall. John let him lead, keeping his eyes closed to spare him any more surprises. It was terrifying, this level of weakness, Ronon going from leading to carrying John when John's legs refused to move faster (and, really, it was a miracle John was even standing). He was blind, weak, weaponless, his people scattered and trapped and he and Ronon about to be trapped along with them.

No, John thought, gritting his teeth to hold in a growl of defiance. No way. There's gotta be a way. Think, damn it, think!. But the wet wool in his head wouldn't let him. Damn, stupid worm. If they got the little bastard out - when they got it out - he was plucking its spines off one by one.

John's thoughts were interrupted by a sudden halt in their progress. John felt himself leaned against the wall, then the pressure of Ronon's arm around his ribs vanished. Fear ripped through John like a flash flood.

“Ronon?”

“Here. Checking something out.” His voice sounded muffled. A few minutes later, John heard the rustle of cloth. “Found a cave,” Ronon said, and his hand returned to John's arm, guiding him up into a hole barely big enough for them to crawl through without scraping their spines. But it was deep, deep enough to distort them and make them difficult to find. John eased back against the curve of the wall and, tentatively, opened his eyes. The dazzle wasn't so bad, uncomfortable but tolerable and giving them enough light to see each other.

John sighed in relief. At least now he knew why the not-blind-after-all hell hounds hated this place.

“Now what,” Ronon said with a tightness that announced loud and clear how unhappy he was. He had a death-grip on his blaster, his fingers twitching with the need to do something other than sit around and wait out the storm. “Hide here 'til they go away?”

“I'm thinking,” John rasped. He swallowed, all the dry heaves having turned his throat to raw meat.

“And while you're thinking, we're wasting time.” Ronon scooted closer. “Look, these people are trapped just like us. Let me out there and I can hunt them down one by one.”

John shook his head. “No. There's gotta be a better way.”

“There isn't. This is the only way. I can do this, Sheppard. I've done it before.”

“Yeah, well, you shouldn't have to,” John snapped. “You're not on the run anymore, Ronon. You shouldn't have to survive every single damn second of your life.”

Ronon frowned, more like scowled, as though John had just insulted his honor.

John exhaled sharply. He was hurting too much to have to put up with this crap. “Look, Ronon, you're with us, now. No more having to survive alone, no more having to fight alone. We've got this saying - two heads are better than one. Rodney might argue otherwise but, personally, I like that saying. I don't doubt what you're capable of, big guy, I don't. But if there's a way to end this without forcing you to be a one man army then I'd really like to find out what that way is. If we can't think of anything...” John pressed his lips, unable to finish the sentence. But if there was no other choice, if his suffocating brain couldn't cough up an alternative...

John didn't want to think about it, but neither did he have a choice.

Ronon stared at him grimly. Neither did he push the matter.

“Okay,” John said. “So what do we know? These guys are trapped here like us. We know this world better than they do--”

“They have our radios,” Ronon said, and hearing him say “our” sparked a little hope in John. Crap, he was pathetic when sick.

“Atlantis should have contacted us by now--” And like having spoken the magic words, there was a crackling coming from Ronon's pocket, followed by what sounded like Weir's voice. Ronon pulled the radio John had given him from his coat and handed it over.

Weir said again, “Colonel Sheppard, do you copy?”

“Copy,” John replied.

Then, he smiled. He had an idea.

“Copy, Atlantis,” he said again. “I'm afraid we've got a situation, here. A code ten. I repeat, a code ten.” He waited a beat.

“Copy, John. Code ten,” Elizabeth said in that level and controlled way of hers that said she understood loud and clear.

“Yeah, I think we're going to need a little back up here. You know, the stealthier the better. I'd say about three should do it. It's pretty dark so you'll come in cloaked. Meet me at base camp, center of the maze. I'll meet you there. I repeat, I'll meet you there. Though you'd better hurry. I got separated from the others so I'll be on my own. And watch out for the wildlife, it's pretty nasty.”

“Stealth, cloaked - copy that,” Weir said, with what John thought sounded like a touch of amusement. “ETA twenty minutes. Weir out.”

Not seconds after the radio went silent and a confused Ronon opened his mouth to speak, the radio crackled again.

“Sheppard are you insane!” bellowed Rodney.

“More like desperate,” John said. “McKay, stay off the line. Teyla, if you're hearing this, please explain it to him. Sheppard out.”

“Um,” Ronon said. “What?”

And John would have chuckled if he knew it wouldn't have hurt so much. “Code ten means our communications have been compromised.”

“Okay?”

“Which means the bad guys will have been listening. Which means they think I'm heading back to base camp.”

“Not by yourself,” Ronon said with stubborn resolve.

“I'm not going to base camp, Ronon,” John said tiredly. “I just need the bad guys to think I am so that they'll gather there and be all nice and rounded up when the jumpers arrive.”

At Ronon's perpetual confusion, John twirled his hand. “Stealth? Cloak? You know, like a jumper?”

Finally, Ronon's brow lifted, and he grinned. “Good one.”

John shifted, getting more comfortable to wait out the next ten minutes. “Told you there was a better way.”

-------------------------

Score one for half-assed plans on the fly; John's plan worked. Three jumpers with two teams each had the base camp surrounded by the time the hostiles arrived - technically it only took ten minutes to gear up and arrive to the maze by jumper. The way back to base camp was clear, and John and Ronon were able to take their time, not that it made much of a difference to the way John was feeling. It didn't matter how slow John moved, each footstep sent pain shimmying from his skull down his spine, and he was dry heaving what felt like every two minutes.

Never had lying down on a jumper bench felt so good. John was more than happy to let Lorne take over the clean up, the hostiles restrained with zip ties, lined up on their knees and guarded at P-90 point, and Telby and his team of fellow rock geeks looking contrite while packing up camp. Rodney and Teyla, with Teyla hindered by her injury, arrived at about the same time John did, and now convalesced on the opposite bench as the field medic wrapped her ankle.

“How was I supposed to know we had code words?” Rodney complained. “When the hell did we get code words, anyway?”

“Your people have always had them, Rodney,” Teyla said. “Do you not remember the lecture we all attended? They even handed out booklets letting us know what all the codes were.”

Rodney fidgeted. “They gave us a lot of booklets. How was I supposed to know which ones mattered?”

“They all mattered, Rodney,” Teyla said patiently. She looked to John. “How are you feeling?”

“Like one hundred miles of bad road,” John said. He sucked in a hissing breath. “Kay. No talking. Hurts.”

It wasn't long before their jumper departed to drop the injured and ill off at the infirmary. Ronon wasn't with them, having stayed behind to help, and John in too much pain to so much as wonder if it was a good idea. Ronon was more than capable, but he'd been looking decidedly pissed, and John had no idea if Ronon's vindictive streak was reserved only for Wraith or included hostile humans.

One way or another, John was going to get to know the guy, whatever it took.

That is, if Ronon decided to stick around.

John's concerns were interrupted by the arrival of a gurney. Whatever the worm was doing to him, it had stepped up its efforts. Moving from the bench to the gurney provoked another round of dry heaves, then another and another during their trip to the infirmary. The pain in his head and ears had grown from sporadically intolerable to completely intolerable, and no matter how he tried to fight it, groan after whimper after groan escaped his throat. There were test, lots of tests, lots of blood taking and being moved from machine to machine - X-rays, Ancient scanner, Ancient scanner again, more blood drawn, so much moving, so much more pain and he just wanted it to stop, stop, stop!

Somewhere within the testing and the moving, Ronon showed up, nothing more than a blur of tans and browns but his voice unmistakable. But that was all he was, a voice, his words muffled by John's suddenly clogged ears. John was pretty sure he asked Ronon to stun him. Or maybe kill him.

Then Ronon vanished and the blue blur that was Carson took his place. Words were said, then a mask placed over John's face and darkness crept over his vision - about damn time.

When John woke up, he could hear again. That was the first of the five senses to return - smell a given since unlike the rest of him it hadn't been affected. He heard the beeping of a monitor and his own breathing. Next came feeling - more like a realization of it - the general aches mostly smothered by medication, and an itchy soreness at the back of his neck. Next would be sight. John forced his heavy eyelids to blink open. The world was still a blur.

John blinked again.

Still a blur. His heart rate jumped and the monitor jumped with it. He blinked again and again, but everything was still a blur, still tilting and spinning to piss off his stomach.

“What...th' hell?”

“John?” Teyla, that was Teyla, a human-shaped fuzzy blob materializing next to his bed.

“Teyla, I can't see. I-- what the hell?”

“John, easy. It is all right.”

“The worm...”

“Dr. Beckett was able to remove the worm successfully. But the creature secreted much toxin into your body. He believes that it will take some time to metabolize.”

“And if it doesn't? If this is permanent?” John didn't want to think about it, but that was the problem with not thinking about something. The more you tried not to think, the more you did, like being told not to picture an elephant only to have the image of elephants stuck in your head the rest of the day.

If this didn't get better, if the toxin had messed him up, they would ship him back. He would never be able to fly again.

John's heart rate increased speed, his breathing with it until he started feeling light-headed and sick.

“John,” Teyla said, firm but quickly. “You must calm down. Doctor Beckett promises it is not permanent. They were able to research the creature using information discovered in the Ancient database, so I promise you that it is not permanent.”

John closed his eyes, breathed in, breathed out and slowly found his calm.

“Sorry,” he said, feeling the heat of a blush leak into his cheeks. He opened his eyes and looked up at blurry Teyla. “I don't know why I did that.”

Teyla took his hand and patted it. He didn't have to see it to know she was giving him a reassuring smile. “You were in terrible pain and just woke up from having a parasite removed. It is to be expected. I would have reacted no differently.”

John felt his tension melt from his body, taking his rapid heart rate with it. Until his eyes tracked the room, landing on a familiar fuzzy shape.

“Ronon?”

“Sheppard.”

John's heart rate kicked up again. But before anything could be said, Carson arrived, shooing off both Ronon and Teyla like children who were always underfoot.

“Colonel, lad,” Beckett said chipperly. “Glad to have you with us. How do you feel?”

“Like crawling into a hole.”

“Eh?”

John slumped. “Nothing.”

----------------------

John refused to be a defeatist. There was a reason he always told Rodney to stay positive, and that was because you weren't beat until you were dead. But it was hard not to feel a tad uneasy over what must be going through Ronon's head. The two days it took John to metabolize the toxin, Ronon had been a no show. No big deal - they were both still relative strangers to each other and a lengthy visit would probably be more awkward than helpful.

But John needed to talk to Ronon, to know where he stood on sticking around. The mission had been Fubar well beyond the spontaneous arrival of bad guys, John had been captured, had given away a vital piece of information, had slowed Ronon down, kept him from doing his thing and to top it all off, Ronon had been a witness to his little post anesthesia breakdown.

John couldn't help being nervous. He had talked to Teyla about it but in typical Teyla fashion, she had answered him with reassurances. For once, they didn't work. She, too, didn't know much about Ronon and for all they knew his culture frowned on team leaders who had freak-outs. Some societies were fickle like that. John knew; teams had been booted off worlds for less.

John also wondered if he'd waited too long to talk to Ronon, but that couldn't be helped. He'd been mostly out of it for those two days, and had no intentions of facing Ronon until he could look at him in detail. John was still a little nearsighted, still prone to mild bouts of dizziness, but it would have to do.

He would've liked even more to be able to talk to Ronon away from an infirmary setting, but Carson wouldn't have it, and John couldn't wait any more. It was with much good-natured arguing that Carson finally brought him a radio.

John was just about to activate it when Ronon walked in.

“Oh,” John said, hand frozen in mid raise. He quickly dropped it back to his lap. “Hey, I was just about to call you.”

“Oh,” Ronon said, and for a moment John thought he looked a little on the startled side. Then Ronon shrugged, and stood there, hands clasped in front, waiting for John to say his peace first. “Okay.”

“Well, doesn't mean you can't go first,” John said.

“It can wait,” Ronon replied.

“I was just going to ask if... well... about... if...” John gestured vaguely. “If you've thought any more about sticking around...?”

Ronon's brow puckered. “I have been sticking around.”

“I meant permanently.”

Again, Ronon shrugged (and to be honest, John was getting a little tired of it). “I haven't left yet.”

“So, what, that means you do want to stick around?” Crap, it was no wonder he couldn't get to know Ronon. Talking to the guy was next to impossible.

Another shrug. “Why not? You guys fight the Wraith, I want to help. That is, you know, if you still want me around.”

John's eyebrows shot up into his hairline. “Hell yeah we want you around. You didn't notice?”

“Notice?”

Sighing, John shook his head. “Never mind. Yes, we definitely want you around. I - we - just weren't sure if, you know,” John swept his hand at him, “if you wanted to stick around. I mean, it's gotta be pretty different from what you're used to.”

“It is,” Ronon admitted. “Your marines need better hand-to-hand skills. But... I don't think you guys are all that different from us. What you did on that planet, to catch those people, that was smart. On my world, we were always taught that we're more than just muscle and bone.” He chuffed. “Our combat teacher always told us we've got heads so we'd better use them for more than just head-butting.”

John nodded sagely. “Wise teacher. Easier to make a plan than systematically hunt bad guys down one by one, right?”

And yet another shrug. “I guess.”

“You guess,” John scoffed, rolling his eyes, but Ronon spotted the ribbing and smiled a small smile.

“So what did you need?” John asked.

“Oh, yeah. That computer game thing?” Ronon cleared his throat, shifting his feet like a kid about to ask his parents for something big. “Can I play it again?”

John narrowed his eyes. “You aren't asking me now because I'm still not one-hundred percent and you think it'll make it easier to beat me, are you?”

And yet another shrug so full of pure, saccharine, over-the-top innocence John wondered why Ronon even bothered to try. “Course not.” Then he smiled, saccharine and not even trying.

“Then you're in for a major disappointment,” John said, pulling the laptop Rodney had brought him from off the side table. Ronon, smiling like a kid getting his way, pulled another laptop from within his coat - borrowed or otherwise John would worry about later. Right now, it was on.

The end