SGA Fic: Waiting in the Cold
Title: Waiting in the Cold
Author: radioshack84
Word Count: ~1,800
Characters: John, Rodney, Ronon, Carson
Summary: Written for kriadydragon’s Gen Comment-a-thon. Prompt: Bed-sharing. Offworld, cut off from the stargate, Sheppard suffering after effects of heavy blood loss, Rodney has to sleep next to Sheppard to keep him from getting too cold.
*Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Sliiide.*
“Sheppard.”
*Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Sliide.*
*Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Sliide.*
“Hey, Sheppard.”
*Crunch. Crunch.*
“Wh…at?” *Wheeze. Crunch. Sliide.*
“I can do the next trip myself if you want to warm up.”
John released the long, dry branches he was dragging through the snow and straightened up, swaying briefly as he tried to catch his breath. He looked down at the branches in disdain, then back at the dead trees they’d been chopped from. The branches were too thin and the distance traveled from the stand of trees too short for him to be breathing like he’d just run a marathon and staggering like a drunk. John took another wavering step and suddenly Ronon was at his side, steadying him with one hand, while still gripping a medium-sized log with the other. Show-off. “This sucks,” Sheppard muttered, nodding to Ronon after a moment that he was good to go and stooping to pick up his branches again.
Ronon grinned and clapped him on the shoulder nearly hard enough to make him list again. “Don’t look at me like that,” the Satedan called over his shoulder from a few steps away.
John had half a mind to stick his tongue out at Ronon’s back rather than just glare at it, but he refrained. It was too damn cold. He was too damn cold, but that aside, he just didn’t have the energy. They crested the hill that lay between the trees and the camp and Ronon slowed ahead of him, allowing John time to catch up. Shifting the branch in his left hand to carry both with his right, John gripped Ronon’s shoulder for balance as they started down the steep slope. Sheppard had learned his lesson when the first trip down the hill had gotten him a face full of snow and a tongue-lashing from Beckett-and one from Rodney too, since Beckett’s yelling had apparently served to aggravate the scientist’s headache. (For the record, the only one who’d been yelling was McKay.)
But that wasn’t to say that John couldn’t sympathize. It had been the mission from hell, and not just your garden-variety mission from hell either. This one was from a particularly evil level of Hades, complete with sacrificial bloodlettings starring none other than John as the sacrifice-ee. If Rodney thought his head ached from bumping it on a low cave ceiling, he ought to try losing a few units of blood and then see what his head felt like. Light as a feather and pounding like a never-ending drum-roll was the answer, as John knew all too well. And that was before adding in the pervasive weakness and bone-deep chills.
Beckett had promised him a nice warm bed in the infirmary as soon as they reached Atlantis and that had sounded nice when he’d been hauled out of the cave of the Shan’tu high priest on a makeshift stretcher almost a day ago. It sounded absolutely heavenly now. Running for their lives hadn’t exactly been conducive to fixing the malfunctioning DHD at the edge of the Shan’tu village, and so they’d had to make do with the first gate address that locked. Fortunately, it hadn’t been for a planet populated by hungry Wraith. Unfortunately, this planet was currently in its winter cycle and its inhabitants were about as friendly as your average rock and much less reasonable. Lorne’s team had encountered them once before, and been stuck here for a day and a night, just as Sheppard, Ronon, Rodney, and Carson were now.
The locals were non-violent and couldn’t care less if you used their stargate. They kept to themselves and weren’t interested in trade or conversation, but believed so strongly that traveling through a stargate twice in the same day would kill a person that they would allow no one who arrived through the stargate to leave until a full day and night had passed. All the same, outsiders were not allowed into the village, so Ronon and Sheppard were stuck hauling firewood to make sure they didn’t freeze to death before they could ‘safely’ use the stargate to return to Atlantis.
John raised his eyes from the snow-covered ground and was startled to see that they were only about a hundred yards away from the camp, and that he was still leaning on Ronon despite the ground having leveled off quite a while ago. He silently thanked his friend for not saying anything and continued to accept the support until it was necessary to let go in order to heft the branches onto the pile of timber next to the cooking fire. There was a decent blaze going now, and the snow was melted in a small radius around it.
Before he knew it, Ronon was steering him toward one of the roughly-hewn, poorly-maintained wooden shacks that some past travelers must have constructed during their mandatory waiting period. The Satedan pulled open the door and relative warmth and the aroma of ramen greeted Sheppard. John was too cold for ‘relative warmth’ to make any real difference though, and feeling like his head was going to float off his shoulders had left him slightly nauseous, which the smell of cheap noodles wasn’t helping. Any thoughts he might have had of making an escape back to the fireside were dashed the instant Beckett got eyes on him though.
“Colonel?” A frown of concern creased the doctor’s face as he stood up.
“I’m fine, Doc.”
“You don’t look fine,” muttered the figure huddled on the floor under an emergency blanket.
“Nice to see you...too, McKay. How’s the...head?”
“It still hurts, but despite all evidence suggesting otherwise, Carson has cast his voodoo spells and assures me that I’ll live. I’m not so sure my ankle will ever be usable again though.”
“That’s...good.”
Rodney was about to ask how that could possibly be good, but then he took a good look at the colonel and frowned. “Are you sure you’re all right, Sheppard? You’re really...white.”
“Aye, and shakin’ like a leaf ta boot,” Beckett added. “I think you’re done choppin’ wood for the day, lad. Why don’t ya have a seat and let me take a look at your neck?”
“Really, guys, I’m okay. Just need to...warm up.” John didn’t know who he was trying to convince, himself or Beckett, but he didn’t seem to be doing a very good job. There must’ve been a facial expression that foretold of passing out, too, because just before his knees buckled, the doc grabbed onto his arm.
“Easy, now. Down ya go.”
Everything went floaty for a few moments, but Carson forcing him to lean forward allowed just enough of his limited blood supply to reach his brain that he held onto consciousness. He was a mess though, if his badly trembling body was any indication. John opened his eyes to a spinning room and Beckett’s fingers pressed against the left side of his neck.
“Colonel.”
He had let his head fall back against the wall of the shack, but he forced himself to turn it enough to look at Beckett.
“John, I know ya feel like you’re not gettin’ enough air right now, but I need ya ta take deeper breaths, as slowly as ya can. I haven’t any oxygen ta give ya and you’re going ta hyperventilate if ya keep that up.”
Hyperventilate? It eventually dawned that the raspy sound he was hearing was himself panting, but he wasn’t sure there was anything he could do about it.
“John. Breathe slowly, do ya understand, lad?”
Somehow he found the sense to nod, and focused on doing as Beckett had asked. He still didn’t feel like breathing was doing him much good, but he didn’t pass out and he gradually became aware of Carson peeling the bandage away from the right side of his neck. John sucked in a breath as his neck twinged, and tried very hard not to flinch at the memory. The Shan’tu were extremely precise in their rituals, and knew just where to insert a needle-more like a tube, really-to maximize blood loss. Another minute or so and the sacrifice would have been complete, and John’s life along with it. He shivered at the thought, and then kept right on shivering, his teeth clacking together. Damn, but it was cold.
Beckett tsk-ed and made quick work of re-covering the puncture wound and wrapping him in their remaining supply of emergency blankets, before pressing a steaming mug into his hands. “Drink, it’ll help warm ya up, and ya need the fluids.”
John sipped at the tea, but shook his head no when he was offered some ramen. He still felt sick to his stomach, and sick in general. His skin was clammy, his shirt sticking cold to his chest and back beneath his jacket, and he couldn’t stop trembling even with the blankets and tea warming him. He closed his eyes and gave up on drinking, and must have dozed off, because Beckett was suddenly in front of him, taking the mug from his hands and urging him to lie down. It was a good idea in theory, which John indicated with a nod, but getting there was another story. He tried to move, but his shivering, lethargic body was having none of it and he was pretty sure he’d finally frozen solid when Carson and Ronon each took an arm and tugged him the couple of feet onto the lumpy, makeshift straw mattress that was the shack’s only furnishing save for a couple of tree-stump stools. It was uncomfortable as hell as far as beds went, but it was better than the ground, and John succumbed to sleep almost instantly.
-----
He awoke to something heavy pressing on the left side of his body, and jumped at the loud snore that sounded from somewhere near his shoulder. There was only one person he knew of that sounded like that... “McKay, what the hell?”
John squirmed for a good while before he managed to free his numb arm from beneath the sleeping scientist, and scrunched up his face in disgust when he realized that the damp patch on his shoulder was due to drool. Annoyed, he elbowed Rodney, which thankfully had the desired effect and McKay rolled over-away from him-and continued snoring. John heard a chuckle and followed the sound until he found its owner. He frowned. “Ronon, why did you let McKay drool on me?”
The Satedan held up his hands and shook his head. “Wasn’t me, Sheppard. Doc woke McKay up in the middle of the night and said you were too cold. Something about low blood pressure, and needing to share body heat to keep you from going into shock.”
John made a face.
“If it makes you feel better, I had to threaten to shoot McKay to get him to quit complaining about it.”
“Actually, it does. Thanks, Chewie,” Sheppard smiled, then yawned.
“Beckett’s getting us permission to go through the gate.”
“Good, that means I still have time for a nap. The doc never read Lorne’s report, did he?”
“About the hour-long, safe-departure chant? Nope.” Ronon grinned.
“Serves him right,” John said, glancing disdainfully once more at the drool-patch. He then inched as far away from Rodney as possible before closing his eyes.
Author: radioshack84
Word Count: ~1,800
Characters: John, Rodney, Ronon, Carson
Summary: Written for kriadydragon’s Gen Comment-a-thon. Prompt: Bed-sharing. Offworld, cut off from the stargate, Sheppard suffering after effects of heavy blood loss, Rodney has to sleep next to Sheppard to keep him from getting too cold.
*Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Sliiide.*
“Sheppard.”
*Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Sliide.*
*Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Sliide.*
“Hey, Sheppard.”
*Crunch. Crunch.*
“Wh…at?” *Wheeze. Crunch. Sliide.*
“I can do the next trip myself if you want to warm up.”
John released the long, dry branches he was dragging through the snow and straightened up, swaying briefly as he tried to catch his breath. He looked down at the branches in disdain, then back at the dead trees they’d been chopped from. The branches were too thin and the distance traveled from the stand of trees too short for him to be breathing like he’d just run a marathon and staggering like a drunk. John took another wavering step and suddenly Ronon was at his side, steadying him with one hand, while still gripping a medium-sized log with the other. Show-off. “This sucks,” Sheppard muttered, nodding to Ronon after a moment that he was good to go and stooping to pick up his branches again.
Ronon grinned and clapped him on the shoulder nearly hard enough to make him list again. “Don’t look at me like that,” the Satedan called over his shoulder from a few steps away.
John had half a mind to stick his tongue out at Ronon’s back rather than just glare at it, but he refrained. It was too damn cold. He was too damn cold, but that aside, he just didn’t have the energy. They crested the hill that lay between the trees and the camp and Ronon slowed ahead of him, allowing John time to catch up. Shifting the branch in his left hand to carry both with his right, John gripped Ronon’s shoulder for balance as they started down the steep slope. Sheppard had learned his lesson when the first trip down the hill had gotten him a face full of snow and a tongue-lashing from Beckett-and one from Rodney too, since Beckett’s yelling had apparently served to aggravate the scientist’s headache. (For the record, the only one who’d been yelling was McKay.)
But that wasn’t to say that John couldn’t sympathize. It had been the mission from hell, and not just your garden-variety mission from hell either. This one was from a particularly evil level of Hades, complete with sacrificial bloodlettings starring none other than John as the sacrifice-ee. If Rodney thought his head ached from bumping it on a low cave ceiling, he ought to try losing a few units of blood and then see what his head felt like. Light as a feather and pounding like a never-ending drum-roll was the answer, as John knew all too well. And that was before adding in the pervasive weakness and bone-deep chills.
Beckett had promised him a nice warm bed in the infirmary as soon as they reached Atlantis and that had sounded nice when he’d been hauled out of the cave of the Shan’tu high priest on a makeshift stretcher almost a day ago. It sounded absolutely heavenly now. Running for their lives hadn’t exactly been conducive to fixing the malfunctioning DHD at the edge of the Shan’tu village, and so they’d had to make do with the first gate address that locked. Fortunately, it hadn’t been for a planet populated by hungry Wraith. Unfortunately, this planet was currently in its winter cycle and its inhabitants were about as friendly as your average rock and much less reasonable. Lorne’s team had encountered them once before, and been stuck here for a day and a night, just as Sheppard, Ronon, Rodney, and Carson were now.
The locals were non-violent and couldn’t care less if you used their stargate. They kept to themselves and weren’t interested in trade or conversation, but believed so strongly that traveling through a stargate twice in the same day would kill a person that they would allow no one who arrived through the stargate to leave until a full day and night had passed. All the same, outsiders were not allowed into the village, so Ronon and Sheppard were stuck hauling firewood to make sure they didn’t freeze to death before they could ‘safely’ use the stargate to return to Atlantis.
John raised his eyes from the snow-covered ground and was startled to see that they were only about a hundred yards away from the camp, and that he was still leaning on Ronon despite the ground having leveled off quite a while ago. He silently thanked his friend for not saying anything and continued to accept the support until it was necessary to let go in order to heft the branches onto the pile of timber next to the cooking fire. There was a decent blaze going now, and the snow was melted in a small radius around it.
Before he knew it, Ronon was steering him toward one of the roughly-hewn, poorly-maintained wooden shacks that some past travelers must have constructed during their mandatory waiting period. The Satedan pulled open the door and relative warmth and the aroma of ramen greeted Sheppard. John was too cold for ‘relative warmth’ to make any real difference though, and feeling like his head was going to float off his shoulders had left him slightly nauseous, which the smell of cheap noodles wasn’t helping. Any thoughts he might have had of making an escape back to the fireside were dashed the instant Beckett got eyes on him though.
“Colonel?” A frown of concern creased the doctor’s face as he stood up.
“I’m fine, Doc.”
“You don’t look fine,” muttered the figure huddled on the floor under an emergency blanket.
“Nice to see you...too, McKay. How’s the...head?”
“It still hurts, but despite all evidence suggesting otherwise, Carson has cast his voodoo spells and assures me that I’ll live. I’m not so sure my ankle will ever be usable again though.”
“That’s...good.”
Rodney was about to ask how that could possibly be good, but then he took a good look at the colonel and frowned. “Are you sure you’re all right, Sheppard? You’re really...white.”
“Aye, and shakin’ like a leaf ta boot,” Beckett added. “I think you’re done choppin’ wood for the day, lad. Why don’t ya have a seat and let me take a look at your neck?”
“Really, guys, I’m okay. Just need to...warm up.” John didn’t know who he was trying to convince, himself or Beckett, but he didn’t seem to be doing a very good job. There must’ve been a facial expression that foretold of passing out, too, because just before his knees buckled, the doc grabbed onto his arm.
“Easy, now. Down ya go.”
Everything went floaty for a few moments, but Carson forcing him to lean forward allowed just enough of his limited blood supply to reach his brain that he held onto consciousness. He was a mess though, if his badly trembling body was any indication. John opened his eyes to a spinning room and Beckett’s fingers pressed against the left side of his neck.
“Colonel.”
He had let his head fall back against the wall of the shack, but he forced himself to turn it enough to look at Beckett.
“John, I know ya feel like you’re not gettin’ enough air right now, but I need ya ta take deeper breaths, as slowly as ya can. I haven’t any oxygen ta give ya and you’re going ta hyperventilate if ya keep that up.”
Hyperventilate? It eventually dawned that the raspy sound he was hearing was himself panting, but he wasn’t sure there was anything he could do about it.
“John. Breathe slowly, do ya understand, lad?”
Somehow he found the sense to nod, and focused on doing as Beckett had asked. He still didn’t feel like breathing was doing him much good, but he didn’t pass out and he gradually became aware of Carson peeling the bandage away from the right side of his neck. John sucked in a breath as his neck twinged, and tried very hard not to flinch at the memory. The Shan’tu were extremely precise in their rituals, and knew just where to insert a needle-more like a tube, really-to maximize blood loss. Another minute or so and the sacrifice would have been complete, and John’s life along with it. He shivered at the thought, and then kept right on shivering, his teeth clacking together. Damn, but it was cold.
Beckett tsk-ed and made quick work of re-covering the puncture wound and wrapping him in their remaining supply of emergency blankets, before pressing a steaming mug into his hands. “Drink, it’ll help warm ya up, and ya need the fluids.”
John sipped at the tea, but shook his head no when he was offered some ramen. He still felt sick to his stomach, and sick in general. His skin was clammy, his shirt sticking cold to his chest and back beneath his jacket, and he couldn’t stop trembling even with the blankets and tea warming him. He closed his eyes and gave up on drinking, and must have dozed off, because Beckett was suddenly in front of him, taking the mug from his hands and urging him to lie down. It was a good idea in theory, which John indicated with a nod, but getting there was another story. He tried to move, but his shivering, lethargic body was having none of it and he was pretty sure he’d finally frozen solid when Carson and Ronon each took an arm and tugged him the couple of feet onto the lumpy, makeshift straw mattress that was the shack’s only furnishing save for a couple of tree-stump stools. It was uncomfortable as hell as far as beds went, but it was better than the ground, and John succumbed to sleep almost instantly.
-----
He awoke to something heavy pressing on the left side of his body, and jumped at the loud snore that sounded from somewhere near his shoulder. There was only one person he knew of that sounded like that... “McKay, what the hell?”
John squirmed for a good while before he managed to free his numb arm from beneath the sleeping scientist, and scrunched up his face in disgust when he realized that the damp patch on his shoulder was due to drool. Annoyed, he elbowed Rodney, which thankfully had the desired effect and McKay rolled over-away from him-and continued snoring. John heard a chuckle and followed the sound until he found its owner. He frowned. “Ronon, why did you let McKay drool on me?”
The Satedan held up his hands and shook his head. “Wasn’t me, Sheppard. Doc woke McKay up in the middle of the night and said you were too cold. Something about low blood pressure, and needing to share body heat to keep you from going into shock.”
John made a face.
“If it makes you feel better, I had to threaten to shoot McKay to get him to quit complaining about it.”
“Actually, it does. Thanks, Chewie,” Sheppard smiled, then yawned.
“Beckett’s getting us permission to go through the gate.”
“Good, that means I still have time for a nap. The doc never read Lorne’s report, did he?”
“About the hour-long, safe-departure chant? Nope.” Ronon grinned.
“Serves him right,” John said, glancing disdainfully once more at the drool-patch. He then inched as far away from Rodney as possible before closing his eyes.