SGA Fic: A Dish Best Served Cold (1 / 2)
Title: A Dish Best Served Cold
Author: radioshack84
Recipient: everybetty - Sheppard H/C Summer Exchange
Rating: T
Warning: None that I can think of…
Word Count: ~12,200
Summary: Sheppard’s in a real pickle: shackled to a pole in the ocean, during a storm, with no means of escape. And that’s just for starters. (Prompt at the end.)
A/N: everybetty, sorry for being late! I hope I was able to do your prompt justice. Also, a big thanks to padawan-aneiki for the beta! :)
They wanted him dead. That much had been obvious to Colonel Sheppard from the moment he came to, shackled to a turbine drive shaft in one of Atlantis’ auxiliary water inlets by a crude but effective pair of handcuffs, in the middle of a storm, with no weapons, no radio, and no way out.
What Sheppard didn’t understand was why they’d gone to all the trouble, only to leave the deed undone. They’d stunned him, most likely with a Wraith stunner, though he didn’t actually remember that part. He didn’t remember the part where they’d drug him down to the inlet and presumably onto some sort of floatation device in order to reach the turbine shaft, either. By the time he’d regained consciousness he was already in the water, the coughing fit from inhaling a lungful of said liquid being what had roused him in the first place.
Which brought him back to his original thought. They had to have known what would happen to an unconscious person bound by their wrists to a pole, left to be whipped around and bashed freely against a steel turbine casing by storm surge. If they didn’t, John could tell them in great detail. That is, if he could manage to unclench his jaw long enough to speak without screaming, which wasn’t likely to happen anytime soon.
He hadn’t even noticed the pain at first. He’d been too preoccupied with figuring out how to keep his head above water to realize that his time unconscious had resulted in a bloodied and battered body. It wasn’t until his second hour in the water, when rational thought and some measure of feeling had worked their way through the stunner-haze that John comprehended how much trouble he was in. He’d sustained several hard impacts to his left side and one or two to his right as he’d twisted his body in an attempt to spare further damage. Broken ribs were a certainty, as was a partially-dislocated left shoulder from the ocean literally yanking his chain.
The dislocation and his rapidly-increasing pain level posed significant obstacles to every half-assed escape scenario he’d been able to conjure up, but fortunately fate had decided to intervene. A strong current had been created by the storm, and coupled with the vicious waves and John’s added weight, the turbine shaft was under a great deal of strain. The shaft had been screeching and shimmying under the load to the extent that Sheppard had been entertaining thoughts of how to best break it loose and thus free himself when a massive wave took care of the breaking for him.
Getting free was another matter. John hadn’t counted on a piece of the broken shaft suddenly rotating under the force of the current and causing the chain-which was quite long as far as handcuffs were concerned-to twist up until his wrists were being squeezed so hard he’d thought the bones would surely snap. There had been no time to dwell on the new discomfort though; he was at the full mercy of the current from the instant the shaft gave way. John saw the second, inverted turbine rushing toward him, blades exposed and rotating at full speed, and he instinctively drew his arms up in front of his face. That, and the broken piece of metal pole tangled in the handcuffs, saved his life.
The sharp turbine blade caught the pole rather than his torso, and as it rotated, sent him careening toward a chest-high wall, which he had no way to grab for and so smacked into back-first. Reeling from the impact, it had taken him a moment to notice that he hadn’t been filleted to death by the turbine. Through sheer luck, the broken pole had become lodged between blade and wall, stalling the turbine just long enough that John could work the chain off the other end of the shaft and grapple for the top of the wall.
As far as Sheppard was concerned, that’s when the real battle had begun, and it was ongoing. The top of the wall, as he’d first perceived it, was actually the floor of the corridor that ran alongside the inlet’s spillway. So, essentially, he’d had to lever himself up and out of a well using one good arm-and hadn’t that just done wonders for his ribs-while keeping his legs from getting caught up in the current as the turbine finally ate the length of metal pole and began turning again.
He didn’t know how long it had taken him to climb out, only that he’d lain on the floor too spent and in too much pain to move for a good while now, staring out at the roiling clouds and lightning over the water. He needed to get up, get moving, get back to the main part of the city and alert the others to the would-be murderers who were likely still wandering freely. After that he had to get some of Beckett’s painkillers, preferably the kind that knocked him out for a week. Those were an awful lot of ‘gets’, though, especially when he desperately needed the last one on the list to have much hope of accomplishing the first three.
Be that as it may, the one thing he absolutely couldn’t do was continue to lie there. The city was at risk, yes, but John had to assume that he was in more immediate danger. While he hadn’t gotten a good look at the men who’d stunned him, their clothing indicated they were likely among the visitors for the farmer’s market. He didn’t see why any of them would attack him, but attack they had, and he couldn’t trust that they had left him for dead. Whatever their motives, they’d been meticulous thus far in their work, so for them to give up without making sure the job was done seemed sloppy and unlikely.
The thought sent a tendril of cold down his spine, and Sheppard instinctively reached for his sidearm but found his thigh holster empty. Of course. He was pretty sure he’d noticed it was missing while he was still in the water, but he couldn’t be certain. His head ached, and he felt groggy and confused. Gingerly, he touched his forehead with his good hand, wincing at both the stinging wetness his fingertips encountered there and the minute motion of his injured shoulder that the handcuffs had caused when the chain pulled taut. Speaking of which, he really needed to find a way to ditch the bindings. His wrists were raw, bleeding, and swollen enough that the metal cuffs were tight and digging into the skin, causing his fingers to tingle from lack of circulation. But first things first.
Setting his jaw, John rolled onto his good side-well, his better side-and pushed himself up against the wall in one motion before he could change his mind. The agony from his ribs and shoulder very nearly made him pass out, but he somehow managed to hold on, tears leaking from his eyes, breath coming in short gasps, the side of his face pressed against the cool, damp wall until the worst of it passed. Even then, the pain in his left flank was incredible. He’d broken ribs before, but he didn’t remember it being this bad. There was a deeper, sharper ache this time, underneath the angry burn of broken bones, one that screamed at him in no uncertain terms to stay put. Lying back down sounded wonderful and he wanted nothing more, except maybe morphine, but it just wasn’t an option.
The colonel slowly bent his knees, rocked forward slightly, and forced himself to his feet with a determination that only years in the military could shape. He was convinced there was no physical strength involved in the action because he had none left, and the wall was the only thing that held him up through another wave of fiery throbbing in his side. Little by little, though, his body adjusted to being vertical. His breathing steadied, his vision cleared, and his trembling legs felt a little less rubbery. The pain even toned down by a miniscule amount, from an 18 to a 15 on a scale of one to ten.
More time passed, and after what could’ve been six minutes or six hours, John finally felt confident enough in his ability to remain upright that he risked a sideways step, his forehead and good hand still pressed against the wall. Several successful repetitions later, he dared to raise his eyes to see where he was headed-and froze. There was a man standing in the corridor, looking at him. Sheppard was unable to make out the man’s face due to the dim lighting, and he slowly realized that the difficulty must be mutual. In fact, it was possible the man hadn’t even seen him yet. He was some distance away, and the corridor behind John was darker than the way ahead. Erring on the side of caution, the colonel remained still, though he was sure his hammering heartbeat was perfectly audible.
The man moved a few paces closer, but still gave no indication that he’d noticed Sheppard’s presence. His head turned from side to side, as if searching for something, and then he pivoted to face the wall, and disappeared from view through a doorway that wasn’t visible from Sheppard’s position. The colonel exhaled heavily, before hobbling down the corridor as quickly as he could manage. There was an intersection just ahead, and if he remembered correctly, a left would take him back to civilization in relatively short order. He paused at the turn, intending to peek around the corner to check for company, when he heard a door up ahead slide open. The man from before was back, and he was armed.
This time, John had no doubt that he’d been made. A stunner beam whined behind him as he ducked around the corner, then staggered to the opposite side of the corridor and through the first door he came across. He thought the lock into place, but kept moving. The room was a science lab, but it wasn’t one that was assigned to anyone in particular or even used frequently. Rodney had said it was for security reasons: the labs in this area contained a number of entrances, and not all of the doors had locks.
In his present condition, and with presumably very little time before he was discovered, John couldn’t afford to check the room for all available access points. Instead, he made his way toward the back of the lab. It was in the general direction he wanted to go anyway, and if the layout was similar to Rodney’s lab, there would be an office through the next door, and a walkway that led to either another lab or an adjacent corridor.
On reaching the rear door, John paused and listened, but all he could really hear was his own labored breathing. Despite the adrenaline surge that accompanied fleeing, he was still light-headed and the pain in his side was growing worse. He had to either find a way to ditch stunner-guy or find a place to lay low. At that point, he didn’t really care which.
Since nothing beyond the door sounded too dangerous, John thought it open and cautiously stepped through. He found himself in a narrow hallway, book-ended by another door. A quick glance showed that both doors had locks, making this hallway a good hiding place as well as a great site for an ambush. He locked the door behind him with a thought and crept toward the far end of the hallway to listen. This time, he heard muffled voices. They sounded tense, maybe even angry.
A stunner blast hit the locked door behind him, and John glanced over his shoulder. So, an ambush site then. Perfect. His hands were literally tied, he had no weapons, and he stood little chance in hand-to-hand combat since he couldn’t even straighten fully without seeing stars. He looked back again, just as the door in front of him-the one that he was stupidly leaning against for support-slid open. There was a flash of light and then he was falling into darkness.
-----
“Still no sign of him?” Rodney asked as he set his tray on the mess hall table next to Teyla’s. She shook her head. Ronon, seated across from her, glanced up at McKay but said nothing.
“I don’t like it.” McKay pulled his tablet from beneath the tray and set it aside before digging into his mashed potatoes and continuing with his mouth full, “First Carson, now Sheppard. I tell you, there’s something strange going on here.”
“Like what?” Ronon seemed confused.
Rodney looked up from where he was trying futilely to mix cold butter with even colder, dry potatoes and shrugged irritably. “I tried calling Carson right after lunch because Dr. Tierney made a rather convincing argument as to why those little red fruits they were serving likely contained citrus derivatives-and I’d already eaten about seven before he came to the punch-line of his hypothesis, mind you-but the voodoo priest never got back to me.”
“Perhaps he is simply busy,” suggested Teyla. “He did offer our visitors health screenings, and I know a fair number planned to take advantage of the service.”
“It seemed like a possibility to me too for the first hour, but really, after that it was just plain rude of him not to respond. My hands were itchy and I was light-headed enough to warrant further attention, so I headed down to the infirmary to yell at him. When I got there, a bunch of those dude ranch people were standing around looking like they’d lost their prize Holstein and the infirmary door was locked.”
“It’s never locked,” Ronon said.
“Yes, thank you Captain Obvious.” Rodney reached for his chocolate chip cookie, having given up on the potatoes, only to find the dessert disappearing into Ronon’s mouth. “Hey! Get your own!”
“Just did.”
Rodney glowered at his teammate and Teyla spoke up in an attempt to get the conversation back on track, “Did you talk with any of the infirmary staff, or the people you saw?”
“No, because I got dragged away to help batten down the hatches ahead of this storm.” As if on cue, there was a bright flash of lightning through the rain-streaked window. Rodney shifted uncomfortably. “By the way, are we sure there aren’t any Genii among our visitors? Because that would just be a perfect ending to this day.”
“None of our trading partners associate with the Genii, Rodney. And this storm is nowhere near the scale of the one you are remembering.”
Thunder rumbled loudly overhead, and McKay cringed. “Then why are Carson and Sheppard missing?”
“We do not yet know that they are. I admit that it is strange we have not heard from the colonel. He had planned to spar with Ronon this afternoon, and was to meet us for dinner as usual, but he could be running late. Let us finish eating, and then we will locate John and Dr. Beckett.”
McKay poked warily at the lump of mystery meat on his tray, wrinkling his nose. “I’m finished. Let’s go.”
“You hardly ate anything,” Teyla pointed out.
Rodney waved her off. “Yes, well, Conan stole the only edible part of this meal. I’ll grab a power bar later.” No sooner had he finished speaking than one was slid across the table at him. He looked questioningly at Ronon.
“Eat now. We’ve got some searching to do.”
-----
“Now do you believe me?” Rodney asked. He, Ronon, and Teyla were standing in the middle of Sheppard’s vacant quarters. They had searched the control room, the colonel’s office, the rec room, the gym, and even the armory without success. None of John’s men had seen him since the morning, and he wasn’t answering his radio. McKay had even badgered Major Lorne into hailing Sheppard, in case it was merely the team he was avoiding for some reason. It was to no avail.
“Perhaps he felt ill and went to the infirmary. It may explain why both he and Dr. Beckett are not responding,” Teyla suggested, but didn’t look convinced. She knew as well as they did that Carson would have alerted them as soon as possible if John were sick or injured.
“Let’s find out,” said Ronon, and was out the door before anything further could be said.
“Must you run?” Rodney griped as he and Teyla hurried to catch up.
“Thought you wanted to find Sheppard.”
McKay scowled at Ronon. “I do, however killing me in the process wasn’t the-hold that thought.” Rodney reached up and tapped his radio, which was beeping for his attention. “Yes? No. I told him not to mess with that! Oh, well, of course you did. It needed calibration. Yes, that could be why. Or that.” Rodney’s expression fell and he stopped walking. “Knowing him, it’s probably that. What? Yes, Elizabeth. I’ll let you know. McKay out.”
“What was that all about?” Ronon asked warily. Few things deflated Rodney as effectively as that brief conversation had.
“Sheppard. Zelenka picked up his transmitter signal on the city’s sensors.”
The Satedan shrugged. “Great, where is he?”
Rodney quickly pulled up the schematic and showed it to his teammates.
“The dot representing the colonel should not be flickering like that, should it?”
“No. The sensors have been on the blink, no pun intended, and I had shut down most of the system in preparation to run a diagnostic, but apparently Elizabeth couldn’t locate Sheppard either and told Zelenka to find him using his transmitter signal. He’s somewhere in this general area. The distortion of the signal could be from the sensors malfunctioning, the storm, or…”
Or Sheppard was in trouble. That possibility passed between the trio with barely a glance at one another and they took off at a jog for the nearest transporter. When it deposited them into a dim corridor a few moments later, the not-so-distant sound of stunner fire greeted them. Ronon immediately pulled out his blaster and a knife, the latter of which he passed to Teyla.
“Is there ever a time when you’re not armed?!” Rodney hissed, but gladly stayed between the other two as they cautiously made their way forward. The directions his tablet was providing were questionable at best, but he nevertheless relayed them to Ronon and Teyla via whispers and hand signals. According to the screen, Sheppard was inside one of the labs up ahead…or in the hallway adjacent to the lab…or…not. For every two steps McKay took, the dot indicating Sheppard’s position blinked and shifted. Rodney had to resist the urge to smack the tablet against a wall, and instead poked at the screen more firmly than necessary with the stylus, doing what he could remotely to get more accuracy from the sensors. His efforts didn’t help much, and he was five percent certain he was about to commit their collective suicides when he directed them to proceed straight ahead down the corridor, which was subdivided by a series of doors and would bring them much closer to whoever was firing the stunner. As luck would have it though, they made it through said doors without incident, just as there was a loud crack of distant thunder and the lights went out. So sue him, he didn’t say it was good luck.
“What now?” Ronon rumbled softly. In the weak light of his tablet, Rodney could just make out a Satedan-shaped shadow in front of him. They were in an interior corridor, which was now pitch black due to the loss of power. Off to their left, presumably inside the lab, they could hear someone moving around, crashing into things and apparently not making any sort of effort to be quiet. Glass broke, and the stunner fired again.
McKay shrugged, perfectly aware that Teyla and Ronon couldn’t see the gesture. “From what I can tell, Sheppard’s in there. So is someone else, obviously. The labs on this level are big, at least half a dozen rooms and three entrances each.”
“We may have the element of surprise on our side, due to the power loss,” Teyla said.
Rodney shook his head even as he toggled to another view on his tablet. “The power outage is only partial. We can’t count on the lights being out inside the lab too.”
“Then we find the entry point with the least vulnerability,” Ronon said, coming over to study the schematic. After a moment, he pointed to one of the doorways, “There.”
“Sure, you choose the one furthest away from our objective.”
“Reaching Colonel Sheppard will do little good if we get shot in the process, Rodney,” Teyla pointed out.
“Well when you put it like that.” Rodney made a face and gestured for she and Ronon to lead the way.
They were soon standing to either side of the door Ronon had chosen. It was slightly open, and true to McKay’s hypothesis the power was still on inside. A thin sliver of light lanced into the darkened hall, daring them to enter. Apparently, Ronon had every intention of taking the dare. The Satedan crouched low, blaster at the ready, and crept toward the opening. He peered through, first from one side, then the other. Straightening for better leverage, Ronon crammed his fingers between the door and the jamb, widening the space until he could fit through. He signaled the all-clear, and Rodney and Teyla joined him inside the lab. “Do you still have Sheppard?” he asked.
“Yes, he’s close.” Rodney whispered. “Dammit.” He whacked the side of the tablet with his palm and the colonel’s dot flickered out of existence again, appearing in a different spot several meters away. “I can’t be any more precise than that, it’s just-”
“Someone is coming!” Teyla hissed, and pulled at Rodney’s arm. “Quickly, in here.”
“Wha-” Rodney looked up just in time to see a man he didn’t recognize enter the room and point a stunner at him before he was yanked through another door by his teammates. McKay instinctively set to work locking that door. Or at least he tried to. It took him all of three seconds to see that the panel was fried. He said as much.
“Stand back.” When those words were coming from Ronon, it was time to move. Rodney did, and a heavy lab bench came barreling in to replace him in front of the door. An actual barrel made of some sort of plastic was hefted on top, and then the beam of Ronon’s blaster bathed the room in a red glow as it melted the plastic into the doorframe. “That’s not going to hold for long. Let’s go.”
They passed through still another door, and Rodney found himself mentally revising his earlier statement about the layout of the lab. As a whole, it had at least three separate entrances, but it appeared there wasn’t an interior room that had any less than two. Currently they were in an office, and Rodney wasted no time engaging the lock on the door they’d just passed through before moving on to the room’s other access point. He had barely removed the cover from the panel when the lights flickered. Rodney thought he heard the distant booming of thunder too, but maybe it was just his heart pounding in his ears. As he slid a control crystal out of its slot, he also thought he heard someone panting, but it wasn’t him, and panting certainly wasn’t something Teyla or Ronon did unless they’d been running for their lives for three hours straight. It hadn’t been nearly three hours yet, so McKay told himself it was just his imagination.
He bridged the gap between two crystals with the one in his hand, and immediately let out a string of curses as sparks erupted from the panel and the lights went out in the office. The crystal he’d been holding clattered to the ground and he was reaching for his tablet to get some light to see by when he heard the door next to him slide open. Rodney was in no way prepared for the body that suddenly burst through the door and knocked him to the ground. Therefore, he did what came naturally and exclaimed, “What the hell is wrong with you?! Get off me! Hey!”
“McKay? What happened?”
Rodney ignored Ronon. He had more important matters weighing on him, literally. A quiet groan sounded from his assailant, and as Rodney struggled he came to realize that he wasn’t being attacked, but rather was fighting against the dead weight of whoever had just fallen on him. The groan came again, and he paused. There was a certain familiarity to that pained sound. “Sheppard?” McKay squirmed until his arms were free, and he carefully batted at the form on top of him. Standard-issue Atlantis uniform jacket, check. Tac vest, check. Spiky hair that was even crazier than usual, check. “Crap! Conan, get over here!”
A couple of footsteps sounded, and the Satedan’s hand landed on McKay’s shoulder. “What’s the matter?”
“I found Sheppard. Or rather, I accidentally shorted out the door control and he fell on me. Something’s wrong.”
Despite the lack of visibility, Ronon managed to haul Rodney out from beneath Sheppard. He stooped back down and started to roll the colonel onto his back, but stopped when John cried out. “Easy, buddy. McKay, we could use some light.”
“Were you not listening a moment ago when I said I shorted out the door control? It’s not just the door that’s powered by that panel!”
“Perhaps this will help,” Teyla said as she flicked on the flashlight she had found in a desk drawer and made her way over to the others. On seeing Sheppard, she immediately crouched beside Ronon. “John, what happened? Where are you hurt?” Her eyes traveled quickly with the flashlight beam over his body, and she frowned in concern. Aside from a laceration over his eyebrow and wrists that had been chafed well beyond the point of bleeding by the primitive handcuffs he wore, there was no visible injury, but his pallor and lack of response indicated otherwise. He lay on his side, partially curled up, eyes squeezed shut. She reached out her fingers to his neck and was troubled but unsurprised to find his heart racing faster than his shallow, panting breaths. “We must get him to the infirmary,” she said, sparing a glance at her teammates. Anything further Teyla may have added was interrupted by a stunner blast hitting the door at the far end of the hallway Sheppard had come through, the light from the energy beam momentarily casting a faint blue glow beneath the door and into the narrow space.
“Um, getting anywhere may be a problem just now,” McKay said, his voice rising in pitch as he spoke, “And the shorted out panel means I can’t make the door on our end close!”
Ronon looked down the hallway, then back the way they’d come. He’d been listening, and it didn’t appear that whoever had been chasing them had made it through his barricade yet, which was one less thing to worry about. “I’ve got an idea.”
“Great, what is it?”
“No time to explain.” Ronon bent down toward Sheppard. “Sorry about this, buddy.” As quickly and gently as he could, Ronon slid the colonel clear of the hallway. Sheppard cried out weakly, but still loudly enough that stunner-guy’s efforts redoubled. “McKay, any chance of getting that door open?” he asked, gesturing to the one that separated them from their armed assailant.
“Have you lost your mind?!”
“McKay!”
“Right, of course you have,” Rodney muttered under his breath, and focused his attention on his tablet, trying to find a way to get the door open.
And then the door opened on its own, and it was over almost before it started. Stunner-guy took no precautions before stepping into the hallway, and went down with a single shot to the chest from Ronon’s blaster. The Satedan waited a good half-minute before he crept down the hallway toward the fallen man. No footsteps had come running behind him, and Ronon felt it fairly safe to assume this man was alone, save for his comrade still trying to bash his way through the barricade. Just to be safe Ronon disarmed the enemy, crouched low, and carefully peered out of the hallway at the other end. The room that lay beyond was deserted.
Hurrying back to his teammates, he found Rodney holding the flashlight in one hand, tablet in the other, while Teyla spoke softly with John. She looked up at his presence, her expression worried. “All clear on this end,” Ronon said, nodding toward the hallway. “How’s Sheppard?”
“He is hurt badly, but has not told me in detail what happened. I think he has broken ribs at the least, and I fear he was attacked by these same men we have been evading. He wishes us to leave him here and go warn Elizabeth of their presence in the city.” Her raised eyebrow showed what she thought of that plan.
Ronon snorted in response and carefully nudged John’s boot with his own, just enough to get the injured man’s attention. “Not gonna happen, Sheppard. You’re coming with us.” The two men locked eyes for a long moment, and John finally relented with a weak nod, his eyes slipping closed.
After several moments during which he seemed to gather himself, the colonel drug his eyelids open again. “Need to get…outofherenow…” he slurred, and made a small motion as though trying to sit up, but hissed at the pain it caused. “Dammit.” He again met Ronon’s eyes, and the big man stooped down next to him, a look of understanding on his face.
“Anyplace I should avoid lifting from?”
“Left side…ribs…shoulder.”
“His right leg is also bleeding,” Teyla pointed out.
Ronon looked where she indicated, finding a gash he was sure even Sheppard wasn’t aware of. Seeing no real way to make the best out of the current bad situation though, Ronon just grunted another curt apology to Sheppard before scooping him up and hefting him over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. As careful as he was to avoid the injuries he’d been made aware of, Ronon still flinched inwardly at Sheppard’s pained curse. The colonel was tense as a coiled spring and Ronon could feel the fingers of John’s right hand twist into the fabric of his shirt as they began making their way out of the lab, through the narrow hallway and past the man lying on the floor.
He didn’t like the idea of leaving an enemy on the loose (even if said enemy was currently unconscious) but there wasn’t much of a choice. Sheppard was in bad shape. Every step Ronon took added another hitch to John’s already-labored breathing, and if he had to adjust the colonel’s position at all, the hitch turned into a sound that Ronon generally only associated with small dying animals. To hear it from Sheppard was so unsettling it made him want to move faster toward the infirmary, but he resisted the urge so as not to have to hear it more times than necessary. The quiet, darkened corridors were eerie enough without additional sound effects.
They continued in that eerie silence for a good while, with Rodney directing them back toward civilization and Teyla keeping an eye on the colonel as best she could. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Ronon was surprised by McKay’s lack of conversation. As bizarre as the circumstances surrounding Sheppard’s disappearance and injuries were, he’d expected the scientist to be ranting at full speed by now, trying to work out an explanation. Then again, maybe McKay was at as much of a loss for what was going on as Ronon was.
The final transporter separating them from the infirmary eventually deposited them into a corridor lined with rain-streaked windows. It appeared the bad weather had no intention of letting up, and sheets of rain pelted the glass, punctuated by a close lightning strike that caused McKay to jump and start cursing under his breath. Ronon heard him mutter something about storms that lasted for weeks, the Genii, and a wicked witch from the west melting, but with McKay it was usually better not to ask, so Ronon didn’t. He was more focused on the shift in the sound of Sheppard’s breathing anyway. The colonel had been panting, shallow and rapid, since they’d found him, but now there was a rasp to the sound that hadn’t been there before. The position Ronon had been forced to carry him in wasn’t helping either, so when the infirmary came into sight up ahead, he nudged Rodney with his elbow. The scientist seemed unfazed by the prodding and continued to mutter to himself grumpily. “McKay.”
“Yes, yes, I’m working on it,” he said. “The infirmary is still locked, and I don’t think I can get the door open. It’s been shorted out.”
“Is it because of the storm?” Teyla asked.
Rodney frowned, pursing his lips as he stared at his tablet. “That’s a definite no,” he said, eyes widening in alarm as he absorbed the information he was seeing, and he motioned frantically for them to back up around the corner.
“What is wrong?”
When they were safely out of sight of the infirmary’s entrance, McKay turned his tablet to face the others. “This.” He’d had time to kill while they were walking, and on a hunch had hacked into the infirmary’s security cameras. The display showed at least five men, maybe more, standing guard duty around the infirmary staff and a few patients. The men were clearly not members of the expedition, but nevertheless had gotten their hands on another Wraith stunner, a couple of standard-issue military pistols, and other assorted homemade implements. “Who the hell are they?”
“I don’t know,” Ronon said, “but we’ve got to get in there. Sheppard needs help, now.”
“I know that, but if they’re the ones who did this to him do you really think they’re just going to let us walk in and have Beckett treat him?”
“So we’ll sneak in the back way.”
“That’s...actually not a bad idea.” Rodney brought up a view of the infirmary’s small secondary wing, used mostly as a recovery area following surgery. It was connected to the main infirmary, but not in a way that would be obvious if one just came barging in to take the place hostage. The video feed confirmed as much: the recovery wing was deserted. No patients, no dude ranch villains, and even better, “It’s unlocked.” Before McKay could say more, his radio suddenly beeped and he jumped for the second time. “Would you stop doing that?!” he hissed into the device.
“Rodney, are you all right?” Elizabeth’s voice asked.
He huffed out a small sigh before answering with typical sarcasm, “Dandy. And before you ask, we found Sheppard. We’re taking him to the infirmary as we speak.”
“That’s not a good idea, Rodney.”
“Take one look at him and then tell me that!” McKay snapped.
“Listen to me, the infirmary has been taken hostage. Major Lorne is on his way to you now with backup. You need to wait for them. It won’t do John any good to-”
“You don’t say,” Rodney interrupted as he watched Ronon’s back disappearing through a doorway: the rear entrance to the infirmary. “Tell Lorne to hurry. Ronon and Sheppard are already in, I’ve got to go.”
His mind and adrenaline racing a mile a minute and keeping at bay the entirely rational fear of what he was about to do, Rodney clicked off the radio and caught up to his teammates just inside the recovery wing. He hovered momentarily while Ronon and Teyla placed Sheppard on a gurney. Then he said, “I’ll get Beckett,” and proceeded toward the main infirmary to enact his own foolhardy plan, since it seemed there wasn’t any other kind to be had today.
On to Part 2
Author: radioshack84
Recipient: everybetty - Sheppard H/C Summer Exchange
Rating: T
Warning: None that I can think of…
Word Count: ~12,200
Summary: Sheppard’s in a real pickle: shackled to a pole in the ocean, during a storm, with no means of escape. And that’s just for starters. (Prompt at the end.)
A/N: everybetty, sorry for being late! I hope I was able to do your prompt justice. Also, a big thanks to padawan-aneiki for the beta! :)
They wanted him dead. That much had been obvious to Colonel Sheppard from the moment he came to, shackled to a turbine drive shaft in one of Atlantis’ auxiliary water inlets by a crude but effective pair of handcuffs, in the middle of a storm, with no weapons, no radio, and no way out.
What Sheppard didn’t understand was why they’d gone to all the trouble, only to leave the deed undone. They’d stunned him, most likely with a Wraith stunner, though he didn’t actually remember that part. He didn’t remember the part where they’d drug him down to the inlet and presumably onto some sort of floatation device in order to reach the turbine shaft, either. By the time he’d regained consciousness he was already in the water, the coughing fit from inhaling a lungful of said liquid being what had roused him in the first place.
Which brought him back to his original thought. They had to have known what would happen to an unconscious person bound by their wrists to a pole, left to be whipped around and bashed freely against a steel turbine casing by storm surge. If they didn’t, John could tell them in great detail. That is, if he could manage to unclench his jaw long enough to speak without screaming, which wasn’t likely to happen anytime soon.
He hadn’t even noticed the pain at first. He’d been too preoccupied with figuring out how to keep his head above water to realize that his time unconscious had resulted in a bloodied and battered body. It wasn’t until his second hour in the water, when rational thought and some measure of feeling had worked their way through the stunner-haze that John comprehended how much trouble he was in. He’d sustained several hard impacts to his left side and one or two to his right as he’d twisted his body in an attempt to spare further damage. Broken ribs were a certainty, as was a partially-dislocated left shoulder from the ocean literally yanking his chain.
The dislocation and his rapidly-increasing pain level posed significant obstacles to every half-assed escape scenario he’d been able to conjure up, but fortunately fate had decided to intervene. A strong current had been created by the storm, and coupled with the vicious waves and John’s added weight, the turbine shaft was under a great deal of strain. The shaft had been screeching and shimmying under the load to the extent that Sheppard had been entertaining thoughts of how to best break it loose and thus free himself when a massive wave took care of the breaking for him.
Getting free was another matter. John hadn’t counted on a piece of the broken shaft suddenly rotating under the force of the current and causing the chain-which was quite long as far as handcuffs were concerned-to twist up until his wrists were being squeezed so hard he’d thought the bones would surely snap. There had been no time to dwell on the new discomfort though; he was at the full mercy of the current from the instant the shaft gave way. John saw the second, inverted turbine rushing toward him, blades exposed and rotating at full speed, and he instinctively drew his arms up in front of his face. That, and the broken piece of metal pole tangled in the handcuffs, saved his life.
The sharp turbine blade caught the pole rather than his torso, and as it rotated, sent him careening toward a chest-high wall, which he had no way to grab for and so smacked into back-first. Reeling from the impact, it had taken him a moment to notice that he hadn’t been filleted to death by the turbine. Through sheer luck, the broken pole had become lodged between blade and wall, stalling the turbine just long enough that John could work the chain off the other end of the shaft and grapple for the top of the wall.
As far as Sheppard was concerned, that’s when the real battle had begun, and it was ongoing. The top of the wall, as he’d first perceived it, was actually the floor of the corridor that ran alongside the inlet’s spillway. So, essentially, he’d had to lever himself up and out of a well using one good arm-and hadn’t that just done wonders for his ribs-while keeping his legs from getting caught up in the current as the turbine finally ate the length of metal pole and began turning again.
He didn’t know how long it had taken him to climb out, only that he’d lain on the floor too spent and in too much pain to move for a good while now, staring out at the roiling clouds and lightning over the water. He needed to get up, get moving, get back to the main part of the city and alert the others to the would-be murderers who were likely still wandering freely. After that he had to get some of Beckett’s painkillers, preferably the kind that knocked him out for a week. Those were an awful lot of ‘gets’, though, especially when he desperately needed the last one on the list to have much hope of accomplishing the first three.
Be that as it may, the one thing he absolutely couldn’t do was continue to lie there. The city was at risk, yes, but John had to assume that he was in more immediate danger. While he hadn’t gotten a good look at the men who’d stunned him, their clothing indicated they were likely among the visitors for the farmer’s market. He didn’t see why any of them would attack him, but attack they had, and he couldn’t trust that they had left him for dead. Whatever their motives, they’d been meticulous thus far in their work, so for them to give up without making sure the job was done seemed sloppy and unlikely.
The thought sent a tendril of cold down his spine, and Sheppard instinctively reached for his sidearm but found his thigh holster empty. Of course. He was pretty sure he’d noticed it was missing while he was still in the water, but he couldn’t be certain. His head ached, and he felt groggy and confused. Gingerly, he touched his forehead with his good hand, wincing at both the stinging wetness his fingertips encountered there and the minute motion of his injured shoulder that the handcuffs had caused when the chain pulled taut. Speaking of which, he really needed to find a way to ditch the bindings. His wrists were raw, bleeding, and swollen enough that the metal cuffs were tight and digging into the skin, causing his fingers to tingle from lack of circulation. But first things first.
Setting his jaw, John rolled onto his good side-well, his better side-and pushed himself up against the wall in one motion before he could change his mind. The agony from his ribs and shoulder very nearly made him pass out, but he somehow managed to hold on, tears leaking from his eyes, breath coming in short gasps, the side of his face pressed against the cool, damp wall until the worst of it passed. Even then, the pain in his left flank was incredible. He’d broken ribs before, but he didn’t remember it being this bad. There was a deeper, sharper ache this time, underneath the angry burn of broken bones, one that screamed at him in no uncertain terms to stay put. Lying back down sounded wonderful and he wanted nothing more, except maybe morphine, but it just wasn’t an option.
The colonel slowly bent his knees, rocked forward slightly, and forced himself to his feet with a determination that only years in the military could shape. He was convinced there was no physical strength involved in the action because he had none left, and the wall was the only thing that held him up through another wave of fiery throbbing in his side. Little by little, though, his body adjusted to being vertical. His breathing steadied, his vision cleared, and his trembling legs felt a little less rubbery. The pain even toned down by a miniscule amount, from an 18 to a 15 on a scale of one to ten.
More time passed, and after what could’ve been six minutes or six hours, John finally felt confident enough in his ability to remain upright that he risked a sideways step, his forehead and good hand still pressed against the wall. Several successful repetitions later, he dared to raise his eyes to see where he was headed-and froze. There was a man standing in the corridor, looking at him. Sheppard was unable to make out the man’s face due to the dim lighting, and he slowly realized that the difficulty must be mutual. In fact, it was possible the man hadn’t even seen him yet. He was some distance away, and the corridor behind John was darker than the way ahead. Erring on the side of caution, the colonel remained still, though he was sure his hammering heartbeat was perfectly audible.
The man moved a few paces closer, but still gave no indication that he’d noticed Sheppard’s presence. His head turned from side to side, as if searching for something, and then he pivoted to face the wall, and disappeared from view through a doorway that wasn’t visible from Sheppard’s position. The colonel exhaled heavily, before hobbling down the corridor as quickly as he could manage. There was an intersection just ahead, and if he remembered correctly, a left would take him back to civilization in relatively short order. He paused at the turn, intending to peek around the corner to check for company, when he heard a door up ahead slide open. The man from before was back, and he was armed.
This time, John had no doubt that he’d been made. A stunner beam whined behind him as he ducked around the corner, then staggered to the opposite side of the corridor and through the first door he came across. He thought the lock into place, but kept moving. The room was a science lab, but it wasn’t one that was assigned to anyone in particular or even used frequently. Rodney had said it was for security reasons: the labs in this area contained a number of entrances, and not all of the doors had locks.
In his present condition, and with presumably very little time before he was discovered, John couldn’t afford to check the room for all available access points. Instead, he made his way toward the back of the lab. It was in the general direction he wanted to go anyway, and if the layout was similar to Rodney’s lab, there would be an office through the next door, and a walkway that led to either another lab or an adjacent corridor.
On reaching the rear door, John paused and listened, but all he could really hear was his own labored breathing. Despite the adrenaline surge that accompanied fleeing, he was still light-headed and the pain in his side was growing worse. He had to either find a way to ditch stunner-guy or find a place to lay low. At that point, he didn’t really care which.
Since nothing beyond the door sounded too dangerous, John thought it open and cautiously stepped through. He found himself in a narrow hallway, book-ended by another door. A quick glance showed that both doors had locks, making this hallway a good hiding place as well as a great site for an ambush. He locked the door behind him with a thought and crept toward the far end of the hallway to listen. This time, he heard muffled voices. They sounded tense, maybe even angry.
A stunner blast hit the locked door behind him, and John glanced over his shoulder. So, an ambush site then. Perfect. His hands were literally tied, he had no weapons, and he stood little chance in hand-to-hand combat since he couldn’t even straighten fully without seeing stars. He looked back again, just as the door in front of him-the one that he was stupidly leaning against for support-slid open. There was a flash of light and then he was falling into darkness.
-----
“Still no sign of him?” Rodney asked as he set his tray on the mess hall table next to Teyla’s. She shook her head. Ronon, seated across from her, glanced up at McKay but said nothing.
“I don’t like it.” McKay pulled his tablet from beneath the tray and set it aside before digging into his mashed potatoes and continuing with his mouth full, “First Carson, now Sheppard. I tell you, there’s something strange going on here.”
“Like what?” Ronon seemed confused.
Rodney looked up from where he was trying futilely to mix cold butter with even colder, dry potatoes and shrugged irritably. “I tried calling Carson right after lunch because Dr. Tierney made a rather convincing argument as to why those little red fruits they were serving likely contained citrus derivatives-and I’d already eaten about seven before he came to the punch-line of his hypothesis, mind you-but the voodoo priest never got back to me.”
“Perhaps he is simply busy,” suggested Teyla. “He did offer our visitors health screenings, and I know a fair number planned to take advantage of the service.”
“It seemed like a possibility to me too for the first hour, but really, after that it was just plain rude of him not to respond. My hands were itchy and I was light-headed enough to warrant further attention, so I headed down to the infirmary to yell at him. When I got there, a bunch of those dude ranch people were standing around looking like they’d lost their prize Holstein and the infirmary door was locked.”
“It’s never locked,” Ronon said.
“Yes, thank you Captain Obvious.” Rodney reached for his chocolate chip cookie, having given up on the potatoes, only to find the dessert disappearing into Ronon’s mouth. “Hey! Get your own!”
“Just did.”
Rodney glowered at his teammate and Teyla spoke up in an attempt to get the conversation back on track, “Did you talk with any of the infirmary staff, or the people you saw?”
“No, because I got dragged away to help batten down the hatches ahead of this storm.” As if on cue, there was a bright flash of lightning through the rain-streaked window. Rodney shifted uncomfortably. “By the way, are we sure there aren’t any Genii among our visitors? Because that would just be a perfect ending to this day.”
“None of our trading partners associate with the Genii, Rodney. And this storm is nowhere near the scale of the one you are remembering.”
Thunder rumbled loudly overhead, and McKay cringed. “Then why are Carson and Sheppard missing?”
“We do not yet know that they are. I admit that it is strange we have not heard from the colonel. He had planned to spar with Ronon this afternoon, and was to meet us for dinner as usual, but he could be running late. Let us finish eating, and then we will locate John and Dr. Beckett.”
McKay poked warily at the lump of mystery meat on his tray, wrinkling his nose. “I’m finished. Let’s go.”
“You hardly ate anything,” Teyla pointed out.
Rodney waved her off. “Yes, well, Conan stole the only edible part of this meal. I’ll grab a power bar later.” No sooner had he finished speaking than one was slid across the table at him. He looked questioningly at Ronon.
“Eat now. We’ve got some searching to do.”
-----
“Now do you believe me?” Rodney asked. He, Ronon, and Teyla were standing in the middle of Sheppard’s vacant quarters. They had searched the control room, the colonel’s office, the rec room, the gym, and even the armory without success. None of John’s men had seen him since the morning, and he wasn’t answering his radio. McKay had even badgered Major Lorne into hailing Sheppard, in case it was merely the team he was avoiding for some reason. It was to no avail.
“Perhaps he felt ill and went to the infirmary. It may explain why both he and Dr. Beckett are not responding,” Teyla suggested, but didn’t look convinced. She knew as well as they did that Carson would have alerted them as soon as possible if John were sick or injured.
“Let’s find out,” said Ronon, and was out the door before anything further could be said.
“Must you run?” Rodney griped as he and Teyla hurried to catch up.
“Thought you wanted to find Sheppard.”
McKay scowled at Ronon. “I do, however killing me in the process wasn’t the-hold that thought.” Rodney reached up and tapped his radio, which was beeping for his attention. “Yes? No. I told him not to mess with that! Oh, well, of course you did. It needed calibration. Yes, that could be why. Or that.” Rodney’s expression fell and he stopped walking. “Knowing him, it’s probably that. What? Yes, Elizabeth. I’ll let you know. McKay out.”
“What was that all about?” Ronon asked warily. Few things deflated Rodney as effectively as that brief conversation had.
“Sheppard. Zelenka picked up his transmitter signal on the city’s sensors.”
The Satedan shrugged. “Great, where is he?”
Rodney quickly pulled up the schematic and showed it to his teammates.
“The dot representing the colonel should not be flickering like that, should it?”
“No. The sensors have been on the blink, no pun intended, and I had shut down most of the system in preparation to run a diagnostic, but apparently Elizabeth couldn’t locate Sheppard either and told Zelenka to find him using his transmitter signal. He’s somewhere in this general area. The distortion of the signal could be from the sensors malfunctioning, the storm, or…”
Or Sheppard was in trouble. That possibility passed between the trio with barely a glance at one another and they took off at a jog for the nearest transporter. When it deposited them into a dim corridor a few moments later, the not-so-distant sound of stunner fire greeted them. Ronon immediately pulled out his blaster and a knife, the latter of which he passed to Teyla.
“Is there ever a time when you’re not armed?!” Rodney hissed, but gladly stayed between the other two as they cautiously made their way forward. The directions his tablet was providing were questionable at best, but he nevertheless relayed them to Ronon and Teyla via whispers and hand signals. According to the screen, Sheppard was inside one of the labs up ahead…or in the hallway adjacent to the lab…or…not. For every two steps McKay took, the dot indicating Sheppard’s position blinked and shifted. Rodney had to resist the urge to smack the tablet against a wall, and instead poked at the screen more firmly than necessary with the stylus, doing what he could remotely to get more accuracy from the sensors. His efforts didn’t help much, and he was five percent certain he was about to commit their collective suicides when he directed them to proceed straight ahead down the corridor, which was subdivided by a series of doors and would bring them much closer to whoever was firing the stunner. As luck would have it though, they made it through said doors without incident, just as there was a loud crack of distant thunder and the lights went out. So sue him, he didn’t say it was good luck.
“What now?” Ronon rumbled softly. In the weak light of his tablet, Rodney could just make out a Satedan-shaped shadow in front of him. They were in an interior corridor, which was now pitch black due to the loss of power. Off to their left, presumably inside the lab, they could hear someone moving around, crashing into things and apparently not making any sort of effort to be quiet. Glass broke, and the stunner fired again.
McKay shrugged, perfectly aware that Teyla and Ronon couldn’t see the gesture. “From what I can tell, Sheppard’s in there. So is someone else, obviously. The labs on this level are big, at least half a dozen rooms and three entrances each.”
“We may have the element of surprise on our side, due to the power loss,” Teyla said.
Rodney shook his head even as he toggled to another view on his tablet. “The power outage is only partial. We can’t count on the lights being out inside the lab too.”
“Then we find the entry point with the least vulnerability,” Ronon said, coming over to study the schematic. After a moment, he pointed to one of the doorways, “There.”
“Sure, you choose the one furthest away from our objective.”
“Reaching Colonel Sheppard will do little good if we get shot in the process, Rodney,” Teyla pointed out.
“Well when you put it like that.” Rodney made a face and gestured for she and Ronon to lead the way.
They were soon standing to either side of the door Ronon had chosen. It was slightly open, and true to McKay’s hypothesis the power was still on inside. A thin sliver of light lanced into the darkened hall, daring them to enter. Apparently, Ronon had every intention of taking the dare. The Satedan crouched low, blaster at the ready, and crept toward the opening. He peered through, first from one side, then the other. Straightening for better leverage, Ronon crammed his fingers between the door and the jamb, widening the space until he could fit through. He signaled the all-clear, and Rodney and Teyla joined him inside the lab. “Do you still have Sheppard?” he asked.
“Yes, he’s close.” Rodney whispered. “Dammit.” He whacked the side of the tablet with his palm and the colonel’s dot flickered out of existence again, appearing in a different spot several meters away. “I can’t be any more precise than that, it’s just-”
“Someone is coming!” Teyla hissed, and pulled at Rodney’s arm. “Quickly, in here.”
“Wha-” Rodney looked up just in time to see a man he didn’t recognize enter the room and point a stunner at him before he was yanked through another door by his teammates. McKay instinctively set to work locking that door. Or at least he tried to. It took him all of three seconds to see that the panel was fried. He said as much.
“Stand back.” When those words were coming from Ronon, it was time to move. Rodney did, and a heavy lab bench came barreling in to replace him in front of the door. An actual barrel made of some sort of plastic was hefted on top, and then the beam of Ronon’s blaster bathed the room in a red glow as it melted the plastic into the doorframe. “That’s not going to hold for long. Let’s go.”
They passed through still another door, and Rodney found himself mentally revising his earlier statement about the layout of the lab. As a whole, it had at least three separate entrances, but it appeared there wasn’t an interior room that had any less than two. Currently they were in an office, and Rodney wasted no time engaging the lock on the door they’d just passed through before moving on to the room’s other access point. He had barely removed the cover from the panel when the lights flickered. Rodney thought he heard the distant booming of thunder too, but maybe it was just his heart pounding in his ears. As he slid a control crystal out of its slot, he also thought he heard someone panting, but it wasn’t him, and panting certainly wasn’t something Teyla or Ronon did unless they’d been running for their lives for three hours straight. It hadn’t been nearly three hours yet, so McKay told himself it was just his imagination.
He bridged the gap between two crystals with the one in his hand, and immediately let out a string of curses as sparks erupted from the panel and the lights went out in the office. The crystal he’d been holding clattered to the ground and he was reaching for his tablet to get some light to see by when he heard the door next to him slide open. Rodney was in no way prepared for the body that suddenly burst through the door and knocked him to the ground. Therefore, he did what came naturally and exclaimed, “What the hell is wrong with you?! Get off me! Hey!”
“McKay? What happened?”
Rodney ignored Ronon. He had more important matters weighing on him, literally. A quiet groan sounded from his assailant, and as Rodney struggled he came to realize that he wasn’t being attacked, but rather was fighting against the dead weight of whoever had just fallen on him. The groan came again, and he paused. There was a certain familiarity to that pained sound. “Sheppard?” McKay squirmed until his arms were free, and he carefully batted at the form on top of him. Standard-issue Atlantis uniform jacket, check. Tac vest, check. Spiky hair that was even crazier than usual, check. “Crap! Conan, get over here!”
A couple of footsteps sounded, and the Satedan’s hand landed on McKay’s shoulder. “What’s the matter?”
“I found Sheppard. Or rather, I accidentally shorted out the door control and he fell on me. Something’s wrong.”
Despite the lack of visibility, Ronon managed to haul Rodney out from beneath Sheppard. He stooped back down and started to roll the colonel onto his back, but stopped when John cried out. “Easy, buddy. McKay, we could use some light.”
“Were you not listening a moment ago when I said I shorted out the door control? It’s not just the door that’s powered by that panel!”
“Perhaps this will help,” Teyla said as she flicked on the flashlight she had found in a desk drawer and made her way over to the others. On seeing Sheppard, she immediately crouched beside Ronon. “John, what happened? Where are you hurt?” Her eyes traveled quickly with the flashlight beam over his body, and she frowned in concern. Aside from a laceration over his eyebrow and wrists that had been chafed well beyond the point of bleeding by the primitive handcuffs he wore, there was no visible injury, but his pallor and lack of response indicated otherwise. He lay on his side, partially curled up, eyes squeezed shut. She reached out her fingers to his neck and was troubled but unsurprised to find his heart racing faster than his shallow, panting breaths. “We must get him to the infirmary,” she said, sparing a glance at her teammates. Anything further Teyla may have added was interrupted by a stunner blast hitting the door at the far end of the hallway Sheppard had come through, the light from the energy beam momentarily casting a faint blue glow beneath the door and into the narrow space.
“Um, getting anywhere may be a problem just now,” McKay said, his voice rising in pitch as he spoke, “And the shorted out panel means I can’t make the door on our end close!”
Ronon looked down the hallway, then back the way they’d come. He’d been listening, and it didn’t appear that whoever had been chasing them had made it through his barricade yet, which was one less thing to worry about. “I’ve got an idea.”
“Great, what is it?”
“No time to explain.” Ronon bent down toward Sheppard. “Sorry about this, buddy.” As quickly and gently as he could, Ronon slid the colonel clear of the hallway. Sheppard cried out weakly, but still loudly enough that stunner-guy’s efforts redoubled. “McKay, any chance of getting that door open?” he asked, gesturing to the one that separated them from their armed assailant.
“Have you lost your mind?!”
“McKay!”
“Right, of course you have,” Rodney muttered under his breath, and focused his attention on his tablet, trying to find a way to get the door open.
And then the door opened on its own, and it was over almost before it started. Stunner-guy took no precautions before stepping into the hallway, and went down with a single shot to the chest from Ronon’s blaster. The Satedan waited a good half-minute before he crept down the hallway toward the fallen man. No footsteps had come running behind him, and Ronon felt it fairly safe to assume this man was alone, save for his comrade still trying to bash his way through the barricade. Just to be safe Ronon disarmed the enemy, crouched low, and carefully peered out of the hallway at the other end. The room that lay beyond was deserted.
Hurrying back to his teammates, he found Rodney holding the flashlight in one hand, tablet in the other, while Teyla spoke softly with John. She looked up at his presence, her expression worried. “All clear on this end,” Ronon said, nodding toward the hallway. “How’s Sheppard?”
“He is hurt badly, but has not told me in detail what happened. I think he has broken ribs at the least, and I fear he was attacked by these same men we have been evading. He wishes us to leave him here and go warn Elizabeth of their presence in the city.” Her raised eyebrow showed what she thought of that plan.
Ronon snorted in response and carefully nudged John’s boot with his own, just enough to get the injured man’s attention. “Not gonna happen, Sheppard. You’re coming with us.” The two men locked eyes for a long moment, and John finally relented with a weak nod, his eyes slipping closed.
After several moments during which he seemed to gather himself, the colonel drug his eyelids open again. “Need to get…outofherenow…” he slurred, and made a small motion as though trying to sit up, but hissed at the pain it caused. “Dammit.” He again met Ronon’s eyes, and the big man stooped down next to him, a look of understanding on his face.
“Anyplace I should avoid lifting from?”
“Left side…ribs…shoulder.”
“His right leg is also bleeding,” Teyla pointed out.
Ronon looked where she indicated, finding a gash he was sure even Sheppard wasn’t aware of. Seeing no real way to make the best out of the current bad situation though, Ronon just grunted another curt apology to Sheppard before scooping him up and hefting him over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. As careful as he was to avoid the injuries he’d been made aware of, Ronon still flinched inwardly at Sheppard’s pained curse. The colonel was tense as a coiled spring and Ronon could feel the fingers of John’s right hand twist into the fabric of his shirt as they began making their way out of the lab, through the narrow hallway and past the man lying on the floor.
He didn’t like the idea of leaving an enemy on the loose (even if said enemy was currently unconscious) but there wasn’t much of a choice. Sheppard was in bad shape. Every step Ronon took added another hitch to John’s already-labored breathing, and if he had to adjust the colonel’s position at all, the hitch turned into a sound that Ronon generally only associated with small dying animals. To hear it from Sheppard was so unsettling it made him want to move faster toward the infirmary, but he resisted the urge so as not to have to hear it more times than necessary. The quiet, darkened corridors were eerie enough without additional sound effects.
They continued in that eerie silence for a good while, with Rodney directing them back toward civilization and Teyla keeping an eye on the colonel as best she could. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Ronon was surprised by McKay’s lack of conversation. As bizarre as the circumstances surrounding Sheppard’s disappearance and injuries were, he’d expected the scientist to be ranting at full speed by now, trying to work out an explanation. Then again, maybe McKay was at as much of a loss for what was going on as Ronon was.
The final transporter separating them from the infirmary eventually deposited them into a corridor lined with rain-streaked windows. It appeared the bad weather had no intention of letting up, and sheets of rain pelted the glass, punctuated by a close lightning strike that caused McKay to jump and start cursing under his breath. Ronon heard him mutter something about storms that lasted for weeks, the Genii, and a wicked witch from the west melting, but with McKay it was usually better not to ask, so Ronon didn’t. He was more focused on the shift in the sound of Sheppard’s breathing anyway. The colonel had been panting, shallow and rapid, since they’d found him, but now there was a rasp to the sound that hadn’t been there before. The position Ronon had been forced to carry him in wasn’t helping either, so when the infirmary came into sight up ahead, he nudged Rodney with his elbow. The scientist seemed unfazed by the prodding and continued to mutter to himself grumpily. “McKay.”
“Yes, yes, I’m working on it,” he said. “The infirmary is still locked, and I don’t think I can get the door open. It’s been shorted out.”
“Is it because of the storm?” Teyla asked.
Rodney frowned, pursing his lips as he stared at his tablet. “That’s a definite no,” he said, eyes widening in alarm as he absorbed the information he was seeing, and he motioned frantically for them to back up around the corner.
“What is wrong?”
When they were safely out of sight of the infirmary’s entrance, McKay turned his tablet to face the others. “This.” He’d had time to kill while they were walking, and on a hunch had hacked into the infirmary’s security cameras. The display showed at least five men, maybe more, standing guard duty around the infirmary staff and a few patients. The men were clearly not members of the expedition, but nevertheless had gotten their hands on another Wraith stunner, a couple of standard-issue military pistols, and other assorted homemade implements. “Who the hell are they?”
“I don’t know,” Ronon said, “but we’ve got to get in there. Sheppard needs help, now.”
“I know that, but if they’re the ones who did this to him do you really think they’re just going to let us walk in and have Beckett treat him?”
“So we’ll sneak in the back way.”
“That’s...actually not a bad idea.” Rodney brought up a view of the infirmary’s small secondary wing, used mostly as a recovery area following surgery. It was connected to the main infirmary, but not in a way that would be obvious if one just came barging in to take the place hostage. The video feed confirmed as much: the recovery wing was deserted. No patients, no dude ranch villains, and even better, “It’s unlocked.” Before McKay could say more, his radio suddenly beeped and he jumped for the second time. “Would you stop doing that?!” he hissed into the device.
“Rodney, are you all right?” Elizabeth’s voice asked.
He huffed out a small sigh before answering with typical sarcasm, “Dandy. And before you ask, we found Sheppard. We’re taking him to the infirmary as we speak.”
“That’s not a good idea, Rodney.”
“Take one look at him and then tell me that!” McKay snapped.
“Listen to me, the infirmary has been taken hostage. Major Lorne is on his way to you now with backup. You need to wait for them. It won’t do John any good to-”
“You don’t say,” Rodney interrupted as he watched Ronon’s back disappearing through a doorway: the rear entrance to the infirmary. “Tell Lorne to hurry. Ronon and Sheppard are already in, I’ve got to go.”
His mind and adrenaline racing a mile a minute and keeping at bay the entirely rational fear of what he was about to do, Rodney clicked off the radio and caught up to his teammates just inside the recovery wing. He hovered momentarily while Ronon and Teyla placed Sheppard on a gurney. Then he said, “I’ll get Beckett,” and proceeded toward the main infirmary to enact his own foolhardy plan, since it seemed there wasn’t any other kind to be had today.
On to Part 2