Friendship, Week 2: Syzygy (2/2)
Title: Syzygy
Author: naye
Prompt: Weather or elements
Rating: PG
Word Count: 15,000
Warnings/Spoilers: Set in early season three, after Misbegotten
Summary: Rodney, Ronon, and a day that begins with a land tsunami, and goes downhill from there.
Return to Part One.
The cut from the knife hardly hurt at all. The way every other part of him did, that should have been a relief, but between the heat searing his exposed skin and the fumes making his eyes sting, Rodney didn't have the energy for positive thinking. Positive thinking took a lot of energy -- it was far better to just be realistic, and accept that everything that hadn't gone to hell yet probably would, and sooner rather than later.
Take his current situation. Old saying were often annoyingly vague or inaccurate, but -- out of the frying pan and into the fire, that was him. Or to be precise -- out of the dungeon and into the giant underground volcano. Lovely.
And his freshly bandaged hand did hurt, as he hoisted himself over another crumbled wall. Not as much as his many other injuries, but enough to make him curse the stupid bonding ritual. Of course it had had to involve knives. Rodney had accused Til of making it up on the spot, but Lina had given him a stern look, and Ronon had squeezed his hand a little harder, and he wasn't even sure the knife that had nicked them had been clean. It had probably not been sterilized. It had probably been full of alien microbes, and now his hand was going to get infected and he was going to die.
But not yet. He was too busy to die right now. From the hot, red glow licking the walls and ceiling of the chamber ahead of him, there was another open source of magma somewhere down in what had been a lower-level chamber. And Rodney had to get from one end of this former corridor to the other. Former corridor -- currently a ledge, precariously attached to the wall some meters above the lethal stew of molten rocks waiting below.
Rodney adjusted the cloth over his mouth and nose. It had been soaked with the same bitter concoction that they had made him swallow before sending him in here, but by now it was almost completely dry. All of his clothes were, too. That was another thing he might have found in his heart to be grateful for, if they hadn't been getting so hot to the touch that he kept expecting them to ignite.
Rodney stepped through the archway, and carefully touched the wall reaching up to the ceiling -- not too hot. This glossy black rock that Haven was constructed of did have some interesting properties. But he could indulge in a passion for geology later -- for now, he was simply desperate for something to hold onto as he braved the perilous passage.
Chunks of black rock embedded in solidified magma clinging to the edge of the ledge served as a reminder of just how violent the volcanic activity could get in here. Everywhere he turned, he found further proof towards the McKay theorem of 'we're so screwed'.
"Don't look down, don't look down," Rodney mumbled as he shuffled his way forward.
It didn't help; he did anyway. It was like looking into a stargate to hell. Instead of being watery blue, this was liquid fire. It was set deep in the floor, where the unstoppable boiling rock was welling up. The magma pool was contained right now, but from the way the rest of the ground was an uneven, dull black, it was clear that it had swept up and covered the floor at some point. Or several points, even. And the hole itself was right below Rodney.
"Oh, no." Rodney screwed his eyes shut. He could feel his knees growing weak, and cursed, because he had to keep moving. If he didn't, if he wavered now, he risked falling into that kettle of hellfire below. Panic squeezed his throat like a hungry serpent. Falling down there would be a more horrible death than even regular burning to death, and then Ronon would die too, and it would be terribly bad all around. He managed move one of his feet, and then the other.
Easy does it, little by little, not far now. He might have been speaking out loud -- he really didn't know anymore.
Didn't know anything except the heat and the fear and how wrong it was that he was the one trekking through a bad déjà vû of the supervolcano planet. Ronon should have been the one doing this -- Ronon would have been good at it, would have been back already, blessed by the Ancestors and proven worthy and free to go about his business and all that. Instead, he had wagered his life on Rodney's -- what? His skills? Rodney didn't have any volcano-survival skills, not unless there were Ancient warships he could bring to life around, and he didn't exactly keep one of those in his back pocket.
Maybe he should ask Ronon about his reasons again, when he got back. If he got back. Rodney had tried asking before setting out, on this journey to 'the old places', as Lina called them. He had called Ronon all sorts of things for choosing to trust Rodney with his life, instead of accepting the grace period his injuries had earned him. But Ronon hadn't listened to anything Rodney said -- had just given him a flat stare, telling Rodney that there was no damned way he was waiting in a dungeon until the next Three Dark Moons.
Rodney himself hadn't had any choice at all -- he was as fit as most refugees arriving in Haven. Like them, he was expected to ask the Ancestors' permission to stay, and return with some kind of name. Whatever that meant. He had tried to argue that the others coming through the gate knew what awaited them on the other side, that he and Ronon hadn't known at all, that it wasn't fair. The plea had fallen on deaf ears. It had also fallen on Til, who had sneered that it proved they had no business there at all, and then delighted in telling them how anyone who failed to get the blessing was promptly 'returned to the tides'.
If Rodney didn't make it back alive, Ronon was going to take a long walk off a short pier, literally. Barbaric, maybe, but it had somehow served to protect this Haven from the Wraith for untold generations. Lina had laid out the terms and conditions for joining the community in a way that reminded Rodney of Elizabeth. Like Elizabeth Weir, Lina Mael wasn't a hard woman, but she put the safety of her people and her city before everything else. Before her own heart, even. Definitely before the lives of two bedraggled strangers fished out of the ocean on a cursed night.
A finger of colder air touched Rodney, and he lurched forward, surprised to find himself on solid ground. He was through the archway, was over the ledge of doom.
His mind stuttered a little at what he saw. He was in the damned mines of Moria. He found himself in a giant underground hall, the ceiling lost in the red-tinted darkness. He could just make out passages heading in all directions -- not stairs, but the same sloping, curving pathways they had seen in Haven. Some went up, others went down, and Rodney's head felt faint.
Lina had given him instructions, had told him how to find the Chamber of Blessing, but he had been too busy panicking over the mention of crossing liquid fire to remember what. He knew he should. Knew he could, when he wasn't toasted and concussed and miserable, and now he would get lost and wander endlessly in the dark and then starve to death, and it would totally serve Ronon right for deciding to claim beat-up, weak volcano-crossing amateurs as his kin.
The cut in Rodney's palm stung. It wasn't bad enough that Ronon had been crazy enough to bet on Rodney's completing the Trial of Blessing without falling into pits of molten lava or getting lost or passing out from exhaustion. No. For Rodney to be allowed to take the blessing in Ronon's stead, he'd first had to argue with Lina and Til that Rodney was his family.
Having admitted being from different planets made that rather difficult, and Rodney was too taken aback by the whole concept to be much help. But all of a sudden Ronon knew as much as Teyla about various local customs, and then they were swearing an oath that included blood.
Ronon, of course, hadn't seemed particularly bothered by that. But he hadn't seemed bothered by the whole family thing, either. He had just shrugged, and said, "We'll, we're a team, aren't we?", and that had been it.
Which left Rodney in the unenviable position of scuttling through a network of collapsed passages and bubbling magma flows. The geothermal forces of this planet had done quite a number on the Ancients' interior design for the past ten thousand years, but the rituals of Haven had stayed the same. Or maybe it had been a gauntlet from the very beginning, pits of hot lava and all -- Rodney didn't know, and he found that he didn't much care, either.
Right now the only thing he cared about was remembering if Lina had said to go up or down after crossing the chamber with the ledge. "Think, think!" And no, thinking about sitting down and resting his eyes and especially thinking about food and water was right out. Wouldn't do any good. But he'd been walking for -- a while, a long while. Long enough to be parched from the heat, and hungry, despite the simple meal he had been served before heading down that deep, dark passage.
He walked towards the other side of the great chamber, and nonsensically, Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King started drifting through his mind, his fingers twitching with the long-forgotten habit of distilling all music he heard into chords to play. One could get lost in music, too, but then all one had to do was listen. Listen for the right way, listen for the dissonance -- a murmur as faint as a moth's wing.
Rodney shook himself, blinking furiously. The music fell silent. "Oh, no. No, no, no." That hadn't been a hallucination, but it was getting close. His mind was beginning to wander down some seriously strange paths, and he hadn't even reached his goal yet.
Even if he did, he still had to go all the way back. Before next dawn. Because the terms and conditions had included a deadline -- the really deadly kind of deadline, the kind they should all be used to by now. But it was one thing to face them on Atlantis, with Zelenka and his science division at his back; or in the field with his team; and another to be dealing with them all alone in the dark. Been there, done that, and down that path lay hallucinations -- and possibly whales.
"No whales in here, though," he told the silent stones, and almost laughed. No whales -- no moths. But he'd heard -- something. A moth's wing. Right. Something soft, carried on the deep silence of this place.
A surprisingly lucid part of his mind started scolding him for being an idiot and wasting his time babbling when he could be reasoning. The thought then proceeded to analyze the sound for him -- not a moth's wing, but a running Ancient power source. Familiar. Almost soundless, but not quite. And it was coming from the closest upward passage.
Rodney picked up his pace. Inside the tunnel, the air was a little less choked with the smell of burning rock. His head cleared a bit. There was a light coming from up ahead -- a light at the end of the tunnel, Rodney thought, and spent a couple of seconds worrying whether it was the light at the end of the tunnel, before he realized he still hurt all over, and was most certainly still in this world.
In a place the size of this complex, there were no short walks to get anywhere. Everything turned into a trek. It was like Atlantis in those miserable days before they discovered the transporters. So Rodney walked. He knew exactly what he was looking for it -- The Door Which Opens, Lina had said, the reverent capitalization of the words obvious as she spoke. Rodney wasn't going to revere opening doors. That's what doors did, they opened.
Of course, the Ancients didn't always want that to be the case. Few of the people who came to Haven had their gene. Rodney did, and this proved to be a massive headache for him -- a metaphorical one to go with his pounding migraine. Once he had entered the more intact part of the structure, up and away from the magma, his gene started activating everything he touched. Doors he leaned against slid open, revealing bathrooms with broken plumbing alongside empty labs and chambers even his experience with Ancient architecture couldn't quite determine the purpose of.
The Ancients were long gone, of course, but from the way Lina and Til had spoken, they'd left some kind of message behind. The problem was that Rodney had no way of knowing what sort of odd bit of tech these people had chosen to play the mysterious judge of all that came before it. For all Rodney knew, this whole trial culminated in a meditation on the Ancients' garbage disposal system, and the big secret lay in getting yourself screened as a non-recyclable organic item.
Rodney ended up pausing to look into every dusty, long-abandoned chamber he passed. A few things caught his interest. He came across a lab where they had clearly worked on something involving DHDs. Inside he found dismembered versions of both the Milky Way and the Pegasus dialing devices. A corner table held bits and pieces that could be put together to form a full standard DHD, and still have a whole crystal bank left over.
Rodney decided to take a little more thorough peek. What he saw here looked awfully familiar. An extra crystal bank -- the extra crystals in this planet's DHD, the very thing he'd been busy examining before the land tsunami struck. This was it, this was exactly the same. Excitement at the discovery helped him slough off a little of his exhaustion, and after taking a careful look at how everything was assembled, he stashed the crystals into those of his pockets still whole enough to hold them.
Jangling a little now, he came across another interesting rooms. Except for the colors here being shades of onyx and jade it could have been a modified version of Atlantis' hologram room.
Rodney hurried over to the podium, and a glow swirled to life in the center of the room. He slumped a little in relief. The hologram still worked. It solidified into the image of a dark-haired man with a hawkish profile. This was the closest Rodney would come to an actual Ancient here -- the hologram had to be the blessing-giver.
The Ancient spoke with a lilting voice. "Dear prospective Worker. Welcome to Vivetica."
Rodney listened attentively -- Vivetica, that was a name. The name of this place, a name he hadn't heard before -- that had to be worth something.
"To ensure our mutual safety and success, please place your hand on the console in front of you for the screening process."
Rodney hesitated. Screening process? There was a round, blue stone set in the podium. It would fit under his cupped hand, but he didn't know what it was, or what it would do. The hologram didn't offer any further guidance.
Rodney clenched his fists, trying not to think about what happened to those who failed the screening process. He already knew that Haven didn't have a problem with Wraith worshipers -- that they were still hidden, after who knew how long. This device sure kept them all safe and successful. It was probably very, very picky. But if he didn't do this he was dead, and Ronon was dead, and he hadn't come this far just to give up. He touched his right hand to the blue stone.
For a moment, nothing happened, and Rodney thought frantic thoughts about being harmless and helpful and hating the Wraith a lot, really, no worshiping here, oh no. Then his fingers tingled, and a green glow spilled out between them.
The hologram unpaused. "Thank you for your cooperation. You have been designated Worker I-4937, and you will be part of the geodynamic team..."
The green light faded under Rodney's hand, and he heaved a heartfelt sigh of relief. He had never imagined he would ever in his life be so thrilled to be mistaken for a ten thousand years overdue laborer.
* * * * *
The way back was a blur of red on black, of blistering heat and endless tunnels. It was still a mad gauntlet, but Rodney was frankly too exhausted to be terrified anymore. His lungs felt scorched, as if he'd inhaled the heat from a giant bonfire, his eyes were so dry it hurt to blink, and his injured knee had taken to giving out on him at the most inopportune moments. He hardly felt his new collection of scrapes and bruises over his old, and he could only work up a vague kind of alarm at the wet, red stain spreading below the now soot-colored bandage on his hand.
When he fell -- and he was falling more and more often, damn that knee -- the temptation stay where he was and simply close his eyes was strong. Would have been overwhelming, except that the only thing occupying his mind, other than an endless litany of complaints, was knowing that Ronon was counting on him.
Rodney couldn't give in, couldn't just lie down to sleep, not even for a little while, because doing so would be to leave Ronon facing the solemn justice of Haven alone. And they didn't leave people behind. They didn't, and he needed to get back, grab Ronon, and head through the gate to have words with Sheppard about that, because this was the worst rescue ever. Where was his jumper, come to fly him over all obstacles? Where was the medical team with the bandages and the painkillers? Were were those of his team who could actually do the whole physical thing, with the walking and the climbing and the death-defying balancing over lava pits?
One foot ahead of the next, step by step, Rodney walked. It was getting difficult to breathe. That could be a problem. One foot, then the next. Another pile of rubble, like the uncountable ones he had already scrambled over. Loose rocks rattled, then gave way as he put his weight on them. A dust cloud rose around him, grit in his mouth, the pain from his injured knee numbed the rest of the leg, and it folded under him.
He clawed at the debris, using it for leverage. Finally, he stood, automatically, shakily, because it was what he did, here and now. He wasn't fixing broken technology or coming up with brilliant last-minute solutions or solving deadly mysteries. He was simply getting back up when he fell, and keeping walking.
In the end, something had to give. Rodney laboriously hoisted himself up on a giant boulder. It was set in dried, black magma, and blocked the entire lower part of the hallway. It was a few paces across, and he leaned against the wall for support as he limped on. His arms were shaking now, and he didn't think he had a good leg anymore -- the endless succession of graceless falls were taking their toll. He had noticed at some indeterminable time before that the lights had started to grow brighter, but now it was as if someone had turned the dimmer down again.
The passage ahead, the ceiling, the boulder beneath his feet -- it was all beginning to blur together, a cascade of black darkness closing in. It didn't seem to matter much if he had his eyes open or closed, so he closed them. The heat at his back still pressed him forward, and his feet still moved, but everything else was becoming disconnected.
It was like someone was unplugging his circuits, one after the other, and the final sparks as they went out caused jarring short-outs. Made him think he smelled fresh bread and salt, made him feel cold and hot at the same time, made the sound of voices ring out over his own harsh breathing.
With his next step, his foot came down on empty air. A lightning thought flashed through his hazy mind, stirring panic and informing him that from so high up, this fall he might not wake up from.
Rodney waited for the impact.
An impossible hallucination caught him, familiar dreadlocks against his face and the same steadfast reassurance as in the waterfall. "Got you." Something wrapped securely around his back, lowered him to the ground.
Rodney stirred, opened his eyes. Saw a big tan blur with purple spots and a slash of white. There were shapes moving behind it, people in gray and black and blue. He tried to speak, but his throat was coated with sandpaper.
"It's okay, McKay. You did it."
Rodney's head listed weakly to one side -- not quite the vigorous shake he'd been going for, but Ronon still answered him. "What?"
Not done yet. His tongue was a lump of rock, to go with the sandpaper of his throat, but he managed to form a word, in a rasping, urgent whisper. "Vivetica."
"I'll tell them," Ronon said, calm. "It's okay. I've got it. Vivetica." A ripple of movement behind him, someone twisting the kaleidoscope of dark colors.
Again, Rodney tried to speak, to ask -- was it enough, could they please not get thrown in the sea now?
"It's fine." Ronon shifted, his bare arms cool against Rodney's burning skin. His bandaged hand supported Rodney's head. "You made it." It was such a firm assurance that Rodney finally allowed himself to relax. All the colors fell through the kaleidoscope and into nothing.
* * * * *
"We passed your test!" Rodney argued from his cushion-lined chair. "Why won't you just let us through the gate?" Arguing meant gesturing, and right now, with all of his muscles acutely sore, gesturing meant pain. This meant that arguing put him in a bad mood.
Lina shook her head, blue highlights shining off her silver hair in the aqua glow of the reception chamber. "It's not that we won't allow you -- you can't go through."
"Why?" Ronon asked, leaning forward on the table.
"After the great waters cross the land, it's often so."
"What, you mean--"
"The ring is half-buried in boulders, yes," Lina said dryly.
"Is it broken?" Ronon sounded concerned.
"No, it would take more than that to break a gate. But even if it's just a couple of boulders, it could keep the event horizon from forming," Rodney explained. Then he snapped his fingers. "And that would explain why At-- uh. Why Sheppard hasn't come back yet!"
"They can't?"
"Exactly!"
Something very much like relief lit Ronon's eyes. "Then we dig it out," he said, decisive.
"It's not urgent, for us," Lina said. "We have gotten used to this inconvenience, and it doesn't happen all that often."
"I should imagine not," Rodney said, wishing he had enough information on this planets' moons to calculate their relative orbits. "But it's urgent for us." Rodney imagined that Elizabeth probably feared the worst by now, if they hadn't managed to dial back after Sheppard and Teyla were washed into the gate room. He didn't even try to imagine what his teammates would have been going through since the tide.
"Let's go up there and fix it." Ronon grabbed his cane, preparing to stand. "Now."
"I can see that you are very determined to contact your home," Lina said softly.
"Yes, well -- my paperwork increases exponentially if I'm not there to keep an eye on it, and make sure Zelenka doesn't sneak extra stuff in there."
"Not many who come to Haven still have a home."
Rodney couldn't help a quick look at Ronon, but the Satedan just nodded. "We're lucky," he acknowledged.
Ronon's planet, like Ronon's past, was another of those abstract concepts that Rodney didn't really want to understand, but he knew that 'lucky' was not a word he would ever use about himself if what had happened to Sateda happened to Earth.
Rather than joining in this talk about homes and luck, Rodney pointed straight at Lina. He'd had yet another brilliant insight. "What was that you said about getting used to it?"
"Excuse me?" Lina asked, confused.
"Right now, when you were talking about the gate, about the flooding. You said that your people had gotten used to the inconvenience?"
"I did."
"So -- does that mean things used to be different? Less inconvenient?" Now Rodney's arms were hurting again, but he couldn't keep his hands from gesturing excitedly.
"Well -- many years ago, the Ring of the Ancestors seemed to be protected against the waters," Lina spoke slowly, her eyes on Rodney.
"I knew it!" He snapped his fingers at her. "The extra crystal bank -- the crystals I brought back from the old labs, they're shield circuits!" Not like their own energy iris over the gate, but an actual shield, such as the one that protected the whole of Atlantis.
"A shield for the ring?"
"Yes! Yes, it makes perfect sense! It's what that hologram guy was talking about. They were here to do energy extraction research -- there's the geothermal, of course, but considering the moons and the ocean -- well, we already know how massive the tidal forces can get. And if they were here to study that -- they knew about the extreme spring tides all along, so naturally they would have built something to protect the gate. An automated system, even, so they didn't have to be there -- it's quite elementary, once you have all the information."
Rodney became aware of Ronon's and Lina's eyes fixed on him as he talked. "Uh. What?"
"This shield," Lina said, tentatively. "Is it something that could be repaired?"
"Are you kidding? You've got me here! And I've got the crystals! Of course it can be repaired."
Lina's wrinkled face broke into a bright smile. "In that case, I suggest we all take the submersibles up to the ring as soon as possible." She stood up. "Let me call my aides, and a few of the strong laborers. We have rocks to move."
* * * * *
Rodney was back exactly where he had started -- up to his elbows in the planet's DHD. The difference was that the damp rocks underneath him felt far more uncomfortable than last time, the sky was a slightly warmer shade of gray, and Ronon was leaning casually against the device while he worked.
"Aren't you done soon?" Ronon asked. Again.
"This is delicate work here!"
"Thought you said you could do it."
"I am doing it!"
"Do it faster."
For no reason that Rodney had been able to discern, Ronon had decided there was some kind of competition going on between Rodney fixing the DHD, and Lina's people clearing the gate of rocks and boulders. It was obviously quite childish and pointless, and Rodney did not just grit his teeth at the sight of that ridiculously strong guard casually tossing a boulder the size of a breadbox aside.
"Come on, McKay. Work!" Ronon's contribution to this non-competition was to completely miss the point of cheerleading, where it was supposed to be cheering.
"I'm working! Would you just -- make sure Til doesn't accidentally drop a rock on my head, or something?" Rodney didn't trust that uniformed bastard. He had thought that the man would have a stroke when Lina formally welcomed him and Ronon to Haven. And if Til had come along to help them with the clearing of the gate, he certainly wasn't winning any points for his team, the way he was hovering at the fringes of that activity in order to glare over at the DHD.
"I am," Ronon informed him.
Rodney nodded distractedly, and went back to trying to even out the power distribution between the fifth and second crystals, where the fittings had gotten worn by giant waves and passing boulders. It took some fiddling with his borrowed tools, but he was almost done. He just needed to make a couple of tiny adjustments after fixing the fourth and third crystals firmly into place, and then -- there! He traced the connections with his fingertips, tapped the crystals lightly to make sure they were properly slotted. He would need to activate it to make sure, but now it all felt right. It would work, he knew it would.
"There, done!" From the corner of his eye, he could see that there were still a few boulders waiting to be cleared from the gate. He had kicked their asses. He squirmed out, and found Ronon looking quite triumphant.
"Here." Ronon offered Rodney his good arm, and Rodney clasped his hand. He needed all the help he could get to stand up without falling over.
"We're done over here!" Rodney shouted at Lina, who was overseeing the stacking of excavated boulders in a pile right in front of the gate, where the rocks would get disintegrated by the incoming energy vortex. Clever, that.
"I have yet to see any proof of that, Doctor Rodney." It was a very logical kind of retort, but it was accompanied by a wave at her people to work faster. Obviously Ronon wasn't the only one who had some pride at stake in this operation.
"Oh, you'll get proof, but we need to be able to actually, you know, use the gate for that to work." Rodney and Ronon shared a grin.
Til scowled.
Then the people still milling about with rocks and levers and whatnot all promptly dropped what they were doing and scrambled to safety, when the gate suddenly started dialing.
"Rodney!" Lina called to him, her frown almost audible. "I didn't mean you should prove it right now."
Rodney was staring at the gate. He hadn't touched anything. "No, it's not me -- I didn't dial anything! This is an incoming wormhole."
"Incoming...?" Lina might not be familiar with his terminology, but she got the gist of what he was saying. "Everybody, to the ladders, now! Submerge the ships as soon as you've boarded -- run!"
"Think it's Atlantis?" Ronon asked in a low voice.
Rodney looked about him, wild-eyed. There was a very disciplined chaotic retreat going on -- nobody shoved anyone else out of the way, but everyone ran really, really fast. Everyone except Lina's aides, who drew up around her when she stayed where she was, hands planted on her hips; and Til. "I don't know -- I hope so, it should be, if they were still trying to dial back in, but you've probably noticed that we haven't been very lucky lately!"
They still weren't. Before the event horizon had exploded into existence, Til turned towards them, his face drawn in fury.
"You! Traitors, you sold us out, you betrayed us!"
He drew his gun in a jerky motion, not pausing to look at what came out of the shimmering surface behind him, completely oblivious to Lina's sharp order to stop, and Rodney's high-pitched protests. The man was trembling with emotion, spots of color high on his cheeks. "I knew it, I knew it -- I should have done this the first time I set my eyes on you, you Wraith-licking scum."
Wraith-licking? Rodney blinked. Ew. Til's words were getting garbled into a litany of curses, but his aim steadied, and Rodney had a moment to reflect that this was why you didn't want your armed teammate to have his trigger finger wrapped in heavy bandages -- then Ronon made a quick, powerful motion.
There was a blur in the air, and a sharp crack followed by a dull thud. Til's eyes crossed, and he slumped to the ground.
Wood was rare in Haven, but T'Mala, Lina's lovely female aide, had helpfully scrounged up a cane of some smooth, chestnut material for Ronon to lean on. It was too short and too heavy to be a good crutch, but it made for an excellent missile to hurl at Til's head before he went totally postal.
Rodney's heart had skipped a couple of beats, and his knees were both threatening to give out on him again, but he shot Ronon a shaky smile. "Excellent aim."
"Yup," Ronon agreed, before turning to the stunned Lina. "Sorry," he called. "It was for his own good." Ronon didn't look the least bit sorry as he nodded his head at what had come through the gate.
A jumper. A beautifully boxy jumper, with none of the lethal, sharp and pointy angles of a Wraith dart. It hovered hesitantly above them before setting down with a great whoosh of air.
"These are your friends?" Lina asked, drawing closer.
"Yes, it's safe, please don't shoot anyone." Rodney rushed towards the jumper, before realizing that Ronon hadn't pulled ahead of him -- was actually lagging behind, his face tight with concentration as he hobbled across the boulders.
Right. No cane. Considering the spectacular manner in which Ronon had lost it, Rodney decided he probably owed Ronon one. He met up with Ronon, waiting for his limping teammate to place a hand on Rodney's shoulder. By the time they had arranged themselves, there was no need to go anywhere. The jumper's hatch was opening.
Sheppard and Teyla stepped out, P90's at the ready, looking very unsure of their welcome as they trained their weapons on Lina and her three aides. His teammates' guns might be aiming in the right direction, but their attention was on Rodney and Ronon.
"It's about time!" Rodney called to them, because it was what was expected in a situation like this.
Sheppard and Teyla stopped staring, and started moving towards them. "McKay, you are never going anywhere near water again without adult supervision!" Sheppard barked at him.
"That will be a little difficult, considering where we live!" Rodney shot back.
"Hey," Ronon said, "don't shoot those guys over there."
His teammates lowered their weapons -- to Lina's relief, Rodney assumed.
Then Sheppard was there, and Teyla. She took a gentle hold of Ronon's shoulders, and touched her forehead to his when he bent down. "I am glad to see you," she said, her eyes shining.
Sheppard was looking at them both with an expression Rodney didn't think he'd ever seen before. He had very little time to ponder it before Teyla distracted him, gripping his shoulders and tipping her head to his. Rodney froze, but she smiled up at him, and he fumbled his hands into action, reaching clumsily for Teyla's shoulders. It was too late to pull back, so he committed fully to his chosen course of action. He ended up bumping his forehead against Teyla's with a little too much vigor, and scrambled back, apologizing. "Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to --"
"It's all right, Rodney. I am very glad to see you, too." Teyla's smile was dazzling, her energy belying the dark circles under her eyes.
"You both look like hell," Sheppard said.
"You don't look so hot, either," Rodney remarked, though Sheppard only had a couple of bruises, and no visible broken legs or dislocated joints at all.
"What's going on here, what happened to you? I saw that guy over there -- was he going to shoot you?" Sheppard's voice held an accusing tone, like it was somehow Rodney's own fault that random fanatics decided he was a threat that needed eliminating.
"Uh. Long story," Rodney said, and then Ronon interrupted them all.
"Lina," he said, "this is the rest of our team. They've come to get us home."
Lina started to nod, only to hesitate at the word 'team'. Rodney sighed. He felt another couple of blood oaths coming on. Oh, well. He had started this thing with Ronon -- he might as well finish it with all of them. He had survived flood and fire. Two little cuts? No big deal at all.
Not if it was what it took to return home together.
Author: naye
Prompt: Weather or elements
Rating: PG
Word Count: 15,000
Warnings/Spoilers: Set in early season three, after Misbegotten
Summary: Rodney, Ronon, and a day that begins with a land tsunami, and goes downhill from there.
Return to Part One.
The cut from the knife hardly hurt at all. The way every other part of him did, that should have been a relief, but between the heat searing his exposed skin and the fumes making his eyes sting, Rodney didn't have the energy for positive thinking. Positive thinking took a lot of energy -- it was far better to just be realistic, and accept that everything that hadn't gone to hell yet probably would, and sooner rather than later.
Take his current situation. Old saying were often annoyingly vague or inaccurate, but -- out of the frying pan and into the fire, that was him. Or to be precise -- out of the dungeon and into the giant underground volcano. Lovely.
And his freshly bandaged hand did hurt, as he hoisted himself over another crumbled wall. Not as much as his many other injuries, but enough to make him curse the stupid bonding ritual. Of course it had had to involve knives. Rodney had accused Til of making it up on the spot, but Lina had given him a stern look, and Ronon had squeezed his hand a little harder, and he wasn't even sure the knife that had nicked them had been clean. It had probably not been sterilized. It had probably been full of alien microbes, and now his hand was going to get infected and he was going to die.
But not yet. He was too busy to die right now. From the hot, red glow licking the walls and ceiling of the chamber ahead of him, there was another open source of magma somewhere down in what had been a lower-level chamber. And Rodney had to get from one end of this former corridor to the other. Former corridor -- currently a ledge, precariously attached to the wall some meters above the lethal stew of molten rocks waiting below.
Rodney adjusted the cloth over his mouth and nose. It had been soaked with the same bitter concoction that they had made him swallow before sending him in here, but by now it was almost completely dry. All of his clothes were, too. That was another thing he might have found in his heart to be grateful for, if they hadn't been getting so hot to the touch that he kept expecting them to ignite.
Rodney stepped through the archway, and carefully touched the wall reaching up to the ceiling -- not too hot. This glossy black rock that Haven was constructed of did have some interesting properties. But he could indulge in a passion for geology later -- for now, he was simply desperate for something to hold onto as he braved the perilous passage.
Chunks of black rock embedded in solidified magma clinging to the edge of the ledge served as a reminder of just how violent the volcanic activity could get in here. Everywhere he turned, he found further proof towards the McKay theorem of 'we're so screwed'.
"Don't look down, don't look down," Rodney mumbled as he shuffled his way forward.
It didn't help; he did anyway. It was like looking into a stargate to hell. Instead of being watery blue, this was liquid fire. It was set deep in the floor, where the unstoppable boiling rock was welling up. The magma pool was contained right now, but from the way the rest of the ground was an uneven, dull black, it was clear that it had swept up and covered the floor at some point. Or several points, even. And the hole itself was right below Rodney.
"Oh, no." Rodney screwed his eyes shut. He could feel his knees growing weak, and cursed, because he had to keep moving. If he didn't, if he wavered now, he risked falling into that kettle of hellfire below. Panic squeezed his throat like a hungry serpent. Falling down there would be a more horrible death than even regular burning to death, and then Ronon would die too, and it would be terribly bad all around. He managed move one of his feet, and then the other.
Easy does it, little by little, not far now. He might have been speaking out loud -- he really didn't know anymore.
Didn't know anything except the heat and the fear and how wrong it was that he was the one trekking through a bad déjà vû of the supervolcano planet. Ronon should have been the one doing this -- Ronon would have been good at it, would have been back already, blessed by the Ancestors and proven worthy and free to go about his business and all that. Instead, he had wagered his life on Rodney's -- what? His skills? Rodney didn't have any volcano-survival skills, not unless there were Ancient warships he could bring to life around, and he didn't exactly keep one of those in his back pocket.
Maybe he should ask Ronon about his reasons again, when he got back. If he got back. Rodney had tried asking before setting out, on this journey to 'the old places', as Lina called them. He had called Ronon all sorts of things for choosing to trust Rodney with his life, instead of accepting the grace period his injuries had earned him. But Ronon hadn't listened to anything Rodney said -- had just given him a flat stare, telling Rodney that there was no damned way he was waiting in a dungeon until the next Three Dark Moons.
Rodney himself hadn't had any choice at all -- he was as fit as most refugees arriving in Haven. Like them, he was expected to ask the Ancestors' permission to stay, and return with some kind of name. Whatever that meant. He had tried to argue that the others coming through the gate knew what awaited them on the other side, that he and Ronon hadn't known at all, that it wasn't fair. The plea had fallen on deaf ears. It had also fallen on Til, who had sneered that it proved they had no business there at all, and then delighted in telling them how anyone who failed to get the blessing was promptly 'returned to the tides'.
If Rodney didn't make it back alive, Ronon was going to take a long walk off a short pier, literally. Barbaric, maybe, but it had somehow served to protect this Haven from the Wraith for untold generations. Lina had laid out the terms and conditions for joining the community in a way that reminded Rodney of Elizabeth. Like Elizabeth Weir, Lina Mael wasn't a hard woman, but she put the safety of her people and her city before everything else. Before her own heart, even. Definitely before the lives of two bedraggled strangers fished out of the ocean on a cursed night.
A finger of colder air touched Rodney, and he lurched forward, surprised to find himself on solid ground. He was through the archway, was over the ledge of doom.
His mind stuttered a little at what he saw. He was in the damned mines of Moria. He found himself in a giant underground hall, the ceiling lost in the red-tinted darkness. He could just make out passages heading in all directions -- not stairs, but the same sloping, curving pathways they had seen in Haven. Some went up, others went down, and Rodney's head felt faint.
Lina had given him instructions, had told him how to find the Chamber of Blessing, but he had been too busy panicking over the mention of crossing liquid fire to remember what. He knew he should. Knew he could, when he wasn't toasted and concussed and miserable, and now he would get lost and wander endlessly in the dark and then starve to death, and it would totally serve Ronon right for deciding to claim beat-up, weak volcano-crossing amateurs as his kin.
The cut in Rodney's palm stung. It wasn't bad enough that Ronon had been crazy enough to bet on Rodney's completing the Trial of Blessing without falling into pits of molten lava or getting lost or passing out from exhaustion. No. For Rodney to be allowed to take the blessing in Ronon's stead, he'd first had to argue with Lina and Til that Rodney was his family.
Having admitted being from different planets made that rather difficult, and Rodney was too taken aback by the whole concept to be much help. But all of a sudden Ronon knew as much as Teyla about various local customs, and then they were swearing an oath that included blood.
Ronon, of course, hadn't seemed particularly bothered by that. But he hadn't seemed bothered by the whole family thing, either. He had just shrugged, and said, "We'll, we're a team, aren't we?", and that had been it.
Which left Rodney in the unenviable position of scuttling through a network of collapsed passages and bubbling magma flows. The geothermal forces of this planet had done quite a number on the Ancients' interior design for the past ten thousand years, but the rituals of Haven had stayed the same. Or maybe it had been a gauntlet from the very beginning, pits of hot lava and all -- Rodney didn't know, and he found that he didn't much care, either.
Right now the only thing he cared about was remembering if Lina had said to go up or down after crossing the chamber with the ledge. "Think, think!" And no, thinking about sitting down and resting his eyes and especially thinking about food and water was right out. Wouldn't do any good. But he'd been walking for -- a while, a long while. Long enough to be parched from the heat, and hungry, despite the simple meal he had been served before heading down that deep, dark passage.
He walked towards the other side of the great chamber, and nonsensically, Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King started drifting through his mind, his fingers twitching with the long-forgotten habit of distilling all music he heard into chords to play. One could get lost in music, too, but then all one had to do was listen. Listen for the right way, listen for the dissonance -- a murmur as faint as a moth's wing.
Rodney shook himself, blinking furiously. The music fell silent. "Oh, no. No, no, no." That hadn't been a hallucination, but it was getting close. His mind was beginning to wander down some seriously strange paths, and he hadn't even reached his goal yet.
Even if he did, he still had to go all the way back. Before next dawn. Because the terms and conditions had included a deadline -- the really deadly kind of deadline, the kind they should all be used to by now. But it was one thing to face them on Atlantis, with Zelenka and his science division at his back; or in the field with his team; and another to be dealing with them all alone in the dark. Been there, done that, and down that path lay hallucinations -- and possibly whales.
"No whales in here, though," he told the silent stones, and almost laughed. No whales -- no moths. But he'd heard -- something. A moth's wing. Right. Something soft, carried on the deep silence of this place.
A surprisingly lucid part of his mind started scolding him for being an idiot and wasting his time babbling when he could be reasoning. The thought then proceeded to analyze the sound for him -- not a moth's wing, but a running Ancient power source. Familiar. Almost soundless, but not quite. And it was coming from the closest upward passage.
Rodney picked up his pace. Inside the tunnel, the air was a little less choked with the smell of burning rock. His head cleared a bit. There was a light coming from up ahead -- a light at the end of the tunnel, Rodney thought, and spent a couple of seconds worrying whether it was the light at the end of the tunnel, before he realized he still hurt all over, and was most certainly still in this world.
In a place the size of this complex, there were no short walks to get anywhere. Everything turned into a trek. It was like Atlantis in those miserable days before they discovered the transporters. So Rodney walked. He knew exactly what he was looking for it -- The Door Which Opens, Lina had said, the reverent capitalization of the words obvious as she spoke. Rodney wasn't going to revere opening doors. That's what doors did, they opened.
Of course, the Ancients didn't always want that to be the case. Few of the people who came to Haven had their gene. Rodney did, and this proved to be a massive headache for him -- a metaphorical one to go with his pounding migraine. Once he had entered the more intact part of the structure, up and away from the magma, his gene started activating everything he touched. Doors he leaned against slid open, revealing bathrooms with broken plumbing alongside empty labs and chambers even his experience with Ancient architecture couldn't quite determine the purpose of.
The Ancients were long gone, of course, but from the way Lina and Til had spoken, they'd left some kind of message behind. The problem was that Rodney had no way of knowing what sort of odd bit of tech these people had chosen to play the mysterious judge of all that came before it. For all Rodney knew, this whole trial culminated in a meditation on the Ancients' garbage disposal system, and the big secret lay in getting yourself screened as a non-recyclable organic item.
Rodney ended up pausing to look into every dusty, long-abandoned chamber he passed. A few things caught his interest. He came across a lab where they had clearly worked on something involving DHDs. Inside he found dismembered versions of both the Milky Way and the Pegasus dialing devices. A corner table held bits and pieces that could be put together to form a full standard DHD, and still have a whole crystal bank left over.
Rodney decided to take a little more thorough peek. What he saw here looked awfully familiar. An extra crystal bank -- the extra crystals in this planet's DHD, the very thing he'd been busy examining before the land tsunami struck. This was it, this was exactly the same. Excitement at the discovery helped him slough off a little of his exhaustion, and after taking a careful look at how everything was assembled, he stashed the crystals into those of his pockets still whole enough to hold them.
Jangling a little now, he came across another interesting rooms. Except for the colors here being shades of onyx and jade it could have been a modified version of Atlantis' hologram room.
Rodney hurried over to the podium, and a glow swirled to life in the center of the room. He slumped a little in relief. The hologram still worked. It solidified into the image of a dark-haired man with a hawkish profile. This was the closest Rodney would come to an actual Ancient here -- the hologram had to be the blessing-giver.
The Ancient spoke with a lilting voice. "Dear prospective Worker. Welcome to Vivetica."
Rodney listened attentively -- Vivetica, that was a name. The name of this place, a name he hadn't heard before -- that had to be worth something.
"To ensure our mutual safety and success, please place your hand on the console in front of you for the screening process."
Rodney hesitated. Screening process? There was a round, blue stone set in the podium. It would fit under his cupped hand, but he didn't know what it was, or what it would do. The hologram didn't offer any further guidance.
Rodney clenched his fists, trying not to think about what happened to those who failed the screening process. He already knew that Haven didn't have a problem with Wraith worshipers -- that they were still hidden, after who knew how long. This device sure kept them all safe and successful. It was probably very, very picky. But if he didn't do this he was dead, and Ronon was dead, and he hadn't come this far just to give up. He touched his right hand to the blue stone.
For a moment, nothing happened, and Rodney thought frantic thoughts about being harmless and helpful and hating the Wraith a lot, really, no worshiping here, oh no. Then his fingers tingled, and a green glow spilled out between them.
The hologram unpaused. "Thank you for your cooperation. You have been designated Worker I-4937, and you will be part of the geodynamic team..."
The green light faded under Rodney's hand, and he heaved a heartfelt sigh of relief. He had never imagined he would ever in his life be so thrilled to be mistaken for a ten thousand years overdue laborer.
* * * * *
The way back was a blur of red on black, of blistering heat and endless tunnels. It was still a mad gauntlet, but Rodney was frankly too exhausted to be terrified anymore. His lungs felt scorched, as if he'd inhaled the heat from a giant bonfire, his eyes were so dry it hurt to blink, and his injured knee had taken to giving out on him at the most inopportune moments. He hardly felt his new collection of scrapes and bruises over his old, and he could only work up a vague kind of alarm at the wet, red stain spreading below the now soot-colored bandage on his hand.
When he fell -- and he was falling more and more often, damn that knee -- the temptation stay where he was and simply close his eyes was strong. Would have been overwhelming, except that the only thing occupying his mind, other than an endless litany of complaints, was knowing that Ronon was counting on him.
Rodney couldn't give in, couldn't just lie down to sleep, not even for a little while, because doing so would be to leave Ronon facing the solemn justice of Haven alone. And they didn't leave people behind. They didn't, and he needed to get back, grab Ronon, and head through the gate to have words with Sheppard about that, because this was the worst rescue ever. Where was his jumper, come to fly him over all obstacles? Where was the medical team with the bandages and the painkillers? Were were those of his team who could actually do the whole physical thing, with the walking and the climbing and the death-defying balancing over lava pits?
One foot ahead of the next, step by step, Rodney walked. It was getting difficult to breathe. That could be a problem. One foot, then the next. Another pile of rubble, like the uncountable ones he had already scrambled over. Loose rocks rattled, then gave way as he put his weight on them. A dust cloud rose around him, grit in his mouth, the pain from his injured knee numbed the rest of the leg, and it folded under him.
He clawed at the debris, using it for leverage. Finally, he stood, automatically, shakily, because it was what he did, here and now. He wasn't fixing broken technology or coming up with brilliant last-minute solutions or solving deadly mysteries. He was simply getting back up when he fell, and keeping walking.
In the end, something had to give. Rodney laboriously hoisted himself up on a giant boulder. It was set in dried, black magma, and blocked the entire lower part of the hallway. It was a few paces across, and he leaned against the wall for support as he limped on. His arms were shaking now, and he didn't think he had a good leg anymore -- the endless succession of graceless falls were taking their toll. He had noticed at some indeterminable time before that the lights had started to grow brighter, but now it was as if someone had turned the dimmer down again.
The passage ahead, the ceiling, the boulder beneath his feet -- it was all beginning to blur together, a cascade of black darkness closing in. It didn't seem to matter much if he had his eyes open or closed, so he closed them. The heat at his back still pressed him forward, and his feet still moved, but everything else was becoming disconnected.
It was like someone was unplugging his circuits, one after the other, and the final sparks as they went out caused jarring short-outs. Made him think he smelled fresh bread and salt, made him feel cold and hot at the same time, made the sound of voices ring out over his own harsh breathing.
With his next step, his foot came down on empty air. A lightning thought flashed through his hazy mind, stirring panic and informing him that from so high up, this fall he might not wake up from.
Rodney waited for the impact.
An impossible hallucination caught him, familiar dreadlocks against his face and the same steadfast reassurance as in the waterfall. "Got you." Something wrapped securely around his back, lowered him to the ground.
Rodney stirred, opened his eyes. Saw a big tan blur with purple spots and a slash of white. There were shapes moving behind it, people in gray and black and blue. He tried to speak, but his throat was coated with sandpaper.
"It's okay, McKay. You did it."
Rodney's head listed weakly to one side -- not quite the vigorous shake he'd been going for, but Ronon still answered him. "What?"
Not done yet. His tongue was a lump of rock, to go with the sandpaper of his throat, but he managed to form a word, in a rasping, urgent whisper. "Vivetica."
"I'll tell them," Ronon said, calm. "It's okay. I've got it. Vivetica." A ripple of movement behind him, someone twisting the kaleidoscope of dark colors.
Again, Rodney tried to speak, to ask -- was it enough, could they please not get thrown in the sea now?
"It's fine." Ronon shifted, his bare arms cool against Rodney's burning skin. His bandaged hand supported Rodney's head. "You made it." It was such a firm assurance that Rodney finally allowed himself to relax. All the colors fell through the kaleidoscope and into nothing.
* * * * *
"We passed your test!" Rodney argued from his cushion-lined chair. "Why won't you just let us through the gate?" Arguing meant gesturing, and right now, with all of his muscles acutely sore, gesturing meant pain. This meant that arguing put him in a bad mood.
Lina shook her head, blue highlights shining off her silver hair in the aqua glow of the reception chamber. "It's not that we won't allow you -- you can't go through."
"Why?" Ronon asked, leaning forward on the table.
"After the great waters cross the land, it's often so."
"What, you mean--"
"The ring is half-buried in boulders, yes," Lina said dryly.
"Is it broken?" Ronon sounded concerned.
"No, it would take more than that to break a gate. But even if it's just a couple of boulders, it could keep the event horizon from forming," Rodney explained. Then he snapped his fingers. "And that would explain why At-- uh. Why Sheppard hasn't come back yet!"
"They can't?"
"Exactly!"
Something very much like relief lit Ronon's eyes. "Then we dig it out," he said, decisive.
"It's not urgent, for us," Lina said. "We have gotten used to this inconvenience, and it doesn't happen all that often."
"I should imagine not," Rodney said, wishing he had enough information on this planets' moons to calculate their relative orbits. "But it's urgent for us." Rodney imagined that Elizabeth probably feared the worst by now, if they hadn't managed to dial back after Sheppard and Teyla were washed into the gate room. He didn't even try to imagine what his teammates would have been going through since the tide.
"Let's go up there and fix it." Ronon grabbed his cane, preparing to stand. "Now."
"I can see that you are very determined to contact your home," Lina said softly.
"Yes, well -- my paperwork increases exponentially if I'm not there to keep an eye on it, and make sure Zelenka doesn't sneak extra stuff in there."
"Not many who come to Haven still have a home."
Rodney couldn't help a quick look at Ronon, but the Satedan just nodded. "We're lucky," he acknowledged.
Ronon's planet, like Ronon's past, was another of those abstract concepts that Rodney didn't really want to understand, but he knew that 'lucky' was not a word he would ever use about himself if what had happened to Sateda happened to Earth.
Rather than joining in this talk about homes and luck, Rodney pointed straight at Lina. He'd had yet another brilliant insight. "What was that you said about getting used to it?"
"Excuse me?" Lina asked, confused.
"Right now, when you were talking about the gate, about the flooding. You said that your people had gotten used to the inconvenience?"
"I did."
"So -- does that mean things used to be different? Less inconvenient?" Now Rodney's arms were hurting again, but he couldn't keep his hands from gesturing excitedly.
"Well -- many years ago, the Ring of the Ancestors seemed to be protected against the waters," Lina spoke slowly, her eyes on Rodney.
"I knew it!" He snapped his fingers at her. "The extra crystal bank -- the crystals I brought back from the old labs, they're shield circuits!" Not like their own energy iris over the gate, but an actual shield, such as the one that protected the whole of Atlantis.
"A shield for the ring?"
"Yes! Yes, it makes perfect sense! It's what that hologram guy was talking about. They were here to do energy extraction research -- there's the geothermal, of course, but considering the moons and the ocean -- well, we already know how massive the tidal forces can get. And if they were here to study that -- they knew about the extreme spring tides all along, so naturally they would have built something to protect the gate. An automated system, even, so they didn't have to be there -- it's quite elementary, once you have all the information."
Rodney became aware of Ronon's and Lina's eyes fixed on him as he talked. "Uh. What?"
"This shield," Lina said, tentatively. "Is it something that could be repaired?"
"Are you kidding? You've got me here! And I've got the crystals! Of course it can be repaired."
Lina's wrinkled face broke into a bright smile. "In that case, I suggest we all take the submersibles up to the ring as soon as possible." She stood up. "Let me call my aides, and a few of the strong laborers. We have rocks to move."
* * * * *
Rodney was back exactly where he had started -- up to his elbows in the planet's DHD. The difference was that the damp rocks underneath him felt far more uncomfortable than last time, the sky was a slightly warmer shade of gray, and Ronon was leaning casually against the device while he worked.
"Aren't you done soon?" Ronon asked. Again.
"This is delicate work here!"
"Thought you said you could do it."
"I am doing it!"
"Do it faster."
For no reason that Rodney had been able to discern, Ronon had decided there was some kind of competition going on between Rodney fixing the DHD, and Lina's people clearing the gate of rocks and boulders. It was obviously quite childish and pointless, and Rodney did not just grit his teeth at the sight of that ridiculously strong guard casually tossing a boulder the size of a breadbox aside.
"Come on, McKay. Work!" Ronon's contribution to this non-competition was to completely miss the point of cheerleading, where it was supposed to be cheering.
"I'm working! Would you just -- make sure Til doesn't accidentally drop a rock on my head, or something?" Rodney didn't trust that uniformed bastard. He had thought that the man would have a stroke when Lina formally welcomed him and Ronon to Haven. And if Til had come along to help them with the clearing of the gate, he certainly wasn't winning any points for his team, the way he was hovering at the fringes of that activity in order to glare over at the DHD.
"I am," Ronon informed him.
Rodney nodded distractedly, and went back to trying to even out the power distribution between the fifth and second crystals, where the fittings had gotten worn by giant waves and passing boulders. It took some fiddling with his borrowed tools, but he was almost done. He just needed to make a couple of tiny adjustments after fixing the fourth and third crystals firmly into place, and then -- there! He traced the connections with his fingertips, tapped the crystals lightly to make sure they were properly slotted. He would need to activate it to make sure, but now it all felt right. It would work, he knew it would.
"There, done!" From the corner of his eye, he could see that there were still a few boulders waiting to be cleared from the gate. He had kicked their asses. He squirmed out, and found Ronon looking quite triumphant.
"Here." Ronon offered Rodney his good arm, and Rodney clasped his hand. He needed all the help he could get to stand up without falling over.
"We're done over here!" Rodney shouted at Lina, who was overseeing the stacking of excavated boulders in a pile right in front of the gate, where the rocks would get disintegrated by the incoming energy vortex. Clever, that.
"I have yet to see any proof of that, Doctor Rodney." It was a very logical kind of retort, but it was accompanied by a wave at her people to work faster. Obviously Ronon wasn't the only one who had some pride at stake in this operation.
"Oh, you'll get proof, but we need to be able to actually, you know, use the gate for that to work." Rodney and Ronon shared a grin.
Til scowled.
Then the people still milling about with rocks and levers and whatnot all promptly dropped what they were doing and scrambled to safety, when the gate suddenly started dialing.
"Rodney!" Lina called to him, her frown almost audible. "I didn't mean you should prove it right now."
Rodney was staring at the gate. He hadn't touched anything. "No, it's not me -- I didn't dial anything! This is an incoming wormhole."
"Incoming...?" Lina might not be familiar with his terminology, but she got the gist of what he was saying. "Everybody, to the ladders, now! Submerge the ships as soon as you've boarded -- run!"
"Think it's Atlantis?" Ronon asked in a low voice.
Rodney looked about him, wild-eyed. There was a very disciplined chaotic retreat going on -- nobody shoved anyone else out of the way, but everyone ran really, really fast. Everyone except Lina's aides, who drew up around her when she stayed where she was, hands planted on her hips; and Til. "I don't know -- I hope so, it should be, if they were still trying to dial back in, but you've probably noticed that we haven't been very lucky lately!"
They still weren't. Before the event horizon had exploded into existence, Til turned towards them, his face drawn in fury.
"You! Traitors, you sold us out, you betrayed us!"
He drew his gun in a jerky motion, not pausing to look at what came out of the shimmering surface behind him, completely oblivious to Lina's sharp order to stop, and Rodney's high-pitched protests. The man was trembling with emotion, spots of color high on his cheeks. "I knew it, I knew it -- I should have done this the first time I set my eyes on you, you Wraith-licking scum."
Wraith-licking? Rodney blinked. Ew. Til's words were getting garbled into a litany of curses, but his aim steadied, and Rodney had a moment to reflect that this was why you didn't want your armed teammate to have his trigger finger wrapped in heavy bandages -- then Ronon made a quick, powerful motion.
There was a blur in the air, and a sharp crack followed by a dull thud. Til's eyes crossed, and he slumped to the ground.
Wood was rare in Haven, but T'Mala, Lina's lovely female aide, had helpfully scrounged up a cane of some smooth, chestnut material for Ronon to lean on. It was too short and too heavy to be a good crutch, but it made for an excellent missile to hurl at Til's head before he went totally postal.
Rodney's heart had skipped a couple of beats, and his knees were both threatening to give out on him again, but he shot Ronon a shaky smile. "Excellent aim."
"Yup," Ronon agreed, before turning to the stunned Lina. "Sorry," he called. "It was for his own good." Ronon didn't look the least bit sorry as he nodded his head at what had come through the gate.
A jumper. A beautifully boxy jumper, with none of the lethal, sharp and pointy angles of a Wraith dart. It hovered hesitantly above them before setting down with a great whoosh of air.
"These are your friends?" Lina asked, drawing closer.
"Yes, it's safe, please don't shoot anyone." Rodney rushed towards the jumper, before realizing that Ronon hadn't pulled ahead of him -- was actually lagging behind, his face tight with concentration as he hobbled across the boulders.
Right. No cane. Considering the spectacular manner in which Ronon had lost it, Rodney decided he probably owed Ronon one. He met up with Ronon, waiting for his limping teammate to place a hand on Rodney's shoulder. By the time they had arranged themselves, there was no need to go anywhere. The jumper's hatch was opening.
Sheppard and Teyla stepped out, P90's at the ready, looking very unsure of their welcome as they trained their weapons on Lina and her three aides. His teammates' guns might be aiming in the right direction, but their attention was on Rodney and Ronon.
"It's about time!" Rodney called to them, because it was what was expected in a situation like this.
Sheppard and Teyla stopped staring, and started moving towards them. "McKay, you are never going anywhere near water again without adult supervision!" Sheppard barked at him.
"That will be a little difficult, considering where we live!" Rodney shot back.
"Hey," Ronon said, "don't shoot those guys over there."
His teammates lowered their weapons -- to Lina's relief, Rodney assumed.
Then Sheppard was there, and Teyla. She took a gentle hold of Ronon's shoulders, and touched her forehead to his when he bent down. "I am glad to see you," she said, her eyes shining.
Sheppard was looking at them both with an expression Rodney didn't think he'd ever seen before. He had very little time to ponder it before Teyla distracted him, gripping his shoulders and tipping her head to his. Rodney froze, but she smiled up at him, and he fumbled his hands into action, reaching clumsily for Teyla's shoulders. It was too late to pull back, so he committed fully to his chosen course of action. He ended up bumping his forehead against Teyla's with a little too much vigor, and scrambled back, apologizing. "Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to --"
"It's all right, Rodney. I am very glad to see you, too." Teyla's smile was dazzling, her energy belying the dark circles under her eyes.
"You both look like hell," Sheppard said.
"You don't look so hot, either," Rodney remarked, though Sheppard only had a couple of bruises, and no visible broken legs or dislocated joints at all.
"What's going on here, what happened to you? I saw that guy over there -- was he going to shoot you?" Sheppard's voice held an accusing tone, like it was somehow Rodney's own fault that random fanatics decided he was a threat that needed eliminating.
"Uh. Long story," Rodney said, and then Ronon interrupted them all.
"Lina," he said, "this is the rest of our team. They've come to get us home."
Lina started to nod, only to hesitate at the word 'team'. Rodney sighed. He felt another couple of blood oaths coming on. Oh, well. He had started this thing with Ronon -- he might as well finish it with all of them. He had survived flood and fire. Two little cuts? No big deal at all.
Not if it was what it took to return home together.