Angst, Week 1: ElectroStar
Title: ElectroStar
Author: x_varda_x
Genre: Angst
Prompt Three strikes and you’re out
Word Count: 8100
Rating: 12A
Warnings: None
Summary: A space gate seemingly leading nowhere, strange readings hours out into deep space and a lightning struck Puddle Jumper? All in a day’s work for John and Rodney. Set late Season 2.
Chapter One
"Why did we leave Teyla and Ronon behind?" John asked from the pilot's chair in the Puddle Jumper.
Rodney was analysing sensor readouts on his tablet, but paused for a fraction of a second to give him a snarky reply. "Unless you want to have hours on end of 'I'm bored' or 'I’m fed up, can I hit you now?' quips to motivate us, we didn't need them to come."
John blinked at the star canvass out of the windscreen. "Well, it still feels strange. What if there's something to land on or explore?"
"We can go back and get them." Rodney continued to type away. "Besides, I'm perfectly capable of flying the ship and taking readings at the same time on my own, but there’s this annoying regulation in place that says I'm not allowed."
John smiled. "We like to know that all the scientists are well wrapped up in protection. Anyway, we're over two hours out, have you found anything yet or should we just send the Daedalus in a week?"
"You’re asking whether we’re nearly there yet. Now who’s being childish?" Rodney sighed and rubbed his eyes. "I don't know. The previous team picked up the readings an hour away from the gate. Are you, by any chance, flying really slowly to wind me up?"
John scowled, "No. It may not look like we're going anywhere, but the engines are at maximum."
"Hmm, well, keep going then. It’s too much of a chance to pass up. The readings could’ve dissipated by the time the Daedalus gets here. We need data better than those infantile paintings the others brought back. We can run some more in depth scans that can be analysed straight away by someone with a brain."
"So, what will you be doing then?" John asked as he resolutely stared out of the windscreen and pressed a few buttons for no reason.
Rodney sighed heavily. "Ha ha. Not funny." He then went back to busily tapping away on his computer.
"How long until we get so far away from the gate that the radios stop working for check ins?"
"Not for a long time. Remember the Lagrangian Point Satellite?" Rodney grimaced. "That was hours away from Atlantis, but we could still talk."
John tilted his head slowly and drawled, "Okay. But don’t let us go beyond the edge or we could get lost."
John frowned out at the stars, he’d tried counting them to alleviate the boredom, but lost it around the two hundred mark when Rodney told him to alter course. That was the most exciting thing that had happened so far. Rodney seemed well entertained though, so John didn’t say anything. He was a pilot, so not unused to uneventful, tedious journeys. But at least on Earth there had been clouds, and sky, and air currents, and the tapestry of the ground rolling by under his plane. Out here in the void, there was nothing at all. Why the hell the Ancients had put a gate out here was a complete mystery.
So there they were, hurtling through emptiness at top speed, yet getting nowhere.
----------
"Ah-ha!" Rodney cried an hour later.
John jumped and widened his eyes, eager to see what Rodney could see on his computer out of the windscreen. "What is it?"
"Something… Hmm... Yes! There it is again!"
"There's what, McKay?" John asked in excitement.
Rodney’s hands started to flap in time with his words, wildly gesturing out at the dark void around them. "So far it's been the usual space currents and background noise, but I just detected an anomalous power reading out there. It's intermittent and coming from here."
Rodney used his ATA gene to hijack John's control for a moment to bring up the HUD. A bright blob of red was flashing as few thousand kilometres away. John slowed the Jumper from the breakneck speed it was cutting through the vacuum, and changed direction.
He quickly checked the readout to make sure the Gate was still on the sensors. It was, so he sighed in relief and kept going. Nothing would be worse than getting stranded out here with McKay at close quarters while they waited for the Daedalus to find and retrieve them. The Jumper was loaded with enough supplies just in case, but it wouldn’t be pleasant when that hatch was opened in a week’s time.
"Any ideas what it is?" John asked, as the reading moved again. It didn’t float to the new location, but seemed to jump from one place to another, several hundred kilometres from its original position.
"I have many ideas, about many things, but we need to be a lot closer."
"No clue then?"
Rodney scowled. "I'll be able to use the main scanners rather than these tiny little useless ones which would have trouble picking out a Hive Ship from the Daedalus out here. But we have to be right on top of it."
John felt a protective streak coming on, "Hey, the sensors aren’t that bad!"
Rodney rolled his eyes and snarled, "You know what I mean."
A few seconds later, the energy reading moved again. Now that the Jumper was nearer to it, John saw that it was not actually one blob of energy, but lots of smaller ones in a tight group.
John swerved the Jumper when the energy appeared right in their flight path, but it was too late, and the Jumper was going far too fast. The ship went right through them, the lights went out and the engines died.
They were dead in the water, but still moving imperceptibly onwards into oblivion.
----------
With all the power now gone, the artificial gravity deactivated. John grabbed the chair armrests to keep from floating away. "McKay!" he shouted. "Report."
Rodney was frantically trying to get his tablet rebooted, but it wouldn’t work. He turned to look at John, his eyes wide and afraid in the soft star glow. "I can only deduce that it was an EMP. But strong enough to take out a Jumper? Out here in the middle of empty space? It makes no sense."
John glared at him, "You're the genius, and I'm just the pilot, remember? Make it make sense!"
Rodney floundered and his mouth flopped up and down, "I don't know! I can't tell you what it is! My computer's broken so I can't even begin to figure it out."
John sighed softly, "Alright. But what about the power? We don't want to be like this for a week."
"Week?" Rodney couldn't suppress the nervous squeak. "We’ll only last a few hours, tops, without power. We're so dead."
"What?!"
"There’s no power, so no new air or heat circulating, what we're breathing is what we've got. The same goes for the heat. Which do you think it'll be first?" Rodney’s voice rose another octave in panic, "Asphyxiation or hypothermia? Maybe we should just shoot each other?"
"McKay! Running your mouth won’t fix it, and will just use up all the air. Although I'm sure the heat will last us a couple more seconds, stop talking and start fixing!"
"Okay, okay, Colonel, keep your goggles on. It's only been a minute, do you have hypoxia already?"
Rodney grabbed a torch from his vest and clicked it on - at least that worked - then pushed himself up out of the seat. A little too hard, for he went flying into the ceiling and only just saved his head in time by putting his hands up. He grunted and pushed off more gently and flew out into the rear compartment. He pulled down the crystal tray, set the torch floating nearby with the beam aimed, and used both hands to fiddle with the dark crystals within.
He sighed and grabbed a toolkit from the net. He installed new crystals in various different places, in a way that was beyond John’s comprehension. How Rodney told them apart, and where they went, he had no idea. They all looked the same to him. But then aircraft all sounded the same to people who didn’t know, yet John could tell them all apart even with his eyes closed.
Suddenly the power came back on and John thumped down in his seat heavily. He had got used to the nice feeling of not having to support any weight, and nearly face planted on the console. "Give me some warning!"
Rodney was on his feet, not having fallen at all. He had been grinning smugly, but rolled his eyes at John’s comment. "Oh, sorry, Colonel, I knew that the last crystal was going to be the one, so I forgot to tell you so that you hurt your back on purpose."
John brought up the HUD and watched the energy reading that was still out there. It wasn’t jumping like before, but gliding through space now. Either that or the Jumper was moving, but the sensors were only working on short-range. Without being able to find the gate as a point of reference, there was no way of knowing.
John called out, "They’re coming back!"
Rodney frowned incredulously, "First off: ‘They?’ It’s an energy reading, nothing more."
"Then why are they following us?"
"The movement isn’t some instinct or innate reaction or sentience. Like electricity can jump across gaps, so the energy is attracted to us."
"Who woke up on the wrong side of sceptical this morning?"
"Seriously, there’s nothing to prove that they’re alive. No life signs, only energy." He waved his hands at John and then at the dark-screened tablet now on the floor in the cockpit.
John shrugged. "When it comes down to it, aren’t we just energy too? I mean, you said nothing proves they’re alive, but have you proven that they aren’t?"
Rodney narrowed his eyes, but kept quiet.
"Do we have enough power to fire a drone?"
Rodney looked at the tray and unfocused his eyes for a moment. "Yes."
"Good."
John fired the drone away from the ship and waited. He soon cried out in triumph, "They’re following it!"
Rodney stood pensively in the doorway, tracking the progress of the weapon and the readings on the HUD. They soon stopped following the drone and came back towards the Jumper.
John raised his eyebrows. "You were saying?"
"It proves nothing."
"But they lost interest in the drone!"
Rodney dashed back into the rear compartment talking all the while. "I know. It’s the larger energy reading they want. Which is us."
Rodney quickly pulled out the last crystal he had put in and cut the power before the energy hit them again.
Rodney waited a few seconds to be sure the energy was clear, then sighed and pushed the crystal he was holding back into the slot again.
"Brace for impact!" John shouted.
Rodney just had time to cry, "What?!" before it hit again.
This time, it took longer for it to get to the rerouted secondary power relays Rodney had rigged up. The crystal tray next to his head sparked and hissed and he ducked down and covered his head as a tendril of energy lanced out of the tray and into the opposite wall, missing Rodney by inches. But he felt the heat across his back, and flinched away from it with a shriek of manly terror. The unpleasant smell of singed hair and cloth met his nostrils.
Rodney tried to get out of the way when a second massive energy discharge spewed from the crystal tray. He wasn't quite fast enough this time. It struck him and went right through, ending its eventful journey by destroying half the netting on the opposite side. Rodney cried out as he was enveloped in it and flung back into the wall. He was too stunned to register any pain yet, and was greeted by rapidly flying, newly-weightless, yet sharp, crates unleashed from the damaged net.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that John was still apparently unharmed where he had started to float up from the pilot’s chair in the cockpit, and Rodney found some comfort in that.
Rodney couldn’t breathe at all as his muscles went into spasm and his diaphragm refused to do its job. The respiratory arrest lasted long enough for his vision to grey and he curled inwards to try and restart his breathing. He eventually managed to grunt out a small, "Guh!" and coughed harshly.
Something heavy hit the back of Rodney’s head and then all he knew was the voidlike darkness of the one surrounding the ship he was inside - a tiny harbour of light, warmth and air in the limitless vacuum.
----------
Rodney woke up and groaned. He felt light and couldn't move. It was still hard to breathe, but he could.
His mind reconnected sluggishly, like it was wrapped in cotton wool, and the pain level increased. "Oh no," he whispered. "I hit my head! Hmm, I hit my back too, so maybe it's just good old fractured vertebrae paralysis."
His body was burning with pain in some places, but the rest of him felt icy cold and he was dizzy and soon started hyperventilating. A tight band compressed his chest and the burning changed into outright screaming throughout his torso.
Working on Atlantis, he had long ago learnt that Ancient tech energy burns were different to the Earth electric ones. But no less painful.
"Sh-sheppard," he gasped, and finally opened his eyes.
Rodney found that he was floating in the middle of the rear compartment and not actually paralysed, just weightless. There was a cloud of liquid around him, and it was so dark he could hardly see, but he could unfortunately feel enough to know that he was in a bad way - of the burnt and concussed, broken and bleeding variety
"Sheppard?" Rodney asked, stronger this time, but his chest hurt to breathe and speaking was worse.
He can't have been out for long, otherwise he'd be dead already from the lack of power. But his watch was broken, and the stretch of skin required to move his arm made him release an involuntary whimper.
John was floating freely in the cockpit, apparently unconscious, but Rodney couldn’t see any injuries. Maybe a tendril had caught him too? Maybe it had been strong enough to kill?!
Rodney struggled to control his breathing, the cramped space of the Jumper closed in around him, he was utterly alone, cold, hurt and frightened.
He reached out to the wall nearest him and pushed himself in the direction of the cockpit to find out the worst. As he approached, he caught a glimpse of a shining ring of metal hanging in space out of the windscreen.
"The gate?" he whispered. "How did we get back here so quickly?!" But there were more pressing issues to attend to - like finding out if John was still alive, and then getting the Jumper powered up to dial and get them home.
He left more of his bloody plasma gorily hanging in the air in his wake, but he was nothing but a mass of throbbing, stinging soreness, so had no idea where it had come from. His only small consolation was the gravity wasn't pulling on his wounds.
He bumped into John lightly and winced. He braced himself as best he could as he reached out a trembling bloody hand and smeared red fingerprints on John's neck as he tried to find a pulse.
To Rodney’s shock, he found one; strong and steady, unlike his own which was pumping furiously fast.
"Sheppard?" Rodney said hoarsely. "Wake up. You have to wake up. We've lost secondary power and I need your help to fix the ship." He let out a resigned sigh. "I can't do it on my own," he finished sadly.
John's eyes suddenly snapped open, he narrowed them at Rodney and then at the bulkhead walls surrounding them.
"Colonel, what happened? Are you injured?" It was easier to ask John to draw attention away from the horrendous pain he was in from his many hurts. And people had the nerve to call him self-centred and selfish!
John's eyes opened fully, but there was no flash of recognition in them. Nothing at all, and Rodney would’ve flinched backwards had he been able to, but that was reserved for those who had the luxury of gravity and a fully working body at their disposal. Rodney couldn’t move out of the way in time as John's hand moved up and he pressed it into the centre of Rodney’s chest and pushed.
Rodney cried out in pain at the contact, and then at the equally hard impact of his back against the wall.
Once he had recovered his breath, he called out, "Ouch, Sheppard! Ow ow and ow! What the hell did you do that for? Serious injuries here! Not that I find your face anything nice to wake up to either, especially not after another round with our energy challenged foe."
John positioned himself above the pilot’s console and jammed his hands down against it. His head flew back as white tendrils of energy wrapped around his wrists and he formed a connection with the panel.
"Wh-what are you doing?" Rodney called to him. He pushed off from the wall and drifted over. "Where's that power coming from? Why aren't you saying anything?" Rodney's eyes widened, "Unless..."
Rodney pushed himself into the rear compartment, his chest was getting tighter. His breaths didn’t seem to be fuelling his body with enough oxygen and his mind began to wander. It was either the lack of air, or his injuries making him feel that way, but it was terrifying all the same.
He grabbed an extra long power cable out of the rack and let it go to drift within grabbing distance nearby. He shoved his smarting hands into a pair of insulating gloves, plugged the cable into the crystal tray and pulled the other end into the cockpit.
Rodney gritted his teeth as he reached forwards, making sure that no part of his body, other than his hands came into contact with John, he pushed the business end of the cable into the back of John's tac vest at the collar.
John was so busy getting dosed up on the console that he didn't seem to notice. His expression was one of wonder and ecstasy, and Rodney didn’t bother to hide his revolted grimace before going back to the crystal tray once more.
The air was thick with rusty red and liquid now, and Rodney couldn’t help it as some landed on his exposed skin and face. He screwed his eyes tightly closed where they watered and he tasted metal. He knew it was his own blood, and that made him feel nauseous. It was one thing to have blood floating around; disgorged stomach contents would be quite something to contend with in zero-G.
He swallowed compulsively and fumbled the crystals with his cumbersome gloves. He didn't want to take them off, as what he was about to do was extremely dangerous and could deliver a zap of power that would kill them both. That and they'd also got stuck to the burns on the exposed flesh of his hands. He just wasn't ready to add that level of pain to his already numerous woes.
The crystals he used were the very last ones in the emergency kit - the only ones that still had some power. If this didn’t work, he was facing a very slow and already agonisingly painful death. Atlantis would check in eventually and find them both frozen to death and without air.
But Rodney wasn’t going to give up, especially not because crazy possessed John needed helping too. Even though his plan had its risks - they usually did, Rodney, being a genius of galactic proportions, also made mistakes at the same galactic scale, he shuddered and winced - the alternative was far worse.
Rodney pushed the last crystal in and watched in apprehension as visible white energy flowed along the cable from John and into the crystal tray.
The Jumper lights came on, and Rodney fell to the floor heavily. He rolled over and wrapped his arms around himself in a vain attempt at a comforting hug and shook as water leaked from his eyes. The reactivated gravity pulled his burns until they opened and hurt worse than ever before. His mind floated away and the trembling lessened until he passed from all awareness.
----------
Hands grasped his shoulders and a voice drifted into his traumatised mind, "McKay? McKay!"
Rodney opened his mouth and gasped in a breath, the now familiar steel band wrapped around his middle was still cutting off the air supply. A touch ghosted over his face and patted gently. There was cool air, gravity, light and warmth - and burning agony to go with it as an added reminder of the fun of being human and mortal and alive. Yep, definitely, painfully, still alive.
"Rodney, what happened to you?"
"Electrocuted by the energy balls." He laughed and winced. "The lightning struck Puddle Jumper!" Okay, this was bad. Why was he laughing? It hurt like he was about to die, but the universe was cruel in that respect, because it refused to let him go. When he opened his eyes, John was crouching over him, gently grasping Rodney’s gloved wrist while he studied the angry red marks showing through the cloth covering on his right arm.
Rodney was grateful to see John hadn't tried to pull off any clothing stuck to the wounds.
"There are nasty burns on your front and back. I think you hit your head too, as there’s a bit of an egg on the back of your head. Looks like a bird’s nest."
Rodney grimaced at the analogy and reached up his free hand to gingerly probe the area. It hurt and he winced. Why did he do that?! John could still be trusted, right? It was merely the concussion that threw out random memories that he had been taken over by a strange energy reading. He was, after all, now finally noticing Rodney’s numerous injuries.
Rodney glanced into the cockpit and saw stars beyond the windscreen. He asked, "Where are we?"
John paused and lowered Rodney’s arm down so carefully he almost didn’t feel it. "We’re by the gate. I needed to make sure you weren’t bleeding out before going the rest of the way."
Rodney narrowed his eyes as an idea struck him. "You found it? I thought the sensors didn’t have enough power."
John frowned in confusion. "I don’t remember how we got here."
Rodney felt fear grip him as the expression on his friend’s face reminded him of when John had been out of himself - before he had connected himself to the control panel anyway. Rodney tried to sit up and move away, but John kept him pinned with a hand on his unhurt shoulder. The pain was now too much to move anyway, his whole body felt full of acid and twisting knives, so Rodney could only brace himself.
But John merely waved him off, "Full power's back. I don't know how you did it, but you did good, Rodney. The energy readings have gone, and we seem to be right next to the gate. How did that happen?"
"I was going to ask you the same thing," Rodney said weakly, hurting too much to be overly concerned by John’s obvious confusion and repetition.
John squeezed Rodney’s shoulder gently and said, "Well, we can figure it out later. First off, let’s head home and get you all fixed up."
Rodney couldn’t argue with that course of action and let his eyes close as he fell unconscious again.
----------
Chapter Two
Rodney woke up slowly with the sensation of well suppressed pain in his midsection. "How long?" he asked anyone who happened to be nearby.
"A few hours."
Rodney opened his eyes and looked around. He was propped up in the bed to lessen the pressure on his back, and could feel bandages wound around him.
John was sitting next to him. "Carson says you've got some pretty impressive energy burns to your front and back and inside."
Rodney grimaced.
"Lucky it wasn’t actual electricity or you'd be dead now."
Rodney's mouth down-turned even further. He took the opportunity to look around and saw that there were bags of fluid hanging up around him draining into his body through many needles.
"What about the Jumper?" Rodney asked, "It's not playing host to millions of energy creatures?"
John narrowed his eyes. "No. Zelenka checked it over. Nothing in the logs and nothing untoward."
Rodney sighed sadly. "Well, I'll have a look at it later."
John beckoned Carson over.
"I see you're up, lad. How're you feeling?"
"Nothing."
"Aye, that’s good. You could’ve been killed had the energy been more powerful."
Rodney felt a different kind of tightness in his chest. "So Sheppard told me."
Carson continued, "Or it could’ve damaged your lungs or heart irreparably. As it is, you’re burnt and sore, with a couple of cracked ribs to add to the minor concussion, but you’ll get better in time."
John stood up and patted Carson on the back. "I'll get a copy of the readings from the Jumper for McKay. Take good care of him."
"That I will," Carson replied knowingly.
They both left Rodney alone and he glanced along himself. He wasn’t wearing a scrub top, but the bandages and thin sheet covered most of him. His mind was foggy and dull from the drugs, so when Carson came back over a minute later holding a large needle, it took him a good few seconds to start panicking.
"What’s that?" His voice shook, "I said I don't feel anything."
Carson narrowed his eyes, "Just a mild sedative to help you relax."
"No no no! I don't need it!"
"It's for your own good."
Rodney struggled to get up and away from Carson, but a firm hand on his chest pinned him down and made him gasp. "C-Carson? What are you doing?"
His reply was the sting of a needle and then dreamless induced sleep.
----------
When Rodney woke up an unknown length of time later, he was still in the infirmary but alone.
The fluid bags had run dry and his insides were throbbing and screaming at him for painkillers. He called out and pressed the button by his bed, but no-one came.
"Carson?" he cried softly into the empty room. "In pain here." He was still sitting upright, which was better because he could see all around without shifting. But even staying still was hurting more than he could stand, his eyes started to water and he trembled. "Ouch."
He decided enough was enough, he'd either have to find help, or locate some painkillers himself. He felt so bad, he thought he was going to die.
Clutching his middle with his unhurt left arm, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and breathed harshly until the points of light and greyness in his vision faded. "Where's my computer, Sheppard?" he spat into the emptiness. His breath hitched, "Where's the patient loving care, Carson?"
He stumbled upright and shuffled over to the lab. Leaning heavily on the doorframe, he tried not to throw up or collapse - either of which would result in a one way trip down to the hard, uninviting floor.
Carson was standing in the lab, as though in a trance. When Rodney's heavy breathing sounds and low whimpers reached him, he turned around, his face full of awe.
"Isn't this amazing!?" Carson asked.
"Uh, not really. Unless you count the amazing amount of pain I'm suffering here."
"This is incredible," Carson persisted. He looked around at the computers and equipment. "Who knew such places and feelings existed?"
Rodney frowned, but he wasn't holding out too well, so anger rather than curiosity over Carson's words won out. "Just give me something and I’ll leave you to your pointless staring!"
"Och, keep your pants on, Rodney." Carson went over to a cabinet and pulled out a small bottle of pills and pressed them into Rodney’s good hand. "Take a couple of those."
"What, no more IV lines, fluids and heart monitor things?"
But Carson was no longer listening where his face shone with innocent wonder at the bright light of the cabinet before him. "Amazing!" he gasped.
Rodney was left to his own devices again. He picked up Carson's discarded radio, dry swallowed some of the small pills and pulled on a scrub top from the supply cabinet with great difficulty. He couldn't face bending down to try shoes yet, so staggered barefooted back to his bed and sat on the edge.
The pills he had taken helped to ease the pain a little and his mind cleared enough to think straight now that it wasn't so preoccupied. He tapped the headset, "McKay to Sheppard."
No reply.
"McKay to Weir?"
Nothing.
Rodney tried everyone he could think of, his team, the marines whose names he could remember (he hoped).
Finally, "Zelenka?"
"Rodney! It is good to hear your voice, you are you, yes?"
"Well, burnt and ignored, but last time I checked, why? What's going on?"
"Cannot speak. Come to lab six. And avoid them."
"Them?" But Radek had already cut the connection.
Rodney sighed and retrieved a pair of crutches from Carson’s supply cabinet. With his right arm damaged, he could only use one, but figured it should keep him stable. But even with the pills he'd taken and now tucked the bottle in his pocket, it hurt like hell on... Atlantis.
----------
When Rodney reached the designated lab, twenty minutes later, having not seen anyone at all on the way, he found the door was sealed and the usual tricks didn’t work to open it up.
He tapped his radio, "Zelenka, I'm here."
"Thank goodness. I had to install new subroutines to prevent anyone entering. Even Colonel Sheppard with his powerful gene cannot open it."
"Okay, let me in then."
A few seconds later and the door opened. Radek quickly helped Rodney inside and then sealed it up again.
"What happened to you, Rodney?!" Radek asked with his eyes wide in alarm as they took in the unhealthy pallor of Rodney’s skin, along with the bloodstained scrubs and bandaged arm. "They said you had been injured, but did not say how badly. I was going to visit you before this happened."
Rodney winced and shuffled over to one of the chairs and collapsed down with a huff. He shut his eyes and asked, "And what exactly is this? I just saw Carson all excited about the pretty lights on the computers, and forgetting about basic patient care. I didn't see anyone in the corridors, and no-one except for you answered the radio."
Radek shut his eyes tightly for a moment before he came over and turned a laptop around. It showed the data from the puddle jumper sensors. "You brought something back from your mission."
"Apart from extensive burns?"
"Look."
Rodney narrowed his eyes at the data and frowned. "So, Sheppard was right. The energy wasn't just random energy, but a life form."
"Forms. I do not know how many yet, but I believe they have transferred to everyone on base except for you and me so far."
Radek sniffed and rubbed his forehead.
"Why not us?"
"I do not know. The people I encountered seemed as you described Carson - lost in wonder, rather than hostility. I do not know what they want."
Rodney sat forward and clutched his belly. "They were attracted to energy readings in space. We should try that vessel the Ancients used for the energy creature we released when we first got to Atlantis."
Radek sighed and pushed up his glasses, pinching his nose as he did so. "First thing I tried. It did not work."
Rodney frowned as Radek screwed his eyes tightly closed and released a small hiss. "Are you alright?"
Radek blinked. "It is just a headache."
"Here," Rodney said as he passed the pills to Radek. "Crazy Carson gave them to me."
Radek eyed the pot suspiciously. "Tylenol? Is that all he gave you for this?" He gestured down at Rodney’s chest before taking a couple and passed them back to him. "Thanks."
Rodney hummed and started to type one-handed. "So, isolate the energy reading obtained in the Jumper, feed it through to calibrate the main sensors and..." He hit the enter key. His face fell. "And... we have a massive problem."
Radek leant in and looked at the map of Atlantis on the screen now. "Oh, that is not good."
The screen was covered in points of light. The creatures were in everyone else and in every computer system.
----------
Rodney and Radek spent the next half an hour bouncing ideas around, but getting nowhere. Radek’s idea for using the cable trick again to draw the energy creatures out was quickly dismissed by Rodney - they would have to do it to everyone simultaneously, but there was no way with Rodney injured, and everyone scattered around Atlantis they could.
Rodney was performing some highly complex calculations into whether it would be possible to electrify the floor to draw them out (without killing everyone), when Radek suddenly blinked and looked up from his computer where he sat opposite Rodney. He gazed around the lab with eyes wide and said, "This is amazing!"
Rodney frowned in irritation and tore himself away from his screen. "What? Do you have something?"
Rodney raised an eyebrow and leant over the desk with gritted teeth at the reawakened pain the movement caused. He gave Radek a hard pinch on the arm. Radek threw back his head and screamed.
Rodney flinched with a small cry of his own drowned out by the banshee-like noise emanating from Radek.
Who knew such a small man could create and sustain such a long and terrible note?
Radek panted and then the pain in his voice suddenly just cut out and he looked around bewildered. "Rodney? What happened? My arm hurts."
"I was testing a theory. And, as usual, I was right."
Radek only had time to frown in confusion, before the veil fell again and he stared at Rodney blankly, and then in wonder.
"But how can I make it permanent without hurting everyone?" Rodney muttered, overcome by a sudden faintness the movement had caused. He used his waning strength to pull up the map of Atlantis again and found the largest concentration of energy - apparently in one lifesign. "John," he gasped, before he slid bonelessly from his chair to the floor and fell unconscious.
----------
Rodney shuffled along the corridor, gasping and panting, and focusing all his effort on not falling down or screaming. He had to find John. It was the only way to find out what the creatures wanted. Luckily, John was in the control room - also the only place Rodney could affect the slightly insane, pain and nausea fuelled plan he had.
The people he passed moved away from him with looks of fear, especially when he had to stop and lean against the wall and press his face to the cool metal to avoid throwing up or giving up.
His bout of unconsciousness and waking up on the hard floor hours later was still fresh in his memory. He had taken more pills and forced a powerbar down - the lab had a plentiful supply, he made sure they all did in case he got hungry. He’d probably get an earful from Carson about eating with his insides damaged, but he didn’t have a choice, he needed to make sure Carson came back to himself first.
Rodney knew he didn’t have a lot of time left before he would be too weak to go on, and there was no doubt in his mind that he would die soon after with everyone possessed and incapacitated as they were.
He made it to the control room, just barely, and was glad to see he wouldn’t have to crawl up the stairs, for John was standing in the middle of the gate room, staring at the stargate with wide, unblinking eyes.
"Doctor Rodney McKay," John said in a dull monotone, without turning around, making the other man nigh on jump out of his skin.
"Sheppard? Is that you?"
John turned around and frowned at Rodney whose legs were shaking as he struggled to remain upright and face off his friend. John merely narrowed his eyes and went back to staring at the gate.
"No then," Rodney hung his head down miserably. "What do you want? Why have you taken over the base?"
John replied in the same unnervingly smooth voice, "This is the first experience of sentience we have known. We are still the people we have taken over. We retain all of their memories - that is how we are able to speak to you now.
Rodney couldn’t help the breathless waver in his voice as he shouted, "But you're not them! Give them back!"
"We cannot."
Rodney allowed his legs to take control and lost his balance, sinking down to the floor as slowly as he could, John rounded on him and said, "What are you doing to us?!"
Rodney glanced up at him bleary eyed. "Nothing. I can’t do anything short of killing everyone on Atlantis."
John crouched down and placed his hand on Rodney’s chest, "We will find out, we are able to absorb knowledge through control or touch. Many of us are in this one being. We are strong enough together to withstand your pain for longer than a single one of us."
Rodney watched as a bright light travelled through John’s hand and into his chest. John flinched backwards and then widened his eyes. He left Rodney sitting there teetering on the brink as he ran up the control room steps and activated the citywide, calling all the energy creatures back to himself and placing his hands on the control console.
Rodney was pulled to his feet what felt like only moments later, but his mind was slow to connect and it could’ve been hours. He suspected he had fallen unconscious.
"This pain is intolerable," John said with many voices overlaid on his own. "Can you take us back?"
"Sure. Help me to the Jumper Bay." He might be dying, but to get rid of the impostors was a priority. The others could come and retrieve his remains later.
He was virtually carried by John and his many inhabitants. They all muttered the whole time about how much it hurt, in a way that made even Rodney’s constant complaints seem trivial and petty in comparison.
Rodney hoped whatever was ailing John wasn’t life threatening. As they went, he saw that everyone was lying passed out around the control room. But they still seemed to be breathing. For now.
Rodney was shoved into the pilot’s seat while John sat tight-eyed and breathing heavily next to him. He dialled the gate and a few seconds later they were once more out in space.
"What now?" Rodney asked as he watched the gate shut down behind them on the sensors. "Do I have to hit you or something to get them out?"
His question was answered a moment later, when John was engulfed in a yellowy orange light that quickly flew from him and through the windscreen. It glowed brightly in space for a moment, and then disappeared.
John glanced at Rodney in recognition and then shock flashed across his features, "Rodney, what happened? I’m really hungry." He then passed out and fell down onto the control panel.
"At least you’re using ‘I’ now, instead of ‘we.’" Rodney said quietly. "One John Sheppard is quite enough."
Now that the creatures had vanished into the void, Rodney quickly turned the Jumper about and dialled up Atlantis before the energy beings forgot why they were now back in space where they belonged. He sent through his IDC, but didn’t think there was anyone conscious to activate or deactivate the shield anyway.
He stayed awake just long enough to see that they’d got back safely and the autopilot snagged the Jumper to raise it into the bay above the control room. Rodney released a long breath and slumped over the control panel in the Jumper, utterly spent and no longer having any qualms about finally giving into the black that had been hovering and swooping down on him for a long time.
----------
The unconsciousness caused by the alien beings was only temporary, and the inhabitants of Atlantis soon awoke and found Rodney hurt. He was rushed to the infirmary. Antibiotics, painkillers and fluids were the order of the day while damaged soft tissue muscles, organs and skin healed.
Carson was angry at first about Rodney running around with such injuries and exacerbating them, but soon softened when Rodney mentioned that at the time Carson had seemed more interested in coloured lights than his patients.
Despite Rodney’s frequent highly vocal protests about his reddened skin and painful burns, Carson assured him there would be no permanent damage, perhaps some slight discolouration in his skin, but no really noticeable scarring.
Sheppard stayed with him for as long as he could before passing out in his chair, then being herded out by Carson. He said it was a small price to pay for what he believed he had caused.
Ronon and Teyla took his place, so that when Rodney woke up, there was always someone sitting with him. Ronon expressed regret that he hadn’t trained harder before the takeover - "Bruises would’ve kept them away," were the exact words he used.
Rodney even found Elizabeth sitting next to him one time. She furrowed her brow in concern and Rodney narrowed his eyes. "What, am I suddenly Mr Popular? Sorry, Doctor Popular, the man of the hour?"
Elizabeth’s face fell and she said, "Apparently so. How are you doing?"
"Better now that the base isn’t infested by moronic zombies, at least not as much as usual."
"Rodney," she warned.
Rodney picked at the sheet, but had to stop when his right arm let out a particularly alarming throb. "If I knew being a hero always resulted in an infirmary trip, I’d have stayed on Earth."
Elizabeth pursed her lips but didn’t rise to the bait. "There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you."
Rodney rolled his eyes, "So now for the reason why you’re really here. I didn’t think it was hero worship somehow."
She smiled slyly, "There’s no fooling you is there?"
Rodney gave her deeply vulnerable look in return, slightly spoiled by the lopsided smirk he couldn’t quite prevent.
"Is it dangerous allowing them back into space like that?" Weir asked. "Could they have kept all the knowledge they took from us?"
Rodney sighed, "I don’t think so. A body with a mind to store the information is required. Like the energy creature we found when we first got here, they’re running on pure instinct. Nothing more."
"I hope you’re right."
John returned then, with a tray bearing the largest slice of cake Rodney had ever seen, along with at least five pots of jello. Ronon and Teyla were following, each with their own trays.
Elizabeth got up and looked down at Rodney. "I’m glad you’re feeling better, Rodney."
John took her place and balanced the tray on his lap. Ronon and Teyla brought out a couple more chairs and settled down.
Rodney’s mouth watered as he looked around at all the food. "So, I have to watch you all eat now? That’s worse than being stuck here with this," he waved his hand with the IV line taped down to it.
Ronon said through a mouthful of what looked like a whole loaf of bread he had already partially demolished, "Beckett said you could."
Rodney eyed the slice of cake on John’s tray. John caught him looking and frowned, "Hey! That’s mine. I got the jello for you." He picked up the pot and waggled it enticingly.
Rodney looked away and huffed a sad little, "Oh."
Teyla gave John a none too subtle nudge in the ribs. John turned and looked around the infirmary and lowered his voice, "Well, Carson said nothing too heavy, but I won’t tell him if you don’t."
He passed the cake to Rodney and started spooning the jello down.
Teyla was less enthusiastic about eating quite so much as the men around her, but smiled all the same and looked directly at Rodney as she said, "We are all very grateful for what you did, Rodney. It is difficult to imagine what would’ve happened had you not found the strength."
Rodney stopped eating for a moment (but made sure he’d swallowed first) as he looked at her slack-jawed. "She of the painful whacking sticks called me strong? Can I have that in writing?"
Teyla’s expression turned incredulous. "What I meant was that we are glad you were not permanently harmed and are now on the mend. We are indebted to you."
"Keep digging," John said through a mouthful.
Rodney was beaming with a dreamy expression. He looked upwards and whispered, "Strong."
Ronon sensed a Rodney McKay sized gloat coming on, so quickly smirked and said, "Let’s see how strong you are when you can spar again."
Rodney’s face instantly fell into an expression similar to a small animal caught in the oncoming headlights - an expression that had not as yet failed to garner his team’s sympathies.
John cleared his swallowed and frowned. "Do you remember what happened out there? I have this vague memory that's been bothering me for a few days: I woke up with an electric cable stuffed into my tac vest and found you unconscious and badly burnt, bruised and bleeding on the deck."
Rodney narrowed his eyes and drew his unhurt arm up towards his chest protectively.
"But there's more," John said. "I've got my hands on the control panel, not to fly, but absorbing data directly. It flows up my hands and arms and into my mind, like your computer gets information through a cable. Then getting back to Atlantis, it’s really strange, but it's almost like I'm trapped in my own mind, and someone, or something else is in control."
Rodney nodded in understanding. "Radek has been here a few times too, when you’re not all clamouring for an autograph from your saviour."
Three pairs of eyes rolled at the same time.
Rodney carried on, either oblivious, or unfazed, "We deduced that the aliens passed from person to person over a course of time. When they were in enough systems and had enough people infected, they took control of all the hosts at the same time. That way there was little risk that they would be found out and isolated. They must’ve had a collective consciousness to communicate and come back to Sheppard at the end."
Rodney grimaced and continued, "It seemed that the creatures liked the nice things, but had a zero tolerance for pain of any kind. They didn’t realise that their hosts had to eat solid food, they probably draw their own sustenance from the gate or space. Perhaps even stars themselves."
Teyla said, "So, the strongest foe was ultimately defeated by hunger."
Ronon grinned at Rodney, "We’ll have to remember to keep feeding you then."
John reached across swiped the one remaining piece of food from Ronon’s tray and passed it to Rodney. It was a large bowl of fruit salad.
Ronon frowned at John and then shrugged.
Rodney grinned back at him and tucked in, not bothering to swallow before speaking. "So, somewhere out there, there’s a little community in the middle of the void. We’ll have to mark that gate as off limits."
"Already done," John said.
Rodney hummed and his face was filled with an expression of over exaggerated bliss, much to Ronon’s chagrin.
"Strong?" Ronon grunted.
Rodney’s face fell a fraction and his voice rose in panic, "Not until Carson says so. I have a feeling it could be a while until the guilt has worn off."
Ronon raised his eyebrows. He could be quite persuasive when he needed to be.
----------
At least one member of Rodney’s team stayed with him until he was released and signed off back to work.
He went back with the new and terrifying knowledge that space was not as empty as it seemed...
Author: x_varda_x
Genre: Angst
Prompt Three strikes and you’re out
Word Count: 8100
Rating: 12A
Warnings: None
Summary: A space gate seemingly leading nowhere, strange readings hours out into deep space and a lightning struck Puddle Jumper? All in a day’s work for John and Rodney. Set late Season 2.
Chapter One
"Why did we leave Teyla and Ronon behind?" John asked from the pilot's chair in the Puddle Jumper.
Rodney was analysing sensor readouts on his tablet, but paused for a fraction of a second to give him a snarky reply. "Unless you want to have hours on end of 'I'm bored' or 'I’m fed up, can I hit you now?' quips to motivate us, we didn't need them to come."
John blinked at the star canvass out of the windscreen. "Well, it still feels strange. What if there's something to land on or explore?"
"We can go back and get them." Rodney continued to type away. "Besides, I'm perfectly capable of flying the ship and taking readings at the same time on my own, but there’s this annoying regulation in place that says I'm not allowed."
John smiled. "We like to know that all the scientists are well wrapped up in protection. Anyway, we're over two hours out, have you found anything yet or should we just send the Daedalus in a week?"
"You’re asking whether we’re nearly there yet. Now who’s being childish?" Rodney sighed and rubbed his eyes. "I don't know. The previous team picked up the readings an hour away from the gate. Are you, by any chance, flying really slowly to wind me up?"
John scowled, "No. It may not look like we're going anywhere, but the engines are at maximum."
"Hmm, well, keep going then. It’s too much of a chance to pass up. The readings could’ve dissipated by the time the Daedalus gets here. We need data better than those infantile paintings the others brought back. We can run some more in depth scans that can be analysed straight away by someone with a brain."
"So, what will you be doing then?" John asked as he resolutely stared out of the windscreen and pressed a few buttons for no reason.
Rodney sighed heavily. "Ha ha. Not funny." He then went back to busily tapping away on his computer.
"How long until we get so far away from the gate that the radios stop working for check ins?"
"Not for a long time. Remember the Lagrangian Point Satellite?" Rodney grimaced. "That was hours away from Atlantis, but we could still talk."
John tilted his head slowly and drawled, "Okay. But don’t let us go beyond the edge or we could get lost."
John frowned out at the stars, he’d tried counting them to alleviate the boredom, but lost it around the two hundred mark when Rodney told him to alter course. That was the most exciting thing that had happened so far. Rodney seemed well entertained though, so John didn’t say anything. He was a pilot, so not unused to uneventful, tedious journeys. But at least on Earth there had been clouds, and sky, and air currents, and the tapestry of the ground rolling by under his plane. Out here in the void, there was nothing at all. Why the hell the Ancients had put a gate out here was a complete mystery.
So there they were, hurtling through emptiness at top speed, yet getting nowhere.
----------
"Ah-ha!" Rodney cried an hour later.
John jumped and widened his eyes, eager to see what Rodney could see on his computer out of the windscreen. "What is it?"
"Something… Hmm... Yes! There it is again!"
"There's what, McKay?" John asked in excitement.
Rodney’s hands started to flap in time with his words, wildly gesturing out at the dark void around them. "So far it's been the usual space currents and background noise, but I just detected an anomalous power reading out there. It's intermittent and coming from here."
Rodney used his ATA gene to hijack John's control for a moment to bring up the HUD. A bright blob of red was flashing as few thousand kilometres away. John slowed the Jumper from the breakneck speed it was cutting through the vacuum, and changed direction.
He quickly checked the readout to make sure the Gate was still on the sensors. It was, so he sighed in relief and kept going. Nothing would be worse than getting stranded out here with McKay at close quarters while they waited for the Daedalus to find and retrieve them. The Jumper was loaded with enough supplies just in case, but it wouldn’t be pleasant when that hatch was opened in a week’s time.
"Any ideas what it is?" John asked, as the reading moved again. It didn’t float to the new location, but seemed to jump from one place to another, several hundred kilometres from its original position.
"I have many ideas, about many things, but we need to be a lot closer."
"No clue then?"
Rodney scowled. "I'll be able to use the main scanners rather than these tiny little useless ones which would have trouble picking out a Hive Ship from the Daedalus out here. But we have to be right on top of it."
John felt a protective streak coming on, "Hey, the sensors aren’t that bad!"
Rodney rolled his eyes and snarled, "You know what I mean."
A few seconds later, the energy reading moved again. Now that the Jumper was nearer to it, John saw that it was not actually one blob of energy, but lots of smaller ones in a tight group.
John swerved the Jumper when the energy appeared right in their flight path, but it was too late, and the Jumper was going far too fast. The ship went right through them, the lights went out and the engines died.
They were dead in the water, but still moving imperceptibly onwards into oblivion.
----------
With all the power now gone, the artificial gravity deactivated. John grabbed the chair armrests to keep from floating away. "McKay!" he shouted. "Report."
Rodney was frantically trying to get his tablet rebooted, but it wouldn’t work. He turned to look at John, his eyes wide and afraid in the soft star glow. "I can only deduce that it was an EMP. But strong enough to take out a Jumper? Out here in the middle of empty space? It makes no sense."
John glared at him, "You're the genius, and I'm just the pilot, remember? Make it make sense!"
Rodney floundered and his mouth flopped up and down, "I don't know! I can't tell you what it is! My computer's broken so I can't even begin to figure it out."
John sighed softly, "Alright. But what about the power? We don't want to be like this for a week."
"Week?" Rodney couldn't suppress the nervous squeak. "We’ll only last a few hours, tops, without power. We're so dead."
"What?!"
"There’s no power, so no new air or heat circulating, what we're breathing is what we've got. The same goes for the heat. Which do you think it'll be first?" Rodney’s voice rose another octave in panic, "Asphyxiation or hypothermia? Maybe we should just shoot each other?"
"McKay! Running your mouth won’t fix it, and will just use up all the air. Although I'm sure the heat will last us a couple more seconds, stop talking and start fixing!"
"Okay, okay, Colonel, keep your goggles on. It's only been a minute, do you have hypoxia already?"
Rodney grabbed a torch from his vest and clicked it on - at least that worked - then pushed himself up out of the seat. A little too hard, for he went flying into the ceiling and only just saved his head in time by putting his hands up. He grunted and pushed off more gently and flew out into the rear compartment. He pulled down the crystal tray, set the torch floating nearby with the beam aimed, and used both hands to fiddle with the dark crystals within.
He sighed and grabbed a toolkit from the net. He installed new crystals in various different places, in a way that was beyond John’s comprehension. How Rodney told them apart, and where they went, he had no idea. They all looked the same to him. But then aircraft all sounded the same to people who didn’t know, yet John could tell them all apart even with his eyes closed.
Suddenly the power came back on and John thumped down in his seat heavily. He had got used to the nice feeling of not having to support any weight, and nearly face planted on the console. "Give me some warning!"
Rodney was on his feet, not having fallen at all. He had been grinning smugly, but rolled his eyes at John’s comment. "Oh, sorry, Colonel, I knew that the last crystal was going to be the one, so I forgot to tell you so that you hurt your back on purpose."
John brought up the HUD and watched the energy reading that was still out there. It wasn’t jumping like before, but gliding through space now. Either that or the Jumper was moving, but the sensors were only working on short-range. Without being able to find the gate as a point of reference, there was no way of knowing.
John called out, "They’re coming back!"
Rodney frowned incredulously, "First off: ‘They?’ It’s an energy reading, nothing more."
"Then why are they following us?"
"The movement isn’t some instinct or innate reaction or sentience. Like electricity can jump across gaps, so the energy is attracted to us."
"Who woke up on the wrong side of sceptical this morning?"
"Seriously, there’s nothing to prove that they’re alive. No life signs, only energy." He waved his hands at John and then at the dark-screened tablet now on the floor in the cockpit.
John shrugged. "When it comes down to it, aren’t we just energy too? I mean, you said nothing proves they’re alive, but have you proven that they aren’t?"
Rodney narrowed his eyes, but kept quiet.
"Do we have enough power to fire a drone?"
Rodney looked at the tray and unfocused his eyes for a moment. "Yes."
"Good."
John fired the drone away from the ship and waited. He soon cried out in triumph, "They’re following it!"
Rodney stood pensively in the doorway, tracking the progress of the weapon and the readings on the HUD. They soon stopped following the drone and came back towards the Jumper.
John raised his eyebrows. "You were saying?"
"It proves nothing."
"But they lost interest in the drone!"
Rodney dashed back into the rear compartment talking all the while. "I know. It’s the larger energy reading they want. Which is us."
Rodney quickly pulled out the last crystal he had put in and cut the power before the energy hit them again.
Rodney waited a few seconds to be sure the energy was clear, then sighed and pushed the crystal he was holding back into the slot again.
"Brace for impact!" John shouted.
Rodney just had time to cry, "What?!" before it hit again.
This time, it took longer for it to get to the rerouted secondary power relays Rodney had rigged up. The crystal tray next to his head sparked and hissed and he ducked down and covered his head as a tendril of energy lanced out of the tray and into the opposite wall, missing Rodney by inches. But he felt the heat across his back, and flinched away from it with a shriek of manly terror. The unpleasant smell of singed hair and cloth met his nostrils.
Rodney tried to get out of the way when a second massive energy discharge spewed from the crystal tray. He wasn't quite fast enough this time. It struck him and went right through, ending its eventful journey by destroying half the netting on the opposite side. Rodney cried out as he was enveloped in it and flung back into the wall. He was too stunned to register any pain yet, and was greeted by rapidly flying, newly-weightless, yet sharp, crates unleashed from the damaged net.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that John was still apparently unharmed where he had started to float up from the pilot’s chair in the cockpit, and Rodney found some comfort in that.
Rodney couldn’t breathe at all as his muscles went into spasm and his diaphragm refused to do its job. The respiratory arrest lasted long enough for his vision to grey and he curled inwards to try and restart his breathing. He eventually managed to grunt out a small, "Guh!" and coughed harshly.
Something heavy hit the back of Rodney’s head and then all he knew was the voidlike darkness of the one surrounding the ship he was inside - a tiny harbour of light, warmth and air in the limitless vacuum.
----------
Rodney woke up and groaned. He felt light and couldn't move. It was still hard to breathe, but he could.
His mind reconnected sluggishly, like it was wrapped in cotton wool, and the pain level increased. "Oh no," he whispered. "I hit my head! Hmm, I hit my back too, so maybe it's just good old fractured vertebrae paralysis."
His body was burning with pain in some places, but the rest of him felt icy cold and he was dizzy and soon started hyperventilating. A tight band compressed his chest and the burning changed into outright screaming throughout his torso.
Working on Atlantis, he had long ago learnt that Ancient tech energy burns were different to the Earth electric ones. But no less painful.
"Sh-sheppard," he gasped, and finally opened his eyes.
Rodney found that he was floating in the middle of the rear compartment and not actually paralysed, just weightless. There was a cloud of liquid around him, and it was so dark he could hardly see, but he could unfortunately feel enough to know that he was in a bad way - of the burnt and concussed, broken and bleeding variety
"Sheppard?" Rodney asked, stronger this time, but his chest hurt to breathe and speaking was worse.
He can't have been out for long, otherwise he'd be dead already from the lack of power. But his watch was broken, and the stretch of skin required to move his arm made him release an involuntary whimper.
John was floating freely in the cockpit, apparently unconscious, but Rodney couldn’t see any injuries. Maybe a tendril had caught him too? Maybe it had been strong enough to kill?!
Rodney struggled to control his breathing, the cramped space of the Jumper closed in around him, he was utterly alone, cold, hurt and frightened.
He reached out to the wall nearest him and pushed himself in the direction of the cockpit to find out the worst. As he approached, he caught a glimpse of a shining ring of metal hanging in space out of the windscreen.
"The gate?" he whispered. "How did we get back here so quickly?!" But there were more pressing issues to attend to - like finding out if John was still alive, and then getting the Jumper powered up to dial and get them home.
He left more of his bloody plasma gorily hanging in the air in his wake, but he was nothing but a mass of throbbing, stinging soreness, so had no idea where it had come from. His only small consolation was the gravity wasn't pulling on his wounds.
He bumped into John lightly and winced. He braced himself as best he could as he reached out a trembling bloody hand and smeared red fingerprints on John's neck as he tried to find a pulse.
To Rodney’s shock, he found one; strong and steady, unlike his own which was pumping furiously fast.
"Sheppard?" Rodney said hoarsely. "Wake up. You have to wake up. We've lost secondary power and I need your help to fix the ship." He let out a resigned sigh. "I can't do it on my own," he finished sadly.
John's eyes suddenly snapped open, he narrowed them at Rodney and then at the bulkhead walls surrounding them.
"Colonel, what happened? Are you injured?" It was easier to ask John to draw attention away from the horrendous pain he was in from his many hurts. And people had the nerve to call him self-centred and selfish!
John's eyes opened fully, but there was no flash of recognition in them. Nothing at all, and Rodney would’ve flinched backwards had he been able to, but that was reserved for those who had the luxury of gravity and a fully working body at their disposal. Rodney couldn’t move out of the way in time as John's hand moved up and he pressed it into the centre of Rodney’s chest and pushed.
Rodney cried out in pain at the contact, and then at the equally hard impact of his back against the wall.
Once he had recovered his breath, he called out, "Ouch, Sheppard! Ow ow and ow! What the hell did you do that for? Serious injuries here! Not that I find your face anything nice to wake up to either, especially not after another round with our energy challenged foe."
John positioned himself above the pilot’s console and jammed his hands down against it. His head flew back as white tendrils of energy wrapped around his wrists and he formed a connection with the panel.
"Wh-what are you doing?" Rodney called to him. He pushed off from the wall and drifted over. "Where's that power coming from? Why aren't you saying anything?" Rodney's eyes widened, "Unless..."
Rodney pushed himself into the rear compartment, his chest was getting tighter. His breaths didn’t seem to be fuelling his body with enough oxygen and his mind began to wander. It was either the lack of air, or his injuries making him feel that way, but it was terrifying all the same.
He grabbed an extra long power cable out of the rack and let it go to drift within grabbing distance nearby. He shoved his smarting hands into a pair of insulating gloves, plugged the cable into the crystal tray and pulled the other end into the cockpit.
Rodney gritted his teeth as he reached forwards, making sure that no part of his body, other than his hands came into contact with John, he pushed the business end of the cable into the back of John's tac vest at the collar.
John was so busy getting dosed up on the console that he didn't seem to notice. His expression was one of wonder and ecstasy, and Rodney didn’t bother to hide his revolted grimace before going back to the crystal tray once more.
The air was thick with rusty red and liquid now, and Rodney couldn’t help it as some landed on his exposed skin and face. He screwed his eyes tightly closed where they watered and he tasted metal. He knew it was his own blood, and that made him feel nauseous. It was one thing to have blood floating around; disgorged stomach contents would be quite something to contend with in zero-G.
He swallowed compulsively and fumbled the crystals with his cumbersome gloves. He didn't want to take them off, as what he was about to do was extremely dangerous and could deliver a zap of power that would kill them both. That and they'd also got stuck to the burns on the exposed flesh of his hands. He just wasn't ready to add that level of pain to his already numerous woes.
The crystals he used were the very last ones in the emergency kit - the only ones that still had some power. If this didn’t work, he was facing a very slow and already agonisingly painful death. Atlantis would check in eventually and find them both frozen to death and without air.
But Rodney wasn’t going to give up, especially not because crazy possessed John needed helping too. Even though his plan had its risks - they usually did, Rodney, being a genius of galactic proportions, also made mistakes at the same galactic scale, he shuddered and winced - the alternative was far worse.
Rodney pushed the last crystal in and watched in apprehension as visible white energy flowed along the cable from John and into the crystal tray.
The Jumper lights came on, and Rodney fell to the floor heavily. He rolled over and wrapped his arms around himself in a vain attempt at a comforting hug and shook as water leaked from his eyes. The reactivated gravity pulled his burns until they opened and hurt worse than ever before. His mind floated away and the trembling lessened until he passed from all awareness.
----------
Hands grasped his shoulders and a voice drifted into his traumatised mind, "McKay? McKay!"
Rodney opened his mouth and gasped in a breath, the now familiar steel band wrapped around his middle was still cutting off the air supply. A touch ghosted over his face and patted gently. There was cool air, gravity, light and warmth - and burning agony to go with it as an added reminder of the fun of being human and mortal and alive. Yep, definitely, painfully, still alive.
"Rodney, what happened to you?"
"Electrocuted by the energy balls." He laughed and winced. "The lightning struck Puddle Jumper!" Okay, this was bad. Why was he laughing? It hurt like he was about to die, but the universe was cruel in that respect, because it refused to let him go. When he opened his eyes, John was crouching over him, gently grasping Rodney’s gloved wrist while he studied the angry red marks showing through the cloth covering on his right arm.
Rodney was grateful to see John hadn't tried to pull off any clothing stuck to the wounds.
"There are nasty burns on your front and back. I think you hit your head too, as there’s a bit of an egg on the back of your head. Looks like a bird’s nest."
Rodney grimaced at the analogy and reached up his free hand to gingerly probe the area. It hurt and he winced. Why did he do that?! John could still be trusted, right? It was merely the concussion that threw out random memories that he had been taken over by a strange energy reading. He was, after all, now finally noticing Rodney’s numerous injuries.
Rodney glanced into the cockpit and saw stars beyond the windscreen. He asked, "Where are we?"
John paused and lowered Rodney’s arm down so carefully he almost didn’t feel it. "We’re by the gate. I needed to make sure you weren’t bleeding out before going the rest of the way."
Rodney narrowed his eyes as an idea struck him. "You found it? I thought the sensors didn’t have enough power."
John frowned in confusion. "I don’t remember how we got here."
Rodney felt fear grip him as the expression on his friend’s face reminded him of when John had been out of himself - before he had connected himself to the control panel anyway. Rodney tried to sit up and move away, but John kept him pinned with a hand on his unhurt shoulder. The pain was now too much to move anyway, his whole body felt full of acid and twisting knives, so Rodney could only brace himself.
But John merely waved him off, "Full power's back. I don't know how you did it, but you did good, Rodney. The energy readings have gone, and we seem to be right next to the gate. How did that happen?"
"I was going to ask you the same thing," Rodney said weakly, hurting too much to be overly concerned by John’s obvious confusion and repetition.
John squeezed Rodney’s shoulder gently and said, "Well, we can figure it out later. First off, let’s head home and get you all fixed up."
Rodney couldn’t argue with that course of action and let his eyes close as he fell unconscious again.
----------
Chapter Two
Rodney woke up slowly with the sensation of well suppressed pain in his midsection. "How long?" he asked anyone who happened to be nearby.
"A few hours."
Rodney opened his eyes and looked around. He was propped up in the bed to lessen the pressure on his back, and could feel bandages wound around him.
John was sitting next to him. "Carson says you've got some pretty impressive energy burns to your front and back and inside."
Rodney grimaced.
"Lucky it wasn’t actual electricity or you'd be dead now."
Rodney's mouth down-turned even further. He took the opportunity to look around and saw that there were bags of fluid hanging up around him draining into his body through many needles.
"What about the Jumper?" Rodney asked, "It's not playing host to millions of energy creatures?"
John narrowed his eyes. "No. Zelenka checked it over. Nothing in the logs and nothing untoward."
Rodney sighed sadly. "Well, I'll have a look at it later."
John beckoned Carson over.
"I see you're up, lad. How're you feeling?"
"Nothing."
"Aye, that’s good. You could’ve been killed had the energy been more powerful."
Rodney felt a different kind of tightness in his chest. "So Sheppard told me."
Carson continued, "Or it could’ve damaged your lungs or heart irreparably. As it is, you’re burnt and sore, with a couple of cracked ribs to add to the minor concussion, but you’ll get better in time."
John stood up and patted Carson on the back. "I'll get a copy of the readings from the Jumper for McKay. Take good care of him."
"That I will," Carson replied knowingly.
They both left Rodney alone and he glanced along himself. He wasn’t wearing a scrub top, but the bandages and thin sheet covered most of him. His mind was foggy and dull from the drugs, so when Carson came back over a minute later holding a large needle, it took him a good few seconds to start panicking.
"What’s that?" His voice shook, "I said I don't feel anything."
Carson narrowed his eyes, "Just a mild sedative to help you relax."
"No no no! I don't need it!"
"It's for your own good."
Rodney struggled to get up and away from Carson, but a firm hand on his chest pinned him down and made him gasp. "C-Carson? What are you doing?"
His reply was the sting of a needle and then dreamless induced sleep.
----------
When Rodney woke up an unknown length of time later, he was still in the infirmary but alone.
The fluid bags had run dry and his insides were throbbing and screaming at him for painkillers. He called out and pressed the button by his bed, but no-one came.
"Carson?" he cried softly into the empty room. "In pain here." He was still sitting upright, which was better because he could see all around without shifting. But even staying still was hurting more than he could stand, his eyes started to water and he trembled. "Ouch."
He decided enough was enough, he'd either have to find help, or locate some painkillers himself. He felt so bad, he thought he was going to die.
Clutching his middle with his unhurt left arm, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and breathed harshly until the points of light and greyness in his vision faded. "Where's my computer, Sheppard?" he spat into the emptiness. His breath hitched, "Where's the patient loving care, Carson?"
He stumbled upright and shuffled over to the lab. Leaning heavily on the doorframe, he tried not to throw up or collapse - either of which would result in a one way trip down to the hard, uninviting floor.
Carson was standing in the lab, as though in a trance. When Rodney's heavy breathing sounds and low whimpers reached him, he turned around, his face full of awe.
"Isn't this amazing!?" Carson asked.
"Uh, not really. Unless you count the amazing amount of pain I'm suffering here."
"This is incredible," Carson persisted. He looked around at the computers and equipment. "Who knew such places and feelings existed?"
Rodney frowned, but he wasn't holding out too well, so anger rather than curiosity over Carson's words won out. "Just give me something and I’ll leave you to your pointless staring!"
"Och, keep your pants on, Rodney." Carson went over to a cabinet and pulled out a small bottle of pills and pressed them into Rodney’s good hand. "Take a couple of those."
"What, no more IV lines, fluids and heart monitor things?"
But Carson was no longer listening where his face shone with innocent wonder at the bright light of the cabinet before him. "Amazing!" he gasped.
Rodney was left to his own devices again. He picked up Carson's discarded radio, dry swallowed some of the small pills and pulled on a scrub top from the supply cabinet with great difficulty. He couldn't face bending down to try shoes yet, so staggered barefooted back to his bed and sat on the edge.
The pills he had taken helped to ease the pain a little and his mind cleared enough to think straight now that it wasn't so preoccupied. He tapped the headset, "McKay to Sheppard."
No reply.
"McKay to Weir?"
Nothing.
Rodney tried everyone he could think of, his team, the marines whose names he could remember (he hoped).
Finally, "Zelenka?"
"Rodney! It is good to hear your voice, you are you, yes?"
"Well, burnt and ignored, but last time I checked, why? What's going on?"
"Cannot speak. Come to lab six. And avoid them."
"Them?" But Radek had already cut the connection.
Rodney sighed and retrieved a pair of crutches from Carson’s supply cabinet. With his right arm damaged, he could only use one, but figured it should keep him stable. But even with the pills he'd taken and now tucked the bottle in his pocket, it hurt like hell on... Atlantis.
----------
When Rodney reached the designated lab, twenty minutes later, having not seen anyone at all on the way, he found the door was sealed and the usual tricks didn’t work to open it up.
He tapped his radio, "Zelenka, I'm here."
"Thank goodness. I had to install new subroutines to prevent anyone entering. Even Colonel Sheppard with his powerful gene cannot open it."
"Okay, let me in then."
A few seconds later and the door opened. Radek quickly helped Rodney inside and then sealed it up again.
"What happened to you, Rodney?!" Radek asked with his eyes wide in alarm as they took in the unhealthy pallor of Rodney’s skin, along with the bloodstained scrubs and bandaged arm. "They said you had been injured, but did not say how badly. I was going to visit you before this happened."
Rodney winced and shuffled over to one of the chairs and collapsed down with a huff. He shut his eyes and asked, "And what exactly is this? I just saw Carson all excited about the pretty lights on the computers, and forgetting about basic patient care. I didn't see anyone in the corridors, and no-one except for you answered the radio."
Radek shut his eyes tightly for a moment before he came over and turned a laptop around. It showed the data from the puddle jumper sensors. "You brought something back from your mission."
"Apart from extensive burns?"
"Look."
Rodney narrowed his eyes at the data and frowned. "So, Sheppard was right. The energy wasn't just random energy, but a life form."
"Forms. I do not know how many yet, but I believe they have transferred to everyone on base except for you and me so far."
Radek sniffed and rubbed his forehead.
"Why not us?"
"I do not know. The people I encountered seemed as you described Carson - lost in wonder, rather than hostility. I do not know what they want."
Rodney sat forward and clutched his belly. "They were attracted to energy readings in space. We should try that vessel the Ancients used for the energy creature we released when we first got to Atlantis."
Radek sighed and pushed up his glasses, pinching his nose as he did so. "First thing I tried. It did not work."
Rodney frowned as Radek screwed his eyes tightly closed and released a small hiss. "Are you alright?"
Radek blinked. "It is just a headache."
"Here," Rodney said as he passed the pills to Radek. "Crazy Carson gave them to me."
Radek eyed the pot suspiciously. "Tylenol? Is that all he gave you for this?" He gestured down at Rodney’s chest before taking a couple and passed them back to him. "Thanks."
Rodney hummed and started to type one-handed. "So, isolate the energy reading obtained in the Jumper, feed it through to calibrate the main sensors and..." He hit the enter key. His face fell. "And... we have a massive problem."
Radek leant in and looked at the map of Atlantis on the screen now. "Oh, that is not good."
The screen was covered in points of light. The creatures were in everyone else and in every computer system.
----------
Rodney and Radek spent the next half an hour bouncing ideas around, but getting nowhere. Radek’s idea for using the cable trick again to draw the energy creatures out was quickly dismissed by Rodney - they would have to do it to everyone simultaneously, but there was no way with Rodney injured, and everyone scattered around Atlantis they could.
Rodney was performing some highly complex calculations into whether it would be possible to electrify the floor to draw them out (without killing everyone), when Radek suddenly blinked and looked up from his computer where he sat opposite Rodney. He gazed around the lab with eyes wide and said, "This is amazing!"
Rodney frowned in irritation and tore himself away from his screen. "What? Do you have something?"
Rodney raised an eyebrow and leant over the desk with gritted teeth at the reawakened pain the movement caused. He gave Radek a hard pinch on the arm. Radek threw back his head and screamed.
Rodney flinched with a small cry of his own drowned out by the banshee-like noise emanating from Radek.
Who knew such a small man could create and sustain such a long and terrible note?
Radek panted and then the pain in his voice suddenly just cut out and he looked around bewildered. "Rodney? What happened? My arm hurts."
"I was testing a theory. And, as usual, I was right."
Radek only had time to frown in confusion, before the veil fell again and he stared at Rodney blankly, and then in wonder.
"But how can I make it permanent without hurting everyone?" Rodney muttered, overcome by a sudden faintness the movement had caused. He used his waning strength to pull up the map of Atlantis again and found the largest concentration of energy - apparently in one lifesign. "John," he gasped, before he slid bonelessly from his chair to the floor and fell unconscious.
----------
Rodney shuffled along the corridor, gasping and panting, and focusing all his effort on not falling down or screaming. He had to find John. It was the only way to find out what the creatures wanted. Luckily, John was in the control room - also the only place Rodney could affect the slightly insane, pain and nausea fuelled plan he had.
The people he passed moved away from him with looks of fear, especially when he had to stop and lean against the wall and press his face to the cool metal to avoid throwing up or giving up.
His bout of unconsciousness and waking up on the hard floor hours later was still fresh in his memory. He had taken more pills and forced a powerbar down - the lab had a plentiful supply, he made sure they all did in case he got hungry. He’d probably get an earful from Carson about eating with his insides damaged, but he didn’t have a choice, he needed to make sure Carson came back to himself first.
Rodney knew he didn’t have a lot of time left before he would be too weak to go on, and there was no doubt in his mind that he would die soon after with everyone possessed and incapacitated as they were.
He made it to the control room, just barely, and was glad to see he wouldn’t have to crawl up the stairs, for John was standing in the middle of the gate room, staring at the stargate with wide, unblinking eyes.
"Doctor Rodney McKay," John said in a dull monotone, without turning around, making the other man nigh on jump out of his skin.
"Sheppard? Is that you?"
John turned around and frowned at Rodney whose legs were shaking as he struggled to remain upright and face off his friend. John merely narrowed his eyes and went back to staring at the gate.
"No then," Rodney hung his head down miserably. "What do you want? Why have you taken over the base?"
John replied in the same unnervingly smooth voice, "This is the first experience of sentience we have known. We are still the people we have taken over. We retain all of their memories - that is how we are able to speak to you now.
Rodney couldn’t help the breathless waver in his voice as he shouted, "But you're not them! Give them back!"
"We cannot."
Rodney allowed his legs to take control and lost his balance, sinking down to the floor as slowly as he could, John rounded on him and said, "What are you doing to us?!"
Rodney glanced up at him bleary eyed. "Nothing. I can’t do anything short of killing everyone on Atlantis."
John crouched down and placed his hand on Rodney’s chest, "We will find out, we are able to absorb knowledge through control or touch. Many of us are in this one being. We are strong enough together to withstand your pain for longer than a single one of us."
Rodney watched as a bright light travelled through John’s hand and into his chest. John flinched backwards and then widened his eyes. He left Rodney sitting there teetering on the brink as he ran up the control room steps and activated the citywide, calling all the energy creatures back to himself and placing his hands on the control console.
Rodney was pulled to his feet what felt like only moments later, but his mind was slow to connect and it could’ve been hours. He suspected he had fallen unconscious.
"This pain is intolerable," John said with many voices overlaid on his own. "Can you take us back?"
"Sure. Help me to the Jumper Bay." He might be dying, but to get rid of the impostors was a priority. The others could come and retrieve his remains later.
He was virtually carried by John and his many inhabitants. They all muttered the whole time about how much it hurt, in a way that made even Rodney’s constant complaints seem trivial and petty in comparison.
Rodney hoped whatever was ailing John wasn’t life threatening. As they went, he saw that everyone was lying passed out around the control room. But they still seemed to be breathing. For now.
Rodney was shoved into the pilot’s seat while John sat tight-eyed and breathing heavily next to him. He dialled the gate and a few seconds later they were once more out in space.
"What now?" Rodney asked as he watched the gate shut down behind them on the sensors. "Do I have to hit you or something to get them out?"
His question was answered a moment later, when John was engulfed in a yellowy orange light that quickly flew from him and through the windscreen. It glowed brightly in space for a moment, and then disappeared.
John glanced at Rodney in recognition and then shock flashed across his features, "Rodney, what happened? I’m really hungry." He then passed out and fell down onto the control panel.
"At least you’re using ‘I’ now, instead of ‘we.’" Rodney said quietly. "One John Sheppard is quite enough."
Now that the creatures had vanished into the void, Rodney quickly turned the Jumper about and dialled up Atlantis before the energy beings forgot why they were now back in space where they belonged. He sent through his IDC, but didn’t think there was anyone conscious to activate or deactivate the shield anyway.
He stayed awake just long enough to see that they’d got back safely and the autopilot snagged the Jumper to raise it into the bay above the control room. Rodney released a long breath and slumped over the control panel in the Jumper, utterly spent and no longer having any qualms about finally giving into the black that had been hovering and swooping down on him for a long time.
----------
The unconsciousness caused by the alien beings was only temporary, and the inhabitants of Atlantis soon awoke and found Rodney hurt. He was rushed to the infirmary. Antibiotics, painkillers and fluids were the order of the day while damaged soft tissue muscles, organs and skin healed.
Carson was angry at first about Rodney running around with such injuries and exacerbating them, but soon softened when Rodney mentioned that at the time Carson had seemed more interested in coloured lights than his patients.
Despite Rodney’s frequent highly vocal protests about his reddened skin and painful burns, Carson assured him there would be no permanent damage, perhaps some slight discolouration in his skin, but no really noticeable scarring.
Sheppard stayed with him for as long as he could before passing out in his chair, then being herded out by Carson. He said it was a small price to pay for what he believed he had caused.
Ronon and Teyla took his place, so that when Rodney woke up, there was always someone sitting with him. Ronon expressed regret that he hadn’t trained harder before the takeover - "Bruises would’ve kept them away," were the exact words he used.
Rodney even found Elizabeth sitting next to him one time. She furrowed her brow in concern and Rodney narrowed his eyes. "What, am I suddenly Mr Popular? Sorry, Doctor Popular, the man of the hour?"
Elizabeth’s face fell and she said, "Apparently so. How are you doing?"
"Better now that the base isn’t infested by moronic zombies, at least not as much as usual."
"Rodney," she warned.
Rodney picked at the sheet, but had to stop when his right arm let out a particularly alarming throb. "If I knew being a hero always resulted in an infirmary trip, I’d have stayed on Earth."
Elizabeth pursed her lips but didn’t rise to the bait. "There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you."
Rodney rolled his eyes, "So now for the reason why you’re really here. I didn’t think it was hero worship somehow."
She smiled slyly, "There’s no fooling you is there?"
Rodney gave her deeply vulnerable look in return, slightly spoiled by the lopsided smirk he couldn’t quite prevent.
"Is it dangerous allowing them back into space like that?" Weir asked. "Could they have kept all the knowledge they took from us?"
Rodney sighed, "I don’t think so. A body with a mind to store the information is required. Like the energy creature we found when we first got here, they’re running on pure instinct. Nothing more."
"I hope you’re right."
John returned then, with a tray bearing the largest slice of cake Rodney had ever seen, along with at least five pots of jello. Ronon and Teyla were following, each with their own trays.
Elizabeth got up and looked down at Rodney. "I’m glad you’re feeling better, Rodney."
John took her place and balanced the tray on his lap. Ronon and Teyla brought out a couple more chairs and settled down.
Rodney’s mouth watered as he looked around at all the food. "So, I have to watch you all eat now? That’s worse than being stuck here with this," he waved his hand with the IV line taped down to it.
Ronon said through a mouthful of what looked like a whole loaf of bread he had already partially demolished, "Beckett said you could."
Rodney eyed the slice of cake on John’s tray. John caught him looking and frowned, "Hey! That’s mine. I got the jello for you." He picked up the pot and waggled it enticingly.
Rodney looked away and huffed a sad little, "Oh."
Teyla gave John a none too subtle nudge in the ribs. John turned and looked around the infirmary and lowered his voice, "Well, Carson said nothing too heavy, but I won’t tell him if you don’t."
He passed the cake to Rodney and started spooning the jello down.
Teyla was less enthusiastic about eating quite so much as the men around her, but smiled all the same and looked directly at Rodney as she said, "We are all very grateful for what you did, Rodney. It is difficult to imagine what would’ve happened had you not found the strength."
Rodney stopped eating for a moment (but made sure he’d swallowed first) as he looked at her slack-jawed. "She of the painful whacking sticks called me strong? Can I have that in writing?"
Teyla’s expression turned incredulous. "What I meant was that we are glad you were not permanently harmed and are now on the mend. We are indebted to you."
"Keep digging," John said through a mouthful.
Rodney was beaming with a dreamy expression. He looked upwards and whispered, "Strong."
Ronon sensed a Rodney McKay sized gloat coming on, so quickly smirked and said, "Let’s see how strong you are when you can spar again."
Rodney’s face instantly fell into an expression similar to a small animal caught in the oncoming headlights - an expression that had not as yet failed to garner his team’s sympathies.
John cleared his swallowed and frowned. "Do you remember what happened out there? I have this vague memory that's been bothering me for a few days: I woke up with an electric cable stuffed into my tac vest and found you unconscious and badly burnt, bruised and bleeding on the deck."
Rodney narrowed his eyes and drew his unhurt arm up towards his chest protectively.
"But there's more," John said. "I've got my hands on the control panel, not to fly, but absorbing data directly. It flows up my hands and arms and into my mind, like your computer gets information through a cable. Then getting back to Atlantis, it’s really strange, but it's almost like I'm trapped in my own mind, and someone, or something else is in control."
Rodney nodded in understanding. "Radek has been here a few times too, when you’re not all clamouring for an autograph from your saviour."
Three pairs of eyes rolled at the same time.
Rodney carried on, either oblivious, or unfazed, "We deduced that the aliens passed from person to person over a course of time. When they were in enough systems and had enough people infected, they took control of all the hosts at the same time. That way there was little risk that they would be found out and isolated. They must’ve had a collective consciousness to communicate and come back to Sheppard at the end."
Rodney grimaced and continued, "It seemed that the creatures liked the nice things, but had a zero tolerance for pain of any kind. They didn’t realise that their hosts had to eat solid food, they probably draw their own sustenance from the gate or space. Perhaps even stars themselves."
Teyla said, "So, the strongest foe was ultimately defeated by hunger."
Ronon grinned at Rodney, "We’ll have to remember to keep feeding you then."
John reached across swiped the one remaining piece of food from Ronon’s tray and passed it to Rodney. It was a large bowl of fruit salad.
Ronon frowned at John and then shrugged.
Rodney grinned back at him and tucked in, not bothering to swallow before speaking. "So, somewhere out there, there’s a little community in the middle of the void. We’ll have to mark that gate as off limits."
"Already done," John said.
Rodney hummed and his face was filled with an expression of over exaggerated bliss, much to Ronon’s chagrin.
"Strong?" Ronon grunted.
Rodney’s face fell a fraction and his voice rose in panic, "Not until Carson says so. I have a feeling it could be a while until the guilt has worn off."
Ronon raised his eyebrows. He could be quite persuasive when he needed to be.
----------
At least one member of Rodney’s team stayed with him until he was released and signed off back to work.
He went back with the new and terrifying knowledge that space was not as empty as it seemed...