Action/Adventure, Week 1: Survival Means Using Bright Colors (2/2)
Title: Survival Means Using Bright Colors
Author: coolbreeze1
Genre: Action/Adventure
Prompt: Today, the guns are silent.
Word count: 12,400
Rating: PG13
Warnings: Violence and violent images, language
Summary: An easy mission babysitting scientists as they explore a new facility turns dangerous when a swarm of Wraith show up, and Lorne must use all his skills to get his people out alive.
Notes: Huge thanks to my beta, everybetty!!
Part One
PART II
Sheppard woke up again halfway to Teyla, Ronon, and McKay's position, forcing Evan to stop and set him down. The colonel's legs folded immediately, and the man let out a broken whimper that echoed too loudly. Evan saw the others had stopped ahead to wait for them, but he waved them forward.
"Go! We're coming!" When Ortiz hesitated, Evan scowled and waved him on. "Sergeant Ortiz, get Doctors Zelenka and Hwangpo to safety."
The Sergeant shot a glance at the colonel, then nodded reluctantly and took off down the hall, grabbing his charges by the arms and dragging them with him. Evan turned back to the colonel and saw that Sheppard had rolled away from him. He looked like he was trying to crawl away, except his eyes were closed and he wasn't really moving all that much. Evan squatted down and grabbed his arm.
"Sir!" he called out as loudly as he dared.
Sheppard stilled, snapping his head around and finally looking at Evan. He had tensed, readying himself to fight, but he relaxed under Evan grasp.
"Lorne?"
"Sir, we have to keep moving." He glanced down the hallway behind him but it was still empty. He pulled on Sheppard's arm and managed to bring the other man up to a sitting position before the colonel jerked out of his hold with a cry. Evan reached for him again, ducking his head to meet Sheppard's gaze.
His eyes were bright and unfocused, and Evan cringed. "Sir, can you stand? We have to move."
Sheppard didn't seem to hear or register anything being said to him, so Evan grabbed his arms again and tried to pull him up to his feet, hoping the colonel would get the general idea and help him. He did, kind of. His legs flailed beneath him, but somehow he managed to push himself up against the wall. He groaned again, ducking his head.
"Dizzy," he said.
Evan tugged on his arm. "Sir, come on--"
"What?"
Sheppard was talking loudly, almost yelling at Evan like he couldn't hear anything. Evan's thoughts raced. He'd been relatively close to the grenade blast, and he'd taken a serious knock to the head. Either one of those--or both combined--could have affected his hearing. Or it could be something else entirely.
Evan was about to tell him to move again when he changed his mind. He tugged on Sheppard's shoulder and pointed down the hall where Ortiz, Zelenka, and Hwangpo had disappeared. The colonel nodded, or started to, then froze with another groan and brought a hand up to his head.
They moved slowly, the pace wreaking havoc on Evan's nerves. They were going too slowly. It would have been better if Sheppard had stayed unconscious, at least until they'd reached the stairwell. The colonel slid along the hallway, moving deliberately, one foot in front of the other. The only thing keeping him upright was his shoulder against the wall. Evan glanced behind him and saw no one in pursuit, then pushed Sheppard to move a little faster.
"My head hurts," Sheppard suddenly announced at the top of his lungs. "I can't see right."
"Sir, you've really got to keep it down."
"Damn it, Briggs," the colonel continued, paying no attention to Evan.
Sheppard stopped and bent forward, pressing a hand to his chest. "Lorne?"
The question was softer, more pained. Evan ducked down so the colonel could see him. "Right here, sir."
"Chest...hurts to breathe."
"I know, sir. We're almost out of here, but we have to get to the stairwell. Can you make it?"
He wasn't sure if Sheppard could hear him or not, or if it was bright enough in the hallway for him to read Evan's lips. Assuming he also knew how to do that. Half the lights in the hallway were out anyway, leaving pockets of deep shadows every few feet.
"Head's ringing. Ears...Feels like I'm underwater...all muffled and plugged up," Sheppard explained, and Evan cringed again at the volume level.
He brought a finger to his lips and glared, the universal signal to shut the hell up.
Sheppard frowned. "What?"
Evan shook his head and pushed him another foot forward.
"I don't feel so good," the colonel said, stopping abruptly a few seconds later.
"Sir, please," Evan said, knowing that what he was saying was falling, literally, on deaf ears.
Sheppard kept one shoulder against the wall as he slowly slid forward and moved another ten feet, then another. Evan was just starting to think they were making good time when Sheppard stumbled in the shadows and almost slipped from his grasp. When he reached for him, he realized there was a decorative space in the wall about a foot deep. He imagined at one time that the space might have held a statue or a plant, but it was empty now. The colonel had slid along the wall without seeing the gap and fallen into it.
Evan grabbed him by the upper arm again and pulled him out, and Sheppard flailed in response, swinging a fist toward Evan's face. It landed on his chin but was so weak it wouldn't even leave a bruise.
"Get the hell off me!" Sheppard choked out. He pushed at Evan again and this time managed to break free from him. He stumbled a few feet down the hall before tripping and landing on his knees. Evan jumped forward, but not before Sheppard collapsed against the wall with a scream. He wrapped his arms around his chest and whimpered.
Evan was an oak tree. Solid. Unwavering. Dependable. That's what he liked to think of himself in relation to his CO. He'd been in Sheppard's shoes a few times and understood the stress and burden of being in charge of the entire military expedition on Atlantis, so the least he could do was make that burden as light as possible. That was the role he had decided on for himself. No matter what happened, no matter how strong a storm twisted around them, Evan Lorne would always be solid.
But it was an appearance, his self-proclaimed role. He acted the part well, but the emotions swirling around inside him didn't always match the outward, easygoing manner he liked to portray. He knew that was probably true for most people on Atlantis, but he was second-in-command. He didn't have the luxury of giving into it the way all save the top echelon of the city's leaders could.
He felt himself wavering now, riding a crest of emotion. Sheppard was swinging at him again, refusing to let Evan touch him and yelling death threats at him. He knew his CO wasn't really yelling at him, that he wasn't really seeing Evan, but they were still in a hallway in a facility full of Wraith. They still had to move, and Sheppard's only chance was the one person he seemed to think was out to get him.
"I'll rip your throat out!" Sheppard screamed.
He'd straightened up using the wall for support, and he lunged at Evan. Evan, momentarily taken off guard, tried to jump out of the way, but he wasn't moving fast enough. The colonel grabbed onto his vest and clung to him, a stream of threats and curses spilling unintelligibly from his mouth.
"Major Lorne, this is Teyla. Where are you? "
He flinched as Teyla's voice cut into Sheppard's diatribe, but Sheppard was now going for his neck and it was all he could do to keep the other man's wrists in a tight grip. He didn't dare release one of them to go for his radio. Without thinking, he jerked Sheppard off balance and began dragging him down the hallway.
"Major? What is going on? "
Sheppard's voice had cut off mid-rant as he was pulled after Evan, and they moved another dozen feet before he finally gave up trying to get his feet under him and fell forward. He slipped through Evan's grasp and hit the ground with cry that echoed up and down the hallway, then rolled toward the wall and curled up into a ball.
"Dammit!" Lorne hissed through clenched teeth. He tapped his radio to respond to Teyla's frantic voice. "Sorry, Teyla. Sheppard regained consciousness and I'm having a hard time getting him to move. He hit his head pretty hard and he's fighting me every step of the way."
"I will come to you as soon as I get the others to the stairwell, " she answered in a tone that invited no argument. She would come whether Evan told her to or not.
He sighed, acknowledging her decision, then approached his CO. Sheppard had stopped moving, and Evan had a fleeting hope that maybe he'd fallen unconscious again.
"Colonel Sheppard?" he whispered. He shook his head. He can't hear you, dumbass.
He reached a hand out and laid it tentatively on Sheppard's shoulder. When Sheppard didn't respond, he grabbed is arm and tried to pull him gently toward him. The colonel was suddenly all limp arms and legs and he uncurled easily with a soft moan.
"Hurts," he whispered.
"I know, sir. I know you're confused and in pain, but I'm going to get you out of here. Do you understand?"
"Lorne?"
The eyes were still glazed, still unfocused. Evan stifled a sigh and nodded. "Yes, sir. It's me. We're going to stand up now."
Without waiting for a reply, he dug his hands under his CO's arms and lifted him up as gently as he could. Sheppard coughed, clenched his teeth against a stifled cry, then coughed again.
"Hold on, sir."
They started moving again, and Evan saw another space in the wall for plants or statues, or whatever this place's former inhabitants had used for decorations. Sheppard had stopped fighting him, but with every step he took, he seemed less and less capable of holding his own weight.
"Stupid," he suddenly called out. "Stupid idiot. What was he doing? He was...kid...he was just a kid. He shouldn't have been here...needed more time..."
Evan tightened his grip, wishing he could somehow convey to his CO that he really needed to stop talking. He glanced over at him, and in the dim light saw a drop of blood in the cavity of his ear. Shit.
"I told him...stay down, but he didn't. He wouldn't listen. Dammit, Briggs!" He yelled the last part of that out, and the sound reverberated through the hallway.
"Major Lorne, I am heading in your direction now. "
Lorne leaned Sheppard against the wall and readjusted his grip, then reached for his radio. "Hurry," he hissed. "We're hardly moving. I think--"
He saw a movement out of the corner of his eye, one he would have missed if he hadn't turned to the side to prop Sheppard up. They were in an unlit section of the hallway, covered for the moment in shadows. Evan blinked, looking for the movement he'd barely caught. At the far end of the hall where they'd just come from, he saw the slow movement of a Wraith creeping down the hallway.
It hadn't seen them yet, judging by the way it slid forward and searched every shadow, but it had certainly heard them--or more accurately, Sheppard. There was no way it couldn't have been aware that they were somewhere ahead of it. Evan clicked on his radio and whispered. "There's a Wraith coming."
He heard two clicks in response, and he turned his head toward the other end of the hall. Their destination. Teyla would be running now, but Evan had no clue how long it would take her to reach them. Minutes maybe. Would that be enough time? So far, there was just the one Wraith. Evan turned back to look at it and saw its nose in the air, sniffing like a dog.
"Damn Wraith," Sheppard announced, loudly. Evan's eyes widened when the Wraith snapped its head in their direction.
"Briggs...his first mission. He wasn't supposed to see a man sucked dry by one of those...pale-faced freaks."
He was struggling against Evan's grip again, growing more agitated at the memories playing through his mind. Evan wanted to know what had happened in that room--to him, and Briggs and the others--but not right now. He pressed a hand against Sheppard's mouth and realized a second later that that was the wrong move.
"Get off me!" he screeched. "Bastard, I'll kill you. Every last one of you."
The Wraith was moving faster, drawing a weapon. Evan recognized the stunner handguns the more elite Wraith commanders tended to carry. The creature was still a good 100 feet away, but it had a bead on them and was moving quickly.
"Sorry, sir," Evan whispered. He pulled Sheppard along the wall another few feet until he found one of the decorative spaces and shoved his CO into it. This one had a low shelf built into the bottom, and Sheppard stumbled backward and landed on it. Stunned, he snapped his jaw shut and just sat there.
Evan stepped away and reached for the P90 swinging from his vest. The Wraith had slipped into one of the pockets of shadows and disappeared from sight. Evan held his breath, his finger tightening on the trigger, as he waited for the creature to reappear. A second later, he saw movement--a lighter strip of black against the darkness--and he opened fired.
The P90 spit out a dozen bullets as Evan crossed to the other side of the hallway, and then it jammed up. The last shot echoed down the hall, followed by the tell-tale click. The trigger stiffened, refusing to yield to the pressure Evan was exerting on it. He heard a snarl from down the hallway and hoped that meant he'd at least nicked the beast.
"Briggs!" Sheppard screamed.
Evan slammed into the opposite wall and found his own decorative space to squeeze into. "Shut up," he hissed, but Sheppard couldn't hear him. He could just see the colonel sitting in the small indent in the wall.
"Briggs, stand down," Sheppard continued. "Why didn't you stand down? You were safe--you were behind cover. We had it. Henley was...We were ready..."
The Wraith was moving again, closing in on Sheppard's position quickly. Evan dropped his gun and reached for his thigh holster.
"Briggs, you...he...he freaked out. He saw the Wraith feeding and he flipped. He stood up, offered to surrender himself if they'd just stop. I could see his face--he totally lost it. I didn't want to shoot him. I don't know...I don't know how many more I can lose..."
Evan froze, snapping his attention to Sheppard, the advancing Wraith forgotten. He replayed the image in his head again and saw the bullet holes in the young sergeant's vest.
"We had those bastards...we were safe...and then you jump up and...and Henley tried to stop him, and Briggs just swung around, shooting anything that was moving."
Evan glanced down the hall and felt his heart flutter in panic. It was empty. The Wraith--where the hell had the Wraith gone? He looked back at his CO and felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. Sheppard was whispering now, lost in his memories.
"Briggs...shot Henley first but didn't kill him. Muller caught him square in the back, but he didn't go down. He just turned and shot her. He was turning to me when another Wraith waltzed in...I saw the grenade...Henley must have...Briggs..."
His voice had trailed off and Evan glanced again down the hall, searching for the Wraith.
"Bastards!" Sheppard screamed. "I'll kill you! He was a kid--they were all...they shouldn't have..."
A shadow moved in front of Evan from out of nowhere, and he saw the faint outline of the Wraith who had been moving toward them suddenly place itself between him and Sheppard. He raised his gun but hesitated. If he shot now, he risked catching Sheppard in the crossfire. Should he risk it? Should he wait until it made a move to feed, and then jump out, shooting?
"There you are," Sheppard called out, the volume of his voice still loud. Evan heard the Wraith snarl in response. "I'll kill you," the colonel continued. "All of you."
"I will savor your defiance," the Wraith hissed back.
"You don't even brush your teeth," Sheppard responded. Evan moved at the same time, slipping out from the wall as quietly as possible and acutely aware of the soft swish of his clothes.
The Wraith raised its hand, but before Evan could shoot, he heard two shots ring out in time with the muzzle flashes. The Wraith staggered, dropping its feeding hand and staring down at its gut. It growled, then widened its stance and looked up at Sheppard again.
"That wasn't supposed to happen," the colonel muttered, and now Evan could hear the empty click as he continued to pull the trigger of the bullet-less gun. The Wraith straightened and flicked the weapon out of Sheppard's hand with a slap. It snarled and raised its feeding hand.
Evan stepped forward, moving to the Wraith's side, and raised his weapon until the muzzle was level with its head. The creature must have finally sensed him, but before it could react he pulled the trigger.
He didn't actually see the shots. He fired too quickly for that to happen, and it was too dark in this section of the hallway, but he felt warm liquid hit his skin, and then the Wraith dropped to the ground like a rock. He fired again, just to be sure, the memory of Ronon unloading his blaster into the dead Wraith earlier still fresh in his mind. The smell of blood filled his nostril, curdling his stomach.
By the time he'd holstered his weapon, he was panting and gritting his teeth against the urge to gag. He dug out his little Maglight and flashed it at Sheppard's face, seeing the same blood and brain matter splattered on his CO that he could feel on himself. Sheppard looked up at him in a daze.
"Lorne?"
Evan had no response. It was the same question Sheppard had been asking him all afternoon. He was reaching for his CO's vest when the colonel suddenly jerked forward and threw up, and the sour stench of vomit mingled with that of dead Wraith. Evan swallowed back his own nausea and grabbed onto Sheppard's shoulder just as the other man collapsed, finally unconscious again.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Evan was an artist. He always had been. He had his mother to thank for that. It's what they'd done on weekends when he was kid--every weekend--and he'd loved it. He was good at it too, according to not just his art teacher mother but all of his teachers throughout school. He'd always been able to see past the single captured moment on canvas to the movements, thoughts and emotions behind the snapshot picture--the intangibles in the brush strokes, lines, angles, colors and shadows.
But there was this other side to him. The soldier. He could stare at a blank canvas and a palette of colors and see an entire world, but he could also stare at an empty field or desert, a vacant patch of sky, and see a whole different kind of world. Movements, lines, angles, shadows--all driven by strategy and tactics, knowledge of weapons and bombs and the psychology of combat.
Creation and destruction. It had bothered him when he was younger, how he could be equally talented at both. He wasn't just an artist; he wasn't just a soldier. There was something contradictory in it, like one of those two sides should win out over the other. That he should be better at one of them so he would know who he was.
Teyla had found them just moments after Evan had hefted Sheppard's dead weight over his shoulders. She'd scanned the hallway, her gaze lingering on the dead Wraith, but she hadn't said anything. They'd jogged back down the hallways, twisting around corners until they'd eventually reached the stairwell, and then Ronon had been there, lifting Sheppard off of Evan's shoulders and transferring him to his own.
Evan had felt the cool air of a fresh breeze as soon as he'd reached the top of the stairs, and he rounded the corner to see a broken window with a jumper hovering just outside, its back hatch open and beckoning. Within seconds, they'd climbed out of the window onto the ramp and into the jumper, then taken off into the sky. He'd heard himself yelling out questions, finding out that they were the last to escape the facility and that a Wraith Hive ship had just dropped out of hyperspace. He barely remembered giving orders to destroy the facility with all the Wraith still in it. He'd fallen back onto a bench when the ensuing explosion had rocked their small craft, and then the atmosphere had given way to stars and the deep blackness of space.
The Hive hadn't lingered, and the jumpers had returned to Atlantis as soon as it was safe. Evan vaguely recalled someone wiping blood from his face with a wet cloth, and then he'd seen Sheppard loaded up onto a gurney and whisked at run toward the infirmary. He'd followed, moving slowly, and only belatedly realized that Zelenka and Hwangpo had shadowed him all the way.
They were all okay, those who'd escaped the facility. A handful of them had been seriously injured, including Colonel Sheppard. His team had hovered for two days before he'd regained consciousness again, but Evan had pulled the doctor to the side to find out what his condition was.
Severe concussion, perforated ear drum, two cracked ribs. Condensed like that, he didn't sound as badly off as he had looked in the hallway just before he'd passed out for the last time.
Evan woke up early, four days later, and rubbed his hands together. The tips of his fingers were itching, literally itching. He rolled out of bed and slid into a fresh t-shirt and track pants, then gathered up his painting equipment. He wanted to paint. Needed to.
Atlantis was the most beautiful place he'd ever seen. He'd stopped painting for awhile, but at the sight of all those gleaming, shiny towers, glistening in the sunshine against the blue ocean, the need to paint had slammed into him. He'd had no choice, and he remembered his mother describing the same sensation, the feeling of being compelled to express herself with her hands. Art had never been a question of want. It was a need--it was always a need.
And yet this beautiful city had been in more need than ever of Evan's destructive abilities--his soldier side that knew how to kill, how to fight, how to inflict the most damage. Evan's heart had pounded with the realization, late one night and admittedly after too many beers, that the city was himself, embodied. He'd never admit it to anyone--especially his mother--but he'd never felt so at home. The swirling confusion of contradictions within himself had quieted, solidified.
He set up his canvas on an eastern facing balcony, far from the inhabited areas, and started painting, losing himself in the colors and the brushstrokes. Thoughts drifted in and out of his mind but he held onto none of them for very long. Colonel Sheppard was recovering, Radek had made himself a new pair of glasses, Ortiz was in the shooting range every morning. Hwangpo had put in for a transfer on the next Daedalus trip out.
No one had been happy about the destruction of the facility, but no one had argued against Evan's decision to destroy it. They'd learned just enough about it and its potential to know they could never let it fall into Wraith hands.
Memories of the dead Marines intruded, and he heard Sheppard's voice recounting in his confused and jilted manner what had happened. Evan had looked Briggs' service record up and saw he had been a fresh recruit. The babysitting mission to the mysterious facility had been his first one since arriving on Atlantis just a few weeks before. He'd barely served six months in the SGC as well, only half that time offworld, before being tapped for an Atlantis assignment. That was not enough time, Evan had decided, and he'd bring it up with the colonel when the man was back on his feet.
He stepped back with a frown and glared at the picture that had emerged on the canvas. It was dark and reminded him all too much of those last moments with the Wraith creeping up on them and almost feeding on Sheppard. Flecks of paint covered his arms and he rubbed at them in vain. Without thinking about it, he pulled the canvas off the easel and walked up to the edge of the balcony. The painting was too real, the emotions it portrayed too close to the surface. Evan didn't want to see it and he cocked his arm back, prepared to fling it into the ocean.
The smell of paint swept over him, and he hesitated. It was stupid, really. They were on Atlantis, in another galaxy, and getting new, blank canvases for painting wasn't easy. He dropped his arm and stared down at the dark images. This was a good canvas too--one of his expensive ones.
He set it back on the easel and looked down at his paints. Paint was easier to transport. It took less cargo hold space, so he had plenty of it. He glanced back at the canvas and nodded, his mind already drawing new lines through the sinister images. He looked up at the sky and let the empty blue envelop him, clear his mind. Beneath the paint smell, he could almost taste the salty air of the ocean.
He would paint over the dark memories that had flooded onto his canvas. They would always be there, hidden beneath the surface, but in the end, no one except himself would know. He tilted his head as he looked at it, seeing a new image overlaying the other one, seeing how he could use the darker colors already on the canvas to set a contrast, bring out the more startlingly beautiful aspects of the city's landscape.
Evan dipped his brush in the paint and set back to work.
END
Author: coolbreeze1
Genre: Action/Adventure
Prompt: Today, the guns are silent.
Word count: 12,400
Rating: PG13
Warnings: Violence and violent images, language
Summary: An easy mission babysitting scientists as they explore a new facility turns dangerous when a swarm of Wraith show up, and Lorne must use all his skills to get his people out alive.
Notes: Huge thanks to my beta, everybetty!!
Part One
PART II
Sheppard woke up again halfway to Teyla, Ronon, and McKay's position, forcing Evan to stop and set him down. The colonel's legs folded immediately, and the man let out a broken whimper that echoed too loudly. Evan saw the others had stopped ahead to wait for them, but he waved them forward.
"Go! We're coming!" When Ortiz hesitated, Evan scowled and waved him on. "Sergeant Ortiz, get Doctors Zelenka and Hwangpo to safety."
The Sergeant shot a glance at the colonel, then nodded reluctantly and took off down the hall, grabbing his charges by the arms and dragging them with him. Evan turned back to the colonel and saw that Sheppard had rolled away from him. He looked like he was trying to crawl away, except his eyes were closed and he wasn't really moving all that much. Evan squatted down and grabbed his arm.
"Sir!" he called out as loudly as he dared.
Sheppard stilled, snapping his head around and finally looking at Evan. He had tensed, readying himself to fight, but he relaxed under Evan grasp.
"Lorne?"
"Sir, we have to keep moving." He glanced down the hallway behind him but it was still empty. He pulled on Sheppard's arm and managed to bring the other man up to a sitting position before the colonel jerked out of his hold with a cry. Evan reached for him again, ducking his head to meet Sheppard's gaze.
His eyes were bright and unfocused, and Evan cringed. "Sir, can you stand? We have to move."
Sheppard didn't seem to hear or register anything being said to him, so Evan grabbed his arms again and tried to pull him up to his feet, hoping the colonel would get the general idea and help him. He did, kind of. His legs flailed beneath him, but somehow he managed to push himself up against the wall. He groaned again, ducking his head.
"Dizzy," he said.
Evan tugged on his arm. "Sir, come on--"
"What?"
Sheppard was talking loudly, almost yelling at Evan like he couldn't hear anything. Evan's thoughts raced. He'd been relatively close to the grenade blast, and he'd taken a serious knock to the head. Either one of those--or both combined--could have affected his hearing. Or it could be something else entirely.
Evan was about to tell him to move again when he changed his mind. He tugged on Sheppard's shoulder and pointed down the hall where Ortiz, Zelenka, and Hwangpo had disappeared. The colonel nodded, or started to, then froze with another groan and brought a hand up to his head.
They moved slowly, the pace wreaking havoc on Evan's nerves. They were going too slowly. It would have been better if Sheppard had stayed unconscious, at least until they'd reached the stairwell. The colonel slid along the hallway, moving deliberately, one foot in front of the other. The only thing keeping him upright was his shoulder against the wall. Evan glanced behind him and saw no one in pursuit, then pushed Sheppard to move a little faster.
"My head hurts," Sheppard suddenly announced at the top of his lungs. "I can't see right."
"Sir, you've really got to keep it down."
"Damn it, Briggs," the colonel continued, paying no attention to Evan.
Sheppard stopped and bent forward, pressing a hand to his chest. "Lorne?"
The question was softer, more pained. Evan ducked down so the colonel could see him. "Right here, sir."
"Chest...hurts to breathe."
"I know, sir. We're almost out of here, but we have to get to the stairwell. Can you make it?"
He wasn't sure if Sheppard could hear him or not, or if it was bright enough in the hallway for him to read Evan's lips. Assuming he also knew how to do that. Half the lights in the hallway were out anyway, leaving pockets of deep shadows every few feet.
"Head's ringing. Ears...Feels like I'm underwater...all muffled and plugged up," Sheppard explained, and Evan cringed again at the volume level.
He brought a finger to his lips and glared, the universal signal to shut the hell up.
Sheppard frowned. "What?"
Evan shook his head and pushed him another foot forward.
"I don't feel so good," the colonel said, stopping abruptly a few seconds later.
"Sir, please," Evan said, knowing that what he was saying was falling, literally, on deaf ears.
Sheppard kept one shoulder against the wall as he slowly slid forward and moved another ten feet, then another. Evan was just starting to think they were making good time when Sheppard stumbled in the shadows and almost slipped from his grasp. When he reached for him, he realized there was a decorative space in the wall about a foot deep. He imagined at one time that the space might have held a statue or a plant, but it was empty now. The colonel had slid along the wall without seeing the gap and fallen into it.
Evan grabbed him by the upper arm again and pulled him out, and Sheppard flailed in response, swinging a fist toward Evan's face. It landed on his chin but was so weak it wouldn't even leave a bruise.
"Get the hell off me!" Sheppard choked out. He pushed at Evan again and this time managed to break free from him. He stumbled a few feet down the hall before tripping and landing on his knees. Evan jumped forward, but not before Sheppard collapsed against the wall with a scream. He wrapped his arms around his chest and whimpered.
Evan was an oak tree. Solid. Unwavering. Dependable. That's what he liked to think of himself in relation to his CO. He'd been in Sheppard's shoes a few times and understood the stress and burden of being in charge of the entire military expedition on Atlantis, so the least he could do was make that burden as light as possible. That was the role he had decided on for himself. No matter what happened, no matter how strong a storm twisted around them, Evan Lorne would always be solid.
But it was an appearance, his self-proclaimed role. He acted the part well, but the emotions swirling around inside him didn't always match the outward, easygoing manner he liked to portray. He knew that was probably true for most people on Atlantis, but he was second-in-command. He didn't have the luxury of giving into it the way all save the top echelon of the city's leaders could.
He felt himself wavering now, riding a crest of emotion. Sheppard was swinging at him again, refusing to let Evan touch him and yelling death threats at him. He knew his CO wasn't really yelling at him, that he wasn't really seeing Evan, but they were still in a hallway in a facility full of Wraith. They still had to move, and Sheppard's only chance was the one person he seemed to think was out to get him.
"I'll rip your throat out!" Sheppard screamed.
He'd straightened up using the wall for support, and he lunged at Evan. Evan, momentarily taken off guard, tried to jump out of the way, but he wasn't moving fast enough. The colonel grabbed onto his vest and clung to him, a stream of threats and curses spilling unintelligibly from his mouth.
"Major Lorne, this is Teyla. Where are you? "
He flinched as Teyla's voice cut into Sheppard's diatribe, but Sheppard was now going for his neck and it was all he could do to keep the other man's wrists in a tight grip. He didn't dare release one of them to go for his radio. Without thinking, he jerked Sheppard off balance and began dragging him down the hallway.
"Major? What is going on? "
Sheppard's voice had cut off mid-rant as he was pulled after Evan, and they moved another dozen feet before he finally gave up trying to get his feet under him and fell forward. He slipped through Evan's grasp and hit the ground with cry that echoed up and down the hallway, then rolled toward the wall and curled up into a ball.
"Dammit!" Lorne hissed through clenched teeth. He tapped his radio to respond to Teyla's frantic voice. "Sorry, Teyla. Sheppard regained consciousness and I'm having a hard time getting him to move. He hit his head pretty hard and he's fighting me every step of the way."
"I will come to you as soon as I get the others to the stairwell, " she answered in a tone that invited no argument. She would come whether Evan told her to or not.
He sighed, acknowledging her decision, then approached his CO. Sheppard had stopped moving, and Evan had a fleeting hope that maybe he'd fallen unconscious again.
"Colonel Sheppard?" he whispered. He shook his head. He can't hear you, dumbass.
He reached a hand out and laid it tentatively on Sheppard's shoulder. When Sheppard didn't respond, he grabbed is arm and tried to pull him gently toward him. The colonel was suddenly all limp arms and legs and he uncurled easily with a soft moan.
"Hurts," he whispered.
"I know, sir. I know you're confused and in pain, but I'm going to get you out of here. Do you understand?"
"Lorne?"
The eyes were still glazed, still unfocused. Evan stifled a sigh and nodded. "Yes, sir. It's me. We're going to stand up now."
Without waiting for a reply, he dug his hands under his CO's arms and lifted him up as gently as he could. Sheppard coughed, clenched his teeth against a stifled cry, then coughed again.
"Hold on, sir."
They started moving again, and Evan saw another space in the wall for plants or statues, or whatever this place's former inhabitants had used for decorations. Sheppard had stopped fighting him, but with every step he took, he seemed less and less capable of holding his own weight.
"Stupid," he suddenly called out. "Stupid idiot. What was he doing? He was...kid...he was just a kid. He shouldn't have been here...needed more time..."
Evan tightened his grip, wishing he could somehow convey to his CO that he really needed to stop talking. He glanced over at him, and in the dim light saw a drop of blood in the cavity of his ear. Shit.
"I told him...stay down, but he didn't. He wouldn't listen. Dammit, Briggs!" He yelled the last part of that out, and the sound reverberated through the hallway.
"Major Lorne, I am heading in your direction now. "
Lorne leaned Sheppard against the wall and readjusted his grip, then reached for his radio. "Hurry," he hissed. "We're hardly moving. I think--"
He saw a movement out of the corner of his eye, one he would have missed if he hadn't turned to the side to prop Sheppard up. They were in an unlit section of the hallway, covered for the moment in shadows. Evan blinked, looking for the movement he'd barely caught. At the far end of the hall where they'd just come from, he saw the slow movement of a Wraith creeping down the hallway.
It hadn't seen them yet, judging by the way it slid forward and searched every shadow, but it had certainly heard them--or more accurately, Sheppard. There was no way it couldn't have been aware that they were somewhere ahead of it. Evan clicked on his radio and whispered. "There's a Wraith coming."
He heard two clicks in response, and he turned his head toward the other end of the hall. Their destination. Teyla would be running now, but Evan had no clue how long it would take her to reach them. Minutes maybe. Would that be enough time? So far, there was just the one Wraith. Evan turned back to look at it and saw its nose in the air, sniffing like a dog.
"Damn Wraith," Sheppard announced, loudly. Evan's eyes widened when the Wraith snapped its head in their direction.
"Briggs...his first mission. He wasn't supposed to see a man sucked dry by one of those...pale-faced freaks."
He was struggling against Evan's grip again, growing more agitated at the memories playing through his mind. Evan wanted to know what had happened in that room--to him, and Briggs and the others--but not right now. He pressed a hand against Sheppard's mouth and realized a second later that that was the wrong move.
"Get off me!" he screeched. "Bastard, I'll kill you. Every last one of you."
The Wraith was moving faster, drawing a weapon. Evan recognized the stunner handguns the more elite Wraith commanders tended to carry. The creature was still a good 100 feet away, but it had a bead on them and was moving quickly.
"Sorry, sir," Evan whispered. He pulled Sheppard along the wall another few feet until he found one of the decorative spaces and shoved his CO into it. This one had a low shelf built into the bottom, and Sheppard stumbled backward and landed on it. Stunned, he snapped his jaw shut and just sat there.
Evan stepped away and reached for the P90 swinging from his vest. The Wraith had slipped into one of the pockets of shadows and disappeared from sight. Evan held his breath, his finger tightening on the trigger, as he waited for the creature to reappear. A second later, he saw movement--a lighter strip of black against the darkness--and he opened fired.
The P90 spit out a dozen bullets as Evan crossed to the other side of the hallway, and then it jammed up. The last shot echoed down the hall, followed by the tell-tale click. The trigger stiffened, refusing to yield to the pressure Evan was exerting on it. He heard a snarl from down the hallway and hoped that meant he'd at least nicked the beast.
"Briggs!" Sheppard screamed.
Evan slammed into the opposite wall and found his own decorative space to squeeze into. "Shut up," he hissed, but Sheppard couldn't hear him. He could just see the colonel sitting in the small indent in the wall.
"Briggs, stand down," Sheppard continued. "Why didn't you stand down? You were safe--you were behind cover. We had it. Henley was...We were ready..."
The Wraith was moving again, closing in on Sheppard's position quickly. Evan dropped his gun and reached for his thigh holster.
"Briggs, you...he...he freaked out. He saw the Wraith feeding and he flipped. He stood up, offered to surrender himself if they'd just stop. I could see his face--he totally lost it. I didn't want to shoot him. I don't know...I don't know how many more I can lose..."
Evan froze, snapping his attention to Sheppard, the advancing Wraith forgotten. He replayed the image in his head again and saw the bullet holes in the young sergeant's vest.
"We had those bastards...we were safe...and then you jump up and...and Henley tried to stop him, and Briggs just swung around, shooting anything that was moving."
Evan glanced down the hall and felt his heart flutter in panic. It was empty. The Wraith--where the hell had the Wraith gone? He looked back at his CO and felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. Sheppard was whispering now, lost in his memories.
"Briggs...shot Henley first but didn't kill him. Muller caught him square in the back, but he didn't go down. He just turned and shot her. He was turning to me when another Wraith waltzed in...I saw the grenade...Henley must have...Briggs..."
His voice had trailed off and Evan glanced again down the hall, searching for the Wraith.
"Bastards!" Sheppard screamed. "I'll kill you! He was a kid--they were all...they shouldn't have..."
A shadow moved in front of Evan from out of nowhere, and he saw the faint outline of the Wraith who had been moving toward them suddenly place itself between him and Sheppard. He raised his gun but hesitated. If he shot now, he risked catching Sheppard in the crossfire. Should he risk it? Should he wait until it made a move to feed, and then jump out, shooting?
"There you are," Sheppard called out, the volume of his voice still loud. Evan heard the Wraith snarl in response. "I'll kill you," the colonel continued. "All of you."
"I will savor your defiance," the Wraith hissed back.
"You don't even brush your teeth," Sheppard responded. Evan moved at the same time, slipping out from the wall as quietly as possible and acutely aware of the soft swish of his clothes.
The Wraith raised its hand, but before Evan could shoot, he heard two shots ring out in time with the muzzle flashes. The Wraith staggered, dropping its feeding hand and staring down at its gut. It growled, then widened its stance and looked up at Sheppard again.
"That wasn't supposed to happen," the colonel muttered, and now Evan could hear the empty click as he continued to pull the trigger of the bullet-less gun. The Wraith straightened and flicked the weapon out of Sheppard's hand with a slap. It snarled and raised its feeding hand.
Evan stepped forward, moving to the Wraith's side, and raised his weapon until the muzzle was level with its head. The creature must have finally sensed him, but before it could react he pulled the trigger.
He didn't actually see the shots. He fired too quickly for that to happen, and it was too dark in this section of the hallway, but he felt warm liquid hit his skin, and then the Wraith dropped to the ground like a rock. He fired again, just to be sure, the memory of Ronon unloading his blaster into the dead Wraith earlier still fresh in his mind. The smell of blood filled his nostril, curdling his stomach.
By the time he'd holstered his weapon, he was panting and gritting his teeth against the urge to gag. He dug out his little Maglight and flashed it at Sheppard's face, seeing the same blood and brain matter splattered on his CO that he could feel on himself. Sheppard looked up at him in a daze.
"Lorne?"
Evan had no response. It was the same question Sheppard had been asking him all afternoon. He was reaching for his CO's vest when the colonel suddenly jerked forward and threw up, and the sour stench of vomit mingled with that of dead Wraith. Evan swallowed back his own nausea and grabbed onto Sheppard's shoulder just as the other man collapsed, finally unconscious again.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Evan was an artist. He always had been. He had his mother to thank for that. It's what they'd done on weekends when he was kid--every weekend--and he'd loved it. He was good at it too, according to not just his art teacher mother but all of his teachers throughout school. He'd always been able to see past the single captured moment on canvas to the movements, thoughts and emotions behind the snapshot picture--the intangibles in the brush strokes, lines, angles, colors and shadows.
But there was this other side to him. The soldier. He could stare at a blank canvas and a palette of colors and see an entire world, but he could also stare at an empty field or desert, a vacant patch of sky, and see a whole different kind of world. Movements, lines, angles, shadows--all driven by strategy and tactics, knowledge of weapons and bombs and the psychology of combat.
Creation and destruction. It had bothered him when he was younger, how he could be equally talented at both. He wasn't just an artist; he wasn't just a soldier. There was something contradictory in it, like one of those two sides should win out over the other. That he should be better at one of them so he would know who he was.
Teyla had found them just moments after Evan had hefted Sheppard's dead weight over his shoulders. She'd scanned the hallway, her gaze lingering on the dead Wraith, but she hadn't said anything. They'd jogged back down the hallways, twisting around corners until they'd eventually reached the stairwell, and then Ronon had been there, lifting Sheppard off of Evan's shoulders and transferring him to his own.
Evan had felt the cool air of a fresh breeze as soon as he'd reached the top of the stairs, and he rounded the corner to see a broken window with a jumper hovering just outside, its back hatch open and beckoning. Within seconds, they'd climbed out of the window onto the ramp and into the jumper, then taken off into the sky. He'd heard himself yelling out questions, finding out that they were the last to escape the facility and that a Wraith Hive ship had just dropped out of hyperspace. He barely remembered giving orders to destroy the facility with all the Wraith still in it. He'd fallen back onto a bench when the ensuing explosion had rocked their small craft, and then the atmosphere had given way to stars and the deep blackness of space.
The Hive hadn't lingered, and the jumpers had returned to Atlantis as soon as it was safe. Evan vaguely recalled someone wiping blood from his face with a wet cloth, and then he'd seen Sheppard loaded up onto a gurney and whisked at run toward the infirmary. He'd followed, moving slowly, and only belatedly realized that Zelenka and Hwangpo had shadowed him all the way.
They were all okay, those who'd escaped the facility. A handful of them had been seriously injured, including Colonel Sheppard. His team had hovered for two days before he'd regained consciousness again, but Evan had pulled the doctor to the side to find out what his condition was.
Severe concussion, perforated ear drum, two cracked ribs. Condensed like that, he didn't sound as badly off as he had looked in the hallway just before he'd passed out for the last time.
Evan woke up early, four days later, and rubbed his hands together. The tips of his fingers were itching, literally itching. He rolled out of bed and slid into a fresh t-shirt and track pants, then gathered up his painting equipment. He wanted to paint. Needed to.
Atlantis was the most beautiful place he'd ever seen. He'd stopped painting for awhile, but at the sight of all those gleaming, shiny towers, glistening in the sunshine against the blue ocean, the need to paint had slammed into him. He'd had no choice, and he remembered his mother describing the same sensation, the feeling of being compelled to express herself with her hands. Art had never been a question of want. It was a need--it was always a need.
And yet this beautiful city had been in more need than ever of Evan's destructive abilities--his soldier side that knew how to kill, how to fight, how to inflict the most damage. Evan's heart had pounded with the realization, late one night and admittedly after too many beers, that the city was himself, embodied. He'd never admit it to anyone--especially his mother--but he'd never felt so at home. The swirling confusion of contradictions within himself had quieted, solidified.
He set up his canvas on an eastern facing balcony, far from the inhabited areas, and started painting, losing himself in the colors and the brushstrokes. Thoughts drifted in and out of his mind but he held onto none of them for very long. Colonel Sheppard was recovering, Radek had made himself a new pair of glasses, Ortiz was in the shooting range every morning. Hwangpo had put in for a transfer on the next Daedalus trip out.
No one had been happy about the destruction of the facility, but no one had argued against Evan's decision to destroy it. They'd learned just enough about it and its potential to know they could never let it fall into Wraith hands.
Memories of the dead Marines intruded, and he heard Sheppard's voice recounting in his confused and jilted manner what had happened. Evan had looked Briggs' service record up and saw he had been a fresh recruit. The babysitting mission to the mysterious facility had been his first one since arriving on Atlantis just a few weeks before. He'd barely served six months in the SGC as well, only half that time offworld, before being tapped for an Atlantis assignment. That was not enough time, Evan had decided, and he'd bring it up with the colonel when the man was back on his feet.
He stepped back with a frown and glared at the picture that had emerged on the canvas. It was dark and reminded him all too much of those last moments with the Wraith creeping up on them and almost feeding on Sheppard. Flecks of paint covered his arms and he rubbed at them in vain. Without thinking about it, he pulled the canvas off the easel and walked up to the edge of the balcony. The painting was too real, the emotions it portrayed too close to the surface. Evan didn't want to see it and he cocked his arm back, prepared to fling it into the ocean.
The smell of paint swept over him, and he hesitated. It was stupid, really. They were on Atlantis, in another galaxy, and getting new, blank canvases for painting wasn't easy. He dropped his arm and stared down at the dark images. This was a good canvas too--one of his expensive ones.
He set it back on the easel and looked down at his paints. Paint was easier to transport. It took less cargo hold space, so he had plenty of it. He glanced back at the canvas and nodded, his mind already drawing new lines through the sinister images. He looked up at the sky and let the empty blue envelop him, clear his mind. Beneath the paint smell, he could almost taste the salty air of the ocean.
He would paint over the dark memories that had flooded onto his canvas. They would always be there, hidden beneath the surface, but in the end, no one except himself would know. He tilted his head as he looked at it, seeing a new image overlaying the other one, seeing how he could use the darker colors already on the canvas to set a contrast, bring out the more startlingly beautiful aspects of the city's landscape.
Evan dipped his brush in the paint and set back to work.
END