Ficathon entry - Of Wraith and Men
Title: Of Wraith and Men
Author: Rating/Pairing: PG/None
Character: John and Todd, with a smattering of Rodney and Keller.
Summary: What happens after well-laid plans go awry. Written for Seramercury who requested whump, angst, Shep centric, Shep/Weir - managed most of them.
Of Wraith and Men
I didn’t think anything could hurt that much.
John Sheppard bolted upright, breathing hard as if he’d run a marathon with a thirty-pound pack strapped on, hazel eyes darting around the immediate area, half-expecting the hand...pale flesh, long nails, fingers spread...to descend upon him any second. That he could move his hand up into sweat-soaked hair proved to him beyond the irrational dream that he wasn’t tied down, wasn’t part of Kolya’s twisted scheme; wasn’t waiting for the Genii’s pet Wraith to finish him off. He swallowed tightly and pushed away a jacket that seemed far too warm, but before he could move further, a familiar voice spoke into the darkness.
“John Sheppard,” it said eerily and yet...almost worriedly. “Are you in pain?”
It was freakish déjà vu; John’s hand instinctively started toward his chest, toward the scar that was the only physical reminder he carried of the feeding sessions before redirecting it to the back of his neck, rubbing absently as he looked over at the Wraith who had given it to him. Todd sat a few feet away, observing him closely and the Wraith’s question registered with him a moment later.
“I’ve felt better,” he replied, feeling vaguely dissatisfied and somewhat vulnerable that he’d dreamed about that here, now. The bullet wound was almost secondary. He looked around again, his eyes adjusting to the dim light of their shelter, a half-collapsed structure that offered minimal protection from the rain.
It had started out as one of those half-backwards schemes designed to help both Todd’s particular Hive and Atlantis; the rewards being the removal of a rival Hive for Todd and supposedly a cache of drones for Atlantis but somehow...like always...it hadn’t quite ended up that way. Now they awaited rescue, separated from the others and hunted by scavengers who hadn’t particularly liked John showing up in their “territory” with a Wraith in tow.
“You are bleeding again,” Todd observed, rising and coming closer. John huffed impatiently, his hand moving automatically to his side, over the pressure bandages that had been somewhat awkwardly tied around his midriff. All he’d had to deal with the injury were the contents of his tac vest; getting cut off from the ‘jumper hadn’t exactly been part of the plan.
“I’ll be fine; I just need to get back to Atlantis,” John declared firmly. “They’ll patch me up and I’ll be back to annoying the crap outta you in no time.” He started to reach for the tac vest, laying on the ground beside him until pain flared through his side, into his back, causing him to suck in a startled breath. John flinched a second time when he felt a hand on his shoulder and he looked up sharply to see Todd leaning over him; he held the Wraith’s gaze in a steely glare. “Let me help you, John Sheppard,” Todd intoned seriously. “You cannot heal as I do, and we have...a deal.”
“Thought...we were pretty even, there,” John replied tersely, but he didn’t resist when the Wraith shifted his hands to check the bandage.
“You did not allow them to kill me on our arrival,” Todd replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the galaxy. “So I shall not allow them to kill you.”
“Oh.” John grimaced, and swallowed hard; dizziness and nausea making an appearance likely due to blood loss and he found himself allowing Todd to help him to lie back. “Thanks, for that,” he added, although he couldn’t quite help quipping, “Not that we should go picking out china.” He noticed the puzzled look the Wraith leveled at him and he waved off the pending question. “Never mind.”
“This must be changed,” Todd pronounced; an almost graceful flick of the wrist as he gestured to the bloodied bandage. John nodded slightly, knowing the Wraith was right. Now that they had a chance to breathe, fairly certain they had eluded their pursuers for the time being, there was time to field-treat the wound more properly.
“There’s...s’more bandages in my gear,” John’s hand flopped over tiredly, motioning toward the discarded tac vest. It didn’t, however, have much in the way of iodine or alcohol or anything that could conceivably be used to disinfect the wound and he just hoped he hadn’t picked up any of the nastier bacteria that might be hanging around. In the end however, they managed to find enough bandaging material and some alcohol wipes. That would have to be close enough.
Todd produced a wicked-looking knife from his leather duster that Ronon might have envied. John couldn’t help but tense slightly when the blade lowered toward him, but if the Wraith noticed it, he did not react. Silently the old bandages were cut away, and John hissed a little at the pain that followed the quick little jerk.
“It was not my intention to deceive you, Sheppard,” Todd said at length, as he first used a little water from John’s canteen to clean away the excess blood from the human’s side. Aside from a slight shiver in response to the water’s coolness, there was no further reaction from the colonel to his touch, but John paid for the snort that followed; he grimaced sharply.
“Sure,” Sheppard gritted out, “And I’ve got...some prime real estate on Hoff you...might be interested...in.” Todd did not have to know the Earth phrase to understand the insult, and the Wraith hissed, baring his teeth slightly as he did so.
“I did not expect our presence to be so easily detected,” the Wraith insisted, but he lost none of his careful handling of the fragile human beneath his hands. “That the other Hive showed up as it did was most...unfortunate....” Sheppard flinched as Todd did his best to clean the wound with the alcohol wipes as instructed, but did not cry out; the Wraith paused, impressed with the colonel’s rather controlled response to the pain. It was one of the things that had impressed him in Kolya’s dungeon cells. Even after having been fed on in increments, Sheppard had refused to display much in the way of his suffering.
For his part, John clamped down on the groan that wanted to escape. It was after all, what needed to be done; the wipes were better than nothing and rescue would come. His team would drag him back to the Infirmary, where Keller would load him up on the appropriate antibiotics and painkillers.
He had to admit, even if only in his own head, that he was looking forward to the painkiller part, particularly when Todd started in on re-bandaging the still sluggishly bleeding wound. He couldn’t quite help the sharp little breath he pulled in.
“’Unfortunate.’ Th...that’s a good word for it,” John agreed, a little breathlessly. “Runnin’ into...the local gun club wasn’t so fortunate...either. Ow!” He glanced down at Todd’s handiwork; for a Wraith who normally wouldn’t be all that concerned about a human’s condition unless he was looking for a mid-afternoon snack, Todd hadn’t done a bad job of binding up the gunshot wound.
“I agree,” Todd said, with what John had come to recognize as the Wraith’s peculiar sense of humor, before the white head cocked slightly. “Your people will come,” he stated finally, and John looked up, unable to completely hide his surprise.
“Yes,” he replied just as confidently. “Yes, they will. And then we’ll re-take the ‘jumper and get off this rock.” John let his head fall back now, a slight groan.
“You should rest,” Todd said, with an imminently practical note in the strangled tones. “It will be difficult enough to fight for your ship.”
“Yeah,” John murmured, his eyes already closing.
++++++
Way to go, John! Listen to a Wraith.
Shouting startled John awake and he blinked a moment, disoriented. Fire sheeted through his left flank when he tried to move and suddenly everything flooded back in perfect clarity. “Ohhhh, crap,” he muttered, his hand flying to his bandaged side. “Okay...so, not a bad dream,” he grumbled even as he heard more shouting and he paused to listen. “Apparently we didn’t lose the bad guys.”
His comments went unheeded and John suddenly realized that Todd wasn’t there to hear them. Great, he grumbled to himself. Just great. At least he didn’t decide he was hungry. Very carefully now, he shifted upward, gritting his teeth as he did so. He didn’t remember it hurting quite this badly earlier, and he took a moment to catch his breath before trying to push himself over onto his hands and knees. “Sonofa...” he breathed out as the pain knifed through him, making him gasp for breath. His arms trembled with exertion and his surroundings took a lazy spin. “C’mon, John...can’t fight ‘em off...down here.”
Somehow he managed to push himself up, using some of the wrecked building around him for leverage; he gained his feet and grabbed for the wall with one hand and his side with the other as the world wobbled again.
Not for the first time, John wondered about letting Todd go after their initial encounter. After Kolya...John shook his head, despite the dizziness that threatened to dump him back onto his hands and knees. He wasn’t sure what was more infuriating, wanting to kill the enemy and being unable to, or feeling at times like he owed something to the Wraith that had returned the life he had taken.
There was more shouting and John realized the people tracking them were getting closer. Swallowing thickly, he made himself bend a bit and reach for the P-90 that, oddly enough, was resting against the nearby wall. He didn’t remember retrieving it after the initial attack. John swore softly as he bent and then straightened, but he had the necessary item in his hands. He held onto it tightly as he rode out the expected wave of dizziness that followed the uncomfortable motion.
Shouting below suddenly exploded into a scream. A shower of gunfire followed and John tightened his grip on the P-90 just as another scream of pain erupted into the air and suddenly it made sense.
Todd.
Grimacing against the pain in his side, John pushed away from the wall and staggered out into the open, realizing almost too late how very little cover existed outside of the remnants of the building in which they’d taken shelter. He ducked down behind a fallen pillar, groaning at how much it hurt, but cocked his weapon and steeled himself to move quickly. After a short breath-which also hurt-he popped up from behind the pillar and laid down cover fire for the Wraith below.
Todd’s head jerked up at the sound, but his feeding hand was fully latched onto a third victim who, eerily enough made no sound at all. John flopped down behind the pillar once more, gasping with the exertion. After a long moment he finally forced himself upward and gained his feet in time to see that it was down to two-Todd and a terrified kid who looked like he was maybe fifteen or sixteen. The gun in the kid’s hands wavered, he was shaking so badly.
“Enough!” John called out, forcing himself down the gentle slope, P-90 still in his hands. How he managed not to trip or stumble, he had no clue but within moments he was stationed nearly between the two combatants. “Enough,” he repeated, quieter but no less intense. Todd’s gaze remained on the youth, and the kid, wide-eyed, was uncertain where his attention should lie-with the Wraith or with the armed stranger.
“Are you...Do you serve it?” the kid asked, a jerk of his weapon in Todd’s direction, and John realized what was being asked of him.
“Of course not,” he started, then stepped slightly forward, nearly-but not quite-placing himself in the line of fire between the kid and Todd. “But you can’t shoot him, either.” His mind scrambled for a logical explanation to give the boy before he did something stupid. “You’ve got...what? Four, five more shots in that thing? After what you’ve seen here, do you really think that’s gonna stop him?”
The kid’s footing shifted a bit, now, but Todd remained tense, poised to strike. John turned his attention to the taller Wraith. “C’mon...he’s a kid. Give him a break...give him a chance to grow up. Besides, you’ve already had...a three-course meal. You can wait for dessert.” At Todd’s glare, John shrugged uncomfortably, but didn’t raise the P-90. “I’m not on the menu, so forget it.”
John risked a brief look around; aside from the three men the Wraith had fed upon, and the two that John had pegged with the P-90, there was no sign of the others. He started to ask about that, when the spinning returned with a vengeance and he lost his grip on his gun. Everything seemed to grind into slow motion as his knees folded under him and he dropped to the ground, and then the grey on the edges of his vision morphed to black.
++++++
Well, we learned two things. One, he likes me better than you.
“Sheppard?” John groaned, unwilling to respond to the summons above him. He was tired...incredibly tired and sleep sounded so much more appealing. “Sheppard.” The second call was more insistent, and John’s eyes fluttered open, albeit with some effort.
“McKay...” John realized belatedly that he hadn’t been called back to consciousness in gravelly Wraith-tones, and he tried to lift his head. “Where...”
“Whoa, whoa,” Jennifer Keller exclaimed and very easily pushed John back down. It was at that moment the colonel realized he was in the back of a jumper. “You’ve been shot and you’ve lost a lot of blood. Just stay put.”
“Where’s...” John tried again, and Rodney saved him the trouble by interrupting.
“Todd?” He pointed behind him; further down the bench, closer to the cockpit, was the Wraith in question, shackled and guarded by Ronon. “He’s just fine, by the way. Apparently all healed up from whoever was taking pot-shots at you...isn’t that nice?”
“Y...yeah,” John stammered and closed his eyes. The throbbing in his side was muted, likely due to whatever was in the IV already stuck in the back of his hand.
“This ship of the Ancestors is amazing,” an unfamiliar, soft voice said, and John’s eyes snapped open again to find the young scavenger-disarmed-sitting on the other side of Teyla. He was a little awkward in the manner of most teenagers, but also appropriately subdued in the presence of the man his people had wounded. “He told me your name is Sheppard,” the boy said uncertainly, nodding a little in the direction of the Wraith in their company. “I am sorry, Sheppard, that you are hurt.”
“Me, too,” John agreed wholeheartedly, flinching a little when Keller’s triage resulting in a brief crest of pain. “He didn’t tell me...your name, y’know.”
“I am Nharin.”
“Well, Nharin...way t’be...alive,” John slurred tiredly. A harsh chuckle came from the far side of the jumper, and the boy shifted uncomfortably. “Don’ worry ‘bout it; ‘parently I’m just funny.”
“I did not shoot him,” Nharin stated.
“An’ you...don’ look old enough t’ shave,” John observed.
“Your people came shortly after your collapse, Sheppard,” Todd filled in the blank succinctly. “But I was prepared to allow him to leave with the others.”
“Y...yeah, ‘bout that...” John started now, trying to look at the Wraith, but it was too much work. “I didn’ see...too many. Where’d...rest of ‘em go?”
“I gave them the opportunity to return to the Stargate,” Todd explained simply. The Wraith cocked his head slightly. “As you said...I had already taken my fill. I saw no point in continuing if, by allowing them to leave, I could protect us.”
“Oh,” John answered dully; his head felt fuzzy and sleep beckoned. Or unconsciousness, whichever his body decided was easier. “An’...why didn’ you shoot?” he wanted to know, curiosity getting the better of him.
“Because the Wraith told me we had to save you,” Nharin said simply. “I have never seen that before.”
John chuckled weakly; pain rippled through him despite the drugs, putting a stop to it, but he shook his head slightly. Pegasus certainly had a way of surprising.
“Best laid plans...Wraith an’ men, huh?” he mumbled, and nearby, Rodney snorted.
“Oh, ha, ha. It must be the drugs if that’s all you can come up with,” the scientist stated, but he found himself glancing back at Todd. The Wraith was infuriating, always. But today, he had brought Rodney’s friend home, alive. There was something to be said for that, so he settled for giving Todd a slight nod. Close enough.
“Yeah,” John agreed wearily. “Gotta be...better one but...gonna think of it later.”
And, if we were to meet again?
All bets are off the table.
‘No kiddin’,’ John thought as he drifted off under the influence of the medication.
Author: Rating/Pairing: PG/None
Character: John and Todd, with a smattering of Rodney and Keller.
Summary: What happens after well-laid plans go awry. Written for Seramercury who requested whump, angst, Shep centric, Shep/Weir - managed most of them.
Of Wraith and Men
I didn’t think anything could hurt that much.
John Sheppard bolted upright, breathing hard as if he’d run a marathon with a thirty-pound pack strapped on, hazel eyes darting around the immediate area, half-expecting the hand...pale flesh, long nails, fingers spread...to descend upon him any second. That he could move his hand up into sweat-soaked hair proved to him beyond the irrational dream that he wasn’t tied down, wasn’t part of Kolya’s twisted scheme; wasn’t waiting for the Genii’s pet Wraith to finish him off. He swallowed tightly and pushed away a jacket that seemed far too warm, but before he could move further, a familiar voice spoke into the darkness.
“John Sheppard,” it said eerily and yet...almost worriedly. “Are you in pain?”
It was freakish déjà vu; John’s hand instinctively started toward his chest, toward the scar that was the only physical reminder he carried of the feeding sessions before redirecting it to the back of his neck, rubbing absently as he looked over at the Wraith who had given it to him. Todd sat a few feet away, observing him closely and the Wraith’s question registered with him a moment later.
“I’ve felt better,” he replied, feeling vaguely dissatisfied and somewhat vulnerable that he’d dreamed about that here, now. The bullet wound was almost secondary. He looked around again, his eyes adjusting to the dim light of their shelter, a half-collapsed structure that offered minimal protection from the rain.
It had started out as one of those half-backwards schemes designed to help both Todd’s particular Hive and Atlantis; the rewards being the removal of a rival Hive for Todd and supposedly a cache of drones for Atlantis but somehow...like always...it hadn’t quite ended up that way. Now they awaited rescue, separated from the others and hunted by scavengers who hadn’t particularly liked John showing up in their “territory” with a Wraith in tow.
“You are bleeding again,” Todd observed, rising and coming closer. John huffed impatiently, his hand moving automatically to his side, over the pressure bandages that had been somewhat awkwardly tied around his midriff. All he’d had to deal with the injury were the contents of his tac vest; getting cut off from the ‘jumper hadn’t exactly been part of the plan.
“I’ll be fine; I just need to get back to Atlantis,” John declared firmly. “They’ll patch me up and I’ll be back to annoying the crap outta you in no time.” He started to reach for the tac vest, laying on the ground beside him until pain flared through his side, into his back, causing him to suck in a startled breath. John flinched a second time when he felt a hand on his shoulder and he looked up sharply to see Todd leaning over him; he held the Wraith’s gaze in a steely glare. “Let me help you, John Sheppard,” Todd intoned seriously. “You cannot heal as I do, and we have...a deal.”
“Thought...we were pretty even, there,” John replied tersely, but he didn’t resist when the Wraith shifted his hands to check the bandage.
“You did not allow them to kill me on our arrival,” Todd replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the galaxy. “So I shall not allow them to kill you.”
“Oh.” John grimaced, and swallowed hard; dizziness and nausea making an appearance likely due to blood loss and he found himself allowing Todd to help him to lie back. “Thanks, for that,” he added, although he couldn’t quite help quipping, “Not that we should go picking out china.” He noticed the puzzled look the Wraith leveled at him and he waved off the pending question. “Never mind.”
“This must be changed,” Todd pronounced; an almost graceful flick of the wrist as he gestured to the bloodied bandage. John nodded slightly, knowing the Wraith was right. Now that they had a chance to breathe, fairly certain they had eluded their pursuers for the time being, there was time to field-treat the wound more properly.
“There’s...s’more bandages in my gear,” John’s hand flopped over tiredly, motioning toward the discarded tac vest. It didn’t, however, have much in the way of iodine or alcohol or anything that could conceivably be used to disinfect the wound and he just hoped he hadn’t picked up any of the nastier bacteria that might be hanging around. In the end however, they managed to find enough bandaging material and some alcohol wipes. That would have to be close enough.
Todd produced a wicked-looking knife from his leather duster that Ronon might have envied. John couldn’t help but tense slightly when the blade lowered toward him, but if the Wraith noticed it, he did not react. Silently the old bandages were cut away, and John hissed a little at the pain that followed the quick little jerk.
“It was not my intention to deceive you, Sheppard,” Todd said at length, as he first used a little water from John’s canteen to clean away the excess blood from the human’s side. Aside from a slight shiver in response to the water’s coolness, there was no further reaction from the colonel to his touch, but John paid for the snort that followed; he grimaced sharply.
“Sure,” Sheppard gritted out, “And I’ve got...some prime real estate on Hoff you...might be interested...in.” Todd did not have to know the Earth phrase to understand the insult, and the Wraith hissed, baring his teeth slightly as he did so.
“I did not expect our presence to be so easily detected,” the Wraith insisted, but he lost none of his careful handling of the fragile human beneath his hands. “That the other Hive showed up as it did was most...unfortunate....” Sheppard flinched as Todd did his best to clean the wound with the alcohol wipes as instructed, but did not cry out; the Wraith paused, impressed with the colonel’s rather controlled response to the pain. It was one of the things that had impressed him in Kolya’s dungeon cells. Even after having been fed on in increments, Sheppard had refused to display much in the way of his suffering.
For his part, John clamped down on the groan that wanted to escape. It was after all, what needed to be done; the wipes were better than nothing and rescue would come. His team would drag him back to the Infirmary, where Keller would load him up on the appropriate antibiotics and painkillers.
He had to admit, even if only in his own head, that he was looking forward to the painkiller part, particularly when Todd started in on re-bandaging the still sluggishly bleeding wound. He couldn’t quite help the sharp little breath he pulled in.
“’Unfortunate.’ Th...that’s a good word for it,” John agreed, a little breathlessly. “Runnin’ into...the local gun club wasn’t so fortunate...either. Ow!” He glanced down at Todd’s handiwork; for a Wraith who normally wouldn’t be all that concerned about a human’s condition unless he was looking for a mid-afternoon snack, Todd hadn’t done a bad job of binding up the gunshot wound.
“I agree,” Todd said, with what John had come to recognize as the Wraith’s peculiar sense of humor, before the white head cocked slightly. “Your people will come,” he stated finally, and John looked up, unable to completely hide his surprise.
“Yes,” he replied just as confidently. “Yes, they will. And then we’ll re-take the ‘jumper and get off this rock.” John let his head fall back now, a slight groan.
“You should rest,” Todd said, with an imminently practical note in the strangled tones. “It will be difficult enough to fight for your ship.”
“Yeah,” John murmured, his eyes already closing.
++++++
Way to go, John! Listen to a Wraith.
Shouting startled John awake and he blinked a moment, disoriented. Fire sheeted through his left flank when he tried to move and suddenly everything flooded back in perfect clarity. “Ohhhh, crap,” he muttered, his hand flying to his bandaged side. “Okay...so, not a bad dream,” he grumbled even as he heard more shouting and he paused to listen. “Apparently we didn’t lose the bad guys.”
His comments went unheeded and John suddenly realized that Todd wasn’t there to hear them. Great, he grumbled to himself. Just great. At least he didn’t decide he was hungry. Very carefully now, he shifted upward, gritting his teeth as he did so. He didn’t remember it hurting quite this badly earlier, and he took a moment to catch his breath before trying to push himself over onto his hands and knees. “Sonofa...” he breathed out as the pain knifed through him, making him gasp for breath. His arms trembled with exertion and his surroundings took a lazy spin. “C’mon, John...can’t fight ‘em off...down here.”
Somehow he managed to push himself up, using some of the wrecked building around him for leverage; he gained his feet and grabbed for the wall with one hand and his side with the other as the world wobbled again.
Not for the first time, John wondered about letting Todd go after their initial encounter. After Kolya...John shook his head, despite the dizziness that threatened to dump him back onto his hands and knees. He wasn’t sure what was more infuriating, wanting to kill the enemy and being unable to, or feeling at times like he owed something to the Wraith that had returned the life he had taken.
There was more shouting and John realized the people tracking them were getting closer. Swallowing thickly, he made himself bend a bit and reach for the P-90 that, oddly enough, was resting against the nearby wall. He didn’t remember retrieving it after the initial attack. John swore softly as he bent and then straightened, but he had the necessary item in his hands. He held onto it tightly as he rode out the expected wave of dizziness that followed the uncomfortable motion.
Shouting below suddenly exploded into a scream. A shower of gunfire followed and John tightened his grip on the P-90 just as another scream of pain erupted into the air and suddenly it made sense.
Todd.
Grimacing against the pain in his side, John pushed away from the wall and staggered out into the open, realizing almost too late how very little cover existed outside of the remnants of the building in which they’d taken shelter. He ducked down behind a fallen pillar, groaning at how much it hurt, but cocked his weapon and steeled himself to move quickly. After a short breath-which also hurt-he popped up from behind the pillar and laid down cover fire for the Wraith below.
Todd’s head jerked up at the sound, but his feeding hand was fully latched onto a third victim who, eerily enough made no sound at all. John flopped down behind the pillar once more, gasping with the exertion. After a long moment he finally forced himself upward and gained his feet in time to see that it was down to two-Todd and a terrified kid who looked like he was maybe fifteen or sixteen. The gun in the kid’s hands wavered, he was shaking so badly.
“Enough!” John called out, forcing himself down the gentle slope, P-90 still in his hands. How he managed not to trip or stumble, he had no clue but within moments he was stationed nearly between the two combatants. “Enough,” he repeated, quieter but no less intense. Todd’s gaze remained on the youth, and the kid, wide-eyed, was uncertain where his attention should lie-with the Wraith or with the armed stranger.
“Are you...Do you serve it?” the kid asked, a jerk of his weapon in Todd’s direction, and John realized what was being asked of him.
“Of course not,” he started, then stepped slightly forward, nearly-but not quite-placing himself in the line of fire between the kid and Todd. “But you can’t shoot him, either.” His mind scrambled for a logical explanation to give the boy before he did something stupid. “You’ve got...what? Four, five more shots in that thing? After what you’ve seen here, do you really think that’s gonna stop him?”
The kid’s footing shifted a bit, now, but Todd remained tense, poised to strike. John turned his attention to the taller Wraith. “C’mon...he’s a kid. Give him a break...give him a chance to grow up. Besides, you’ve already had...a three-course meal. You can wait for dessert.” At Todd’s glare, John shrugged uncomfortably, but didn’t raise the P-90. “I’m not on the menu, so forget it.”
John risked a brief look around; aside from the three men the Wraith had fed upon, and the two that John had pegged with the P-90, there was no sign of the others. He started to ask about that, when the spinning returned with a vengeance and he lost his grip on his gun. Everything seemed to grind into slow motion as his knees folded under him and he dropped to the ground, and then the grey on the edges of his vision morphed to black.
++++++
Well, we learned two things. One, he likes me better than you.
“Sheppard?” John groaned, unwilling to respond to the summons above him. He was tired...incredibly tired and sleep sounded so much more appealing. “Sheppard.” The second call was more insistent, and John’s eyes fluttered open, albeit with some effort.
“McKay...” John realized belatedly that he hadn’t been called back to consciousness in gravelly Wraith-tones, and he tried to lift his head. “Where...”
“Whoa, whoa,” Jennifer Keller exclaimed and very easily pushed John back down. It was at that moment the colonel realized he was in the back of a jumper. “You’ve been shot and you’ve lost a lot of blood. Just stay put.”
“Where’s...” John tried again, and Rodney saved him the trouble by interrupting.
“Todd?” He pointed behind him; further down the bench, closer to the cockpit, was the Wraith in question, shackled and guarded by Ronon. “He’s just fine, by the way. Apparently all healed up from whoever was taking pot-shots at you...isn’t that nice?”
“Y...yeah,” John stammered and closed his eyes. The throbbing in his side was muted, likely due to whatever was in the IV already stuck in the back of his hand.
“This ship of the Ancestors is amazing,” an unfamiliar, soft voice said, and John’s eyes snapped open again to find the young scavenger-disarmed-sitting on the other side of Teyla. He was a little awkward in the manner of most teenagers, but also appropriately subdued in the presence of the man his people had wounded. “He told me your name is Sheppard,” the boy said uncertainly, nodding a little in the direction of the Wraith in their company. “I am sorry, Sheppard, that you are hurt.”
“Me, too,” John agreed wholeheartedly, flinching a little when Keller’s triage resulting in a brief crest of pain. “He didn’t tell me...your name, y’know.”
“I am Nharin.”
“Well, Nharin...way t’be...alive,” John slurred tiredly. A harsh chuckle came from the far side of the jumper, and the boy shifted uncomfortably. “Don’ worry ‘bout it; ‘parently I’m just funny.”
“I did not shoot him,” Nharin stated.
“An’ you...don’ look old enough t’ shave,” John observed.
“Your people came shortly after your collapse, Sheppard,” Todd filled in the blank succinctly. “But I was prepared to allow him to leave with the others.”
“Y...yeah, ‘bout that...” John started now, trying to look at the Wraith, but it was too much work. “I didn’ see...too many. Where’d...rest of ‘em go?”
“I gave them the opportunity to return to the Stargate,” Todd explained simply. The Wraith cocked his head slightly. “As you said...I had already taken my fill. I saw no point in continuing if, by allowing them to leave, I could protect us.”
“Oh,” John answered dully; his head felt fuzzy and sleep beckoned. Or unconsciousness, whichever his body decided was easier. “An’...why didn’ you shoot?” he wanted to know, curiosity getting the better of him.
“Because the Wraith told me we had to save you,” Nharin said simply. “I have never seen that before.”
John chuckled weakly; pain rippled through him despite the drugs, putting a stop to it, but he shook his head slightly. Pegasus certainly had a way of surprising.
“Best laid plans...Wraith an’ men, huh?” he mumbled, and nearby, Rodney snorted.
“Oh, ha, ha. It must be the drugs if that’s all you can come up with,” the scientist stated, but he found himself glancing back at Todd. The Wraith was infuriating, always. But today, he had brought Rodney’s friend home, alive. There was something to be said for that, so he settled for giving Todd a slight nod. Close enough.
“Yeah,” John agreed wearily. “Gotta be...better one but...gonna think of it later.”
And, if we were to meet again?
All bets are off the table.
‘No kiddin’,’ John thought as he drifted off under the influence of the medication.