South to the Edge of Darkness, (2/2)
Here's the second half!
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Rodney sat cross-legged at the base of the elevator and stared at the knot of wires hanging from the power box. Half the wires were actually missing. No wonder there was no power to it. He twirled the knife Ronon had left with him in one hand and rested his head in his other hand.
He should be working on the chair. That was why they were here in the first place. He closed his eyes, then jerked them open when the first image to pop into his head was Sheppard spasming on the ground.
That was your his fault, a voice whispered in his ear. His fist tightened on the knife until his knuckles turned white. No matter how much he tried to deny it, the nagging voice of guilt was unremitting, chipping away at him. Carson said he would be fine, but he clearly wasn’t-he was lying unconscious in the other room, mumbling every so often about being in pain and sick.
Rodney sighed and popped another panel off the power box, then began reconnecting wires. At first glance, it had looked about as messed up as the chair and the few computers they’d found in the outpost, but it wasn’t completely destroyed. It took some time reconnecting the wires still on the box, and a bit more time hunting through the remains of the equipment in the large room adjacent to the chair room to find replacement parts.
A few of the missing parts looked familiar, but it took crafting a makeshift work-around to the part of the elevator’s control console that was damaged beyond immediate repair before he recognized them. They were connected to the chair now.
“Stupid, moronic, damn Area 51 scientists,” he muttered, but there was another part of him shaking his head, letting the scientists off the hook. They wouldn’t have done that. Pulling apart every piece of technical equipment in the outpost and then sticking it into the chair? That was too weird.
But then, who had? The whole situation was… bizarre. He glanced back at the chair room, past the mangled mess of Ancient tech to where Beckett was kneeling next to Sheppard again, checking him over. The man was always bad at the whole hovering thing, but he was in prime mode at the moment.
His gaze drifted back to the chair, now upright and quiet, looking oh-so-innocuous. A pang of guilt flashed through his chest, followed by fear. Something was going on here. The half-destroyed chair, Sheppard’s seizure, the broken elevator, all the other damaged computers and equipment. They were all connected, each a single spoke to a wheel encompassing the entire situation.
All he was missing was the hub-the central link that would give shape to the wheel and explain everything. He could feel it even though he couldn’t see it. It was right there, just out of reach, and when he finally figured out what that missing, key piece of information was, he’d kick himself at its obviousness.
“In the meantime…” he muttered. He stood up and threw the switch that would flood the elevator with power again and stepped back, then tilted his head at the immediate whirling sound of an engine starting up. The cables in the elevator shaft began to move.
At least he could still fix something while they were here. He glanced over the console and saw the flashing signal that indicated the elevator car was on its way down.
“Carson, the elevator’s working,” he called out. He heard the doctor give some reply, but he kept his gaze focused on the console. His repair job was doing the job, but it certainly wasn’t permanent. He probably should have warned Ronon and Teyla not to use the elevator to come down in case it shorted out halfway and plunged them to their deaths.
God, why do I think of things like that? He shook his head, searching for some other horrible image to replace the one of a flattened Teyla and Ronon. Any horrible image.
The elevator moved steadily, settling on its base then powering down. Rodney rubbed the hand once again gripping Ronon’s knife across his forehead at the sudden sheen of sweat breaking out. Now all he had to do was not think of all of them pancaked at the bottom of the elevator shaft after trying to go back up.
Maybe he would take the stairs.
The doors slid open and he looked over at his teammates. It took a second for his brain to register the fact that he was only seeing one person step out toward him rather than two, and that they didn’t have thick, brown dreadlocks but long, flowing white hair, pointed rotting teeth, and iridescent yellow slivers for eyes.
“Oh, sh-”
The Wraith slammed its hand into his chest, sending him flying ten feet in the air and cutting off his half scream of pure panic. What little oxygen remaining in his lungs whooshed out of him as he hit the ground and slid along the floor another ten feet. He was vaguely aware of the knife flying from his hand and clattering across the floor behind him, and fully aware of the Wraith walking toward him.
“Rodney!”
He heard Carson yelling, but black spots were dancing across his vision and obscuring the Wraith that was still coming at him. He clambered backward, too stunned to think about rolling onto his feet and running, about his lungs refusing to expand and let him breathe, or about the six or seven cracked vertebrae at least in his back.
The Wraith was tall and thin, with a thin sliver of a goatee hanging off its chin. It also had a round hole in the center of its shirt. Rodney crab-walked toward the chair room and whimpered in panic or pain-pain, definitely pain-when his shoulder hit the doorframe and halted his momentum.
The Wraith grinned wider, the expression twisting the narrow black markings on its cheek. Rodney suddenly recognized the crispy round hole in the creature’s shirt, but the momentary flare of hope that Ronon would suddenly pop out of the elevator or stairwell with his blaster was squashed by the sight of perfectly healed skin underneath.
Four shots rang out in quick succession, and Rodney flinched then screamed at the hand suddenly grabbing him by the arm. He looked down at his chest and pressed a hand into his orange fleece pullover. No hole. That meant the Wraith hadn’t fed on him, even for a split second. Just hit him really hard.
He’d have to add broken ribs and bruised heart and lungs to his growing list of possible injuries. The hand tugged on this arm again, and he finally connected it to Carson’s voice, screaming at him.
“Get up, Rodney. Move!”
The Wraith was lying on the ground in the middle of the large room but it was moving already. He grabbed onto Carson’s arm and pulled himself to his feet just as the Wraith sat up and stared at the bullet wounds in its body. A second later, they dissolved to nothing and the Wraith jumped to its feet with a snarl.
Carson shot it again and again and again, too fast for Rodney to count. A few of the bullets dinged off the walls and floor, but most hit their mark. The Wraith staggered at each impact but it wasn’t going down. Rodney grabbed Carson’s arm and pulled him backward into the chair room.
They had to get out of here. Find cover. Hide. Sheppard-they had to get-
The gun clicked, the last of its bullets gone. Rodney felt his legs begin to waver and he fought the urge to just sit down and let the end come quickly. Carson needed no more prodding and the two of them continued to back up, hitting Rodney’s work table against the far wall, then sliding to the side, toward Sheppard and somewhat behind the cover of the broken chair.
The Wraith knew it had them, and yet it hesitated and turned back toward the elevator shaft. Rodney heard pounding footsteps a moment later, then caught a hurtling mass of black right before it plowed into the Wraith, catching the creature around the waist and sending both of them skidding across the chair room floor.
Sheppard.
They rolled twice, Sheppard ending up on top of the Wraith. He’d barely pushed himself up before the Wraith grabbed his collar and flung him to the side. Sheppard was all limp arms and legs, his head hanging from his neck. Rodney wondered if he was conscious, then wondered how he’d managed to even get out of bed in the first place.
Carson was yelling again, still pointing his useless, bullet-less gun. The Wraith flipped Sheppard onto his back and Rodney’s eyes drifted to the back of the chair then to the Wraith. The last piece of information clicked in his mind, the hub dropping into place and the wheel taking shape.
The Wraith grabbed Sheppard’s already loosened fleece pullover and uniform shirt and ripped it down, exposing his chest. Rodney heard Sheppard moan, flailing his arms weakly. Without thinking, he slid to the back of the chair and mentally traced the insane modifications he was sure the Wraith had made, and all the data that hadn’t made sense before was suddenly crystal clear.
“I know what you were trying to do!” he yelled, sitting up to peer around the chair. The Wraith was poised over Sheppard, its feeding hand raised. Rodney plowed forward, trying not to look at his friend writhing on the ground. “The chair-you messed with it. You were trying to send a message to Pegasus-your galaxy.”
The Wraith paused glancing up at him, then narrowed its eyes.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” McKay asked. In his mind, he screamed at Sheppard to move but the man was only semi-conscious now and did little more than twitch his foot. “Let us go, or I’ll destroy the chair and your only chance at contacting your people.”
“You would never allow such a message to be sent,” the Wraith glared.
“Sure we would…Leonard. Can I call you Leonard?” He cringed as his voice broke. He’d meant to sound like a smartass, but damn it, that was a lot harder to do than Sheppard made it seem.
The Wraith growled, baring its teeth. Maybe they hated being called names? He should have thought of that before he’d decided to call it Leonard, but that had been the first name to pop into his head and how was he supposed to think straight under these conditions? Leonard glanced at the chair then down at Sheppard, and Carson seemed to have frozen into a statue.
“You understand the technology of the Enemy?” Leonard asked.
Rodney’s mind stuttered. The enemy… The Ancients? “I’ve been staring at the chair for hours trying to figure out what was done to it. It seems totally obvious now, but I didn’t realize there was a Wraith hanging around. Let us go, or I destroy it.”
The Wraith smiled-smiled-and Rodney felt his heart drop as it jerked Sheppard to a sitting position. It was kneeling on one knee, and it leaned Sheppard against his other leg. Rodney watched Sheppard’s eyes flutter-he was awake but not really coherently awake. The Wraith dropped its feeding hand, then carefully placed it over the bare skin of Sheppard’s chest visible through the ripped clothing.
“What are you doing?” Carson barked out, breaking his impersonation of a statue as his hands and the gun he was still holding began to shake.
“You will complete the modifications I started, or I will feed.”
Rodney froze, his eyes riveted to the feeding hand over Sheppard’s chest. There were a handful of tools around the chair, maybe enough to finish the Wraith’s modifications and build a transmitter strong enough to send a power signal to Pegasus. The power burst that had surged through Sheppard and sent him into convulsions wasn’t even close to the amount of energy they would need to reach Pegasus, and who was supposed to activate it then? It would kill any of them instantly.
And could he really help the Wraith send a signal that would bring all the Wraith to the Earth? Sheppard would say no, even if it meant he had to have his life sucked dry to prevent it.
Leonard snarled and pressed its hand into Sheppard’s chest. Sheppard stiffened, and his hands clawed at the ground as a choked cry gurgled out of his throat. Rodney heard Carson gasp, then saw a thin rivulet of blood drip down from under the feeding hand. Sheppard’s eyes widened then rolled into the back of his head, and his entire body went lax.
It had fed-for no more than a split second, and maybe just enough to break the skin-but it wouldn’t take much to push the Wraith into completing the process. It stared at Rodney, waiting for a response.
Rodney swallowed, feeling suddenly like his throat was closing off and he was going to pass out. He rubbed a hand across his chest. “Okay, okay-I’ll do it. Just… just let him go.”
The Wraith bared its teeth but tightened its grip on Sheppard’s unconscious body. Rodney pulled in a deep breath, and felt more than saw Carson scoot closer to him. He reached down for the nearest tool then raised it, showing the Wraith he was starting to work.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Carson lost track of time kneeling next to Rodney. The Wraith had hardly moved, but it continued to hold onto John as tightly as ever. John was mercifully unconscious but still in no condition to be subjected to even a small amount of the Wraith feeding process. Carson held the gun in a white-knuckled grip, but no amount of mental coaxing could get his fingers to loosen their hold.
Rodney was muttering under his breath beside him, doing something to the back of the chair. He had the bottom panel pulled off and was reconnecting and reattaching various wires and crystals and who knew what else. He couldn’t possibly be doing what the Wraith wanted-building a signal that would bring Wraith hordes rampaging toward Earth. His throat tightened, intending to ask him what he thought he was doing, but no sound emerged.
He glanced back at the Wraith and John, and realized that Rodney might actually be doing exactly what the vile creature wanted. Was the situation really all that different from what Michael had forced him to do not so long ago? The motivation was the same-save whoever was immediately in front of you from dying by Wraith feeding.
The Wraith shifted slightly and Carson caught flashes of pale skin through the holes in its shirt. He’d shot the creature almost a dozen times, and Ronon had apparently shot him as well, yet the Wraith-Leonard-had healed itself almost instantly.
“You’ve fed recently,” he murmured and he tried not to think of the implications that had for Ronon and Teyla. The fact that it had been shot by Ronon, and yet there was no sign of either him or Teyla…
Carson swallowed and forced himself to focus on the here and now. He couldn’t think about anything else. The Wraith grimaced, its upper lip twitching. “Word of Lantean defiance has reached all levels of my people, yet those fools cowered at my sight. Never have we seen such a rich and plentiful feeding ground-ours for the taking.”
“The other scientists? You fed on all of them?”
The Wraith didn’t respond, but Carson already knew the answer. It explained the abandoned outpost. The way the place looked lived in yet wasn’t. He could imagine they would have cowered at the sudden appearance of a Wraith in Antarctica. But Teyla and Ronon? They would have fought to their dying breath.
A small ember of hope burned in his chest. Maybe they hadn’t been fed on. Maybe they’d somehow escaped the Wraith. If Rodney could just work a little longer, maybe they would surprise Leonard and attack him from behind. Maybe that had been Rodney’s plan all along.
He glanced over at the physicist, following the movement of his hands as he worked, but Carson had no idea what to look for. He wouldn’t know the difference between Rodney actually fixing the chair to Rodney pretending to fix the chair. Whatever his friend was doing, his attention was entirely focused on the task. His occasional glance toward Leonard and John only caused him to clench his jaw and bend closer toward the open panel.
John moaned, the soft sound shattering the silence. Carson shook his head, willing John to stay unconscious. The Wraith glanced down at his hostage then back at Rodney, his focus entirely on the chair modifications. John’s legs kicked against the ground, his eyelids fluttering as he rose closer to consciousness.
Carson stared at him, hoping John would see him before he noticed the Wraith bending over him, holding him in place with its feeding hand. John’s head rolled against the Wraith’s leg and his body tensed as he tried then failed to sit up.
“What?” he asked, opening his eyes completely.
Leonard ignored him, although Carson swore it pressed its hand harder into John. John looked down at the hand on his chest, then followed its arm up to its face. His eyes widened and he opened his mouth to scream, choking on the cry that finally emerged.
“Colonel!” Carson yelled. Beside him, Rodney jerked and sat up, peering around the edge of the chair to where John lay.
John’s already pale face had turned another shade of white, and he was panting heavily, his eyes locked on that of the Wraith’s. He flailed arms and legs, and managed to bring a hand up to pull at the Wraith’s wrist, but Carson could see the trembling in his fingers from where he was kneeling.
“Colonel, lad. Look at me,” Carson called out, forcing his voice to sound calm but not entirely convinced he’d pulled it off. He glanced down at the gun in his hand-John’s gun. Their only gun. If there were more bullets, he didn’t know where they were, and there wasn’t anything resembling a weapon within easy reach.
John moaned again, clawing at the feeding hand over his chest and not even causing a scratch. He’d already suffered through a major seizure, and that alone would have left him in a weakened condition-too weak to take on a satiated Wraith.
“John, please, look at me,” Carson said again, and this time his voice finally seemed to reach the colonel. John turned his head toward the doctor and Carson winced at the look of pure terror in his eyes. “You need to stay calm-relaxed. We’ll get you out of this, okay?”
The words sounded trite, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say. The Wraith growled, spurring Rodney to return to his work, but otherwise it ignored John and Carson. John’s breathing had slowed from its frantic pace, and his hands dropped to his side, but Carson had the distinct impression that that was more in response to a pervasive exhaustion than anything he was saying.
John sagged against the Wraith’s leg, blinking heavy eyes. He was still pale, his gaze unfocused and staring at the far wall. He was awake but sinking rapidly into unconscious-or shock, or catatonia. Carson couldn’t tell which from where he was, but he breathed a sigh of relief as John slipped further from awareness. At least he wouldn’t suffer for hours, waiting for Leonard to finally follow through on its feeding threat.
He glanced at Rodney and prayed the physicist had some kind of plan to get them all out of this.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Ronon woke up abruptly, his hands and arms flailing as he tried to sit up and roll. He remembered the Wraith, and the hive, and the way the knife had slid through skin and muscle to the vital organs underneath. The floor dropped out from under him and he fell, slamming into a solid surface a second later. Pain erupted in his side, the blood welling up and soaking into his clothes, and he groaned at the onslaught as he pounded his fists into the ground.
When the agony began to abate, he opened his eyes to see a dark rough floor take shape underneath him. He stared at it, perplexed. It should have been smooth and light gray. It should have smelled like rotting vegetation. It should have been rumbling underneath his fingertips, the telltale sign of a ship in space.
“Ronon!”
Teyla?
He blinked open his eyes and lifted his head to look at her, but a sharp stab in the still bleeding wound stopped him short and he lowered his head back to the ground with a stifled groan.
“Ronon, are you alright?”
He forced his head to turn to the side. He could see Teyla’s leg kneeling next to him, her hands pushing into his back and pulling his clothes away from the raw burning under his right arm. Behind her, he saw a bench and netting hanging from the ceiling.
He was in the jumper. Memories of the last week rushed back to him, and he had to close his eyes to stem the tide of emotion lumping in his throat. He’d survived the attack on the hive, Sheppard had come back for him, they’d escaped. He’d spent most of the last week recuperating in the infirmary.
They were on Earth-Antarctica. Teyla was still talking to him but her words washed over him, incomprehensible. He was in the jumper. The outpost had been kind of cold, and the raging storm beyond freezing. The jumper, though, was warm and safe. At that exact moment, he quite possibly loved these little flying ships more so even than Sheppard.
“Ronon?”
It was Teyla’s concern more than what she was saying that finally forced him to pay attention to her. He looked over to see her bending over him, her eyes bright and anxious.
“Hey,” he mumbled.
“Can you move? We need to get you back on the bench so I can look at your injury.”
He pushed himself up with his hands without responding and would have collapsed back to the ground if Teyla hadn’t grabbed him around the chest and lifted. With her help, he managed to climb back onto the bench. He immediately stretched out onto his back, closing his eyes against the floating black motes and the sudden urge to throw up. His side screamed in agony.
“Ronon?”
“Yeah, I’m here,” he whispered.
“Your wound is bleeding again. I need to put a bandage on it but it will hurt.”
He nodded, thinking it couldn’t really hurt that much more than dying on the hive had hurt, but he was wrong. He bit his lip at the cry of pain that slipped out as she pushed into his side.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the pain eased. He sucked in a couple of breaths and let it out through his nose, and only opened his eyes again when he felt a warm hand on the side of his face.
“What happened?” he asked, because he remembered Antarctica and the storm and Sheppard getting sick, but not much else.
Teyla sighed, looking helpless and scared-not a look he was used to seeing on the Athosian woman. “You were attacked by a Wraith when we were running toward the jumper, and you have reinjured your side.”
Wraith? So there had been a Wraith. He vaguely recalled something flying toward him through falling snow. He lifted his head to look around, but Teyla pushed him back easily. She grabbed the parka off the other bench and bundled it up, then shoved it under his head.
“It is gone,” she was saying. “We were able to reach the jumper and close the rear hatch. The Wraith cannot get to us here.”
“Sheppard?” he asked. He’d meant to include Beckett and McKay in that question, but that took too much effort, and he hoped Teyla understood the other two were implied. She usually did.
“They are still down below in the outpost. I fear the Wraith will go after them now that it knows we are here, and we have no way of warning them.”
“Radios?”
She shook her head. “We did not carry radios with us when we went down to the outpost-we did not believe it would be necessary. There are spare radios here, but we have no way of reaching Rodney or Carson, and I have been unable to raise Atlantis or anyone else.”
“Where’s my gun?” he asked and started to roll off the bench again. His side erupted in flames and he grunted, letting Teyla push him back down.
“You have been unconscious for more than half an hour. You must lie still before you do more damage to yourself.”
On any other day, he might have shrugged off her concerns and forced himself to continue fighting, but there was a desperation in her eyes begging him to listen to her. He suspected the memory of his death was still too close to the surface, so he let her inspect his wound again, press another bandage to it, then drape a blanket over his long form.
“We have to help them,” he said. He was exhausted, and he cursed the growing need to close his eyes and rest for a moment.
“I am trying, Ronon,” Teyla answered. “The Wraith was doing something in the jumper before we arrived. Some of the crystals are missing, and I have been unable to reopen the rear hatch. I think I understand what was done to it, and I may still be able to fix it, but not quickly. I fear-”
She cut off, shaking her head. Ronon dug through one of his pockets. He pulled out a thin blade and held it out to her.
“You’ll figure it out,” he whispered, and he could already feel himself fading quickly. “Then you can use this to cut the grin off that sneering bastard’s face.”
Teyla nodded, determination hardening her expression. Ronon watched her take the knife and walk toward the control panel near the back, returning to the task of opening the hatch as he gave in to his body’s need to sleep.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
John stared at a dark spot on the opposite wall, high up near the ceiling. He was aware of his hands lying limp at his sides and of a pressure on his chest that felt like broken glass being ground into his skin, but numbing cold crept over him, drawing a dim haze over his world until even sounds faded.
The spot remained. He stared at it, transfixed. He wasn’t sure if he fell asleep or even closed his eyes, but minutes or hours later, sensations began to burn their way little by little back into existence. The spot seemed to grow darker and more distinct, the glass in his chest scraped against every minute trembling, and he heard McKay’s voice answering another unfamiliar one. He was leaning against something hard and solid, but shifting took too much effort and he sighed in defeat.
“John?”
Carson’s strained whisper floated over him, and he rolled his head just enough to see the doctor on his knees next to the remains of the Ancient chair, holding a gun. Rodney was moving around behind the chair, muttering now in a voice too low for him to understand. He blinked, sucking in a slow, shallow breath.
“John, just stay calm, lad. Don’t panic.”
Don’t panic? That was reason enough to panic. His eyelids were threatening to close but he forced them open, spurred on by a sense that something was wrong. The pressure in his chest tightened, the ragged glass digging deeper and he finally looked down to see what was causing increasing waves of pain.
His gaze landed onto a pale hand, a web of purple veins stretching across the back of it and black nails curling and digging into his skin. His clothes were ripped, and he could just see bare skin under the hand. He shivered, and the hand pressed harder.
“No!” he gasped out, squirming to get away from it but his arms shook, too heavy to lift up to his chest and rip at the feeding hand flush against his skin.
“John, relax!” Carson screamed, sounding anything but calm and relaxed.
What the hell, what the hell, what the hell, what the hell…
“Stop, or I will feed,” another voice sneered, and John rolled his head to look up at the Wraith pinning him against its leg. Memories rushed back-the abandoned Antarctic outpost, the broken chair. He’d been jerked awake by the sound of gunfire. He’d rolled off the bench, slipped out of the chair room through the back door and run around in time to see a Wraith-a Wraith on Earth-stalking toward McKay.
He remembered tackling it, but not much else, and he thought maybe he’d woken up once before with the Wraith’s feeding hand pressing into his chest. He had probably panicked then. That would explain why Carson was screaming at him not to panic this time.
The Wraith dug its hand into his sternum, and John felt a sharp burning stab tunnel its way through his heart and lungs. He gasped then whimpered at a fresh trickle of blood oozing from under the Wraith’s hand and sliding over his stomach before it soaked into his clothes.
Had it fed? John swallowed, forcing himself to pull in slow deep breaths. It couldn’t have taken much. The pain began to abate almost immediately. The Wraith had started the process just enough to let him and the others know he was serious about his threat-as if they doubted him. He knew the Wraith would feed eventually; it wasn’t in their nature to let their prey go, despite Todd’s attempts to convince him otherwise. They were Wraith, and feeding on humans was their main, driving instinct.
John could feel adrenaline surging through his body now, but rather than giving him needed strength, it was only making him shake harder. The Wraith didn’t exactly relax, but it didn’t seem to be holding him as tightly as before. He let his arms fall to his sides, and he turned his head away from the creature toward Carson.
His fingers brushed against something on the floor, half covered under his body. McKay was talking to the Wraith again, begging him not to feed and telling him he was almost done. John wanted to ask the physicist what he was almost done with, but he was having a hard time breathing normally. He moved his hand slowly, not wanting to catch the Wraith’s attention, and he almost sobbed in relief when he recognized the hilt of a knife.
“This is taking too long,” the Wraith shouted, his attention focused on whatever McKay was doing.
McKay jerked up, holding his hands in the air. “I’m going as fast as I can, trust me. I’m almost done here.”
The Wraith didn’t respond, just growled. John used the moment to wrap his finger more tightly around the knife. McKay had dropped behind the chair again, but now he peered around the edge and met John’s eyes.
John stared back, searching McKay’s face for whatever the physicist was trying to tell him. McKay raised his eyebrows and grit his teeth, then looked pointedly at the chair. John nodded, hoping he was reading the physicist’s expression correctly, and tightened his grip on the knife. Whatever he was planning, it usually involved pyrotechnics and loud banging sounds.
Without the knife, John would have no chance of getting out of the Wraith’s grip, no matter how big a distraction McKay managed to pull off. The feeding hand felt like it was glued to his chest.
But with the knife…
Carson was staring at him, riveted by the horror of eventually watching John being drained to a dry husk and completely oblivious to what McKay was doing next to him. John shifted against the Wraith’s hand, gauging how tightly it was holding him and moving his weight off the blade of the knife.
“Just a few more minutes,” McKay said, his voice breaking.
John moaned at the feeling of glass being ground into his sternum again as the Wraith tightened its hold. He could feel his hand shaking, but he had the knife. Seconds later, he heard a loud pop, and then McKay was diving away from the chair, barreling into Carson and knocking the doctor to the ground. The chair erupted into a crackling smoking firecracker, popping and fizzing and filling the room with the stench of burning plastic. The Wraith leaned forward, shifting its weight, and John felt the feeding hand press harder into his chest.
He reacted, bringing the knife up and doing the only thing he could think of. He plunged it toward his own chest and sank the tip into of the blade into the back of the Wraith’s hand just as the chair popped again and sent a piece of the back rest hurtling across the room.
The Wraith screeched, a high-pitched squeal of pain that tore through John’s mind. He pushed the knife as hard as he could, and his own scream of pain joined the creature’s when he felt the blade slice into his skin and scrape across the flat bone of his sternum. The Wraith jerked its hand away, but John held onto the knife with his last remaining strength, releasing his grip only when the blade sank up to the hilt into the Wraith’s hand.
The Wraith lurched to the side, still howling. John fell backward then immediately curled up around the searing agony in his chest. He could hear McKay and Carson screaming, and the Wraith writhing behind him. He rolled onto his side, forcing his arms to push himself up to his knees, but full-body shuddering blasted any coordination he might have had.
Someone grabbed him by the arm and dragged him forward, but John had no strength left to fight the Wraith off. When it stopped moving, he curled back up into a quivering ball, the cool air biting at his open wound and sending shafts of pain through his chest.
“Colonel!” a voice yelled, shaking his arm and trying to force him to uncurl.
John looked up into Carson’s terrified face and whimpered.
“John?” Carson spoke more softly and pulled John’s limp body up into his arms, pressing a hand into the bleeding chest wound. John could do nothing but hang in his grasp, all his strength deserting him.
The Wraith had stopped howling, and John looked over at it in time to see it rip the knife from its hand. The ensuing screech reverberated through the entire outpost, and John sagged deeper into Carson. Blood dripped from the blade, and John recognized the knife as being the one Ronon had left with McKay so many hours before.
Carson was trying to scoot away from the creature now glowering at them. Within seconds it would cross the room, rip John out of the doctor’s protective hands, and finish the job it had started so many hours or minutes before. McKay was scrambling next to them, swearing like a seasoned Marine, and then John heard the distinct sound of metal sliding against metal and the click of a new magazine locking into place. He lifted his head and watched as McKay suddenly grew still and raised his gun with two hands.
The Wraith howled again, and McKay’s eyes narrowed. John saw him tense a second before he squeezed the trigger, and the explosion of sound that followed finally masked the Wraith’s incessant screaming. McKay fired again, then again, then again, unloading the entire clip into the creature.
By the time John managed to turn his head toward their attacker, it was on its knees, struggling to sit up, but it was still alive. McKay’s gun clicked as it expelled its last bullet and the Wraith swayed, catching itself from falling on its face. With a groan, it pulled its legs in and moments later pushed itself to its feet.
“Why won’t you die?” McKay roared and John flailed in Carson’s grip. His body was thrumming with adrenaline, needing to help in the fight but unable to do anything more than weakly thrash around on the ground.
The Wraith took a step toward them, almost losing its balance in the process. They probably could have finished the creature off with one last punch, but they were saved from the effort by a beautifully familiar red blast.
“Oh, thank God,” McKay breathed out. “What the hell took you so long, Ronon?”
Another red blast dropped the Wraith, and Teyla stepped out from around the corner, Ronon’s blaster looking large and heavy in her hands. She stared down at the Wraith a moment, then raised the weapon again and shot it twice more. Wisps of smoke curled up from its burning clothes.
“Teyla, are we glad to see you,” Carson said. “I thought for sure the Wraith had caught you and Ronon.”
“We managed to reach the jumper but Ronon reinjured his side,” Teyla said, stepping over the Wraith’s body and walking toward them. McKay crawled back to the chair, yanking on cables until it powered down.
John felt Carson lowering him to the ground, but he reached up and grabbed at the doctor’s hand to get his attention.
“Hang on, John. We’ll get you out here in a few minutes and you’ll be right as rain before you know it.”
“Wraith?” His voice sounded weak and frail, and the hand on Carson’s sleeve was barely gripping the fabric.
“It’s dead. Teyla got it.”
Carson reached behind him for something and John rolled onto his back to stare up at the ceiling. He could almost see a holographic image of the stars and planets, and hear McKay’s voice asking him to picture where they were in the solar system. He rolled his head and could just make out the Wraith’s body lying less than ten feet from him.
Was that where they were? After five years on Atlantis, five years of fighting them, the Wraith had finally reached Earth. He took a shuddering breath, squeezing his eyes shut then opening them again. He was suddenly freezing cold and it was getting harder and harder to breathe.
Teyla appeared over him, brushing his hair away from his forehead and smiling. She was saying something to him, but her voice faded in and out of focus. Carson turned back toward him and pressed a bandage to his chest, but creeping numbness dulled the pain. Behind them, John saw McKay gathering up his laptop and rambling a hundred miles an hour about space vampires and Ancients and high blood pressure.
“Ronon?” he mumbled, because while there were a lot of missing faces after five years on Atlantis, that one should still be there.
“He is guarding the jumper,” Teyla answered.
John nodded, moaning when Carson pressed another bandage to his chest, some of that burning pain returning. The ceiling began to swim above him, and he blinked sluggish eyes.
“Hold on, John-don’t let go yet. I need you to hold on just a little bit longer. Teyla, love, grab his parka and boots.”
John heard his team moving around him, and felt hands manipulate him into his coat and shoes. He let his eyes close despite Carson and Teyla’s attempts to make him keep them open and shivered harder, the cold beating against him. A blanket was wrapped around him and he vaguely felt hands pulling and lifting, then the mechanical quiver of a floor moving. He held onto conscious just long enough to feel his teammates carry him out of the elevator and into the arctic blast of the world outside the outpost before he let the inviting warmth of darkness drape over him.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
“John?”
John groaned at the light, turning his head into the pillow. Wherever he was, it was much brighter here, and all he wanted to do was go back to sleep.
“You are safe, John-we all are.”
His chest ached, not the sharp stabbing burn of before-it was dull and distant and a little itchy. He raised a hand toward it without opening his eyes, his fingers brushing against a thick bandage under his shirt. He could feel the pinch of an IV needle in the back of his hand as well, and the swimming congested feeling in his head from sleeping for too long.
“Teyla?” he murmured, and felt warm fingers pull his hand away from his chest and squeeze, the grip strong and reassuring.
“Yes,” she answered. “We are back on Atlantis.”
John finally forced his eyes open, letting the infirmary come into focus. Teyla was sitting next to him, looking tired but happy. Behind her, he could see the Golden Gate bridge through the infirmary window, and he blinked at the sight. He knew they were still sitting on the Pacific Ocean, but nevertheless, it was odd looking out a window or walking onto a balcony and actually seeing San Francisco.
“How do you feel?”
“Achy,” he answered, wincing as he stretched in the bed. He shifted his gaze back to Teyla’s face. “You?”
“I am fine,” she answered, biting back a smile. He blinked at her, wondering what she thought was so funny, but before he could ask he heard Ronon and McKay’s voice clattering through the infirmary.
“I have two PhDs-two. And yet, here I am, wheeling your sorry ass around the city because you were tired of staring at the pretty nurses. You’ve been here, what? A day? Not even?”
“Can you wheel me without talking, McKay?”
John grinned at Teyla and shifted in the bed to see McKay pushing Ronon in a wheelchair across the infirmary toward them. Ronon was dressed in scrubs and, other than the scowl on his face, looked well enough-just a little pale. McKay was frowning as well, but his expression softened into a smile when he spotted John awake.
“You’re the one who ran off and reopened all the stitches in your very serious injury, and then had to have surgery-again. I’m entitled to say whatever the hell I want. Look, Sheppard’s awake.”
Ronon jerked around, dropping the glare he’d been shooting up at McKay and grinning. He pushed up out of the chair before McKay reached John’s side and walked the last few steps toward him.
“Hey, buddy,” he said, patting John on the shoulder.
“Hey,” John croaked out, his voice suddenly dry. McKay shoved the wheelchair to the side, then grabbed a pitcher and glass of water, filling it then holding it out for John.
John took the glass, dismayed at the way his hand was still shaking, but the water tasted heavenly. He sipped slowly, relishing the cool liquid as it soaked into his dry throat and washed away the foul taste of his tongue sticking to the roof his mouth.
“I knew I was going to have to go all nurse-maid. There’s just no respect for physicists around here.”
“Thanks,” John whispered, handing the glass back and grinning at the small smile that flitted across McKay’s lips. “What happened to the Wraith?”
“Dead,” McKay answered. “Finally.”
“We brought its body up to the surface and chained it to the outside of the dome entrance,” Teyla added. “The SGC sent a retrieval team for it soon after we returned to Atlantis.”
“You’re sure it’s dead?”
McKay grabbed a chair and pulled it closer to the bed. “Between the thirty or so bullet wounds, and Ronon’s gun, and the subzero temperatures of winter on Antarctica-yes, we’re sure. Wasn’t easy, though.”
“And the chair?”
Ronon grinned. “McKay broke it.”
“I didn’t break it! It was already damaged.”
“McKay broke it more.”
“It’s on its way here,” the scientist huffed, crossing his arms. “Where it should have come the first time. Still completely fixable.”
“Knew you could fix it,” John said, stifling a yawn.
“The retrieval team has also found the remains of the scientists who should have met us,” Teyla added. “The Wraith…”
She trailed off, but John didn’t really need her to finish. He’d seen how strong the Wraith had been, and had known even then that the missing scientists had been drained. He felt his chest twinge in pain and he winced, bringing a hand up to rub against the bandages. The Wraith had started to feed on him also-he’d felt it-but he hadn’t asked yet how much he’d aged, how much the Wraith had taken. He glanced at his teammates as they settled into chairs around him, but they seemed to be acting normal.
“Did it…” he started, then swallowed when his voice came out shaky. He cleared his throat and tried again, pressing his hand into his chest. “Did the Wraith…uh…”
The others froze, staring at him in shock. John saw Ronon turn away, anger flushing his cheeks. McKay’s eyes darted between John’s face and chest, then over to Teyla and Ronon, then away again. Teyla reached out and grabbed the hand resting on his chest with both of hers.
“I felt it,” he whispered, but Teyla shook her head.
“It did not feed, John. Carson said it did just enough to break the skin, but no more.”
“It barely gave you any of the enzyme,” McKay added, “so you won’t even have to suffer through withdrawals. And the seizure… the chair didn’t do any permanent damage.”
“You’re going to be fine, Sheppard,” Ronon rumbled, leaning back in his chair and throwing his feet up on the side.
“But you still need to rest,” Teyla said. “If Carson catches us keeping you awake, he will kick us all out.” She glared at Ronon and McKay as she said it, then patted John’s hand one last time and pulled the blanket up around his shoulders. He was suddenly exhausted again, and sleeping sounded like a good idea despite the many, many Wraith-infested nightmares he knew would haunt his near future.
“Yeah, sleep up, Sheppard,” McKay said. “The IOA meets in a couple of days to talk about what they think they’re going to do with the city now that they’ve got it here, but I have a foolproof plan that will get us and Atlantis back into Pegasus inside of a month, and I’m going to need all of your help.”
McKay glanced around then launched into his idea, lowering his voice as he started to explain it, but John only smiled and let himself drift. It was too much work keeping his eyes open, so he let them close as McKay talked, too tired to worry about the details of whatever the man was planning yet, and pleasantly relieved at the thought that they would soon be back in Pegasus.
After all, though he would never admit it to McKay, the man’s plans usually worked.
END
Prompt:
I’d like a gen fic where Sheppard, the team, and Beckett are in Antarctica, chasing down some sort of bad guy(s), with Sheppard sick/exhausted from having to use his ATA gene too much. Also, infirmary time for Shep in Antarctica with some good comfort and interaction from Beckett, Ronon and his knives, and bonus points for medical details and if the bad guy(s) also whump Shep.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Rodney sat cross-legged at the base of the elevator and stared at the knot of wires hanging from the power box. Half the wires were actually missing. No wonder there was no power to it. He twirled the knife Ronon had left with him in one hand and rested his head in his other hand.
He should be working on the chair. That was why they were here in the first place. He closed his eyes, then jerked them open when the first image to pop into his head was Sheppard spasming on the ground.
That was your his fault, a voice whispered in his ear. His fist tightened on the knife until his knuckles turned white. No matter how much he tried to deny it, the nagging voice of guilt was unremitting, chipping away at him. Carson said he would be fine, but he clearly wasn’t-he was lying unconscious in the other room, mumbling every so often about being in pain and sick.
Rodney sighed and popped another panel off the power box, then began reconnecting wires. At first glance, it had looked about as messed up as the chair and the few computers they’d found in the outpost, but it wasn’t completely destroyed. It took some time reconnecting the wires still on the box, and a bit more time hunting through the remains of the equipment in the large room adjacent to the chair room to find replacement parts.
A few of the missing parts looked familiar, but it took crafting a makeshift work-around to the part of the elevator’s control console that was damaged beyond immediate repair before he recognized them. They were connected to the chair now.
“Stupid, moronic, damn Area 51 scientists,” he muttered, but there was another part of him shaking his head, letting the scientists off the hook. They wouldn’t have done that. Pulling apart every piece of technical equipment in the outpost and then sticking it into the chair? That was too weird.
But then, who had? The whole situation was… bizarre. He glanced back at the chair room, past the mangled mess of Ancient tech to where Beckett was kneeling next to Sheppard again, checking him over. The man was always bad at the whole hovering thing, but he was in prime mode at the moment.
His gaze drifted back to the chair, now upright and quiet, looking oh-so-innocuous. A pang of guilt flashed through his chest, followed by fear. Something was going on here. The half-destroyed chair, Sheppard’s seizure, the broken elevator, all the other damaged computers and equipment. They were all connected, each a single spoke to a wheel encompassing the entire situation.
All he was missing was the hub-the central link that would give shape to the wheel and explain everything. He could feel it even though he couldn’t see it. It was right there, just out of reach, and when he finally figured out what that missing, key piece of information was, he’d kick himself at its obviousness.
“In the meantime…” he muttered. He stood up and threw the switch that would flood the elevator with power again and stepped back, then tilted his head at the immediate whirling sound of an engine starting up. The cables in the elevator shaft began to move.
At least he could still fix something while they were here. He glanced over the console and saw the flashing signal that indicated the elevator car was on its way down.
“Carson, the elevator’s working,” he called out. He heard the doctor give some reply, but he kept his gaze focused on the console. His repair job was doing the job, but it certainly wasn’t permanent. He probably should have warned Ronon and Teyla not to use the elevator to come down in case it shorted out halfway and plunged them to their deaths.
God, why do I think of things like that? He shook his head, searching for some other horrible image to replace the one of a flattened Teyla and Ronon. Any horrible image.
The elevator moved steadily, settling on its base then powering down. Rodney rubbed the hand once again gripping Ronon’s knife across his forehead at the sudden sheen of sweat breaking out. Now all he had to do was not think of all of them pancaked at the bottom of the elevator shaft after trying to go back up.
Maybe he would take the stairs.
The doors slid open and he looked over at his teammates. It took a second for his brain to register the fact that he was only seeing one person step out toward him rather than two, and that they didn’t have thick, brown dreadlocks but long, flowing white hair, pointed rotting teeth, and iridescent yellow slivers for eyes.
“Oh, sh-”
The Wraith slammed its hand into his chest, sending him flying ten feet in the air and cutting off his half scream of pure panic. What little oxygen remaining in his lungs whooshed out of him as he hit the ground and slid along the floor another ten feet. He was vaguely aware of the knife flying from his hand and clattering across the floor behind him, and fully aware of the Wraith walking toward him.
“Rodney!”
He heard Carson yelling, but black spots were dancing across his vision and obscuring the Wraith that was still coming at him. He clambered backward, too stunned to think about rolling onto his feet and running, about his lungs refusing to expand and let him breathe, or about the six or seven cracked vertebrae at least in his back.
The Wraith was tall and thin, with a thin sliver of a goatee hanging off its chin. It also had a round hole in the center of its shirt. Rodney crab-walked toward the chair room and whimpered in panic or pain-pain, definitely pain-when his shoulder hit the doorframe and halted his momentum.
The Wraith grinned wider, the expression twisting the narrow black markings on its cheek. Rodney suddenly recognized the crispy round hole in the creature’s shirt, but the momentary flare of hope that Ronon would suddenly pop out of the elevator or stairwell with his blaster was squashed by the sight of perfectly healed skin underneath.
Four shots rang out in quick succession, and Rodney flinched then screamed at the hand suddenly grabbing him by the arm. He looked down at his chest and pressed a hand into his orange fleece pullover. No hole. That meant the Wraith hadn’t fed on him, even for a split second. Just hit him really hard.
He’d have to add broken ribs and bruised heart and lungs to his growing list of possible injuries. The hand tugged on this arm again, and he finally connected it to Carson’s voice, screaming at him.
“Get up, Rodney. Move!”
The Wraith was lying on the ground in the middle of the large room but it was moving already. He grabbed onto Carson’s arm and pulled himself to his feet just as the Wraith sat up and stared at the bullet wounds in its body. A second later, they dissolved to nothing and the Wraith jumped to its feet with a snarl.
Carson shot it again and again and again, too fast for Rodney to count. A few of the bullets dinged off the walls and floor, but most hit their mark. The Wraith staggered at each impact but it wasn’t going down. Rodney grabbed Carson’s arm and pulled him backward into the chair room.
They had to get out of here. Find cover. Hide. Sheppard-they had to get-
The gun clicked, the last of its bullets gone. Rodney felt his legs begin to waver and he fought the urge to just sit down and let the end come quickly. Carson needed no more prodding and the two of them continued to back up, hitting Rodney’s work table against the far wall, then sliding to the side, toward Sheppard and somewhat behind the cover of the broken chair.
The Wraith knew it had them, and yet it hesitated and turned back toward the elevator shaft. Rodney heard pounding footsteps a moment later, then caught a hurtling mass of black right before it plowed into the Wraith, catching the creature around the waist and sending both of them skidding across the chair room floor.
Sheppard.
They rolled twice, Sheppard ending up on top of the Wraith. He’d barely pushed himself up before the Wraith grabbed his collar and flung him to the side. Sheppard was all limp arms and legs, his head hanging from his neck. Rodney wondered if he was conscious, then wondered how he’d managed to even get out of bed in the first place.
Carson was yelling again, still pointing his useless, bullet-less gun. The Wraith flipped Sheppard onto his back and Rodney’s eyes drifted to the back of the chair then to the Wraith. The last piece of information clicked in his mind, the hub dropping into place and the wheel taking shape.
The Wraith grabbed Sheppard’s already loosened fleece pullover and uniform shirt and ripped it down, exposing his chest. Rodney heard Sheppard moan, flailing his arms weakly. Without thinking, he slid to the back of the chair and mentally traced the insane modifications he was sure the Wraith had made, and all the data that hadn’t made sense before was suddenly crystal clear.
“I know what you were trying to do!” he yelled, sitting up to peer around the chair. The Wraith was poised over Sheppard, its feeding hand raised. Rodney plowed forward, trying not to look at his friend writhing on the ground. “The chair-you messed with it. You were trying to send a message to Pegasus-your galaxy.”
The Wraith paused glancing up at him, then narrowed its eyes.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” McKay asked. In his mind, he screamed at Sheppard to move but the man was only semi-conscious now and did little more than twitch his foot. “Let us go, or I’ll destroy the chair and your only chance at contacting your people.”
“You would never allow such a message to be sent,” the Wraith glared.
“Sure we would…Leonard. Can I call you Leonard?” He cringed as his voice broke. He’d meant to sound like a smartass, but damn it, that was a lot harder to do than Sheppard made it seem.
The Wraith growled, baring its teeth. Maybe they hated being called names? He should have thought of that before he’d decided to call it Leonard, but that had been the first name to pop into his head and how was he supposed to think straight under these conditions? Leonard glanced at the chair then down at Sheppard, and Carson seemed to have frozen into a statue.
“You understand the technology of the Enemy?” Leonard asked.
Rodney’s mind stuttered. The enemy… The Ancients? “I’ve been staring at the chair for hours trying to figure out what was done to it. It seems totally obvious now, but I didn’t realize there was a Wraith hanging around. Let us go, or I destroy it.”
The Wraith smiled-smiled-and Rodney felt his heart drop as it jerked Sheppard to a sitting position. It was kneeling on one knee, and it leaned Sheppard against his other leg. Rodney watched Sheppard’s eyes flutter-he was awake but not really coherently awake. The Wraith dropped its feeding hand, then carefully placed it over the bare skin of Sheppard’s chest visible through the ripped clothing.
“What are you doing?” Carson barked out, breaking his impersonation of a statue as his hands and the gun he was still holding began to shake.
“You will complete the modifications I started, or I will feed.”
Rodney froze, his eyes riveted to the feeding hand over Sheppard’s chest. There were a handful of tools around the chair, maybe enough to finish the Wraith’s modifications and build a transmitter strong enough to send a power signal to Pegasus. The power burst that had surged through Sheppard and sent him into convulsions wasn’t even close to the amount of energy they would need to reach Pegasus, and who was supposed to activate it then? It would kill any of them instantly.
And could he really help the Wraith send a signal that would bring all the Wraith to the Earth? Sheppard would say no, even if it meant he had to have his life sucked dry to prevent it.
Leonard snarled and pressed its hand into Sheppard’s chest. Sheppard stiffened, and his hands clawed at the ground as a choked cry gurgled out of his throat. Rodney heard Carson gasp, then saw a thin rivulet of blood drip down from under the feeding hand. Sheppard’s eyes widened then rolled into the back of his head, and his entire body went lax.
It had fed-for no more than a split second, and maybe just enough to break the skin-but it wouldn’t take much to push the Wraith into completing the process. It stared at Rodney, waiting for a response.
Rodney swallowed, feeling suddenly like his throat was closing off and he was going to pass out. He rubbed a hand across his chest. “Okay, okay-I’ll do it. Just… just let him go.”
The Wraith bared its teeth but tightened its grip on Sheppard’s unconscious body. Rodney pulled in a deep breath, and felt more than saw Carson scoot closer to him. He reached down for the nearest tool then raised it, showing the Wraith he was starting to work.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Carson lost track of time kneeling next to Rodney. The Wraith had hardly moved, but it continued to hold onto John as tightly as ever. John was mercifully unconscious but still in no condition to be subjected to even a small amount of the Wraith feeding process. Carson held the gun in a white-knuckled grip, but no amount of mental coaxing could get his fingers to loosen their hold.
Rodney was muttering under his breath beside him, doing something to the back of the chair. He had the bottom panel pulled off and was reconnecting and reattaching various wires and crystals and who knew what else. He couldn’t possibly be doing what the Wraith wanted-building a signal that would bring Wraith hordes rampaging toward Earth. His throat tightened, intending to ask him what he thought he was doing, but no sound emerged.
He glanced back at the Wraith and John, and realized that Rodney might actually be doing exactly what the vile creature wanted. Was the situation really all that different from what Michael had forced him to do not so long ago? The motivation was the same-save whoever was immediately in front of you from dying by Wraith feeding.
The Wraith shifted slightly and Carson caught flashes of pale skin through the holes in its shirt. He’d shot the creature almost a dozen times, and Ronon had apparently shot him as well, yet the Wraith-Leonard-had healed itself almost instantly.
“You’ve fed recently,” he murmured and he tried not to think of the implications that had for Ronon and Teyla. The fact that it had been shot by Ronon, and yet there was no sign of either him or Teyla…
Carson swallowed and forced himself to focus on the here and now. He couldn’t think about anything else. The Wraith grimaced, its upper lip twitching. “Word of Lantean defiance has reached all levels of my people, yet those fools cowered at my sight. Never have we seen such a rich and plentiful feeding ground-ours for the taking.”
“The other scientists? You fed on all of them?”
The Wraith didn’t respond, but Carson already knew the answer. It explained the abandoned outpost. The way the place looked lived in yet wasn’t. He could imagine they would have cowered at the sudden appearance of a Wraith in Antarctica. But Teyla and Ronon? They would have fought to their dying breath.
A small ember of hope burned in his chest. Maybe they hadn’t been fed on. Maybe they’d somehow escaped the Wraith. If Rodney could just work a little longer, maybe they would surprise Leonard and attack him from behind. Maybe that had been Rodney’s plan all along.
He glanced over at the physicist, following the movement of his hands as he worked, but Carson had no idea what to look for. He wouldn’t know the difference between Rodney actually fixing the chair to Rodney pretending to fix the chair. Whatever his friend was doing, his attention was entirely focused on the task. His occasional glance toward Leonard and John only caused him to clench his jaw and bend closer toward the open panel.
John moaned, the soft sound shattering the silence. Carson shook his head, willing John to stay unconscious. The Wraith glanced down at his hostage then back at Rodney, his focus entirely on the chair modifications. John’s legs kicked against the ground, his eyelids fluttering as he rose closer to consciousness.
Carson stared at him, hoping John would see him before he noticed the Wraith bending over him, holding him in place with its feeding hand. John’s head rolled against the Wraith’s leg and his body tensed as he tried then failed to sit up.
“What?” he asked, opening his eyes completely.
Leonard ignored him, although Carson swore it pressed its hand harder into John. John looked down at the hand on his chest, then followed its arm up to its face. His eyes widened and he opened his mouth to scream, choking on the cry that finally emerged.
“Colonel!” Carson yelled. Beside him, Rodney jerked and sat up, peering around the edge of the chair to where John lay.
John’s already pale face had turned another shade of white, and he was panting heavily, his eyes locked on that of the Wraith’s. He flailed arms and legs, and managed to bring a hand up to pull at the Wraith’s wrist, but Carson could see the trembling in his fingers from where he was kneeling.
“Colonel, lad. Look at me,” Carson called out, forcing his voice to sound calm but not entirely convinced he’d pulled it off. He glanced down at the gun in his hand-John’s gun. Their only gun. If there were more bullets, he didn’t know where they were, and there wasn’t anything resembling a weapon within easy reach.
John moaned again, clawing at the feeding hand over his chest and not even causing a scratch. He’d already suffered through a major seizure, and that alone would have left him in a weakened condition-too weak to take on a satiated Wraith.
“John, please, look at me,” Carson said again, and this time his voice finally seemed to reach the colonel. John turned his head toward the doctor and Carson winced at the look of pure terror in his eyes. “You need to stay calm-relaxed. We’ll get you out of this, okay?”
The words sounded trite, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say. The Wraith growled, spurring Rodney to return to his work, but otherwise it ignored John and Carson. John’s breathing had slowed from its frantic pace, and his hands dropped to his side, but Carson had the distinct impression that that was more in response to a pervasive exhaustion than anything he was saying.
John sagged against the Wraith’s leg, blinking heavy eyes. He was still pale, his gaze unfocused and staring at the far wall. He was awake but sinking rapidly into unconscious-or shock, or catatonia. Carson couldn’t tell which from where he was, but he breathed a sigh of relief as John slipped further from awareness. At least he wouldn’t suffer for hours, waiting for Leonard to finally follow through on its feeding threat.
He glanced at Rodney and prayed the physicist had some kind of plan to get them all out of this.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Ronon woke up abruptly, his hands and arms flailing as he tried to sit up and roll. He remembered the Wraith, and the hive, and the way the knife had slid through skin and muscle to the vital organs underneath. The floor dropped out from under him and he fell, slamming into a solid surface a second later. Pain erupted in his side, the blood welling up and soaking into his clothes, and he groaned at the onslaught as he pounded his fists into the ground.
When the agony began to abate, he opened his eyes to see a dark rough floor take shape underneath him. He stared at it, perplexed. It should have been smooth and light gray. It should have smelled like rotting vegetation. It should have been rumbling underneath his fingertips, the telltale sign of a ship in space.
“Ronon!”
Teyla?
He blinked open his eyes and lifted his head to look at her, but a sharp stab in the still bleeding wound stopped him short and he lowered his head back to the ground with a stifled groan.
“Ronon, are you alright?”
He forced his head to turn to the side. He could see Teyla’s leg kneeling next to him, her hands pushing into his back and pulling his clothes away from the raw burning under his right arm. Behind her, he saw a bench and netting hanging from the ceiling.
He was in the jumper. Memories of the last week rushed back to him, and he had to close his eyes to stem the tide of emotion lumping in his throat. He’d survived the attack on the hive, Sheppard had come back for him, they’d escaped. He’d spent most of the last week recuperating in the infirmary.
They were on Earth-Antarctica. Teyla was still talking to him but her words washed over him, incomprehensible. He was in the jumper. The outpost had been kind of cold, and the raging storm beyond freezing. The jumper, though, was warm and safe. At that exact moment, he quite possibly loved these little flying ships more so even than Sheppard.
“Ronon?”
It was Teyla’s concern more than what she was saying that finally forced him to pay attention to her. He looked over to see her bending over him, her eyes bright and anxious.
“Hey,” he mumbled.
“Can you move? We need to get you back on the bench so I can look at your injury.”
He pushed himself up with his hands without responding and would have collapsed back to the ground if Teyla hadn’t grabbed him around the chest and lifted. With her help, he managed to climb back onto the bench. He immediately stretched out onto his back, closing his eyes against the floating black motes and the sudden urge to throw up. His side screamed in agony.
“Ronon?”
“Yeah, I’m here,” he whispered.
“Your wound is bleeding again. I need to put a bandage on it but it will hurt.”
He nodded, thinking it couldn’t really hurt that much more than dying on the hive had hurt, but he was wrong. He bit his lip at the cry of pain that slipped out as she pushed into his side.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the pain eased. He sucked in a couple of breaths and let it out through his nose, and only opened his eyes again when he felt a warm hand on the side of his face.
“What happened?” he asked, because he remembered Antarctica and the storm and Sheppard getting sick, but not much else.
Teyla sighed, looking helpless and scared-not a look he was used to seeing on the Athosian woman. “You were attacked by a Wraith when we were running toward the jumper, and you have reinjured your side.”
Wraith? So there had been a Wraith. He vaguely recalled something flying toward him through falling snow. He lifted his head to look around, but Teyla pushed him back easily. She grabbed the parka off the other bench and bundled it up, then shoved it under his head.
“It is gone,” she was saying. “We were able to reach the jumper and close the rear hatch. The Wraith cannot get to us here.”
“Sheppard?” he asked. He’d meant to include Beckett and McKay in that question, but that took too much effort, and he hoped Teyla understood the other two were implied. She usually did.
“They are still down below in the outpost. I fear the Wraith will go after them now that it knows we are here, and we have no way of warning them.”
“Radios?”
She shook her head. “We did not carry radios with us when we went down to the outpost-we did not believe it would be necessary. There are spare radios here, but we have no way of reaching Rodney or Carson, and I have been unable to raise Atlantis or anyone else.”
“Where’s my gun?” he asked and started to roll off the bench again. His side erupted in flames and he grunted, letting Teyla push him back down.
“You have been unconscious for more than half an hour. You must lie still before you do more damage to yourself.”
On any other day, he might have shrugged off her concerns and forced himself to continue fighting, but there was a desperation in her eyes begging him to listen to her. He suspected the memory of his death was still too close to the surface, so he let her inspect his wound again, press another bandage to it, then drape a blanket over his long form.
“We have to help them,” he said. He was exhausted, and he cursed the growing need to close his eyes and rest for a moment.
“I am trying, Ronon,” Teyla answered. “The Wraith was doing something in the jumper before we arrived. Some of the crystals are missing, and I have been unable to reopen the rear hatch. I think I understand what was done to it, and I may still be able to fix it, but not quickly. I fear-”
She cut off, shaking her head. Ronon dug through one of his pockets. He pulled out a thin blade and held it out to her.
“You’ll figure it out,” he whispered, and he could already feel himself fading quickly. “Then you can use this to cut the grin off that sneering bastard’s face.”
Teyla nodded, determination hardening her expression. Ronon watched her take the knife and walk toward the control panel near the back, returning to the task of opening the hatch as he gave in to his body’s need to sleep.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
John stared at a dark spot on the opposite wall, high up near the ceiling. He was aware of his hands lying limp at his sides and of a pressure on his chest that felt like broken glass being ground into his skin, but numbing cold crept over him, drawing a dim haze over his world until even sounds faded.
The spot remained. He stared at it, transfixed. He wasn’t sure if he fell asleep or even closed his eyes, but minutes or hours later, sensations began to burn their way little by little back into existence. The spot seemed to grow darker and more distinct, the glass in his chest scraped against every minute trembling, and he heard McKay’s voice answering another unfamiliar one. He was leaning against something hard and solid, but shifting took too much effort and he sighed in defeat.
“John?”
Carson’s strained whisper floated over him, and he rolled his head just enough to see the doctor on his knees next to the remains of the Ancient chair, holding a gun. Rodney was moving around behind the chair, muttering now in a voice too low for him to understand. He blinked, sucking in a slow, shallow breath.
“John, just stay calm, lad. Don’t panic.”
Don’t panic? That was reason enough to panic. His eyelids were threatening to close but he forced them open, spurred on by a sense that something was wrong. The pressure in his chest tightened, the ragged glass digging deeper and he finally looked down to see what was causing increasing waves of pain.
His gaze landed onto a pale hand, a web of purple veins stretching across the back of it and black nails curling and digging into his skin. His clothes were ripped, and he could just see bare skin under the hand. He shivered, and the hand pressed harder.
“No!” he gasped out, squirming to get away from it but his arms shook, too heavy to lift up to his chest and rip at the feeding hand flush against his skin.
“John, relax!” Carson screamed, sounding anything but calm and relaxed.
What the hell, what the hell, what the hell, what the hell…
“Stop, or I will feed,” another voice sneered, and John rolled his head to look up at the Wraith pinning him against its leg. Memories rushed back-the abandoned Antarctic outpost, the broken chair. He’d been jerked awake by the sound of gunfire. He’d rolled off the bench, slipped out of the chair room through the back door and run around in time to see a Wraith-a Wraith on Earth-stalking toward McKay.
He remembered tackling it, but not much else, and he thought maybe he’d woken up once before with the Wraith’s feeding hand pressing into his chest. He had probably panicked then. That would explain why Carson was screaming at him not to panic this time.
The Wraith dug its hand into his sternum, and John felt a sharp burning stab tunnel its way through his heart and lungs. He gasped then whimpered at a fresh trickle of blood oozing from under the Wraith’s hand and sliding over his stomach before it soaked into his clothes.
Had it fed? John swallowed, forcing himself to pull in slow deep breaths. It couldn’t have taken much. The pain began to abate almost immediately. The Wraith had started the process just enough to let him and the others know he was serious about his threat-as if they doubted him. He knew the Wraith would feed eventually; it wasn’t in their nature to let their prey go, despite Todd’s attempts to convince him otherwise. They were Wraith, and feeding on humans was their main, driving instinct.
John could feel adrenaline surging through his body now, but rather than giving him needed strength, it was only making him shake harder. The Wraith didn’t exactly relax, but it didn’t seem to be holding him as tightly as before. He let his arms fall to his sides, and he turned his head away from the creature toward Carson.
His fingers brushed against something on the floor, half covered under his body. McKay was talking to the Wraith again, begging him not to feed and telling him he was almost done. John wanted to ask the physicist what he was almost done with, but he was having a hard time breathing normally. He moved his hand slowly, not wanting to catch the Wraith’s attention, and he almost sobbed in relief when he recognized the hilt of a knife.
“This is taking too long,” the Wraith shouted, his attention focused on whatever McKay was doing.
McKay jerked up, holding his hands in the air. “I’m going as fast as I can, trust me. I’m almost done here.”
The Wraith didn’t respond, just growled. John used the moment to wrap his finger more tightly around the knife. McKay had dropped behind the chair again, but now he peered around the edge and met John’s eyes.
John stared back, searching McKay’s face for whatever the physicist was trying to tell him. McKay raised his eyebrows and grit his teeth, then looked pointedly at the chair. John nodded, hoping he was reading the physicist’s expression correctly, and tightened his grip on the knife. Whatever he was planning, it usually involved pyrotechnics and loud banging sounds.
Without the knife, John would have no chance of getting out of the Wraith’s grip, no matter how big a distraction McKay managed to pull off. The feeding hand felt like it was glued to his chest.
But with the knife…
Carson was staring at him, riveted by the horror of eventually watching John being drained to a dry husk and completely oblivious to what McKay was doing next to him. John shifted against the Wraith’s hand, gauging how tightly it was holding him and moving his weight off the blade of the knife.
“Just a few more minutes,” McKay said, his voice breaking.
John moaned at the feeling of glass being ground into his sternum again as the Wraith tightened its hold. He could feel his hand shaking, but he had the knife. Seconds later, he heard a loud pop, and then McKay was diving away from the chair, barreling into Carson and knocking the doctor to the ground. The chair erupted into a crackling smoking firecracker, popping and fizzing and filling the room with the stench of burning plastic. The Wraith leaned forward, shifting its weight, and John felt the feeding hand press harder into his chest.
He reacted, bringing the knife up and doing the only thing he could think of. He plunged it toward his own chest and sank the tip into of the blade into the back of the Wraith’s hand just as the chair popped again and sent a piece of the back rest hurtling across the room.
The Wraith screeched, a high-pitched squeal of pain that tore through John’s mind. He pushed the knife as hard as he could, and his own scream of pain joined the creature’s when he felt the blade slice into his skin and scrape across the flat bone of his sternum. The Wraith jerked its hand away, but John held onto the knife with his last remaining strength, releasing his grip only when the blade sank up to the hilt into the Wraith’s hand.
The Wraith lurched to the side, still howling. John fell backward then immediately curled up around the searing agony in his chest. He could hear McKay and Carson screaming, and the Wraith writhing behind him. He rolled onto his side, forcing his arms to push himself up to his knees, but full-body shuddering blasted any coordination he might have had.
Someone grabbed him by the arm and dragged him forward, but John had no strength left to fight the Wraith off. When it stopped moving, he curled back up into a quivering ball, the cool air biting at his open wound and sending shafts of pain through his chest.
“Colonel!” a voice yelled, shaking his arm and trying to force him to uncurl.
John looked up into Carson’s terrified face and whimpered.
“John?” Carson spoke more softly and pulled John’s limp body up into his arms, pressing a hand into the bleeding chest wound. John could do nothing but hang in his grasp, all his strength deserting him.
The Wraith had stopped howling, and John looked over at it in time to see it rip the knife from its hand. The ensuing screech reverberated through the entire outpost, and John sagged deeper into Carson. Blood dripped from the blade, and John recognized the knife as being the one Ronon had left with McKay so many hours before.
Carson was trying to scoot away from the creature now glowering at them. Within seconds it would cross the room, rip John out of the doctor’s protective hands, and finish the job it had started so many hours or minutes before. McKay was scrambling next to them, swearing like a seasoned Marine, and then John heard the distinct sound of metal sliding against metal and the click of a new magazine locking into place. He lifted his head and watched as McKay suddenly grew still and raised his gun with two hands.
The Wraith howled again, and McKay’s eyes narrowed. John saw him tense a second before he squeezed the trigger, and the explosion of sound that followed finally masked the Wraith’s incessant screaming. McKay fired again, then again, then again, unloading the entire clip into the creature.
By the time John managed to turn his head toward their attacker, it was on its knees, struggling to sit up, but it was still alive. McKay’s gun clicked as it expelled its last bullet and the Wraith swayed, catching itself from falling on its face. With a groan, it pulled its legs in and moments later pushed itself to its feet.
“Why won’t you die?” McKay roared and John flailed in Carson’s grip. His body was thrumming with adrenaline, needing to help in the fight but unable to do anything more than weakly thrash around on the ground.
The Wraith took a step toward them, almost losing its balance in the process. They probably could have finished the creature off with one last punch, but they were saved from the effort by a beautifully familiar red blast.
“Oh, thank God,” McKay breathed out. “What the hell took you so long, Ronon?”
Another red blast dropped the Wraith, and Teyla stepped out from around the corner, Ronon’s blaster looking large and heavy in her hands. She stared down at the Wraith a moment, then raised the weapon again and shot it twice more. Wisps of smoke curled up from its burning clothes.
“Teyla, are we glad to see you,” Carson said. “I thought for sure the Wraith had caught you and Ronon.”
“We managed to reach the jumper but Ronon reinjured his side,” Teyla said, stepping over the Wraith’s body and walking toward them. McKay crawled back to the chair, yanking on cables until it powered down.
John felt Carson lowering him to the ground, but he reached up and grabbed at the doctor’s hand to get his attention.
“Hang on, John. We’ll get you out here in a few minutes and you’ll be right as rain before you know it.”
“Wraith?” His voice sounded weak and frail, and the hand on Carson’s sleeve was barely gripping the fabric.
“It’s dead. Teyla got it.”
Carson reached behind him for something and John rolled onto his back to stare up at the ceiling. He could almost see a holographic image of the stars and planets, and hear McKay’s voice asking him to picture where they were in the solar system. He rolled his head and could just make out the Wraith’s body lying less than ten feet from him.
Was that where they were? After five years on Atlantis, five years of fighting them, the Wraith had finally reached Earth. He took a shuddering breath, squeezing his eyes shut then opening them again. He was suddenly freezing cold and it was getting harder and harder to breathe.
Teyla appeared over him, brushing his hair away from his forehead and smiling. She was saying something to him, but her voice faded in and out of focus. Carson turned back toward him and pressed a bandage to his chest, but creeping numbness dulled the pain. Behind them, John saw McKay gathering up his laptop and rambling a hundred miles an hour about space vampires and Ancients and high blood pressure.
“Ronon?” he mumbled, because while there were a lot of missing faces after five years on Atlantis, that one should still be there.
“He is guarding the jumper,” Teyla answered.
John nodded, moaning when Carson pressed another bandage to his chest, some of that burning pain returning. The ceiling began to swim above him, and he blinked sluggish eyes.
“Hold on, John-don’t let go yet. I need you to hold on just a little bit longer. Teyla, love, grab his parka and boots.”
John heard his team moving around him, and felt hands manipulate him into his coat and shoes. He let his eyes close despite Carson and Teyla’s attempts to make him keep them open and shivered harder, the cold beating against him. A blanket was wrapped around him and he vaguely felt hands pulling and lifting, then the mechanical quiver of a floor moving. He held onto conscious just long enough to feel his teammates carry him out of the elevator and into the arctic blast of the world outside the outpost before he let the inviting warmth of darkness drape over him.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
“John?”
John groaned at the light, turning his head into the pillow. Wherever he was, it was much brighter here, and all he wanted to do was go back to sleep.
“You are safe, John-we all are.”
His chest ached, not the sharp stabbing burn of before-it was dull and distant and a little itchy. He raised a hand toward it without opening his eyes, his fingers brushing against a thick bandage under his shirt. He could feel the pinch of an IV needle in the back of his hand as well, and the swimming congested feeling in his head from sleeping for too long.
“Teyla?” he murmured, and felt warm fingers pull his hand away from his chest and squeeze, the grip strong and reassuring.
“Yes,” she answered. “We are back on Atlantis.”
John finally forced his eyes open, letting the infirmary come into focus. Teyla was sitting next to him, looking tired but happy. Behind her, he could see the Golden Gate bridge through the infirmary window, and he blinked at the sight. He knew they were still sitting on the Pacific Ocean, but nevertheless, it was odd looking out a window or walking onto a balcony and actually seeing San Francisco.
“How do you feel?”
“Achy,” he answered, wincing as he stretched in the bed. He shifted his gaze back to Teyla’s face. “You?”
“I am fine,” she answered, biting back a smile. He blinked at her, wondering what she thought was so funny, but before he could ask he heard Ronon and McKay’s voice clattering through the infirmary.
“I have two PhDs-two. And yet, here I am, wheeling your sorry ass around the city because you were tired of staring at the pretty nurses. You’ve been here, what? A day? Not even?”
“Can you wheel me without talking, McKay?”
John grinned at Teyla and shifted in the bed to see McKay pushing Ronon in a wheelchair across the infirmary toward them. Ronon was dressed in scrubs and, other than the scowl on his face, looked well enough-just a little pale. McKay was frowning as well, but his expression softened into a smile when he spotted John awake.
“You’re the one who ran off and reopened all the stitches in your very serious injury, and then had to have surgery-again. I’m entitled to say whatever the hell I want. Look, Sheppard’s awake.”
Ronon jerked around, dropping the glare he’d been shooting up at McKay and grinning. He pushed up out of the chair before McKay reached John’s side and walked the last few steps toward him.
“Hey, buddy,” he said, patting John on the shoulder.
“Hey,” John croaked out, his voice suddenly dry. McKay shoved the wheelchair to the side, then grabbed a pitcher and glass of water, filling it then holding it out for John.
John took the glass, dismayed at the way his hand was still shaking, but the water tasted heavenly. He sipped slowly, relishing the cool liquid as it soaked into his dry throat and washed away the foul taste of his tongue sticking to the roof his mouth.
“I knew I was going to have to go all nurse-maid. There’s just no respect for physicists around here.”
“Thanks,” John whispered, handing the glass back and grinning at the small smile that flitted across McKay’s lips. “What happened to the Wraith?”
“Dead,” McKay answered. “Finally.”
“We brought its body up to the surface and chained it to the outside of the dome entrance,” Teyla added. “The SGC sent a retrieval team for it soon after we returned to Atlantis.”
“You’re sure it’s dead?”
McKay grabbed a chair and pulled it closer to the bed. “Between the thirty or so bullet wounds, and Ronon’s gun, and the subzero temperatures of winter on Antarctica-yes, we’re sure. Wasn’t easy, though.”
“And the chair?”
Ronon grinned. “McKay broke it.”
“I didn’t break it! It was already damaged.”
“McKay broke it more.”
“It’s on its way here,” the scientist huffed, crossing his arms. “Where it should have come the first time. Still completely fixable.”
“Knew you could fix it,” John said, stifling a yawn.
“The retrieval team has also found the remains of the scientists who should have met us,” Teyla added. “The Wraith…”
She trailed off, but John didn’t really need her to finish. He’d seen how strong the Wraith had been, and had known even then that the missing scientists had been drained. He felt his chest twinge in pain and he winced, bringing a hand up to rub against the bandages. The Wraith had started to feed on him also-he’d felt it-but he hadn’t asked yet how much he’d aged, how much the Wraith had taken. He glanced at his teammates as they settled into chairs around him, but they seemed to be acting normal.
“Did it…” he started, then swallowed when his voice came out shaky. He cleared his throat and tried again, pressing his hand into his chest. “Did the Wraith…uh…”
The others froze, staring at him in shock. John saw Ronon turn away, anger flushing his cheeks. McKay’s eyes darted between John’s face and chest, then over to Teyla and Ronon, then away again. Teyla reached out and grabbed the hand resting on his chest with both of hers.
“I felt it,” he whispered, but Teyla shook her head.
“It did not feed, John. Carson said it did just enough to break the skin, but no more.”
“It barely gave you any of the enzyme,” McKay added, “so you won’t even have to suffer through withdrawals. And the seizure… the chair didn’t do any permanent damage.”
“You’re going to be fine, Sheppard,” Ronon rumbled, leaning back in his chair and throwing his feet up on the side.
“But you still need to rest,” Teyla said. “If Carson catches us keeping you awake, he will kick us all out.” She glared at Ronon and McKay as she said it, then patted John’s hand one last time and pulled the blanket up around his shoulders. He was suddenly exhausted again, and sleeping sounded like a good idea despite the many, many Wraith-infested nightmares he knew would haunt his near future.
“Yeah, sleep up, Sheppard,” McKay said. “The IOA meets in a couple of days to talk about what they think they’re going to do with the city now that they’ve got it here, but I have a foolproof plan that will get us and Atlantis back into Pegasus inside of a month, and I’m going to need all of your help.”
McKay glanced around then launched into his idea, lowering his voice as he started to explain it, but John only smiled and let himself drift. It was too much work keeping his eyes open, so he let them close as McKay talked, too tired to worry about the details of whatever the man was planning yet, and pleasantly relieved at the thought that they would soon be back in Pegasus.
After all, though he would never admit it to McKay, the man’s plans usually worked.
END
Prompt:
I’d like a gen fic where Sheppard, the team, and Beckett are in Antarctica, chasing down some sort of bad guy(s), with Sheppard sick/exhausted from having to use his ATA gene too much. Also, infirmary time for Shep in Antarctica with some good comfort and interaction from Beckett, Ronon and his knives, and bonus points for medical details and if the bad guy(s) also whump Shep.