A Light in the Darkness, 3/3
Part 3
The air was wet and cold, and moisture clung to the grass and bushes. It was starting to rain too. The world was awash in black, but not the piercing blackness of the tunnels and caves. It was night on the surface.
John dragged himself away from the hole he’d just climbed out of, too weak to even crawl. Shudders wracked through him, an icy cold burrowing into every part of his body. The ascent up the shaft was lost in a haze of exhaustion and pain. He knew only that he’d made it, that he hadn’t given up until he’d reached the surface.
A gust of wind tore through the trees overhead, followed by a bolt of lightning. He saw the trunk of a tree ahead of him and he shifted toward it. He’d left his t-shirt wrapped around his makeshift paddle. Goosebumps danced across his skin as the skies opened up above him and cold rain pelted him. The tree would offer a little protection.
When he reached it, he curled up against the trunk and closed his eyes. He’d done everything he could. It was up to his team now.
oooooooooooooooooooo
He woke up to the sound of a bird chirping, and he cracked open his eyes to see the light of dawn spreading out over the forest. He was in a small clearing, surrounded by trees and grass. The bird was red and white, and John stared, mesmerized. The colors were dazzling.
The agony in his leg had been replaced with numbness. He couldn’t feel anything below his thigh, and he knew that was not a good thing. Grass tickled the side of his face. He needed to sit up, make a fire, get warm. The thoughts were crystal clear in his head, but they elicited no reaction from his body.
He breathed deeply, feeling a heavy weight on his chest. Was this real? He thought of the glowing pool room and the saber-toothed turtle, the lake and the cattail and the little crawfish. That had been real. He had felt every second of his existence down below. This, though, this might not be real. It was too soft.
He stared at the trees, searching for the bird, but it had disappeared, snapped out of existence. Not real. The bushes wavered in and out of focus and his body pressed against grass and dirt beneath him, a hundred ton weight pinning him to the dream. He let his eyes drift closed and took another deep, shuddering breath.
“Over here!” a voice shouted.
Teyla, he thought. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.
“John?”
He opened his eyes, even though he knew whatever he was going to see was an illusion. But real or not, he wanted to see her one last time. With any luck, the rest of his team would be with her.
He saw her running toward him, surrounded by mist. She disappeared for a second and he whimpered. He tried to lift his head or his hand, anything to move back into a position to see her, but nothing happened. It was raining again, a light drizzle. He could see it, and yet he felt nothing-no rain, no cold, no heat, no pain. His body was immobile and sinking into the earth, back toward the dark tunnels.
He felt a slight pressure on his arm and he forced his eyes open. They had drifted closed without him even realizing it. A scent washed over him, distinctly Teyla in nature, and it reminded him of his first meeting with the Athosians and the meal they’d been sitting at when he, Sumner, and Ford had walked into their tent.
“John?”
The voice was a ghostly whisper. He blinked back sudden moisture in his eyes and took another slow, shuddering breath.
“He is alive! Hurry!”
“My God, what happened to him?”
He felt more hands on his body, rolling him onto his back. Rodney-he had heard Rodney. A jacket was laid over his chest, blocking the drizzling rain.
“Sheppard, buddy…hey, doc, his leg.”
He felt a hand on his head, but he heard Ronon, and saw his friend squatting by his legs and staring intently back at him.
His team. The mist swirled around him, obscuring Teyla’s face, but moments later, short dark hair and blue eyes peered down at him. Carson. The doctor slipped something over his head and breathing suddenly became a lot easier.
“Hang on, lad. We’ll get you home in no time.”
Home. Not the glowing pool room home. Atlantis. Home.
Rodney’s voice called out over the clearing, dispelling some of the mist. “Major Lorne says we need to move quickly. There’s a bank of fog rolling in fast and he doesn’t want to fly the jumper blind.”
“Here they are,” Ronon called out, and John rolled his head to the side to see two Marines jogging toward him, carrying an empty stretcher. It was dropped on the ground next to him, and then a dozen hands pulled and lifted, shifting him from the soft, wet surface of the grass to the hard gurney. He groaned when the movement awakened a dull ache in his foot, and more blankets were piled on top of him.
“Let’s move, people,” Carson called out.
John closed his eyes as the world shifted with dizzying speed around him.
oooooooooooooooooooo
It was the rapid beep of his pulse coming from the heart monitor that finally convinced him he wasn’t dreaming. People moved around him, shadowy and distant. They spoke to him, he thought, but he wasn’t sure, and it was easier just to ignore them. He didn’t think he’d fallen asleep, but there were moments in between crawling out of the hole in the ground and lying in Atlantis’s infirmary that were murky and vague.
He remembered the way the puddle jumper had suddenly cut off the wind and rain, and he remembered the tingling starting at the top of his head as he’d traveled through the stargate, but the two seemed separate. Had he come through the gate in the jumper? Or had he been flown to the gate, then carried through on foot. He didn’t remember the gate room at all, but he knew he’d been lying in the infirmary for a while.
He felt a pressure in his ear and a hand on his shoulder. Where was his shirt? He blinked, remembering how he’d used it as part of his paddle. He should have put it back on.
“His temperature is up to 103 degrees.”
“Get some cooling blankets in here. And I want ice packs for his ankle-we need to get that swelling down.”
“Right away, Doctor Beckett.”
“Any word on his blood test results?”
“Nothing yet.”
The blues and greens of the walls and ceilings were bright-brilliantly bright. He twisted around, soaking in the color, and felt plastic digging uncomfortably into his face. He frowned, reaching for it, but someone intercepted him, stopping him before he’d even gotten close.
“I know that’s uncomfortable, but leave it be for now.”
The voice was soft and lilting, but worried. John flinched when his leg was lifted then set down on something cold.
“Gently now,” the voice chided. He saw white coats moving around the bed, and then a hand grabbed his forearm. Carson.
“Home?” he mumbled. He blinked as beads of sweat rolled into his eyes and began to sting.
Carson smiled. “Aye, you’re home, but you’re very sick. I need you to hang on a little longer for me.”
“Team?”
“In the waiting area. They’ll be here soon enough.”
A hand appeared from the other side of the bed, and then a cool cloth was pressed against his forehead, wiping away the moisture covering his skin.
“Cold,” he muttered, shivering.
“You’re cold?”
Carson seemed surprised, and John bit his lip, suddenly unsure. Was he cold? He thought so, but maybe he was hot. He nodded. Yes, that was it. Hot. He was hot. He pushed at the blanket pulled up to his chest.
“You’re running a high temperature,” the doctor said, pulling the blanket back up despite John’s efforts to keep it away. “The cooling blanket will help.”
John shook his head and shivered. Cold. He was cold. The blanket was cold.
“Doctor Beckett, the test results. There’s some kind of toxin…”
The hand from his arm disappeared, and moisture was covering his face again. He licked his lips and tasted salt. He let his eyes close against the stinging sweat and drifted, Carson’s voice fading as the doctor barked out orders to the half dozen people moving around him.
He was home. It was over-the tunnels, the crystals, the darkness.
Home.
oooooooooooooooooooo
The toxin worked its way through his system, leaving him feverish and weak for days. John managed to hold onto consciousness a few minutes at a time the first two days, eating a few bites of food or carrying on brief conversations with Beckett and his team. He slept for most of that time, moving only when the nurses prodded him onto one side or another.
Nighttime in the infirmary was nowhere close to dark, but he found the light over the nurses station and the flashing colors on the monitors and screens around him reassuring, even if he kept his eyes open just long enough to remember he was home, in Atlantis. On the morning of his third day back, the fever finally broke, which he celebrated with two bites of oatmeal followed by a four-hour nap.
He woke up to bright sunlight and groaned.
“Oh, good, you’re awake.”
If by awake, Rodney McKay meant not asleep, then yes, he was awake. He sucked in as deep a breath as he could through the nasal cannula itching his upper lip, felt his ribs stretch and his lungs expand. At the exasperated sigh coming from the end of his bed, he opened his eyes and squinted at his teammate standing with hands on hips and staring back at him with intensity.
“Hmmmm,” John moaned, hoping McKay took it to mean…something. He wasn’t sure what.
“You look like crap,” McKay said instead, walking up to his side.
“You sure do know how to brighten someone’s day,” John rasped, but on the sleep-wake continuum, he was definitely swinging well toward the awake side, despite the exhaustion pulling him heavily into the bed.
“Oh, I’m sorry. That came out wrong. Let me try it again,” McKay answered, almost pleasantly. He pulled up a chair next to the bed and plopped down, throwing his feet up on the side. “Why Sheppard, I do believe your current appearance could give the Sexiest Man Alive a run for his money in that magazine contest.”
“I knew you were the one ordering that magazine. Like we’d believe it was Teyla.”
McKay had been looking smug, leaning back in that chair, but now he pointed a finger at John. “Ha! Don’t let Teyla’s galactic origins fool you. Just last week I listened to her and Jennifer discuss the latest news on Brangelina. It was…surreal.”
“Who?”
“Exactly.” The smug look was back. He scanned John again, his eyes settling on John’s injured leg, propped up but covered by the sheet. He nodded toward it. “Seriously, though, how’s your leg?”
John frowned, debating whether or not he should wiggle his toes to test out how much his foot and ankle still hurt. He decided against it, remembering suddenly the sharp agonizing burn of the sea urchin’s quills piercing his flesh.
“Hot,” he said instead. And it was hot. He had vague memories of the nursing staff sticking ice packs on it or around it. Something about it being swollen.
“Hot?”
“Achy.”
“Well, that’s…descriptive.”
“You want more?” John asked, raising an eyebrow.
McKay’s face blanched and he shook his head. “Not really, no.”
A nurse walked past at that moment, shooting him a death glare. McKay scowled in response and dropped his feet to the ground, and John got the distinct impression he’d missed an entire conversation between them. But really, he was tired, and if people weren’t going to speak out loud, he didn’t have the energy to read their minds.
“What I really came down here for-” McKay started.
“Oh, thanks.”
“-was to show you this,” the scientist finished unfazed. He dug into his pocket and held up a long, thin stone.
“The crystal!” John said, brightening. He held a hand out, wanting to touch the weird, glowing stone again. It wasn’t glowing anymore, and in the daylight was a foggy white-not quite opaque, but not really clear either.
“Do you have any idea what this is?” McKay handed it over.
It was cool to the touch. He glanced at McKay, then the stone, then McKay again. “Uh…a crystal?”
McKay rolled his eyes. “Have you, by any chance, noticed the plethora of Ancient technology around this city in the last few years?”
John stared, waiting for the scientist to get to the point.
“One of the integral components to all of them is crystals.”
John blinked, holding up the crystal with renewed interest. “That’s one of those?”
“Well, no. Not exactly,” McKay huffed. He was squirming in the chair, and John was not so tired that he failed to notice the scientist’s growing excitement. “We know Ancient technology requires vast amounts of energy and data storage, right? We also know it has something to do with the crystals, but we’ve never quite figured out how they packed all of that into these things. And believe me, we’ve tried. Nothing we’ve created has even come close to the same energy and storage capacity. I surmise that this is actually raw material for those finished crystals.”
“Cool,” John smiled. The pump hooked up to his IV automatically pushed painkillers and whatnot into his body, and he felt the sudden, heavy drag across his body that signaled another dose had just been dispensed. He gave himself two minutes-three tops-before he was sound asleep again, whether McKay was done talking or not.
“Very cool,” McKay said, oblivious to the fact that he was about to lose his audience. “Now that we know where they started and what it looks like when they’re finished, we can make some headway on filling in the blanks in between.” He reached for and plucked the crystal out of John’s lax hand before he dropped it. “You had three of these in your pocket-this was the biggest one. There wasn’t by any chance more where you found them, was there?”
John flashed to the glowing pool room, and his one, brief visit into the hot room where the saber-toothed turtle lived. “Oh, yeah,” he breathed out.
“Really?” McKay sounded almost suspicious, and he narrowed his eyes at John.
John nodded. “More than you can imagine. Rooms full of them-they were growing all over the rocks. One room had hundreds of them the size of trees. And they glowed. They were even warm.”
The look on the scientist’s face was one John would not forget for a long time. “This is amazing,” he squealed, grinning like a little boy on Christmas morning. “You’re not messing with me are you?”
“Not messing,” John answered, solemn. He blinked heavy eyelids.
McKay jumped up and the chair skittered noisily across the floor behind him. “Oh my God. We have to go back there. Feel better or whatever.” He tapped his earpiece as he began walking away. “Zelenka-”
“Watch out for the saber-toothed turtle,” John called out.
“What?” McKay stopped, spinning around to stare at him.
“Turtle. Teeth. Rocks.” John waved his hand, lethargy sweeping over him. He was supposed to call Carson or someone when he woke up so that they could bring his lunch, and he was kind of hungry. A nap sounded way more satisfying. They’d make him eat later anyway.
McKay was staring at him, and John was pretty sure he didn’t believe him about the turtle creature.
“Uh, yeah, okay,” he answered, and he had that patronizing tone that John might have found irritating if he wasn’t half asleep.
McKay spun around, tapping his ear again. “Zelenka, there’s more of them. A lot more…”
His voice faded as he left the infirmary. John twisted half onto his side and curled up, careful to keep his injured foot immobile on its cushion of pillows. He took a deep breath as his eyes slid closed. Let McKay find the saber-toothed turtle on his own then. He’d have to make sure he told Ronon to tag along, or Lorne. Someone who’d give him the full reaction in detail afterward…
END
Prompt: Gen (although I don't mind passing reference to canon pairings), Sheppard alone somewhere, sick and/or injured, needs to use survival skills/wits - uses knowledge from military training or tricks he has learned from his team members to look after himself and survive, there can be enemies in it but I would most like to see Sheppard versus the environment and himself. The point at which rescue occurs, whether or not Sheppard has to survive with his team (or other characters such as Lorne) after they find him or goes straight back to Atlantis, or even if he is rescued or makes his own way back etc. is all up to the writer. Would like a comfort scene at the end.