Fic: Protect and Survive II: Raising the Stakes (4/11)
Title: Protect and Survive II: Raising the Stakes (4/11)
Fandom: Stargate
Rating: T
Genres: action/adventure, drama
Summary: Laura Cadman is caught between a rock and a hard place. Or maybe rather between her heart and her head? Anyway, it's never easy when a certain Doctor and Major are involved.
A/N: So, uh, yes. This. Well. As you can see, I haven't forgotten about it. Could have been worse, right? It could have taken me a year to update, after all. Like, for Fred. Actually, I don't even know when I last updated Fred. It's gonna change, though. Really, it is. Anyway. Here we go.
( Raising the Stakes: Prologue )
( Raising the Stakes 1/11 )
( Raising the Stakes 2/11 )
( Raising the Stakes 3/11 )
Four
“So… long story short: We have no idea where we are, we have no weapons, we have no idea for how long we’ve been in here and our host is some psycho enzyme junkie. Is that about right?” Evan throws a look around, and everyone nods. If his hands hadn’t been bound back, he’d be rubbing his face in frustration, she’s sure of that.
“Well, sounds like a piece of cake, doesn’t it?” Everyone turns their head to look at Meyers, who hasn’t said much up to now. “What?” he says a little unnerved by their disbelieving gazes. “If Sheppard and his team can get out of stuff like this, we sure can do it as well.” Against her will, she has to grin about his cocky optimism.
“If I remember it correctly, Sergeant, usually it’s us who need to rescue them out of stuff like this.” He’s really trying to stay serious, but she can hear his own - a little ill-placed, granted - amusement through the disapproval.
“Well, then…” a smug smile graces Meyer’s face, “they owe us a rescue mission.”
“They certainly owe me one. Why do I always let them talk me into off-world missions, anyway?” Now it’s Carson everyone turns their heads to.
Evan cocks his head a little and can barely hide a grin. “Because deep down in your heart you do enjoy the thrill and excitement of going off-world, Doc.”
“I’d rather watch my wee turtles the whole day than pass an hour off-world,” Carson replies in a rather comical morose tone.
“You actually were allowed to keep turtles, Doc? That’s just not fair. I remember this one time, when we brought back this cute little furry thing from…” Meyers starts to tell them, but it dawns on her that they might not have much time before their captor is back again.
“Uh, guys, not to spoil your fun or anything… but we seriously gotta get out of here, you know.” Oops. That should have been Evan’s line. She should really stop forgetting who’s the commanding officer around here.
Evan, though, only shows mild disapproval, as he says, “Thank you for pointing this out, Lieutenant. Now… what about getting your mind back on the original task, people?” Everyone clears their throats and shuffles around a bit, at least as far as it’s possible with most of them with their hands not exactly free to move. “Right, that’s what I thought. So now that I have your full attention… way I see it, we need to find out: where are we? What does that guy want from us? How long until our next check-in with Atlantis? How to get weapons? How to get out of here? Agreed?” They all nod. “Good. Now, first off: I want everyone of you to lay low for a while. No heroics, no quips,” and yes, there comes the pointed look in her direction, “no provocation. But maybe show a little fear. Let him think we’re a bunch of inept cowards. We still need time to assess the situation and we need to make time until Atlantis discovers we’re gone.”
“But wouldn’t Sheppard expect…” she starts to ask, but he shakes his head, cutting her short.
“I know you want to kick the guy’s ass, Laura, and believe me, I want to as well, but we’re in no position to do so. For all we know he could still be on the enzyme, and he’d be no match then, even for all of us together.”
“Besides, there must be a reason for him to have kept us alive until now,” Carson chimes in and gets a nod from Evan.
“Exactly. So… tasks for all of you: Laura, you keep him thinking you’re weak. That way, at least one of us obviously gets the chance to be free to move around a little more. And yes, you should needle him for information a little more.” Dammit, why does she keep forgetting how apt at reading her he always used to be? “Just try not to offend him.” She makes a face. Yes, sometimes she can reign her temper in, thank you very much. “Dr. Beckett, same goes for you. Play it like this: you’re just a doctor, you don’t hurt people, you’re completely harmless.”
“I am completely harmless, son,” Carson barges in a little exasperated. It only prompts a smirk from Evan.
“Really? Makes me wonder how you manage to keep all of us longer than five minutes in the infirmary, then. Or out of it, come to think of it.” Carson wants to say something - most probably protest Evan’s implication of him being scary - but Evan is in CO-mode now, not willing to tolerate any more needless interruptions. “Anyway… we need you to be awake and alert all the time. I have the feeling that there may be more medical assistance needed. Meyers, same goes for you. Lay low, make him think you’re a dumb grunt. Make yourself invisible. Observe him. Habits, speech patterns, ticks.” Meyers nods. She knows he’s had training as a sharp-shooter. He’s used to this unobtrusive kind of work which requires lots of patience and the ability to practically become one with your surroundings, so that the target doesn’t notice you. “Any questions so far?”
She takes a deep breath. He’ll not be happy about this question, but she needs to know it anyway. “What about you?” He shortly closes his eyes, knowing he won’t get around this question.
“I’ll… take care of all of you.” Read: I’ll distract him from you, provoke him, make him forget he has three more people to torture. She wants to smack him a good one, tell him how stupid that is, yell at him… but all she does is sneak a look at Carson who obviously has understood it the same way that she has, but just gives her a minute shake of his head. To him, who’s known her intimately, her face must be as open as a book - even more open than to Evan - and he’s probably seen all the emotions she wants to conceal so carefully.
So she swallows down all the worry and the anger and simply answers: “Right.” Then, out of impulse she adds in a voice low enough neither Carson nor Meyers should hear her, “Just… don’t forget to take care of yourself as well.” All she gets from him is a slight nod with closed eyes, small enough that she’s probably the only one who sees it.
“Sir… I have another thing,” Meyers says, a little tentatively. It makes her suspect he realized that there was some secret communication between his officers going on. She just hopes he either hasn’t heard any of the gossip going round about Evan and her or has heard it but doesn’t give shit about it. The last thing she needs now is a Sergeant who thinks his two commanding officers are holding out on him with something.
“Go ahead, Sergeant.”
“I remember being briefed about the whole Ford-incident a while back. It was said he put the first dose of the enzyme into the food of Sheppard’s team. Makes me wonder if this guy maybe hasn’t kept us alive to use us for testing something.” She’s had this suspicion at the back of her mind as well. She just didn’t want to voice them before getting anymore from their captor on this subject. But yes, maybe it’s better to talk about this now.
“Good thinking, Sergeant. I agree.” And then it hits her. God, yes, of course! The moment he’d told them he used to be one of Ford’s bunch, she should have realized it.
As the impact of her realization hits her, she automatically mutters, “Oh, crap,” and all the guys’ heads turn toward her.
“Laura? You want to share it with the class?” She rolls her eyes and hits Evan lightly on the shoulder for his stupid remark, which he just rewards with an indignant “Hey!” In a corner of her mind it astounds her how easy their friendship is coming back under pressure from a situation like this. Maybe, she thinks, they do have a chance of salvaging it from the wreckage their respective actions have caused two weeks ago.
“I just had this… epiphany. Carson, didn’t you tell me that the base of this Reaver-thingy-neurotoxin was a part of the Wraith enzyme?” She can actually see how the realization hits Carson as well. His shoulders move as though he was about to smack his forehead with his hand before he remembered that he still can’t use his hands.
“Aye, of course. I should have seen that!”
“Hey, could you two please stop talking in riddles?” There it is again. The impatience that Evan can usually keep under wraps so easily but which is also the first sign of strain to show up.
“Sorry, Major. What Laura meant was that there is a great possibility that we just stumbled over the bloody bastard who is responsible for all these people going mad we discovered recently.” Now she can see dawning all the possible implications on him as well. He closes his eyes again and leans back his head at the cave’s wall.
So far, it’s really not been his year, she thinks. First the broken leg when he’d been trapped with Rodney, then stumbling over these mad villagers with her, then her ripping out his heart… and not to mention all the little to not so little scrapes and scraps he’s gotten himself into up to now, the deaths he keeps himself blaming for… Suddenly she knows that if push comes to shove, she will have to disobey his orders. There’s no way she’s going to let this stupid wannabe mad scientist who’s holding them hostage harm anyone on her team, and there’s no way she’s going to let Evan suffer for them, either.
“Oh, great. Okay… listen now people. I… trust you all to know what to do if either of us is going to be injected with this, right?” Yes, she thinks, but she doesn’t want to say so aloud. If either of them - and they all know that Evan and Meyers are the hottest candidates - is going to be irreversibly contaminated with this stuff, the others will have to take them down… even kill them. And if she’s honest: she’d would want to be dead rather than one of these… creatures as well. “Laura? Right?”
She jerks a little. Aw, crap, she actually lost her focus for a moment. Not a good sign. She clears her throat and then looks at him, giving him a rather quiet “Yes, sir.”
He wants to tell her something, but in that moment, the door opens again, and Mr. Evil is back. Her pride doesn’t want to allow her, but she’s actually grateful that she came to sit between Carson and Evan. She knows it’s probably just an illusion, but for the moment it feels like their presence shields her from their captor’s unwanted attentions.
And yes, seeing the three of them sitting side by side at the wall draws some sick amusement from him. “One could almost think that this tough little girl soldier is all talk and no guts.” She’s got plenty of guts, and she’d love to tell him so. However, his interest has shifted anyway, as he crouches down in front of Carson.
“Dr. Beckett, isn’t it?” That nearly makes her gasp. He knew all along about at least of them. Carson, though, tries to feign ignorance and tells him that he has no idea what he’s talking about, but that just prompts another sneer from Mr. Evil. “Don’t try to fool me, Doctor, I know very well who you are. Your fame certainly precedes you. I was hoping, though, you might be accompanied by Sheppard and his team. But as I see it… this is even better. The little girl soldier over there… she’s much more my type.” Oooh, great, someone who hasn’t fallen for Teyla, but rather for her. Won’t Teyla be crushed by these news?
Carson raises his chin a little. She can see that he’s trying to be brave, and that always astonishes her. He’s one of these people who always try to appear like cowards - or at least very wary of anything involving danger - but who posses, in fact, a big amount of inner strength. “What do you want from us, anyway?”
“That’s the big question, isn’t it?” She nearly has to roll her eyes. “Well… I don’t want to spoil all of your surprise, but over the last few years I did a lot of research on the enzyme… which in turn ended in something you might have come across these last few weeks. Granted, the results are… not satisfying up to now. And well, that’s where you Atlanteans come in.” Uh-oh, she can already see where this is going. The bad feeling in her guts just turned into downright nausea. “I trust you to understand where I’m heading?” Oh yes. He wants Carson to help him with his research, he has Evan and Meyers as his two lab rats and her as a personal bonus. She seriously hopes someone on Atlantis will realize very fast that things are not going well over here.
“I will not help you.” Oh Carson… that isn’t what Evan told you to do, she thinks and wants to jump up and shake him. Instead she tries to discreetly nudge him to tell him to stop this.
“Of course. I knew you would say that. And I also think that you are a very good man, Doctor. Someone… who doesn’t want others to suffer for him.” Aw, no. Why, why, why does it always go like this?
“Well, then you’re mistaken. Someone else tried this game before. I’m a wee bit tired of it.” Oh. Look at this. She wonders where this is all going.
“Oh, we’ll see about that. For now… I still have free choice! So… with whom to start? With the good doctor… with the pretty one… or with the tough soldier? Ah… I think… I will start with one of the testing subjects. Come on, soldier, you’ve got work to do.” And with that he grabs Evan by his shoulder and hauls up. Way too easily, she thinks. So it’s very possible that this guy is on the enzyme. Not that she hadn’t already guessed it, but it would have made things a lot easier if he wasn’t. But if wishes were horses…
Mr. Evil drags Evan to the door, but shortly before walking through, Evan turns around again and looks over his shoulder. Is she imagining it or did he just mouth “I’ll be okay”? If he did… she seriously doubts it. But one can always hope, right?
At least… she would, if it wasn’t for this terrible guilty feeling settling down in her stomach and overshadowing everything else. She was following an order - his order - but something inside her screams at her for just sitting still and doing nothing. This, she swears to herself, is the last time she ever lets someone else take hits so that she can be okay.
~*~
TBC in Chapter Five.
Fandom: Stargate
Rating: T
Genres: action/adventure, drama
Summary: Laura Cadman is caught between a rock and a hard place. Or maybe rather between her heart and her head? Anyway, it's never easy when a certain Doctor and Major are involved.
A/N: So, uh, yes. This. Well. As you can see, I haven't forgotten about it. Could have been worse, right? It could have taken me a year to update, after all. Like, for Fred. Actually, I don't even know when I last updated Fred. It's gonna change, though. Really, it is. Anyway. Here we go.
( Raising the Stakes: Prologue )
( Raising the Stakes 1/11 )
( Raising the Stakes 2/11 )
( Raising the Stakes 3/11 )
Four
“So… long story short: We have no idea where we are, we have no weapons, we have no idea for how long we’ve been in here and our host is some psycho enzyme junkie. Is that about right?” Evan throws a look around, and everyone nods. If his hands hadn’t been bound back, he’d be rubbing his face in frustration, she’s sure of that.
“Well, sounds like a piece of cake, doesn’t it?” Everyone turns their head to look at Meyers, who hasn’t said much up to now. “What?” he says a little unnerved by their disbelieving gazes. “If Sheppard and his team can get out of stuff like this, we sure can do it as well.” Against her will, she has to grin about his cocky optimism.
“If I remember it correctly, Sergeant, usually it’s us who need to rescue them out of stuff like this.” He’s really trying to stay serious, but she can hear his own - a little ill-placed, granted - amusement through the disapproval.
“Well, then…” a smug smile graces Meyer’s face, “they owe us a rescue mission.”
“They certainly owe me one. Why do I always let them talk me into off-world missions, anyway?” Now it’s Carson everyone turns their heads to.
Evan cocks his head a little and can barely hide a grin. “Because deep down in your heart you do enjoy the thrill and excitement of going off-world, Doc.”
“I’d rather watch my wee turtles the whole day than pass an hour off-world,” Carson replies in a rather comical morose tone.
“You actually were allowed to keep turtles, Doc? That’s just not fair. I remember this one time, when we brought back this cute little furry thing from…” Meyers starts to tell them, but it dawns on her that they might not have much time before their captor is back again.
“Uh, guys, not to spoil your fun or anything… but we seriously gotta get out of here, you know.” Oops. That should have been Evan’s line. She should really stop forgetting who’s the commanding officer around here.
Evan, though, only shows mild disapproval, as he says, “Thank you for pointing this out, Lieutenant. Now… what about getting your mind back on the original task, people?” Everyone clears their throats and shuffles around a bit, at least as far as it’s possible with most of them with their hands not exactly free to move. “Right, that’s what I thought. So now that I have your full attention… way I see it, we need to find out: where are we? What does that guy want from us? How long until our next check-in with Atlantis? How to get weapons? How to get out of here? Agreed?” They all nod. “Good. Now, first off: I want everyone of you to lay low for a while. No heroics, no quips,” and yes, there comes the pointed look in her direction, “no provocation. But maybe show a little fear. Let him think we’re a bunch of inept cowards. We still need time to assess the situation and we need to make time until Atlantis discovers we’re gone.”
“But wouldn’t Sheppard expect…” she starts to ask, but he shakes his head, cutting her short.
“I know you want to kick the guy’s ass, Laura, and believe me, I want to as well, but we’re in no position to do so. For all we know he could still be on the enzyme, and he’d be no match then, even for all of us together.”
“Besides, there must be a reason for him to have kept us alive until now,” Carson chimes in and gets a nod from Evan.
“Exactly. So… tasks for all of you: Laura, you keep him thinking you’re weak. That way, at least one of us obviously gets the chance to be free to move around a little more. And yes, you should needle him for information a little more.” Dammit, why does she keep forgetting how apt at reading her he always used to be? “Just try not to offend him.” She makes a face. Yes, sometimes she can reign her temper in, thank you very much. “Dr. Beckett, same goes for you. Play it like this: you’re just a doctor, you don’t hurt people, you’re completely harmless.”
“I am completely harmless, son,” Carson barges in a little exasperated. It only prompts a smirk from Evan.
“Really? Makes me wonder how you manage to keep all of us longer than five minutes in the infirmary, then. Or out of it, come to think of it.” Carson wants to say something - most probably protest Evan’s implication of him being scary - but Evan is in CO-mode now, not willing to tolerate any more needless interruptions. “Anyway… we need you to be awake and alert all the time. I have the feeling that there may be more medical assistance needed. Meyers, same goes for you. Lay low, make him think you’re a dumb grunt. Make yourself invisible. Observe him. Habits, speech patterns, ticks.” Meyers nods. She knows he’s had training as a sharp-shooter. He’s used to this unobtrusive kind of work which requires lots of patience and the ability to practically become one with your surroundings, so that the target doesn’t notice you. “Any questions so far?”
She takes a deep breath. He’ll not be happy about this question, but she needs to know it anyway. “What about you?” He shortly closes his eyes, knowing he won’t get around this question.
“I’ll… take care of all of you.” Read: I’ll distract him from you, provoke him, make him forget he has three more people to torture. She wants to smack him a good one, tell him how stupid that is, yell at him… but all she does is sneak a look at Carson who obviously has understood it the same way that she has, but just gives her a minute shake of his head. To him, who’s known her intimately, her face must be as open as a book - even more open than to Evan - and he’s probably seen all the emotions she wants to conceal so carefully.
So she swallows down all the worry and the anger and simply answers: “Right.” Then, out of impulse she adds in a voice low enough neither Carson nor Meyers should hear her, “Just… don’t forget to take care of yourself as well.” All she gets from him is a slight nod with closed eyes, small enough that she’s probably the only one who sees it.
“Sir… I have another thing,” Meyers says, a little tentatively. It makes her suspect he realized that there was some secret communication between his officers going on. She just hopes he either hasn’t heard any of the gossip going round about Evan and her or has heard it but doesn’t give shit about it. The last thing she needs now is a Sergeant who thinks his two commanding officers are holding out on him with something.
“Go ahead, Sergeant.”
“I remember being briefed about the whole Ford-incident a while back. It was said he put the first dose of the enzyme into the food of Sheppard’s team. Makes me wonder if this guy maybe hasn’t kept us alive to use us for testing something.” She’s had this suspicion at the back of her mind as well. She just didn’t want to voice them before getting anymore from their captor on this subject. But yes, maybe it’s better to talk about this now.
“Good thinking, Sergeant. I agree.” And then it hits her. God, yes, of course! The moment he’d told them he used to be one of Ford’s bunch, she should have realized it.
As the impact of her realization hits her, she automatically mutters, “Oh, crap,” and all the guys’ heads turn toward her.
“Laura? You want to share it with the class?” She rolls her eyes and hits Evan lightly on the shoulder for his stupid remark, which he just rewards with an indignant “Hey!” In a corner of her mind it astounds her how easy their friendship is coming back under pressure from a situation like this. Maybe, she thinks, they do have a chance of salvaging it from the wreckage their respective actions have caused two weeks ago.
“I just had this… epiphany. Carson, didn’t you tell me that the base of this Reaver-thingy-neurotoxin was a part of the Wraith enzyme?” She can actually see how the realization hits Carson as well. His shoulders move as though he was about to smack his forehead with his hand before he remembered that he still can’t use his hands.
“Aye, of course. I should have seen that!”
“Hey, could you two please stop talking in riddles?” There it is again. The impatience that Evan can usually keep under wraps so easily but which is also the first sign of strain to show up.
“Sorry, Major. What Laura meant was that there is a great possibility that we just stumbled over the bloody bastard who is responsible for all these people going mad we discovered recently.” Now she can see dawning all the possible implications on him as well. He closes his eyes again and leans back his head at the cave’s wall.
So far, it’s really not been his year, she thinks. First the broken leg when he’d been trapped with Rodney, then stumbling over these mad villagers with her, then her ripping out his heart… and not to mention all the little to not so little scrapes and scraps he’s gotten himself into up to now, the deaths he keeps himself blaming for… Suddenly she knows that if push comes to shove, she will have to disobey his orders. There’s no way she’s going to let this stupid wannabe mad scientist who’s holding them hostage harm anyone on her team, and there’s no way she’s going to let Evan suffer for them, either.
“Oh, great. Okay… listen now people. I… trust you all to know what to do if either of us is going to be injected with this, right?” Yes, she thinks, but she doesn’t want to say so aloud. If either of them - and they all know that Evan and Meyers are the hottest candidates - is going to be irreversibly contaminated with this stuff, the others will have to take them down… even kill them. And if she’s honest: she’d would want to be dead rather than one of these… creatures as well. “Laura? Right?”
She jerks a little. Aw, crap, she actually lost her focus for a moment. Not a good sign. She clears her throat and then looks at him, giving him a rather quiet “Yes, sir.”
He wants to tell her something, but in that moment, the door opens again, and Mr. Evil is back. Her pride doesn’t want to allow her, but she’s actually grateful that she came to sit between Carson and Evan. She knows it’s probably just an illusion, but for the moment it feels like their presence shields her from their captor’s unwanted attentions.
And yes, seeing the three of them sitting side by side at the wall draws some sick amusement from him. “One could almost think that this tough little girl soldier is all talk and no guts.” She’s got plenty of guts, and she’d love to tell him so. However, his interest has shifted anyway, as he crouches down in front of Carson.
“Dr. Beckett, isn’t it?” That nearly makes her gasp. He knew all along about at least of them. Carson, though, tries to feign ignorance and tells him that he has no idea what he’s talking about, but that just prompts another sneer from Mr. Evil. “Don’t try to fool me, Doctor, I know very well who you are. Your fame certainly precedes you. I was hoping, though, you might be accompanied by Sheppard and his team. But as I see it… this is even better. The little girl soldier over there… she’s much more my type.” Oooh, great, someone who hasn’t fallen for Teyla, but rather for her. Won’t Teyla be crushed by these news?
Carson raises his chin a little. She can see that he’s trying to be brave, and that always astonishes her. He’s one of these people who always try to appear like cowards - or at least very wary of anything involving danger - but who posses, in fact, a big amount of inner strength. “What do you want from us, anyway?”
“That’s the big question, isn’t it?” She nearly has to roll her eyes. “Well… I don’t want to spoil all of your surprise, but over the last few years I did a lot of research on the enzyme… which in turn ended in something you might have come across these last few weeks. Granted, the results are… not satisfying up to now. And well, that’s where you Atlanteans come in.” Uh-oh, she can already see where this is going. The bad feeling in her guts just turned into downright nausea. “I trust you to understand where I’m heading?” Oh yes. He wants Carson to help him with his research, he has Evan and Meyers as his two lab rats and her as a personal bonus. She seriously hopes someone on Atlantis will realize very fast that things are not going well over here.
“I will not help you.” Oh Carson… that isn’t what Evan told you to do, she thinks and wants to jump up and shake him. Instead she tries to discreetly nudge him to tell him to stop this.
“Of course. I knew you would say that. And I also think that you are a very good man, Doctor. Someone… who doesn’t want others to suffer for him.” Aw, no. Why, why, why does it always go like this?
“Well, then you’re mistaken. Someone else tried this game before. I’m a wee bit tired of it.” Oh. Look at this. She wonders where this is all going.
“Oh, we’ll see about that. For now… I still have free choice! So… with whom to start? With the good doctor… with the pretty one… or with the tough soldier? Ah… I think… I will start with one of the testing subjects. Come on, soldier, you’ve got work to do.” And with that he grabs Evan by his shoulder and hauls up. Way too easily, she thinks. So it’s very possible that this guy is on the enzyme. Not that she hadn’t already guessed it, but it would have made things a lot easier if he wasn’t. But if wishes were horses…
Mr. Evil drags Evan to the door, but shortly before walking through, Evan turns around again and looks over his shoulder. Is she imagining it or did he just mouth “I’ll be okay”? If he did… she seriously doubts it. But one can always hope, right?
At least… she would, if it wasn’t for this terrible guilty feeling settling down in her stomach and overshadowing everything else. She was following an order - his order - but something inside her screams at her for just sitting still and doing nothing. This, she swears to herself, is the last time she ever lets someone else take hits so that she can be okay.
~*~
TBC in Chapter Five.