New fic: Accident Prone
This is a Sheppard H/C Secret Santa story I wrote.
TITLE: Accident Prone
AUTHOR: Lady Ra
E-MAIL ADDRESS: Ladyra11@yahoo.com
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING: McShep
SUMMARY: Something goes wrong during one of John's missions with his new Stargate team.
WORD COUNT: ~7200
EPISODE SPOILERS: This goes AU during Return Part 1
NOTES/WARNINGS: None
DISCLAIMER: Glory and praise to the creators for making such fun characters to play with. You guys rock!!
THANKS: My betas rock! Joolz, Hawthorn, Susan, and Annie
Accident Prone
"What do you mean his team's late for check-in?" Rodney demanded.
"Dr. McKay," General Landry said with a scowl. "If you'll excuse me--"
"I heard you say he's late," Rodney persisted. "How late?" He'd known something like this was going to happen. He should have insisted he be put on the Colonel's team. This habit they'd gotten into of saving each other's life wasn't something you could just stop, especially by going cold turkey.
"Are you even supposed to be here?" Landry griped.
"It's a good thing I am," Rodney snapped quickly. "Where is he? And what bozos did you stick him with? Is he with that Bambi person? The one that's completely accident prone? Why's that idiot even on a Stargate team? Kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel with him, aren't you?"
"Colonel Sheppard chose him for his team," Landry said in return, equally heated.
"Only because you gave him nothing but losers to choose from," Rodney countered. "He's used to working with a team of experts."
"You?" Landry said derisively. "I've read your mission reports, Doctor."
"Yes, me," Rodney said belligerently. Then, worriedly, "And what does that mean? What's wrong with our mission reports?"
"Dr. McKay," Landry said loudly, "if you would get out of my way, I could get to the control room and find out where my missing team is." He glared at Rodney.
"Good idea," Rodney agreed, falling in step with the General, ignoring his ongoing glare. "Maybe I should get a rescue team together?"
"I'll decide if there's going to be a rescue team sent out," Landry said sternly. "He's only missed one check-in."
Rodney whined a little, deep in his throat. "That's all it takes, sometimes. I've been there, I know. I think we should save some time and start pulling a team together. If this Bambi character is a representative sample of the military around here these days, it might take them a while to find the armory and get geared up."
"Security," Landry hollered.
"Great!" Rodney said eagerly. "I'll just go change."
"I meant for you," Landry bit out.
Rodney looked around anxiously to see if any security was heading his way. "Ha ha," he tried. He'd never gotten used to Landry's sense of humor. At least with O'Neill you always knew exactly where you stood. Landry was harder to figure out.
They entered the control room, Landry sending another glower his way as if annoyed Rodney had followed him. Rodney had bigger concerns than making Landry happy and said to the gate tech, "Have you heard from him?"
"McKay!" Landry snapped, and then he asked the gate tech, "Any news?"
"I just asked him that," Rodney protested.
"No, sir," the tech said to Landry.
"Dial the planet again," Rodney ordered.
"McKay," Landry barked, clearly exasperated. "Don't compel me to have you forcibly ejected from the control room." He looked like he really wanted Rodney to do just that.
Rodney tightened his lips in frustration. He silently cursed the Ancients who had kicked them out of their home. This wouldn't be happening if they were still there; everyone back on Atlantis knew he and John saved each other regularly.
*****
"Rodney?" John muttered. "That you?"
"No, sir," Wallace replied. "He's not here, remember?" Wallace's voice sounded a little desperate.
John's head was foggy, and he was finding it hard to breathe. Even more disconcerting, he couldn't really remember what was going on. "What happened?" he croaked out.
"You got caught in a trap," Wallace said in a tone that implied he'd answered this question too many times. "Bambis tripped and pushed into you, and you…this thing…it's got your foot."
That was when the pain made an appearance, as if 'foot' was the magic password to unlock it. A groan passed his lips without his permission.
"It's too soon for more morphine, sir," Wallace said unhappily. "I don't know what to do."
John forced his eyes open, his eyelids feeling incredibly heavy, only to find the world spinning hazily in front of him, several of Wallace staring down. He blinked a few times until his vision cleared. Yeah, Wallace was really unhappy. His face was white, his mouth pinched, his eyes shadowed. He looked like his best friend was dying, or maybe just his commanding officer. "Bad?"
There was no answer, which was answer enough.
Trying to sit up, John found Wallace's hand on his chest pushing him back down. "I wouldn't do that, sir," Wallace warned.
"Why the fuck not?" John scowled.
"Because the last few times you've done it," Wallace informed him miserably, "it hurt a lot, and you ordered me not to let you do it again."
John pushed against Wallace's hand and when he couldn't budge against the man's determined strength, he spit out, "Move your hand, Wallace, and that's an order."
Wallace's face scrunched up in dismay. "No, sir. You ordered me to keep you down."
John was annoyed, frustrated, and wondering where the hell Rodney was, even though he knew he wasn't in Atlantis with his real team. He was in the Milky Way with his frigging Stargate team and Rodney was all the way in Nevada. Doubly aggravated now, John pushed up again and managed to get a few inches off the ground.
This time he yelled, as the pain, which had been bad enough before, shot through his body like bolts of electricity up from his damned foot, centering in his gut making his stomach churn, and out through his other leg, arms, and head until John's vision swam. He retched, gagging on whatever was trying to make its way up, and Wallace quickly turned him so he could throw up without asphyxiating.
It looked like Wallace had cleaned other bouts of vomit away, but the smell still hit John's nose and it made him retch again. The movement made the pain worse, and John vehemently wished he was dead.
When his stomach began to settle down, John chanced a look at his foot and what he saw almost made him hurl again. There was something clamped around his foot, something with malevolently blinking lights on a small console. He thought off at it, but it did nothing. "Not Ancient?" he gasped out.
"No, sir," Wallace said. "We don't know what it is. All we know is that it sprang out of the ground at you and grabbed your foot. At the same time all of our equipment malfunctioned, even our compasses. I think it screws with your memory, too, like maybe it's drugging you, because every time you wake up, you can't remember."
John looked at his foot again. It looked like one of those George Foreman grills, clamped around his foot and ankle, making a low fat protein meal out of him. The pain radiating up his leg was proof of that stupid song about how the foot bones are connected to leg bones, because whatever the thing was doing to his foot was zapping painfully through his entire body.
He was as exhausted as if he'd run a marathon or two, and his body was trembling. "Fuck," he said as he laid back. "A trap?"
"That's what you came up with the last time you were awake," Wallace told him. "You think it's a trap for sentient beings. It disables any way you can call for help and, by making you forget things, it keeps you from coming up with a good plan so you can escape or find a way to get help."
"Fuck," John growled again. "How long?"
"It's been three hours since it got you."
"We missed check in," John figured out.
"Yeah, one hour ago," Wallace said, even more unhappily.
John opened his eyes, which had closed without him even being aware of it. "What don't I know?" And where the fuck was their rescue team? "Hey, and where's Bambis?" It bothered him that this was the first time he'd even thought of his other team member. His eyes closed again and he fought against the unconsciousness beckoning to him. He couldn't afford to fall asleep and then wake up having to start this all over again.
"He left pretty much right after to go get help," Wallace finally answered.
So, close to three hours. John let that thought percolate. They'd been on this planet for two days, looking for naquadah deposits. They had been making their way back and, if John's memory was right, they'd only been an hour from the Stargate. "What the fuck happened to him?" He should have been in the infirmary an hour ago. He would have been on the phone to McKay two minutes after that telling him to get his ass to Colorado. At this particular point in his life, John only trusted three people and two of them were in another galaxy.
Wallace shrugged. "I don't know. He could have gotten lost; like I said, the compasses aren't working."
John rolled his eyes. "Yeah, or he could have fallen down and broken his ankle or got caught by another trap. Go look for him," he ordered.
"I can't do that, sir," Wallace said. "I can't leave an injured man, especially when whoever set this trap might be coming for you. I'm sorry."
"Wallace," John bit out.
Wallace looked exceedingly nervous but he set his jaw. "No, sir."
"Fuck," John said again.
"No kidding, sir," Wallace agreed emphatically.
"Listen to me," John tried one more time. "You need to get help."
"Sir," Wallace said, before John could get going with his persuasive argument, "Even if I left you alone and went to the Stargate, our GDOs aren't working so even if I dialed home, I couldn't send my IDC or ask for help. We've missed a check in and they should come looking for us."
"With sensors that might stop working as soon as they get here," John griped. Although it was possible the trap only caused equipment in the near vicinity to crap out. "Have you tried to see if our equipment works if it's away from this thing?" he asked, not very hopefully. The fact that Bambis hadn't gotten help, spoke for itself. Clearly neither his compass nor GDO were working.
"Yes, sir," Wallace said morosely. "Nothing works."
"Shit," John said. Then he had an alarming thought. "You can't let them take me to Earth with this thing on my foot."
Wallace's face looked like they'd had this argument before as well. He chose not to answer.
"You can't," John said again, forcefully. "First of all, if it is a trap, and if they're coming for me, we can't let them come to Earth to find me. And if it knocked out all our equipment here, it could do it there."
"We can't get it off," Wallace argued, eyes panicked.
This time John did close his eyes. He couldn't stand to see the look in Wallace's eyes saying that if they had to leave the trap here, then John's foot might be staying with it. For a horrifying moment, John felt tears start up in earnest, missing Atlantis, missing Rodney, and for fucking sure not wanting to lose his foot, because then he'd lose all of it.
*****
"Dr. McKay," Landry snapped, "What are you doing here?"
Rodney couldn't imagine what genius in Washington thought Hank Landry was the man to head up Stargate Command when he was such an idiot. "I'm going with the rescue team," Rodney said, doing his best not to add on, 'idiot'.
The gate started dialing.
Deciding it was best not to find out what country he'd be banished to if he disobeyed a direct order, Rodney took advantage of the distraction of the gate kerwhoosing into a wormhole to push through all the marines and leap through the event horizon, ignoring Landry's heated "McKay!" And yeah, maybe the Marines were supposed to go first, but could Rodney help it if they were so damn slow?
He walked out on the other side to find Bambis standing there looking as if he'd just seen God.
"Dr. McKay!" he yelped. "Thank God."
"Where is he?" Rodney asked, striding off the ramp, pulling out his lifesigns detector, the one he'd stolen from Atlantis.
There were the sounds of marching feet, and Lorne snapped out, "McKay, you know better."
"Yeah, yeah," Rodney said. He hadn't even realized Lorne had been put in charge of the rescue team. Glancing up, he realized Lorne didn't look nearly as put out as Rodney would have expected.
"If you'd waited for a second longer," Lorne said, "I would have told the general that I'd asked for you to join us."
"Oh," Rodney said. "Well, good. You need me." He slapped the detector; it didn't seem to be working. "Huh."
"What is it?" Lorne asked.
Not answering, Rodney pulled out the SGC version and found it didn't work either. "What's going on?" he asked Bambis, certain he'd get a less than satisfactory answer.
"We don't know," Bambis said, fulfilling, no, exceeding all of Rodney's expectations.
"Where's the Colonel?" Rodney asked, deciding to go for what was the most important. There was a pause before Bambis answered, a truly miserable look on his face, and Rodney's heart lurched in his chest as every horrible scenario flashed before his eyes.
Before he could strangle the man, Bambis finally admitted, "I'm not exactly sure. I left him and Wallace about two hours ago to come to the gate, but I got lost because our compasses aren't working, either."
"Did you notice the position of the sun?" Lorne asked, butting in, which was just as well because Rodney was experiencing deep and satisfying thoughts of homicide.
Bambis winced. "Not as much as I should have, sir," he confessed. "I think he and Wallace are that way, though." He waved in a direction that established that his teammates were somewhere on one half of the planet.
"Moron," Rodney said scathingly.
"Sir," one of the Marines called out. "There are tracks to follow."
Rodney repositioned his pack and marched over to the Marine. "What are you waiting for? Let's go."
"McKay," Lorne ordered, "now that we're here, we follow protocol." He started calling names, putting them in position, leaving Rodney smack in the middle along with Bambis.
There was no way in hell Rodney was going to walk next to that bozo, so he moved back to walk with Lorne. "Really," Rodney said heatedly, "what recruitment strategy is the SGC using these days? Clown school?"
Lorne's lips curled up in a small smile, but he didn't respond.
Rodney decided that was tacit agreement if ever he'd heard it.
*****
"Rodney?" John called again, realizing even as the word passed his lips, that Rodney wasn't there, and he wasn't coming. He hadn't completely fallen asleep so while things were vague, he hadn't forgotten the situation.
"No, sir," Wallace said, pretty patiently, John thought, seeing as Wallace had to think they were back at ground zero.
"I didn't fall asleep," John reassured him.
"Do you want some water?"
"Yeah," John said. He almost tried to sit up but remembered in time. He had no desire to feel that excruciating pain again. The pain he was feeling right now was more than enough.
Wallace carefully dribbled some water into his mouth and he eagerly swallowed it down. When John choked a little, Wallace stopped.
John did his best to just breathe for a minute, trying very hard not to think about his foot, about what that thing was doing to it, about whether he'd leave this planet with both feet attached, or if they got it off, whether his foot would be salvageable.
A possible future of him with a prosthetic foot at some desk job flashed by, and John thought he'd truly rather be dead. Knowing it was just Wallace with him, with Bambis who the fuck knew where, wasn't helping. He longed for his Atlantis team, knowing that Ronon could handle anything that showed up. He ached to hear Teyla's calming words, hear Rodney's bitching and complaining while he, with extreme prejudice, destroyed this thing that was slowly eating John's foot up with acid.
As another surge of pain exploded up his leg, John gasped for breath, his fingers clawing at the dirt underneath him. "Goddamn it," he bit through gritted teeth. "Time for more morphine?" John asked frantically, not giving a fuck when he got his last injection, just knowing that if this was pain on morphine, then he sure as hell didn't want to feel it as the drug started wearing off.
"I gave you some less than thirty minutes ago," Wallace warned.
"I don't give a fuck," John countered heatedly.
"You're already not breathing so great," Wallace argued.
"I'm breathing fine," John growled out. The only reason he couldn't breathe was because it hurt so damn much.
"Wallace," someone yelled out from a distance.
"Oh, thank God," Wallace said, standing, waving his arm. "Here! We're here!" To John he said excitedly, "He's got help with him."
John closed his eyes in relief, hoping they sent someone who really was going to help, not just another team like his. He always had the slight suspicion that Landry wouldn't weep any tears if John came to an untimely end off planet.
"Is that--" Wallace started, straining to see who was on their way. "It's Major Lorne, sir," he informed John.
That was good, Sheppard thought. Lorne wasn't an idiot. It still didn't tell him if someone was coming who'd know how to take this thing off his foot. He didn't trust that Lee guy, and it seemed as if he was the cream of the crop these days now that Carter wasn't around as much.
"Wait," Wallace said in wonder, "I think that's Dr. McKay."
Despite the pain, everything in John sagged in relief at those words. He took a deep breath and yelled, "Rodney, get this damn thing off my foot!"
"Nice, Colonel," Rodney said as he came into view, "nice to see you, how are you? I'm fine, thank you." Even as he bitched, he sank down by John's lower body to look at the contraption. "Figures you'd be the first colonel to get eaten by a dust buster."
"Can you get the damn thing off?" John snapped.
Rodney snorted in that 'are you really asking me if I can do something?' egotistical way he had; it was like music to John's ears. "Hmm," Rodney said. He reached for John's foot.
"Wait," Wallace said, hand out, "it really hurts when he moves."
Rodney yanked his hand back with an apologetic look at John.
"Just do it," John said. It's not like Rodney could work on the damn thing without touching it.
"How about some morphine, Colonel?" Lorne suggested, reaching for the first-aid kit.
"Please," John begged pitifully.
Rodney sent daggers toward Wallace. "You haven't medicated him?" John knew that voice, it was the voice that told him that Wallace better hope he had good life insurance, or at the very least a good tolerance for freezing cold showers for the rest of his life. There was something very comforting in having it directed at someone on his behalf.
"Yes," Wallace defended himself. "I've given him three shots, and I only gave him the last dose thirty minutes ago; I didn't want to overdose him."
"Does he look overdosed?" Rodney asked, flinging at arm at John. "He's coherent, oriented and talking."
While that conversation was going on, Lorne had prepared another syringe of morphine and shot John up. John could feel the dopey smile on his face as the edge of the pain blurred.
"I'm picking up your leg," Rodney informed him.
John nodded, bracing himself. It definitely hurt, no doubt about it, but the fresh morphine helped, and so did the fact that it was Rodney who was moving his leg for a good reason, like to get John out of the fucking trap.
"Hmm," Rodney said again, as he peered closely at the bottom of the device that covered John's toes.
"What?" John demanded.
"Can you feel this?" Rodney asked as he reached inside a little to touch.
"Wait!" John said, trying to jerk his foot away, not wanting it to catch Rodney's fingers as well. Who knew how the damn thing worked? But then, all of sudden, he could feel something tapping on the end of his boot. "You can see my boot?" he blurted out.
Rodney nodded. "Yeah," he said, eyebrows furrowed, focused.
"Does everything…" John swallowed, not sure how to ask if there was blood, mutilated flesh, whatever.
"Everything actually looks fine," Rodney said, as if reading his mind. "All I can see is the toe of your boot. I'm guessing this thing isn't actually doing anything to you except stimulating your nervous system to act as if it were. I suppose it makes sense to not completely incapacitate your prey, especially if the intent is not to eat it." He put John's leg down.
"Like a gom jabbar?" John asked, talking past the lump of relief that had lodged in his throat.
"Exactly," Rodney said.
"A gom jabbar?" Lorne asked, sounding perplexed.
"Dune," Wallace answered.
Lorne rolled his eyes. "I'm surrounded by geeks." With a grin at John, he added, "Sir."
This time John rolled his eyes. "Can you get it off?" he directed at Rodney.
"No, I thought I'd take a nap and then have a nice picnic lunch. Of course, I can get it off." Rodney was pulling off his backpack, opening it up and yanking stuff out of it.
As the third MRE hit the ground, John asked, "How many of those things did you bring?" Not that the excessive number of MREs was unexpected. Rodney always brought extra food along, food he never had any intention of sharing. The team would have to go Donner party before Rodney would fork food over--and even then begrudgingly--or maybe if someone started eyeing his thigh with an avaricious gleam, as if thinking about how it would feed a person for a few days.
Rodney ignored him until he finally found the tool kit he'd been hunting for. "Mock all you want, Colonel," he said primly, "but please make a note that it is me, once again, saving your ass."
"Get that damn thing off," John growled, "and I'll never mock you again."
"Don't make promises you can't keep," Rodney said, refocused on the trap. "I need to move your leg again," he warned after a moment.
John nodded, closed his eyes and clamped his jaw shut.
To Lorne, Rodney ordered, "Hold his leg up for me. I need to see the whole thing."
Lorne moved to the other side while John braced himself for more pain. It didn't disappoint him as it burst through his body with gut-wrenching rapidity. He swallowed against the nausea; it felt as if all the morphine had already been used up.
"John," Rodney called anxiously. "Are you all right?"
John opened his eyes to see Rodney looking worriedly at him. "Just get it off," John ground out through clenched teeth, "and I'll be fine."
Rodney nodded stiffly and, with one more look at John, went back to the trap. He lay on his back and stared up at the thing as Lorne held John's leg up. "How long has it been on?"
"Three hours," Wallace volunteered.
"And no sign of anyone?" Lorne asked.
"No, sir," Wallace said.
Rodney squirmed a little, trying to get a better vantage point, and if John had been in less pain, and if they were alone, John might have found that enticing and spread his legs apart a little more in invitation. But he fucking hurt, and they weren't alone, and between the pain and the morphine, little John wasn't interested in the slightest.
"Ah, here," Rodney said, snapping his fingers, hand out, as if expecting a surgical tech to slap a scalpel into it. "Screwdriver," Rodney finally said, sounding exasperated that nobody was reading his mind.
Wallace handed him one.
"No," Rodney groused, "a flat-headed one."
"Oh," Wallace said, handing him the right one.
Rodney shot him a narrow-eyed look that made John grin despite the pain. It was great to have Rodney here. "Why aren't you on my team, anyway?" he found himself asking.
"Because they're all a bunch of ignoramuses," Rodney answered immediately, having no trouble following John's train of thought.
“You gonna be able to get him out of that thing?” Lorne asked, still holding John's leg up, bracing it at the knee with one of his hands.
John just wanted Rodney to be done. His body ached from head to foot, the nausea was returning, and if Lorne didn’t put his goddamn leg down, he was going to strangle the man. “Rodney,” he complained. Then Rodney did something with the screwdriver and whatever pain John had been experiencing seemed to double and he let out an involuntary yell, urgently swallowing down the need to puke.
“Sorry. Sorry,” Rodney said quickly, unhappily. “So much for that idea.”
“You think?” John snapped, breathing through the pain; his body was prickling with sweat and panic. “Fuck.” He glanced at Rodney, only to find his wounded, worried, blue eyes on him, looking as if he’d been the one to go eight rounds with George Foreman.
John hated that look; he hated seeing it on Rodney's face when he wasn't in a position to do anything about it. He didn’t have the energy to talk Rodney through a crisis when he was barely hanging on himself. Then, a look of determination crossed Rodney’s face, and he turned back to the trap.
“There’s got to be something,” Rodney muttered. Trying to move John’s foot as little as possible, Rodney inspected the machine as closely he could. “I really don’t think it’s doing anything to your foot,” he finally mentioned again, cautiously.
“You already said that,” John got out.
“So, theoretically," Rodney said slowly, "if I change the settings, if I accidentally turn them up, it won’t do you any additional damage.”
“Except hurt more,” John pointed out.
“But only for a moment,” Rodney countered. “I don’t like this any more than you do, but I can’t pry the thing off of you, it’s got no obvious means of construction like screws, or hinges, I can’t analyze the damn thing because our equipment isn’t working, so all that leaves me is to start pressing buttons, because otherwise…”
Otherwise, John thought to himself. Right. “Fuck,” he said one more time just to make sure everyone got how he was feeling. “Do it.” He looked at Rodney again to see the look of consternation on his face. “Rodney, just do it. I can deal with a little pain.”
Rodney snorted. “Colonel Stoic,” he said. “Able to leap off nuclear armed puddlejumpers in a single bound.”
“Rodney,” John warned. He didn’t want to go there again. As far as he was concerned, the statute of limitations had run out on that complaint.
“Fine, fine,” Rodney said, turning back to the trap. “Just tell me right away if it starts to hurt more.”
“Don’t worry,” John assured him. To Lorne, who was looking off into the distance, he said, “Anything out there?”
Lorne shook his head. “No. We’re clear.”
John drew in a deep breath, wishing Rodney was free to come brace him for whatever was coming, but decided it was enough that the man was there to begin with. “Go,” he told Rodney.
Rodney nodded, his fingers twitching over the beeping lights. He almost pressed something, but pulled back, wincing.
“Just do it,” John snapped.
“Right,” Rodney said, with one last 'I'm-sorry-if-I-blow-this' look at John, and pressed the button on the far left.
The light started to blink faster and the pain raced through his body like a thundering waterfall. John let out a groan, feeling unconsciousness beckoning, the pain too much to deal with.
“Sorry,” Rodney yelped, and he pressed the one most to the right.
The pain immediately began to decrease, and John gasped in relief. “That’s the right one.”
“Okay,” Rodney said and pressed it again. “Better?”
The pain grew even less, and John felt lightheaded because of it. He hadn’t realized how tight his body had been. It was like his entire body had been in a vise, and he’d just been released. The pain wasn’t gone completely; it still felt like he was getting electrical shocks, but now it was like a static shock as opposed to a lightning strike.
Rodney pressed the button again and the blinking red light slowed down to a beep every few seconds. “That’s good,” John said, feeling almost drunk. “That’s good.”
As Rodney continued to press the button, John realized that he definitely felt drunk, or like someone had given him the really good drugs. “Izzat the morphine?” he managed to get out, flapping one hand toward his head.
"Are all the doses of morphine we gave him hitting him now?" Wallace asked the group apprehensively.
Frowning, Rodney glared at the trap. “I don't think so. I think this trap is set up to sedate its victim when the trap is being removed so whomever it is can’t fight back.”
“Cool,” John said, grinning. He felt great.
Rodney rolled his eyes and went back to the machine, still pressing the far right button.
John grinned some more, enjoying the sensation of being high as a kite. It was when he started finding it hard to breathe that it stopped being so enjoyable. "Rodney," he croaked, one hand pressed to his chest as if that might help convince it to draw in a deep breath.
"Oh no," Rodney said, lifting his hand from the machine.
Lorne was suddenly at his side, feeling for a pulse. "You'll be okay, sir," he said calmly. "We can breathe for you if you need it until the drug starts to wear off."
John nodded, glad to hear it. "Make it hurt," he croaked out, thinking maybe the pain would help the sedation wear off faster.
Rodney shook his head at that idea.
Wallace said to Lorne, "Help him sit up."
Lorne reached an arm around John's shoulders and began to lift him up.
John grunted through tightly clamped lips as the pain fired up his leg into his torso and up into his head, making him see dark spots as he fought to stay awake.
"Put him down! Put him down!" Rodney yelled. "Jesus, you're killing him."
Lorne was already putting him down, not needing to be told. He glared at Wallace at the same time Rodney did, and the man blanched under the double whammy. John found himself grinning even if he felt like shit. At least he could breathe a little better.
"You okay?" Rodney asked solicitously.
John nodded wearily. "Just get it off," he said.
Rodney nodded, and then turned to the trap. "It's ingenious, actually. If you were by yourself, or with someone less intelligent, there'd be no way you could escape from this."
"I'd be more comforted by that," John said snippily, "if you'd actually figured out a way to get the damn thing off my foot."
"Give me a minute," Rodney said, wounded. "Let me think." He bit his bottom lip as he considered the trap. "There has to be a way."
"Maybe it only responds to their equipment," Lorne suggested.
Rodney blinked, then his eyes opened wide and he snapped his fingers at Lorne several times in succession.
"Thank God," John said, recognizing Rodney's 'I figured it out' finger snap. "Hurry up."
Rodney pulled out his zat and fired it away from the group gathered around John. "Just as I thought," he said in satisfaction. He reached for a screwdriver.
Lorne looked relieved. "The zats work?"
"They're energy weapons," Rodney said. "Self charging."
"What are you doing?" John asked, curious now that he was sure it was only a moment of time before he was out of the damn thing.
"Busy," Rodney said, working on taking apart the zat.
"How long do you think this trap has been here?" Bambis asked. "Do you think these people even exist anymore? Don't you think they'd be here by now if they did?"
"It's in pretty good shape," Lorne commented. "It doesn't look like it's been buried a long time."
"As long as they get here in a couple of days," Rodney chimed in, despite being 'busy', "their prey should still be here. No matter what button they push, whomever they caught would have continually passed out from too much pain or passed out from too much sedation."
"And seeing as every time he woke up, he couldn't remember anything, he wouldn't even know what he'd tried before to know it didn't work," Wallace added.
"Fiendishly smart, actually," Rodney said in admiration. The zat was now in pieces around him.
"Landry's not going to be too happy about that," Lorne said, his eye on the pieces.
"Like I care?" Rodney scoffed.
John watched Rodney's hands work their magic as he slowly assembled something completely new. John loved watching Rodney work, and despite the circumstances, it was sort of fun to watch him when he didn't have other things he needed to be doing to keep them all from dying a horrible death.
Rodney took the new gadget, did something to it that made it glow a little, and then put it on the trap. As it started to glow brighter, the trap began to hum, the lights blinking faster.
"Rodney," John said nervously.
Putting up a hand, Rodney's whole posture said to wait.
Seeing as it was John's foot on the line, John didn't much feel like waiting. The lights were blinking even faster now, mostly just a stream of light. "What's it--"
He stopped abruptly when the lights stopped and the trap opened up and slid off his foot. It was like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's all at the same time.
They all stared at the trap, now lying there inert.
"Holy fuck," John said, cautiously moving his ankle, relieved that everything seemed to be in working order.
"That was awesome!" Wallace said enthusiastically. "What did you do?"
"I set the zat charging mechanism on charge-up mode, and placed it on the only emitting energy source around until it drained it," Rodney said smugly.
"Good job, McKay," Lorne said with a grin. "Gotta admit, you're handy to have around."
Rodney shot him a narrow-eyed suspicious look, as if sure there was an insult hidden in the compliment. But then he looked at John, saw what was no doubt the incredibly relieved look on John's face, and shot him a lopsided grin. "You good?"
John nodded. "My leg is still sore, in fact, all of me is still sore, but I'm great." He sagged back down on the ground, suddenly exhausted, wanting nothing more than to close his eyes and take a nice long nap. Unfortunately, they had to get back to the gate. It wasn't like the SGC had a handy pile of jumpers they could send through to pick him up.
"Do you want to take it back with us?" Lorne asked Rodney, pointing at the trap.
Rodney shook his head. "No," he said reluctantly. "As much as I'd love to study it, we have no idea what triggers it, and for all we know it'll knock out all the equipment at the SGC."
"That's what I said," Wallace commented.
"Congratulations," Rodney said sarcastically, "apparently you are capable of having one intelligent thought in your head, all evidence to the contrary."
"Hey!" Wallace complained.
"Ignore him," Lorne counseled, even as he zatted the trap three times.
"Yeah," John said sleepily, "sooner or later it just sort of becomes background noise, like crickets or something."
"Hey!" Now it was Rodney's turn to complain. But then he yanked out his life-signs detector and crowed with satisfaction that it was now working. "Ah ha!"
John tried to lift his head to look at his foot again to reassure himself it was all in one piece, but it felt as if he was covered in the heaviest blankets in the world, restrained in cotton wool. "Rodney," John called.
"Uh huh," Rodney said, barely listening, focused on his detector.
"Rodney," John said more sharply, wanting Rodney's attention.
"What?" Rodney said, finally looking up. He must have seen something on John's face because he put the detector back in his pocket. "What?" he said again, softer.
"My foot?"
Rodney turned to look, then sat down again near John's foot so he could untie John's boot and slip it off along with his sock. "Good as new," Rodney proclaimed, holding John's leg up and wriggling his big toe, then resting John's foot on his thigh.
John wriggled the rest of his toes, glad to see it looked as if everything was in good working order. He wriggled his toes again just because it seemed like a good thing to do. The feeling of being high hadn't completely gone away yet.
"It does look as if something punctured your skin here," Rodney commented, running his hand along John's ankle and lower shin. "Maybe it's where the sedative was administered."
From a few feet away, Lorne said, "We should get out of here." Then, looking around, he asked, "Do you think there are more of those things?"
Still holding John's ankle, Rodney looked decidedly more nervous, pulling out his detector again. He pushed a few buttons, saying, "I'm not getting any anomalous readings."
"Neither were we," John offered.
"Yes, but you're not me," Rodney argued.
"Something to be grateful for, right, sir?" Lorne asked John with a grin.
"Ha ha," Rodney said. "I thought I heard someone say we should get out of here." To John, he added, "Can you walk?"
John shrugged and tried to sit up. "I can try." He gestured at his boot. "Give me my boot."
Rodney grabbed John's sock and started putting it on John's foot. John looked around casually to see if anyone thought it was weird that Rodney was dressing him. Everyone seemed to be pointedly looking away. Still, to be safe, John said grouchily, "I can do that."
"What?" Rodney asked, looking at John, at John's outstretched hand. Then, as if realizing, himself, that he was dressing John in front of several members of the armed forces, Rodney blushed a little and handed John his boot. "Right."
John tried to sit all the way up but wasn't very successful. He sheepishly held the boot back out to Rodney who took it with a smug grin. He put it down to finish with John's sock then worked the boot on, tying the laces. John decided it had to be love if Rodney was messing with his sock after a two day mission without bitching about it.
Lorne and Rodney helped John to stand, only to have him slip to the ground like a piece of cooked spaghetti. "Oops," John said.
Grinning at his commanding officer, Lorne told the rest of his team to go back to the gate and call for a stretcher. "Go with them," he told Wallace.
"Yes, sir," Wallace said, and turned to follow the other three Marines back toward the gate.
"Go walk a half-click perimeter," Lorne told Bambis. "Fifteen minute checks."
"Yes, sir," Bambis said sharply.
"Do you have your compass?" John asked him.
"Good question, seeing as he's been lost today once already," Rodney said hotly. "Maybe this time you could stay lost."
"Rodney," John chided.
"You were hurt," Rodney said right back at him, as if it was all Bambis' fault.
"Even if he'd gotten there right away," John continued to reason, "he still couldn't have communicated with Earth."
"Maybe not, but he could have dialed until someone got a hint that something was wrong and sent through a MALP."
"Which would have died the instant it came through the wormhole," John said.
Rodney scowled.
Meanwhile, Bambis had his compass out and was orienting himself as he slowly walked away.
Rodney rolled his eyes. "I'll bet you all the MREs in my possession that he gets lost."
"No way," John said with a rueful grin. "That's a total sucker's bet." He looked after Bambis. "Is he gone?"
Lorne checked and nodded, then said, "Might as well make yourself comfortable. I'll keep an eye out."
Without a second invitation, Rodney moved behind him, encouraging John to lean back against his chest. Rodney wrapped his arms tightly around John, hugging him, resting his cheek against John's.
Some residual stress John hadn't even been aware of disappeared at the feel of Rodney's body behind him, supporting him. "Hmm," he said happily. He glanced up at Lorne. "Thanks."
"Don't mention it," Lorne said with a grin. He pointed over his shoulder, "I'll be right over there, not looking."
That sounded perfect to John. Thank God for second-in-commands like Lorne, even if he really didn't hold that title in this galaxy. For a second, homesickness for Atlantis blistered him. But then he felt Rodney's arms tighten around him and realized that he'd brought back the most important part.
"You're never going off world without me again," Rodney said sternly.
"Right, because you never do anything that gets us in trouble," John retorted without much heat, because Rodney was warm and toasty. He relaxed more, nuzzling Rodney's neck. "Do I get comfort sex out of this when we get home?"
Rodney let out an outraged scoff. "I think I deserve the comfort sex, thank you very much. You almost died again."
"Not possible," John said. "You were with me."
"Nice try buttering me up," Rodney said disparagingly, "but you were well on your way to the dying part before I even showed up. And it was only a fluke that I was here in the first place."
"Gotta love a good fluke," John said contentedly. He could feel Rodney roll his eyes. "So, let me get this straight. You think you deserve comfort sex, and I think I deserve it." He paused. "I think we could make this work."
Snickering, Rodney kissed his temple. "See? That's one of the things I like about you, this whole half full cup thing." Then, frowning, he added, "It almost makes up for the constantly almost dying thing."
"Let's skip the scolding and move right into the comforting, okay? I'm liking that part." He nestled more closely into Rodney.
A heroic sigh expanded Rodney's chest underneath John. "Fine. Just stop doing it, okay? The almost dying thing."
John turned his head and captured the corner of Rodney's mouth in a kiss. "Girl Scout's honor," he mumbled as Rodney got his hand under John's jaw and turned his head enough to get a full-on lip lock.
Bambis calling in stopped the kiss before it became too heated, and John blissfully sank back against Rodney. Rodney let out another exasperated sigh, but rested his head against John's, his hands clasped over John's belly. "Yeah, you're quite the Girl Scout."
"I'd be a good Girl Scout," John protested.
Rodney's chuffing laughter vibrated John's body and, smiling, he let the vibration take him down to sleep.
The End
December 22, 2007
TITLE: Accident Prone
AUTHOR: Lady Ra
E-MAIL ADDRESS: Ladyra11@yahoo.com
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING: McShep
SUMMARY: Something goes wrong during one of John's missions with his new Stargate team.
WORD COUNT: ~7200
EPISODE SPOILERS: This goes AU during Return Part 1
NOTES/WARNINGS: None
DISCLAIMER: Glory and praise to the creators for making such fun characters to play with. You guys rock!!
THANKS: My betas rock! Joolz, Hawthorn, Susan, and Annie
Accident Prone
"What do you mean his team's late for check-in?" Rodney demanded.
"Dr. McKay," General Landry said with a scowl. "If you'll excuse me--"
"I heard you say he's late," Rodney persisted. "How late?" He'd known something like this was going to happen. He should have insisted he be put on the Colonel's team. This habit they'd gotten into of saving each other's life wasn't something you could just stop, especially by going cold turkey.
"Are you even supposed to be here?" Landry griped.
"It's a good thing I am," Rodney snapped quickly. "Where is he? And what bozos did you stick him with? Is he with that Bambi person? The one that's completely accident prone? Why's that idiot even on a Stargate team? Kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel with him, aren't you?"
"Colonel Sheppard chose him for his team," Landry said in return, equally heated.
"Only because you gave him nothing but losers to choose from," Rodney countered. "He's used to working with a team of experts."
"You?" Landry said derisively. "I've read your mission reports, Doctor."
"Yes, me," Rodney said belligerently. Then, worriedly, "And what does that mean? What's wrong with our mission reports?"
"Dr. McKay," Landry said loudly, "if you would get out of my way, I could get to the control room and find out where my missing team is." He glared at Rodney.
"Good idea," Rodney agreed, falling in step with the General, ignoring his ongoing glare. "Maybe I should get a rescue team together?"
"I'll decide if there's going to be a rescue team sent out," Landry said sternly. "He's only missed one check-in."
Rodney whined a little, deep in his throat. "That's all it takes, sometimes. I've been there, I know. I think we should save some time and start pulling a team together. If this Bambi character is a representative sample of the military around here these days, it might take them a while to find the armory and get geared up."
"Security," Landry hollered.
"Great!" Rodney said eagerly. "I'll just go change."
"I meant for you," Landry bit out.
Rodney looked around anxiously to see if any security was heading his way. "Ha ha," he tried. He'd never gotten used to Landry's sense of humor. At least with O'Neill you always knew exactly where you stood. Landry was harder to figure out.
They entered the control room, Landry sending another glower his way as if annoyed Rodney had followed him. Rodney had bigger concerns than making Landry happy and said to the gate tech, "Have you heard from him?"
"McKay!" Landry snapped, and then he asked the gate tech, "Any news?"
"I just asked him that," Rodney protested.
"No, sir," the tech said to Landry.
"Dial the planet again," Rodney ordered.
"McKay," Landry barked, clearly exasperated. "Don't compel me to have you forcibly ejected from the control room." He looked like he really wanted Rodney to do just that.
Rodney tightened his lips in frustration. He silently cursed the Ancients who had kicked them out of their home. This wouldn't be happening if they were still there; everyone back on Atlantis knew he and John saved each other regularly.
*****
"Rodney?" John muttered. "That you?"
"No, sir," Wallace replied. "He's not here, remember?" Wallace's voice sounded a little desperate.
John's head was foggy, and he was finding it hard to breathe. Even more disconcerting, he couldn't really remember what was going on. "What happened?" he croaked out.
"You got caught in a trap," Wallace said in a tone that implied he'd answered this question too many times. "Bambis tripped and pushed into you, and you…this thing…it's got your foot."
That was when the pain made an appearance, as if 'foot' was the magic password to unlock it. A groan passed his lips without his permission.
"It's too soon for more morphine, sir," Wallace said unhappily. "I don't know what to do."
John forced his eyes open, his eyelids feeling incredibly heavy, only to find the world spinning hazily in front of him, several of Wallace staring down. He blinked a few times until his vision cleared. Yeah, Wallace was really unhappy. His face was white, his mouth pinched, his eyes shadowed. He looked like his best friend was dying, or maybe just his commanding officer. "Bad?"
There was no answer, which was answer enough.
Trying to sit up, John found Wallace's hand on his chest pushing him back down. "I wouldn't do that, sir," Wallace warned.
"Why the fuck not?" John scowled.
"Because the last few times you've done it," Wallace informed him miserably, "it hurt a lot, and you ordered me not to let you do it again."
John pushed against Wallace's hand and when he couldn't budge against the man's determined strength, he spit out, "Move your hand, Wallace, and that's an order."
Wallace's face scrunched up in dismay. "No, sir. You ordered me to keep you down."
John was annoyed, frustrated, and wondering where the hell Rodney was, even though he knew he wasn't in Atlantis with his real team. He was in the Milky Way with his frigging Stargate team and Rodney was all the way in Nevada. Doubly aggravated now, John pushed up again and managed to get a few inches off the ground.
This time he yelled, as the pain, which had been bad enough before, shot through his body like bolts of electricity up from his damned foot, centering in his gut making his stomach churn, and out through his other leg, arms, and head until John's vision swam. He retched, gagging on whatever was trying to make its way up, and Wallace quickly turned him so he could throw up without asphyxiating.
It looked like Wallace had cleaned other bouts of vomit away, but the smell still hit John's nose and it made him retch again. The movement made the pain worse, and John vehemently wished he was dead.
When his stomach began to settle down, John chanced a look at his foot and what he saw almost made him hurl again. There was something clamped around his foot, something with malevolently blinking lights on a small console. He thought off at it, but it did nothing. "Not Ancient?" he gasped out.
"No, sir," Wallace said. "We don't know what it is. All we know is that it sprang out of the ground at you and grabbed your foot. At the same time all of our equipment malfunctioned, even our compasses. I think it screws with your memory, too, like maybe it's drugging you, because every time you wake up, you can't remember."
John looked at his foot again. It looked like one of those George Foreman grills, clamped around his foot and ankle, making a low fat protein meal out of him. The pain radiating up his leg was proof of that stupid song about how the foot bones are connected to leg bones, because whatever the thing was doing to his foot was zapping painfully through his entire body.
He was as exhausted as if he'd run a marathon or two, and his body was trembling. "Fuck," he said as he laid back. "A trap?"
"That's what you came up with the last time you were awake," Wallace told him. "You think it's a trap for sentient beings. It disables any way you can call for help and, by making you forget things, it keeps you from coming up with a good plan so you can escape or find a way to get help."
"Fuck," John growled again. "How long?"
"It's been three hours since it got you."
"We missed check in," John figured out.
"Yeah, one hour ago," Wallace said, even more unhappily.
John opened his eyes, which had closed without him even being aware of it. "What don't I know?" And where the fuck was their rescue team? "Hey, and where's Bambis?" It bothered him that this was the first time he'd even thought of his other team member. His eyes closed again and he fought against the unconsciousness beckoning to him. He couldn't afford to fall asleep and then wake up having to start this all over again.
"He left pretty much right after to go get help," Wallace finally answered.
So, close to three hours. John let that thought percolate. They'd been on this planet for two days, looking for naquadah deposits. They had been making their way back and, if John's memory was right, they'd only been an hour from the Stargate. "What the fuck happened to him?" He should have been in the infirmary an hour ago. He would have been on the phone to McKay two minutes after that telling him to get his ass to Colorado. At this particular point in his life, John only trusted three people and two of them were in another galaxy.
Wallace shrugged. "I don't know. He could have gotten lost; like I said, the compasses aren't working."
John rolled his eyes. "Yeah, or he could have fallen down and broken his ankle or got caught by another trap. Go look for him," he ordered.
"I can't do that, sir," Wallace said. "I can't leave an injured man, especially when whoever set this trap might be coming for you. I'm sorry."
"Wallace," John bit out.
Wallace looked exceedingly nervous but he set his jaw. "No, sir."
"Fuck," John said again.
"No kidding, sir," Wallace agreed emphatically.
"Listen to me," John tried one more time. "You need to get help."
"Sir," Wallace said, before John could get going with his persuasive argument, "Even if I left you alone and went to the Stargate, our GDOs aren't working so even if I dialed home, I couldn't send my IDC or ask for help. We've missed a check in and they should come looking for us."
"With sensors that might stop working as soon as they get here," John griped. Although it was possible the trap only caused equipment in the near vicinity to crap out. "Have you tried to see if our equipment works if it's away from this thing?" he asked, not very hopefully. The fact that Bambis hadn't gotten help, spoke for itself. Clearly neither his compass nor GDO were working.
"Yes, sir," Wallace said morosely. "Nothing works."
"Shit," John said. Then he had an alarming thought. "You can't let them take me to Earth with this thing on my foot."
Wallace's face looked like they'd had this argument before as well. He chose not to answer.
"You can't," John said again, forcefully. "First of all, if it is a trap, and if they're coming for me, we can't let them come to Earth to find me. And if it knocked out all our equipment here, it could do it there."
"We can't get it off," Wallace argued, eyes panicked.
This time John did close his eyes. He couldn't stand to see the look in Wallace's eyes saying that if they had to leave the trap here, then John's foot might be staying with it. For a horrifying moment, John felt tears start up in earnest, missing Atlantis, missing Rodney, and for fucking sure not wanting to lose his foot, because then he'd lose all of it.
*****
"Dr. McKay," Landry snapped, "What are you doing here?"
Rodney couldn't imagine what genius in Washington thought Hank Landry was the man to head up Stargate Command when he was such an idiot. "I'm going with the rescue team," Rodney said, doing his best not to add on, 'idiot'.
The gate started dialing.
Deciding it was best not to find out what country he'd be banished to if he disobeyed a direct order, Rodney took advantage of the distraction of the gate kerwhoosing into a wormhole to push through all the marines and leap through the event horizon, ignoring Landry's heated "McKay!" And yeah, maybe the Marines were supposed to go first, but could Rodney help it if they were so damn slow?
He walked out on the other side to find Bambis standing there looking as if he'd just seen God.
"Dr. McKay!" he yelped. "Thank God."
"Where is he?" Rodney asked, striding off the ramp, pulling out his lifesigns detector, the one he'd stolen from Atlantis.
There were the sounds of marching feet, and Lorne snapped out, "McKay, you know better."
"Yeah, yeah," Rodney said. He hadn't even realized Lorne had been put in charge of the rescue team. Glancing up, he realized Lorne didn't look nearly as put out as Rodney would have expected.
"If you'd waited for a second longer," Lorne said, "I would have told the general that I'd asked for you to join us."
"Oh," Rodney said. "Well, good. You need me." He slapped the detector; it didn't seem to be working. "Huh."
"What is it?" Lorne asked.
Not answering, Rodney pulled out the SGC version and found it didn't work either. "What's going on?" he asked Bambis, certain he'd get a less than satisfactory answer.
"We don't know," Bambis said, fulfilling, no, exceeding all of Rodney's expectations.
"Where's the Colonel?" Rodney asked, deciding to go for what was the most important. There was a pause before Bambis answered, a truly miserable look on his face, and Rodney's heart lurched in his chest as every horrible scenario flashed before his eyes.
Before he could strangle the man, Bambis finally admitted, "I'm not exactly sure. I left him and Wallace about two hours ago to come to the gate, but I got lost because our compasses aren't working, either."
"Did you notice the position of the sun?" Lorne asked, butting in, which was just as well because Rodney was experiencing deep and satisfying thoughts of homicide.
Bambis winced. "Not as much as I should have, sir," he confessed. "I think he and Wallace are that way, though." He waved in a direction that established that his teammates were somewhere on one half of the planet.
"Moron," Rodney said scathingly.
"Sir," one of the Marines called out. "There are tracks to follow."
Rodney repositioned his pack and marched over to the Marine. "What are you waiting for? Let's go."
"McKay," Lorne ordered, "now that we're here, we follow protocol." He started calling names, putting them in position, leaving Rodney smack in the middle along with Bambis.
There was no way in hell Rodney was going to walk next to that bozo, so he moved back to walk with Lorne. "Really," Rodney said heatedly, "what recruitment strategy is the SGC using these days? Clown school?"
Lorne's lips curled up in a small smile, but he didn't respond.
Rodney decided that was tacit agreement if ever he'd heard it.
*****
"Rodney?" John called again, realizing even as the word passed his lips, that Rodney wasn't there, and he wasn't coming. He hadn't completely fallen asleep so while things were vague, he hadn't forgotten the situation.
"No, sir," Wallace said, pretty patiently, John thought, seeing as Wallace had to think they were back at ground zero.
"I didn't fall asleep," John reassured him.
"Do you want some water?"
"Yeah," John said. He almost tried to sit up but remembered in time. He had no desire to feel that excruciating pain again. The pain he was feeling right now was more than enough.
Wallace carefully dribbled some water into his mouth and he eagerly swallowed it down. When John choked a little, Wallace stopped.
John did his best to just breathe for a minute, trying very hard not to think about his foot, about what that thing was doing to it, about whether he'd leave this planet with both feet attached, or if they got it off, whether his foot would be salvageable.
A possible future of him with a prosthetic foot at some desk job flashed by, and John thought he'd truly rather be dead. Knowing it was just Wallace with him, with Bambis who the fuck knew where, wasn't helping. He longed for his Atlantis team, knowing that Ronon could handle anything that showed up. He ached to hear Teyla's calming words, hear Rodney's bitching and complaining while he, with extreme prejudice, destroyed this thing that was slowly eating John's foot up with acid.
As another surge of pain exploded up his leg, John gasped for breath, his fingers clawing at the dirt underneath him. "Goddamn it," he bit through gritted teeth. "Time for more morphine?" John asked frantically, not giving a fuck when he got his last injection, just knowing that if this was pain on morphine, then he sure as hell didn't want to feel it as the drug started wearing off.
"I gave you some less than thirty minutes ago," Wallace warned.
"I don't give a fuck," John countered heatedly.
"You're already not breathing so great," Wallace argued.
"I'm breathing fine," John growled out. The only reason he couldn't breathe was because it hurt so damn much.
"Wallace," someone yelled out from a distance.
"Oh, thank God," Wallace said, standing, waving his arm. "Here! We're here!" To John he said excitedly, "He's got help with him."
John closed his eyes in relief, hoping they sent someone who really was going to help, not just another team like his. He always had the slight suspicion that Landry wouldn't weep any tears if John came to an untimely end off planet.
"Is that--" Wallace started, straining to see who was on their way. "It's Major Lorne, sir," he informed John.
That was good, Sheppard thought. Lorne wasn't an idiot. It still didn't tell him if someone was coming who'd know how to take this thing off his foot. He didn't trust that Lee guy, and it seemed as if he was the cream of the crop these days now that Carter wasn't around as much.
"Wait," Wallace said in wonder, "I think that's Dr. McKay."
Despite the pain, everything in John sagged in relief at those words. He took a deep breath and yelled, "Rodney, get this damn thing off my foot!"
"Nice, Colonel," Rodney said as he came into view, "nice to see you, how are you? I'm fine, thank you." Even as he bitched, he sank down by John's lower body to look at the contraption. "Figures you'd be the first colonel to get eaten by a dust buster."
"Can you get the damn thing off?" John snapped.
Rodney snorted in that 'are you really asking me if I can do something?' egotistical way he had; it was like music to John's ears. "Hmm," Rodney said. He reached for John's foot.
"Wait," Wallace said, hand out, "it really hurts when he moves."
Rodney yanked his hand back with an apologetic look at John.
"Just do it," John said. It's not like Rodney could work on the damn thing without touching it.
"How about some morphine, Colonel?" Lorne suggested, reaching for the first-aid kit.
"Please," John begged pitifully.
Rodney sent daggers toward Wallace. "You haven't medicated him?" John knew that voice, it was the voice that told him that Wallace better hope he had good life insurance, or at the very least a good tolerance for freezing cold showers for the rest of his life. There was something very comforting in having it directed at someone on his behalf.
"Yes," Wallace defended himself. "I've given him three shots, and I only gave him the last dose thirty minutes ago; I didn't want to overdose him."
"Does he look overdosed?" Rodney asked, flinging at arm at John. "He's coherent, oriented and talking."
While that conversation was going on, Lorne had prepared another syringe of morphine and shot John up. John could feel the dopey smile on his face as the edge of the pain blurred.
"I'm picking up your leg," Rodney informed him.
John nodded, bracing himself. It definitely hurt, no doubt about it, but the fresh morphine helped, and so did the fact that it was Rodney who was moving his leg for a good reason, like to get John out of the fucking trap.
"Hmm," Rodney said again, as he peered closely at the bottom of the device that covered John's toes.
"What?" John demanded.
"Can you feel this?" Rodney asked as he reached inside a little to touch.
"Wait!" John said, trying to jerk his foot away, not wanting it to catch Rodney's fingers as well. Who knew how the damn thing worked? But then, all of sudden, he could feel something tapping on the end of his boot. "You can see my boot?" he blurted out.
Rodney nodded. "Yeah," he said, eyebrows furrowed, focused.
"Does everything…" John swallowed, not sure how to ask if there was blood, mutilated flesh, whatever.
"Everything actually looks fine," Rodney said, as if reading his mind. "All I can see is the toe of your boot. I'm guessing this thing isn't actually doing anything to you except stimulating your nervous system to act as if it were. I suppose it makes sense to not completely incapacitate your prey, especially if the intent is not to eat it." He put John's leg down.
"Like a gom jabbar?" John asked, talking past the lump of relief that had lodged in his throat.
"Exactly," Rodney said.
"A gom jabbar?" Lorne asked, sounding perplexed.
"Dune," Wallace answered.
Lorne rolled his eyes. "I'm surrounded by geeks." With a grin at John, he added, "Sir."
This time John rolled his eyes. "Can you get it off?" he directed at Rodney.
"No, I thought I'd take a nap and then have a nice picnic lunch. Of course, I can get it off." Rodney was pulling off his backpack, opening it up and yanking stuff out of it.
As the third MRE hit the ground, John asked, "How many of those things did you bring?" Not that the excessive number of MREs was unexpected. Rodney always brought extra food along, food he never had any intention of sharing. The team would have to go Donner party before Rodney would fork food over--and even then begrudgingly--or maybe if someone started eyeing his thigh with an avaricious gleam, as if thinking about how it would feed a person for a few days.
Rodney ignored him until he finally found the tool kit he'd been hunting for. "Mock all you want, Colonel," he said primly, "but please make a note that it is me, once again, saving your ass."
"Get that damn thing off," John growled, "and I'll never mock you again."
"Don't make promises you can't keep," Rodney said, refocused on the trap. "I need to move your leg again," he warned after a moment.
John nodded, closed his eyes and clamped his jaw shut.
To Lorne, Rodney ordered, "Hold his leg up for me. I need to see the whole thing."
Lorne moved to the other side while John braced himself for more pain. It didn't disappoint him as it burst through his body with gut-wrenching rapidity. He swallowed against the nausea; it felt as if all the morphine had already been used up.
"John," Rodney called anxiously. "Are you all right?"
John opened his eyes to see Rodney looking worriedly at him. "Just get it off," John ground out through clenched teeth, "and I'll be fine."
Rodney nodded stiffly and, with one more look at John, went back to the trap. He lay on his back and stared up at the thing as Lorne held John's leg up. "How long has it been on?"
"Three hours," Wallace volunteered.
"And no sign of anyone?" Lorne asked.
"No, sir," Wallace said.
Rodney squirmed a little, trying to get a better vantage point, and if John had been in less pain, and if they were alone, John might have found that enticing and spread his legs apart a little more in invitation. But he fucking hurt, and they weren't alone, and between the pain and the morphine, little John wasn't interested in the slightest.
"Ah, here," Rodney said, snapping his fingers, hand out, as if expecting a surgical tech to slap a scalpel into it. "Screwdriver," Rodney finally said, sounding exasperated that nobody was reading his mind.
Wallace handed him one.
"No," Rodney groused, "a flat-headed one."
"Oh," Wallace said, handing him the right one.
Rodney shot him a narrow-eyed look that made John grin despite the pain. It was great to have Rodney here. "Why aren't you on my team, anyway?" he found himself asking.
"Because they're all a bunch of ignoramuses," Rodney answered immediately, having no trouble following John's train of thought.
“You gonna be able to get him out of that thing?” Lorne asked, still holding John's leg up, bracing it at the knee with one of his hands.
John just wanted Rodney to be done. His body ached from head to foot, the nausea was returning, and if Lorne didn’t put his goddamn leg down, he was going to strangle the man. “Rodney,” he complained. Then Rodney did something with the screwdriver and whatever pain John had been experiencing seemed to double and he let out an involuntary yell, urgently swallowing down the need to puke.
“Sorry. Sorry,” Rodney said quickly, unhappily. “So much for that idea.”
“You think?” John snapped, breathing through the pain; his body was prickling with sweat and panic. “Fuck.” He glanced at Rodney, only to find his wounded, worried, blue eyes on him, looking as if he’d been the one to go eight rounds with George Foreman.
John hated that look; he hated seeing it on Rodney's face when he wasn't in a position to do anything about it. He didn’t have the energy to talk Rodney through a crisis when he was barely hanging on himself. Then, a look of determination crossed Rodney’s face, and he turned back to the trap.
“There’s got to be something,” Rodney muttered. Trying to move John’s foot as little as possible, Rodney inspected the machine as closely he could. “I really don’t think it’s doing anything to your foot,” he finally mentioned again, cautiously.
“You already said that,” John got out.
“So, theoretically," Rodney said slowly, "if I change the settings, if I accidentally turn them up, it won’t do you any additional damage.”
“Except hurt more,” John pointed out.
“But only for a moment,” Rodney countered. “I don’t like this any more than you do, but I can’t pry the thing off of you, it’s got no obvious means of construction like screws, or hinges, I can’t analyze the damn thing because our equipment isn’t working, so all that leaves me is to start pressing buttons, because otherwise…”
Otherwise, John thought to himself. Right. “Fuck,” he said one more time just to make sure everyone got how he was feeling. “Do it.” He looked at Rodney again to see the look of consternation on his face. “Rodney, just do it. I can deal with a little pain.”
Rodney snorted. “Colonel Stoic,” he said. “Able to leap off nuclear armed puddlejumpers in a single bound.”
“Rodney,” John warned. He didn’t want to go there again. As far as he was concerned, the statute of limitations had run out on that complaint.
“Fine, fine,” Rodney said, turning back to the trap. “Just tell me right away if it starts to hurt more.”
“Don’t worry,” John assured him. To Lorne, who was looking off into the distance, he said, “Anything out there?”
Lorne shook his head. “No. We’re clear.”
John drew in a deep breath, wishing Rodney was free to come brace him for whatever was coming, but decided it was enough that the man was there to begin with. “Go,” he told Rodney.
Rodney nodded, his fingers twitching over the beeping lights. He almost pressed something, but pulled back, wincing.
“Just do it,” John snapped.
“Right,” Rodney said, with one last 'I'm-sorry-if-I-blow-this' look at John, and pressed the button on the far left.
The light started to blink faster and the pain raced through his body like a thundering waterfall. John let out a groan, feeling unconsciousness beckoning, the pain too much to deal with.
“Sorry,” Rodney yelped, and he pressed the one most to the right.
The pain immediately began to decrease, and John gasped in relief. “That’s the right one.”
“Okay,” Rodney said and pressed it again. “Better?”
The pain grew even less, and John felt lightheaded because of it. He hadn’t realized how tight his body had been. It was like his entire body had been in a vise, and he’d just been released. The pain wasn’t gone completely; it still felt like he was getting electrical shocks, but now it was like a static shock as opposed to a lightning strike.
Rodney pressed the button again and the blinking red light slowed down to a beep every few seconds. “That’s good,” John said, feeling almost drunk. “That’s good.”
As Rodney continued to press the button, John realized that he definitely felt drunk, or like someone had given him the really good drugs. “Izzat the morphine?” he managed to get out, flapping one hand toward his head.
"Are all the doses of morphine we gave him hitting him now?" Wallace asked the group apprehensively.
Frowning, Rodney glared at the trap. “I don't think so. I think this trap is set up to sedate its victim when the trap is being removed so whomever it is can’t fight back.”
“Cool,” John said, grinning. He felt great.
Rodney rolled his eyes and went back to the machine, still pressing the far right button.
John grinned some more, enjoying the sensation of being high as a kite. It was when he started finding it hard to breathe that it stopped being so enjoyable. "Rodney," he croaked, one hand pressed to his chest as if that might help convince it to draw in a deep breath.
"Oh no," Rodney said, lifting his hand from the machine.
Lorne was suddenly at his side, feeling for a pulse. "You'll be okay, sir," he said calmly. "We can breathe for you if you need it until the drug starts to wear off."
John nodded, glad to hear it. "Make it hurt," he croaked out, thinking maybe the pain would help the sedation wear off faster.
Rodney shook his head at that idea.
Wallace said to Lorne, "Help him sit up."
Lorne reached an arm around John's shoulders and began to lift him up.
John grunted through tightly clamped lips as the pain fired up his leg into his torso and up into his head, making him see dark spots as he fought to stay awake.
"Put him down! Put him down!" Rodney yelled. "Jesus, you're killing him."
Lorne was already putting him down, not needing to be told. He glared at Wallace at the same time Rodney did, and the man blanched under the double whammy. John found himself grinning even if he felt like shit. At least he could breathe a little better.
"You okay?" Rodney asked solicitously.
John nodded wearily. "Just get it off," he said.
Rodney nodded, and then turned to the trap. "It's ingenious, actually. If you were by yourself, or with someone less intelligent, there'd be no way you could escape from this."
"I'd be more comforted by that," John said snippily, "if you'd actually figured out a way to get the damn thing off my foot."
"Give me a minute," Rodney said, wounded. "Let me think." He bit his bottom lip as he considered the trap. "There has to be a way."
"Maybe it only responds to their equipment," Lorne suggested.
Rodney blinked, then his eyes opened wide and he snapped his fingers at Lorne several times in succession.
"Thank God," John said, recognizing Rodney's 'I figured it out' finger snap. "Hurry up."
Rodney pulled out his zat and fired it away from the group gathered around John. "Just as I thought," he said in satisfaction. He reached for a screwdriver.
Lorne looked relieved. "The zats work?"
"They're energy weapons," Rodney said. "Self charging."
"What are you doing?" John asked, curious now that he was sure it was only a moment of time before he was out of the damn thing.
"Busy," Rodney said, working on taking apart the zat.
"How long do you think this trap has been here?" Bambis asked. "Do you think these people even exist anymore? Don't you think they'd be here by now if they did?"
"It's in pretty good shape," Lorne commented. "It doesn't look like it's been buried a long time."
"As long as they get here in a couple of days," Rodney chimed in, despite being 'busy', "their prey should still be here. No matter what button they push, whomever they caught would have continually passed out from too much pain or passed out from too much sedation."
"And seeing as every time he woke up, he couldn't remember anything, he wouldn't even know what he'd tried before to know it didn't work," Wallace added.
"Fiendishly smart, actually," Rodney said in admiration. The zat was now in pieces around him.
"Landry's not going to be too happy about that," Lorne said, his eye on the pieces.
"Like I care?" Rodney scoffed.
John watched Rodney's hands work their magic as he slowly assembled something completely new. John loved watching Rodney work, and despite the circumstances, it was sort of fun to watch him when he didn't have other things he needed to be doing to keep them all from dying a horrible death.
Rodney took the new gadget, did something to it that made it glow a little, and then put it on the trap. As it started to glow brighter, the trap began to hum, the lights blinking faster.
"Rodney," John said nervously.
Putting up a hand, Rodney's whole posture said to wait.
Seeing as it was John's foot on the line, John didn't much feel like waiting. The lights were blinking even faster now, mostly just a stream of light. "What's it--"
He stopped abruptly when the lights stopped and the trap opened up and slid off his foot. It was like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's all at the same time.
They all stared at the trap, now lying there inert.
"Holy fuck," John said, cautiously moving his ankle, relieved that everything seemed to be in working order.
"That was awesome!" Wallace said enthusiastically. "What did you do?"
"I set the zat charging mechanism on charge-up mode, and placed it on the only emitting energy source around until it drained it," Rodney said smugly.
"Good job, McKay," Lorne said with a grin. "Gotta admit, you're handy to have around."
Rodney shot him a narrow-eyed suspicious look, as if sure there was an insult hidden in the compliment. But then he looked at John, saw what was no doubt the incredibly relieved look on John's face, and shot him a lopsided grin. "You good?"
John nodded. "My leg is still sore, in fact, all of me is still sore, but I'm great." He sagged back down on the ground, suddenly exhausted, wanting nothing more than to close his eyes and take a nice long nap. Unfortunately, they had to get back to the gate. It wasn't like the SGC had a handy pile of jumpers they could send through to pick him up.
"Do you want to take it back with us?" Lorne asked Rodney, pointing at the trap.
Rodney shook his head. "No," he said reluctantly. "As much as I'd love to study it, we have no idea what triggers it, and for all we know it'll knock out all the equipment at the SGC."
"That's what I said," Wallace commented.
"Congratulations," Rodney said sarcastically, "apparently you are capable of having one intelligent thought in your head, all evidence to the contrary."
"Hey!" Wallace complained.
"Ignore him," Lorne counseled, even as he zatted the trap three times.
"Yeah," John said sleepily, "sooner or later it just sort of becomes background noise, like crickets or something."
"Hey!" Now it was Rodney's turn to complain. But then he yanked out his life-signs detector and crowed with satisfaction that it was now working. "Ah ha!"
John tried to lift his head to look at his foot again to reassure himself it was all in one piece, but it felt as if he was covered in the heaviest blankets in the world, restrained in cotton wool. "Rodney," John called.
"Uh huh," Rodney said, barely listening, focused on his detector.
"Rodney," John said more sharply, wanting Rodney's attention.
"What?" Rodney said, finally looking up. He must have seen something on John's face because he put the detector back in his pocket. "What?" he said again, softer.
"My foot?"
Rodney turned to look, then sat down again near John's foot so he could untie John's boot and slip it off along with his sock. "Good as new," Rodney proclaimed, holding John's leg up and wriggling his big toe, then resting John's foot on his thigh.
John wriggled the rest of his toes, glad to see it looked as if everything was in good working order. He wriggled his toes again just because it seemed like a good thing to do. The feeling of being high hadn't completely gone away yet.
"It does look as if something punctured your skin here," Rodney commented, running his hand along John's ankle and lower shin. "Maybe it's where the sedative was administered."
From a few feet away, Lorne said, "We should get out of here." Then, looking around, he asked, "Do you think there are more of those things?"
Still holding John's ankle, Rodney looked decidedly more nervous, pulling out his detector again. He pushed a few buttons, saying, "I'm not getting any anomalous readings."
"Neither were we," John offered.
"Yes, but you're not me," Rodney argued.
"Something to be grateful for, right, sir?" Lorne asked John with a grin.
"Ha ha," Rodney said. "I thought I heard someone say we should get out of here." To John, he added, "Can you walk?"
John shrugged and tried to sit up. "I can try." He gestured at his boot. "Give me my boot."
Rodney grabbed John's sock and started putting it on John's foot. John looked around casually to see if anyone thought it was weird that Rodney was dressing him. Everyone seemed to be pointedly looking away. Still, to be safe, John said grouchily, "I can do that."
"What?" Rodney asked, looking at John, at John's outstretched hand. Then, as if realizing, himself, that he was dressing John in front of several members of the armed forces, Rodney blushed a little and handed John his boot. "Right."
John tried to sit all the way up but wasn't very successful. He sheepishly held the boot back out to Rodney who took it with a smug grin. He put it down to finish with John's sock then worked the boot on, tying the laces. John decided it had to be love if Rodney was messing with his sock after a two day mission without bitching about it.
Lorne and Rodney helped John to stand, only to have him slip to the ground like a piece of cooked spaghetti. "Oops," John said.
Grinning at his commanding officer, Lorne told the rest of his team to go back to the gate and call for a stretcher. "Go with them," he told Wallace.
"Yes, sir," Wallace said, and turned to follow the other three Marines back toward the gate.
"Go walk a half-click perimeter," Lorne told Bambis. "Fifteen minute checks."
"Yes, sir," Bambis said sharply.
"Do you have your compass?" John asked him.
"Good question, seeing as he's been lost today once already," Rodney said hotly. "Maybe this time you could stay lost."
"Rodney," John chided.
"You were hurt," Rodney said right back at him, as if it was all Bambis' fault.
"Even if he'd gotten there right away," John continued to reason, "he still couldn't have communicated with Earth."
"Maybe not, but he could have dialed until someone got a hint that something was wrong and sent through a MALP."
"Which would have died the instant it came through the wormhole," John said.
Rodney scowled.
Meanwhile, Bambis had his compass out and was orienting himself as he slowly walked away.
Rodney rolled his eyes. "I'll bet you all the MREs in my possession that he gets lost."
"No way," John said with a rueful grin. "That's a total sucker's bet." He looked after Bambis. "Is he gone?"
Lorne checked and nodded, then said, "Might as well make yourself comfortable. I'll keep an eye out."
Without a second invitation, Rodney moved behind him, encouraging John to lean back against his chest. Rodney wrapped his arms tightly around John, hugging him, resting his cheek against John's.
Some residual stress John hadn't even been aware of disappeared at the feel of Rodney's body behind him, supporting him. "Hmm," he said happily. He glanced up at Lorne. "Thanks."
"Don't mention it," Lorne said with a grin. He pointed over his shoulder, "I'll be right over there, not looking."
That sounded perfect to John. Thank God for second-in-commands like Lorne, even if he really didn't hold that title in this galaxy. For a second, homesickness for Atlantis blistered him. But then he felt Rodney's arms tighten around him and realized that he'd brought back the most important part.
"You're never going off world without me again," Rodney said sternly.
"Right, because you never do anything that gets us in trouble," John retorted without much heat, because Rodney was warm and toasty. He relaxed more, nuzzling Rodney's neck. "Do I get comfort sex out of this when we get home?"
Rodney let out an outraged scoff. "I think I deserve the comfort sex, thank you very much. You almost died again."
"Not possible," John said. "You were with me."
"Nice try buttering me up," Rodney said disparagingly, "but you were well on your way to the dying part before I even showed up. And it was only a fluke that I was here in the first place."
"Gotta love a good fluke," John said contentedly. He could feel Rodney roll his eyes. "So, let me get this straight. You think you deserve comfort sex, and I think I deserve it." He paused. "I think we could make this work."
Snickering, Rodney kissed his temple. "See? That's one of the things I like about you, this whole half full cup thing." Then, frowning, he added, "It almost makes up for the constantly almost dying thing."
"Let's skip the scolding and move right into the comforting, okay? I'm liking that part." He nestled more closely into Rodney.
A heroic sigh expanded Rodney's chest underneath John. "Fine. Just stop doing it, okay? The almost dying thing."
John turned his head and captured the corner of Rodney's mouth in a kiss. "Girl Scout's honor," he mumbled as Rodney got his hand under John's jaw and turned his head enough to get a full-on lip lock.
Bambis calling in stopped the kiss before it became too heated, and John blissfully sank back against Rodney. Rodney let out another exasperated sigh, but rested his head against John's, his hands clasped over John's belly. "Yeah, you're quite the Girl Scout."
"I'd be a good Girl Scout," John protested.
Rodney's chuffing laughter vibrated John's body and, smiling, he let the vibration take him down to sleep.
The End
December 22, 2007