Fic: A Rush and a Push and the Land Is Ours 2/3
Continued from Part I
The second he hopped off his horse, Laura was throwing her arms around him and kissing him full on the mouth.
Rodney made a squeaking sound and stumbled back. From the porch, Radek was mumbling to himself, his gaze averted, but what little of Rodney’s attention wasn’t taken up by the task of repositioning Laura’s arms-either pushing her away or pulling her tighter, he wasn’t yet sure-was focused on Sheppard. He was making a noise Rodney had never heard him make before: full-out, belly-laughter.
“Well, looks like she sure missed you!” Sheppard said. “Do you even remember her name, McKay?”
“Sure I do!” Rodney said, offended but appreciating the opportunity to take a breath. “It’s Laura!”
He beamed at her, but suddenly she was glowering and shoving him away. She was powerfully strong for someone so tiny.
“Sure you can remember it, but did you ever bother writing it down? Were there no couriers on any of the worlds you went to?”
Sheppard had stopped laughing. “Radek,” he said, with effort forcing himself to meet the other man’s gaze. “You did get my letter.”
Radek nodded. “Yes. I do not blame you, Mister Sheppard.” He inclined his head in Rodney’s direction as well, and Rodney let out the breath he hadn’t been aware he’d been holding. “Come inside. I would like to hear it from you, if you wish to tell it.”
Sheppard followed him through the door, his head bent.
At the sound of the door closing, Laura turned to him. She gave him an openly appraising look and Rodney flushed, wishing he could draw closer the fabric of his coat.
“You’re filthy,” she said. Then she took his hand. “Come on, let me draw you a bath.”
The grime washed off in the warm water. Rodney stared down at his pink skin like it was something that belonged to a stranger. He felt possessed, but he was no longer sure which body was the real one and which the fake: the skin of dirt he’d shed, or the figure turning prunish beneath the water. When Laura barged in to collect his dirty clothes, in complete disregard for his privacy, he was almost glad.
He slept in a real bed that night-Aiden’s old one, but Rodney tried not to think about that, or the fact that Laura had none-too-subtly suggested he instead share hers. He slept without dreaming. When he woke, it was long past sunrise, and he could smell coffee, warm and inviting, from the kitchen.
Someone, most likely Laura, had set some of Aiden’s old clothes at the foot of his bed. Rodney hesitated for a moment and then got into them. He was surprised to find that not only were they big enough around the waist, they were a bit too tight across the shoulders.
He went out into the front room. Radek was sitting by the fire, a book propped open on his knee, and Laura was bustling around near the big wood table, shoveling bacon out onto a plate. She looked up at him and smiled. “Breakfast,” she said, and winked.
He slid eagerly into place and snatched at his fork. “Where’s Sheppard?” he asked, spearing a piece of bacon and raising it to his mouth.
Laura’s smile drooped. She bent forward and hastily filled his coffee cup to the brim. “He rode on an hour ago.”
Rodney’s fork clattered down. “What?”
By the fire, Radek closed his book. He looked up, gaze steady. So it was true.
Rodney leapt on his feet. “And you just let him go?” Without me, he didn’t add.
“I don’t know what you can do about finding Teyla that he can’t,” Laura said. There was sympathy to her tone, and also an odd desperation. “He’ll find her, Rodney. Believe me, I know.”
Rodney pushed away from the table. “You don’t know anything!” he said. “You haven’t been out there. You haven’t seen him...”
“And do you think that’s easy for me?” Laura demanded, surprising him. “Always having to stay behind...I want to help as much as you do! But.” She took a breath, fisted hands slowly uncurling. “But my place is here. And maybe yours is, too.”
Rodney lifted his chin. “My place is with Sheppard,” he said.
Laura put down the coffee pot with a clang. She turned her back on him.
“Rodney,” Radek said, stepping forward, “I know you don’t have-”
“Have what?” Rodney snapped. “Money or kin? A home? Well, I don’t need much money and I’ve done fine without a roof over my head, better than anybody thought. And I do have kin-Teyla is my sister, by birth or no, and I’m going to find her. I’m going to find her and take her to Atlantis, and forget this whole sorry system of planets ever existed!”
He plucked his hat from the wall and started toward the door. “Rodney!” Radek called. The voice still carried some authority for him; he paused.
“You are always welcome here,” Radek said.
Rodney fumbled with his hat. He nodded.
Rodney had brought his horse out from the barn and was checking over his gear when Laura came running out of the house, skirts held in a bunch and something white clasped in her hand. She was waving it above her head like a flag.
“Rodney! Rodney, wait!”
“I’m not changing my mind!” he shouted back, but she just shook her head and thrust the piece of paper at him. “I stole this for you.”
Rodney gave her a suspicious look, but he unfolded the sheet. A small scrap of lavender calico fell into his hand. Rodney shivered, but he pushed the feeling aside, concentrating instead on the messily written words.
I bought a small size child’s dress off a Manarian. If this is a piece of your child’s dress please bring reward. I know where they gone. -- M. Cowen
Rodney’s gaze flashed up, his hand closing tight around the calico scrap. “Cowen!” he said. “He’s got a little trading post on Dagan! If that’s where Sheppard’s gone, I can catch him, I can-”
He stared at Laura, who looked like she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to be smiling or frowning. The wind was blowing her hair and she moved a hand, gently brushing it away from her face.
“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for-” And staring at the uncertain curve of her mouth, he suddenly bent forward and kissed her.
Her hands wrapped around his shoulders and the back of his neck. She tasted warm and sweet and safe and he clung to her-for one second, two-before he had to drop his hands and let her go.
“Thank you,” he said again, hastily swinging up onto his horse. “Laura-”
He rode away before he could figure out what he’d been going to say, if he’d had it in his head to say anything at all.
Sheppard was waiting from him when he came through the Ring onto Dagan. “You just won’t quit, will you?” He held out his hand.
Rodney tried not to delude himself into thinking that there was something like respect in Sheppard’s voice. He slapped the letter into Sheppard’s palm.
“I haven’t and I won’t,” he said. Then a new wave of anger rushed at him. “We’re in this together, Sheppard! Don’t you dare leave me again! How do you think you’d like it, getting left?”
“Not much,” Sheppard said, almost idly. “Now, if you wanna stand here and talk about our feelings...”
“Didn’t know you had any,” Rodney grumbled.
They rode off together, toward town.
Rodney knew Cowen a little. Both Uncle Nick and Aunt Elizabeth had had some dealings with him; Elizabeth had never liked him much, but Rodney remembered Nick saying that he always gave a fair price for goods bought or sold. He didn’t seem to recognize Rodney when they stepped inside his establishment, but he smiled at them both and brought out a bottle.
“You’re here about the dress,” he said casually, pouring.
Sheppard put his hands over the top of one of the glasses-the one nearest to Rodney. “Hey!” Rodney said, but Cowen just chuckled and pushed one of the other two glasses over to Sheppard.
Sheppard closed his hand around it, but didn’t drink. “How’d you come by it?”
Cowen eyed him, slipping the bottle back down under the bar. “You said there’d be a reward.”
Sheppard nodded.
“You got it with you?”
Sheppard’s smile said that maybe he had it right in his pocket-that much and twenty times over. “You’ll get your reward when we find her-and if she’s still alive.”
Cowen’s expression didn’t change. “A man’s got a right to expect something,” he said, reasonably. “I paid out for that dress, and to get that letter to you.”
Sheppard made a contemplative sound. His hand dipped into his pocket, then re-emerged, heavier. He dropped a few coins onto the bar. “Show us the dress,” he said.
Cowen hesitated. “A man’s time is also worth something...”
The movement was so subtle that Rodney didn’t even realize that Sheppard had made it until he saw Cowen suck in a breath. Then he looked down: Sheppard’s hand was on top of Cowen’s on the bar, squeezing so tight that his knuckles were turning white and Cowen’s fingers were trembling.
All Sheppard said was, “Talk.”
“Smeadon of the Manarians fetched it in late last summer,” Cowen ground out. Sheppard eased up on his grip a bit. “Said it belonged to a captive child of Chief Scar...”
The name sent an involuntary shiver through Rodney, but Sheppard remained unimpressed. “Scar? Never heard of him.”
“Me neither,” Cowen said. Sheppard had freed his hand, and he moved it delicately, reaching under the bar and pulling out a pale lavender dress. He passed it to Sheppard. “The Manarian claimed he was a big Genii war chief...”
Sheppard barely even looked down, just shoved the ball of fabric in Rodney’s direction, his eyes level on Cowen the entire time. “Where’s he headed?”
“Scar’s band went through the Ring to Belsa. They were planning on laying low there for a while, stealing Terran cattle.” Cowen shrugged. “That’s what the Manarian said, anyway. Maybe he lied.”
Sheppard’s grin was friendly. “And maybe you’re lying.”
He didn’t turn to look at Rodney, but his tone shifted just enough that Rodney could tell he was the one being addressed. “That her dress?”
Rodney looked down at the bundle of fabric in his hands. He could remember the feel of it under his fingers, Teyla sitting in front of him on the saddle while he tended the cattle and occupied his mind by telling her stories. She’d been getting to be a better rider than he was. He resisted the urge to lift the dress to his nose, see if it still smelled like her.
“Yes.”
Sheppard nodded and started for the door.
Cowen called after them. “It’s getting dark,” he said. “You’re welcome to stay the night...”
Rodney’s memory shifted to another scene. Uncle Nick by the door, getting ready for a trip to Dagan. “Be careful, Nick,” Aunt Elizabeth said, forehead creasing. “There’s just something about him... You know how I have instincts about people...”
“Sheppard...” Rodney said nervously.
“We’re going,” Sheppard told the room at large.
They left.
It was getting dark, and they’d only made it about halfway back to the Ring before they made the decision to camp for the night. Sheppard led the horses down into a small dip and tied them to a tree. They were bounded on either side by higher rises, which shielded them nicely from the wind. Rodney knelt down and started building up a fire.
He got a nice blaze going and spread out his blanket roll. They had some foodbars the Zelenkas had given them, and Rodney ate one quickly, catching every crumb. He used to complain about it mightily, but boy did he ever miss Kate’s cook-
Rodney’s stomach turned, and he quickly wrapped up the small piece of leftover bar. He’d eat it come morning.
He settled down onto his side. Sheppard was still standing, stroking the neck of his horse, Memento. She looked restless: shaking her head and stamping her feet. Rodney saw Sheppard’s lips move, whispering something that looked like easy, easy...
Rodney rolled up onto his elbows. “She’s acting like there’s something out there.”
Sheppard shook his head. He went over to the fire and kicked at one of the logs that had slid a little way out. “Smells a change in the weather.”
He turned, eyeing Rodney over his shoulder. “Why don’t you bed down a little closer to the fire? I worry about you, nights like this. You weren’t raised to it.”
Rodney flushed. He wasn’t sure to be flattered by Sheppard’s concern, or insulted by the slight to his...upbringing. “I do all right,” he said, scooting a bit closer anyway.
“Sure.” Sheppard lifted up one of the saddles and plopped it down at the head of his blanket roll. Sometimes he used it as a pillow. Rodney had tried the same thing, but it made his neck ache something awful. His back was probably ruined for life.
Rodney settled down, but Sheppard was still moving around, adding more wood to the fire. He dropped a big log on and it flared up, enough to make Rodney fear for his eyebrows. “Hey!” he said. “What do you think you’re doing? I handle the camp fires, and now I see it’s for a reason!”
“Sorry.” Sheppard turned around so that his back was to the flames. He rubbed along his shoulders and the small of his back; Rodney tried not to stare when his hands dipped lower.
“I’m getting older. My bones are cold.”
Rodney swallowed. “You’re not so old as that...”
Sheppard snorted. “I have twenty years on you,” he said. “Was your age when I found you. Since then I’ve lived a whole other lifetime...”
Rodney tugged his blanket tighter around his front, then rolled so that his back was to the fire, just like Sheppard had showed him. Sleepily, “Tell me about it?”
This earned him a chuckle instead of a snort. “Some other time.”
Rodney drifted slowly off to sleep.
He woke suddenly to the sound of gunshots-very near. “Sheppard!” he said, leaping both for cover and for his rifle. But Sheppard wasn’t there. His bedroll had toppled over, spilling gear onto the ground. His saddle had a big, rough tear in it-a bullet hole.
Rodney put what little evidence he had together very fast. “That-” jerk he was going to say, asshole-but then there were more shots, two in quick succession, and a figure tumbled down into the clearing. It was Cowen.
Sheppard scrambled down the opposite rise, casually holding his rifle. He gave the corpse a bored glance, but turned and smiled at Rodney. “Thanks,” he said. “You did fine.”
“Fine?” Rodney sputtered. “You-you used me as bait!”
“Like I said, you did just fine.” Sheppard knelt by the body and began going through its pockets.
Rodney was so angry he could hardly see straight. “What are you doing?” he demanded.
“Getting my coin back.” Sheppard pulled out a small pouch, shook it. “We did all right.”
“We?” Rodney’s hands flew through the air, gesturing. “You made your nice little decoy for yourself, but me you just left staked out like... You said you worried about me, but you were just fixing it so he would get confident thinking he had a nice easy shot... He could have blown my brains out!”
Sheppard shrugged. “Figured you had plenty to spare. Besides,” he hefted his gun, “I was ready.”
“Yeah?” Rodney pushed in as close as he dared, got in Sheppard’s face. “And what if you’d missed?”
A blink. Sheppard looked honestly surprised at the thought. “Never occurred to me...”
“Ohh!” Rodney scowled. He grabbed at Sheppard’s shoulders, wishing he were bigger and stronger, wanting to shake him. “I ought to...”
“What?” said Sheppard, sounding as dismissive as if he were swatting away a fly. He stood perfectly still. “You ought to what?”
Rodney said nothing, staring up at him, chest heaving. Sheppard stared back, gaze perfectly steady. Only...only... There was something in Sheppard’s eyes, a slight widening of his pupils, maybe a drop or two of sweat, moist on his upper lip. Something had changed. Something had happened to make him afraid.
Then Sheppard was shaking him off, jerking away. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s what I thought.”
They had no other information save Cowen’s, so they decided to hope there was a grain of truth in it and deal with what else came at them when it came. Rodney had adopted the same philosophy in his dealings with Sheppard: he was a long way away from a grand, unifying theory of Uncle John, but he could collect evidence, bit by bit, and store it all away in the ample brains even Sheppard himself had admitted he possessed. It was the same old story: Rodney lacked the tools he would need to make his task an easy one (Sheppard on the surface being as flat and empty as the land on Athos) but he could study, and he could learn.
On Belsa, they stopped at another outpost and used some of Sheppard’s coin (Rodney realized that he had no idea how deep Sheppard’s pockets really went, another question he filed away) to buy goods for trade. Then they sought out the bands of nomads, the people whose homes had been destroyed by the Wraith (and some, lately, unseated by the war), who wandered and scraped what kind of living they could. They would enter a camp and while Rodney spread out the blankets full of trinkets they had gathered, Sheppard would wander around, watching and listening, seeking out the right sort of person, the type he thought might be inclined to talk. The third time they did this, Rodney had almost finished talking down the price of something akin to coffee beans (doing the best he could, in spite of the language barrier) when Sheppard stepped out of a tent and took him by the arm.
“Let’s go,” he said. “I think I stumbled onto something.”
Rodney stared back at him, surprised. “About Scar?”
At the name, a low murmur started up among the men he’d been trading with. The daughter of one of them-a slight, strawberry-blonde girl in her late teens whose pale skin was marred by a dark purple bruise across her left cheek-shot him a warning look.
Sheppard’s grip tightened on Rodney’s arm. “When are you going to learn to keep your mouth shut? Come on, we’re leaving. Now.”
“But I just bought some coffee...”
“Forget it!” Sheppard snapped. He swung up onto his horse.
Rodney looked back at the growing crowd, the angry eyes, the dark looks. Quickly, he gathered up what he could of their goods and clambered up onto his own mount.
They weren’t very far away from the camp when Rodney realized that they were being followed. Sheppard had probably known it from the start. Rodney glanced back over his shoulder, uneasily. He could only see one rider, but...
It was the girl, he realized. Seeing him turn, she leaned forward, putting in enough speed to draw even with him. She spoke-rapidly, and still in a tongue he didn’t understand. Her hands moved back and forth between them,
Sheppard had slowed his horse, was looking back at them with a sardonic expression on his face. “Look,” Rodney said desperately, “I changed my mind, you can keep the beans...”
Another rapid-fire burst of words. Sheppard began to laugh.
“What?” said Rodney, angrily. “How is it my fault that I can’t make her understand?”
Sheppard looked like his birthday had come six months early. “You’re the one who doesn’t understand, genius! You didn’t buy coffee beans-you bought her! You got yourself a wife!”
“What?” Rodney turned back to the girl, gaping. Sure, she’d be pretty if she were cleaned up, but she had to be younger than Kate-than Kate had been. And also, it was just...icky.
“No! No, you gotta tell her that she has to go back...Go back, please,” he told her, trying Ancient this time. “There’s been a mistake...”
“Stop it, she doesn’t understand Ancient anymore than you understand Genii. Didn’t your grandmother teach you anything before she died?”
Now Rodney gaped at Sheppard. “That’s Genii she’s speaking?”
Sheppard nodded. “Useful language, Genii. Not too hard to pick up. Unlike some other, long-dead tongues...”
This was almost too much for Rodney to take in at once. But he had to focus, deal with the immediate problem. “If you can speak it, tell her to go back!”
“Hell, no.” Sheppard turned his horse away. “And have her whole family after us for flouting one of their women? I’ll pass.” He beckoned at the girl, sweeping his arm out: a surprisingly grand gesture, for him. “Come along then, Mrs. McKay...”
Still sputtering, Rodney rode after them.
They camped that night by a riverbed. Sheppard was unusually talkative, making a big deal out of serving up their little bit of meat and beans. “Here you go, Mrs. McKay.” “Would you like a bit more to drink, Mrs. McKay?” “Oh, I’ll make sure to spread my bedroll over here, Mrs. McKay-give plenty of space to you and your husband!”
“Ha ha,” Rodney said. “Ow, my side. Seriously.”
At least the girl-Rodney was pretty sure she had told him her name was Sora (or else that was the Genii word for breasts-what did he know?)-seemed less than amused by Sheppard’s display of charm. She was sullen and mostly silent, and seemed relieved when Rodney moved his bedroll away from where Sheppard had laid it out, practically on top of hers. Rodney felt kind of bad for her. But mostly, he just wanted her to leave.
For all Sheppard spoke of leaving them to their “private time,” he seemed surprisingly reluctant to actually get up from the fire. He sat sipping the last of their coffee, watching Sora as she lay down, turning her back away from them both, curling in on herself.
Rodney gave him a dirty look. “Yeah, it’s just hilarious, isn’t it?”
Sheppard shrugged. “Matter of perspective.”
“Oh, enlighten me.” Rodney folded his arms. “As a matter of fact, why don’t you tell me this ‘big piece of news,’” he emphasized the words with a dismissive wave to show Sheppard exactly what he thought of that, “that had you running out of the camp before I could get this business,” he inclined his head in Sora’s direction, “straightened out. Not to mention make it so you didn’t have to go drinking the last of our coffee!”
Sheppard took a final gulp and sat back, licking his lips. “Why don’t you ask her?”
“What?” Rodney followed Sheppard’s gaze: Sora was on her feet, in a crouch; she had a knife half-pulled out of her boot and her eyes were narrowed in some complicated combination of determination and fear.
Rodney’s mouth dropped open. He tried to move, but could only stare as, with a sudden, quivering motion, Sora threw down the knife and took off toward the river bank. If she’d leapt on him, held the knife to his throat, Rodney wasn’t sure he would have reacted any different.
Sheppard was the same under any situation: swift-moving and sharp, he caught Sora before she’d gone more than a hundred meters. He dragged her back and plopped her down in front of the fire, his hand tight on her arm.
“Unt osupanet cah-nay Scar?” he asked her.
She glared at him and didn’t answer. Then her gaze flickered to Rodney. For someone who’d been contemplating putting a knife in his back, she sure looked an awful lot like she was now asking for his help.
Sheppard turned to him, too. “You ask her.” He smiled without humor. “After all, she’s your wife.”
Rodney shot him a hateful look. But he didn’t have a choice. “Sora,” he said. “Scar...do you know where he went? And if he has a girl with him, a Lantean girl?” His brain shuffled back through the little bit of Genii he’d heard spoken that day. “Nai-bist pabo taibo...?”
Sora’s lips parted, but it was a moment before she spoke. “Mah nee-koo-ur?”
“Huh? No, not my wife.” He flushed at the thought. “My-Sheppard, how do you say ‘sister’?”
Not a pause: “Nami.”
Sora looked between them both. Then she said something else, too rapid for Rodney to have any hope of understanding. But Sheppard nodded. He dropped his hand; he let her go.
Rodney watched, open-mouthed, as she gathered her meager belongings, mounted her horse, and rode off quickly in a different direction than the way they had come. He turned to stare at Sheppard, astonished. “That’s it?”
Sheppard’s lips twisted up. “So much for the honeymoon, huh?”
The information Sora had given Sheppard turned out to be a Ring address. “It could be a trap,” Rodney pointed out.
Sheppard shrugged. “Could be.”
If it was a trap, it wasn’t one set to be immediately sprung. The vast plain that led away from the Ring was empty save for a milling herd of the strange, shaggy cattle that ran wild on some of the less civilized planets. Rodney looked at them and instantly thought: Dinner!
Sheppard had already whipped out his rifle. His first shot was perfect: one of the big bulls stumbled and dropped. Rodney licked his lips, thinking: Hot, juicy cooked meat; thick, salty dried meat; praise the Ancestors, meat... But then there was another shot, and another. The herd was panicking, the animals stampeding. Sheppard had his rifle pressed tight atop his shoulder; he was firing away, mouth slanting up each time another animal went down.
“What are you doing?” Rodney yelled. “Stop, stop! We can’t possibly eat that much!”
He winged another one as it ran away. “Yeah!” he shouted. “And now the Genii won’t be able to, neither!”
“But...”
Sheppard shot him a dirty look. He kept firing until the animals were all gone, until the plain was echoing and empty.
“Other people besides the Genii depend on that cattle,” Rodney said finally. His throat felt sore, which was odd, ‘cause he’d barely been shouting.
Sheppard wheeled on him. “And I’d feed everyone in the whole damn galaxy if I could! But it doesn’t work that way, does it?”
He pulled out his knife and stomped over to the nearest bull. When Rodney didn’t move to help, Sheppard angrily turned his head.
“Well? Do you want to eat, or are you gonna go on a hunger strike in sorrow for your poor starving kinfolk? Do you wanna leave these here and hope they don’t rot before they can be eaten by your Genii wife?”
Rodney took a shuddery breath. “F-fuck you,” he said.
Sheppard laughed as he slit the bull’s throat. “That’ll be the day.”
They awoke early the next morning to the sound of ships overhead. Rodney sat up, pulling the blankets tight around his chin. He whispered the word. “Wraith?”
Sheppard stared up at the sky. “No. Terrans.” He got up and started packing away his gear. “I hope we’re not too late.”
When they reached it, the ground around the settlement was scorched. A few of the huts were still on fire, the flames curling listlessly. Rodney shuddered when he saw the smoke. There was something about that smell... He wanted to be away from here.
Sheppard charged straight in, poking at things, turning over bodies with the toe of his boot. After a minute, he straightened up. “Them, all right,” he said. “Our Genii.”
Rodney didn’t remark on the possessive. He stared down at one of the bodies, a young Genii girl smaller than both his sisters. She was face down in the mud, bleeding from her back. “Teyla?” he said.
Sheppard gestured. “Search that end.” Then he ducked into one of the huts.
Rodney hadn’t gotten far when he heard Sheppard call his name. He stepped out gratefully into the daylight, away from the close smell of burning and death. Sheppard was standing in front of one of the sturdier-looking huts. He pointed Rodney inside with a solemn finger. Rodney almost said her name again, but the word froze on his lips. He didn’t want it to end like this.
She was lying on her back, wide-eyed and staring. Rodney knelt beside her, just looking. After a moment, he carefully brushed the matted curls away from her face. With gentle fingers, he closed her eyelids.
Outside, Sheppard was waiting for him. “So I guess you’re a widower now, huh,” he said.
Rodney didn’t respond.
“She was holding this.” Sheppard pushed a small tangle of metal and ribbon into his hand.
Rodney turned it over. It was a medal-Rodney could vaguely remember seeing some of the Lantean soldiers wearing something similar, back before the end of the war. “How did she-”
“It was mine,” Sheppard said curtly. “I gave it to Teyla. Same as I gave Chuck a saber. Same as I gave Kate a locket.”
“Oh,” said Rodney. “So Sora-”
Sheppard shrugged, indifferent. “Don’t know if she was coming to warn them or to help Teyla get away. But Teyla was here. We know that for certain. We were on the right track.”
Were, Rodney thought. He glanced back at the hut. Through the shadows, he could still see the golden splay of Sora’s hair, muddy and torn.
“Why’d they have to do that for?” he asked, pointlessly. “What reason did they have to kill Sora?”
“What reason does anyone have for killing anybody?” Sheppard asked. From him, it sounded like high philosophy. “If things had gone differently, she might have killed you.”
Rodney shook his head. “No, I should have helped her, protected her...It was my, my...”
“Duty as a husband?” Sheppard asked. He turned and stalked back toward his horse.
“Yes!” Sheppard snorted. “No, listen,” Rodney said. “Sheppard...have you ever been married? Had a sweetheart?”
Sheppard paused with his hand on the pommel. “No.” And up he swung.
“If it had been Laura in trouble,” Rodney insisted. And then, when a deliberateness that Sheppard probably wouldn’t have credited him with: “If it had been Aunt Elizabeth...”
Sheppard whirled to face him, eyes dark. Rodney was pleased with himself-he didn’t even flinch.
“People die,” Sheppard said. “Sometimes no matter what you do. The sooner you learn that, McKay...”
He didn’t finish the sentence. He turned his horse around. “Let’s go pay a visit to the Terran army.” He made the last words sound like a curse.
“You think maybe they’ve got Teyla?” Rodney asked, suddenly filled with the image of her already rescued, waiting for them.
Sheppard spurred his horse. “Maybe they’ve got Scar!”
Rodney had always felt an odd mixture of fear and respect for the Terran army. He hated them as an invading force, as a conquering, occupying body. But they had incredible technology: they had made the Ancient City come alive, made the Lanteans see its true promise before they had taken it away. Rodney wanted nothing more than to live and work among them, to have free reign over their foreign wonders and those of the Ancestors combined. The outpost that he and Sheppard rode to was just that-an outpost, hardly a jewel of Terran architecture or tech-but just watching the doors slide open without a touch made Rodney’s heart beat faster. He wanted to rip open the walls: take everything apart, see how it worked.
But that would be pleasure, and they were here for business. Sheppard smirked at the young Terran officer-prim in his uniform, greeting them with an over-elaborate flourish-and stated plainly, “We’re looking for a girl. A Lantean girl.”
“She’d be about thirteen now,” Rodney offered, barely able to comprehend it. Two years. But the officer nodded. “Got a couple about that age,” he said, and led them inside.
In a back room, behind the clean and brightly lit offices, was a medium-sized holding cell. There were three women inside. Two of them were huddled in a blanket, sitting together on the bench that lined the back wall. The third was curled on the floor with her knees drawn up to her chest, rocking and singing to herself.
It was definitely not Teyla-the woman was thirty if she was a day-but Rodney still couldn’t help staring at her. The rocking motion that she made was as hypnotic as it was repellent; it looked like at any moment she might spin out of control, rock back so hard that her skull cracked against the wall. He skirted her at a careful distance. His gaze moved to the remaining two. They shifted slightly at the sound of the three men approaching; as the blanket moved, Rodney thought he caught a glimpse of a honey-brown braid swinging, swinging down.
“Teyla?” he said, hesitantly. He didn’t want, he didn’t want to scare- But Sheppard reached out and jerked the blanket away. Two girls sat before them. One, a redhead, started giggling hysterically. The other just stared. She had Genii stripes painted brightly across her arm, just below where the braid fell. But she wasn’t Teyla.
Sheppard had already turned away. The Terran officer gave him a manly slap on the back; it was only because Rodney knew Sheppard as well as he did that he recognized the flinch.
“Hard to believe they’re Lantean, isn’t it?” the officer said.
Sheppard shook his head. “They’re not Lantean anymore.”
After that the trail dried up. The Terran officer mentioned that they had found a good amount of Satedan trade goods at the Genii camp, but when Rodney suggested that they therefore go to Sateda and talk to some of the traders there, the officer had only shaken his head, chuckling. “You haven’t heard?”
“No, I’m being deliberately obtuse,” Rodney snapped. To his surprise, Sheppard grinned at him.
“We’ve been out of the world for a while,” he explained, smoothly.
The Terran nodded, looking almost excited at being the one who got to share the news. “Big Wraith attack,” he said, not near as grim as Rodney thought the situation warranted. “Localized, luckily. But Sateda got completely wiped out.”
They went anyway, just to make sure. They walked among the rubble, Sheppard tense and silent; Rodney silent, too. They didn’t stay long; there was no reason to. Afterward, Rodney dialed a planet he remembered from a long while back, a fuzzy childhood thing. They lay in the soft grass, smelling the spicy-sweet scent that permeated the air. It was warm enough that they didn’t even need to light a fire. They left room for one anyway, spreading their bedrolls several feet apart. Rodney could still hear Sheppard as he shifted and moved, see his dark shape, his head propped up on the folded pillow of his arms. Together they watched the stars.
It was a good moment, one of the few, and Rodney didn’t want to spoil it. But still he needed to ask, needed to know. “How many of them have you been to?”
Sheppard didn’t answer at first. Rodney knew he wasn’t asleep; he had grown very accustomed to the patterns of Sheppard’s breathing. Finally, Sheppard expelled a lingering gust. “A few.”
Rodney couldn’t help it: he laughed. To his surprise, Sheppard rose to the bait. “What?” he said. “What’s so funny?”
“You think I don’t remember,” Rodney said, “but I do.”
Sheppard said nothing.
“I remember your visits,” Rodney said. “Back before the war ended. Before we lost. You used to come and you’d sit down in the rocker by the fire. You’d pull Kate into your lap-she was always the lucky one, and the rest of us were all jealous. You’d pull her into your lap, and Chuck and I would settle by your feet, and Laura and Aiden if they were visiting. And you’d tell us stories. Long, complicated, wonderful stories. You’d talk and talk. It was from you that I first heard about the Ancient City. You were the first person I ever heard say the name-Atlantis.”
Sheppard still said nothing. In the dark, he was perfectly still; it was almost as if he were holding his breath.
Rodney forced another mouthful of air in and out of his lungs. “I know,” he said, “I know that bad things have happened to you. I know that bad things happen. This galaxy isn’t a good place for us right now-not for Lanteans, and not for Terrans or Genii or anybody. But it could be. It will be. Maybe it needs our bones in the ground before that day can come...”
He waited for Sheppard to interrupt, to tell him to get to the point or ask him if he even had one. But Sheppard was utterly silent, and suddenly Rodney couldn’t stand it anymore. They were silent and they had no history; they had no future.
“So the universe may have kicked you while you were down,” Rodney declared. “And maybe it keeps kicking us! But I don’t believe for a second that you don’t have stories any more, Uncle John. I think that maybe you’re just waiting for the right person to tell them to.”
There were long seconds, stretching without a sound. Then, “Don’t call me that,” Sheppard said. “I’m not your uncle. I’ve never been your uncle.”
“All right,” Rodney said. They’d had this exchange many times before, but now it seemed weightier somehow. “All right...John.”
Rodney didn’t think about it: he just reached out a hand, simple and natural as breathing. He reached out a hand and found Sheppard’s in the dark, right there, like it had been waiting for him. He squeezed.
There were a few more moments when nothing happened, when he adjusted to the feeling of Sheppard’s large, rough palm in his own. He could hear Sheppard’s breath, coming quicker and quicker, then hitching suddenly, catching in his throat.
Suddenly, Sheppard was moving, was rolling over, was on top of him. At first Rodney was frightened, but then Sheppard said his name, desperate and needy, and Sheppard touched his cheek, ran a thumb across Rodney’s cheekbone, shockingly gentle. The pieces snapped into place. Rodney’s chest felt tight with a feeling not unlike joy; he surged upward, into Sheppard’s touch, into his arms. “John,” he said, “John,” and when Sheppard kissed him, Rodney remembered what it was like to want something and actually get it; to search and to find, and to be found.
Continued in Part III
The second he hopped off his horse, Laura was throwing her arms around him and kissing him full on the mouth.
Rodney made a squeaking sound and stumbled back. From the porch, Radek was mumbling to himself, his gaze averted, but what little of Rodney’s attention wasn’t taken up by the task of repositioning Laura’s arms-either pushing her away or pulling her tighter, he wasn’t yet sure-was focused on Sheppard. He was making a noise Rodney had never heard him make before: full-out, belly-laughter.
“Well, looks like she sure missed you!” Sheppard said. “Do you even remember her name, McKay?”
“Sure I do!” Rodney said, offended but appreciating the opportunity to take a breath. “It’s Laura!”
He beamed at her, but suddenly she was glowering and shoving him away. She was powerfully strong for someone so tiny.
“Sure you can remember it, but did you ever bother writing it down? Were there no couriers on any of the worlds you went to?”
Sheppard had stopped laughing. “Radek,” he said, with effort forcing himself to meet the other man’s gaze. “You did get my letter.”
Radek nodded. “Yes. I do not blame you, Mister Sheppard.” He inclined his head in Rodney’s direction as well, and Rodney let out the breath he hadn’t been aware he’d been holding. “Come inside. I would like to hear it from you, if you wish to tell it.”
Sheppard followed him through the door, his head bent.
At the sound of the door closing, Laura turned to him. She gave him an openly appraising look and Rodney flushed, wishing he could draw closer the fabric of his coat.
“You’re filthy,” she said. Then she took his hand. “Come on, let me draw you a bath.”
The grime washed off in the warm water. Rodney stared down at his pink skin like it was something that belonged to a stranger. He felt possessed, but he was no longer sure which body was the real one and which the fake: the skin of dirt he’d shed, or the figure turning prunish beneath the water. When Laura barged in to collect his dirty clothes, in complete disregard for his privacy, he was almost glad.
He slept in a real bed that night-Aiden’s old one, but Rodney tried not to think about that, or the fact that Laura had none-too-subtly suggested he instead share hers. He slept without dreaming. When he woke, it was long past sunrise, and he could smell coffee, warm and inviting, from the kitchen.
Someone, most likely Laura, had set some of Aiden’s old clothes at the foot of his bed. Rodney hesitated for a moment and then got into them. He was surprised to find that not only were they big enough around the waist, they were a bit too tight across the shoulders.
He went out into the front room. Radek was sitting by the fire, a book propped open on his knee, and Laura was bustling around near the big wood table, shoveling bacon out onto a plate. She looked up at him and smiled. “Breakfast,” she said, and winked.
He slid eagerly into place and snatched at his fork. “Where’s Sheppard?” he asked, spearing a piece of bacon and raising it to his mouth.
Laura’s smile drooped. She bent forward and hastily filled his coffee cup to the brim. “He rode on an hour ago.”
Rodney’s fork clattered down. “What?”
By the fire, Radek closed his book. He looked up, gaze steady. So it was true.
Rodney leapt on his feet. “And you just let him go?” Without me, he didn’t add.
“I don’t know what you can do about finding Teyla that he can’t,” Laura said. There was sympathy to her tone, and also an odd desperation. “He’ll find her, Rodney. Believe me, I know.”
Rodney pushed away from the table. “You don’t know anything!” he said. “You haven’t been out there. You haven’t seen him...”
“And do you think that’s easy for me?” Laura demanded, surprising him. “Always having to stay behind...I want to help as much as you do! But.” She took a breath, fisted hands slowly uncurling. “But my place is here. And maybe yours is, too.”
Rodney lifted his chin. “My place is with Sheppard,” he said.
Laura put down the coffee pot with a clang. She turned her back on him.
“Rodney,” Radek said, stepping forward, “I know you don’t have-”
“Have what?” Rodney snapped. “Money or kin? A home? Well, I don’t need much money and I’ve done fine without a roof over my head, better than anybody thought. And I do have kin-Teyla is my sister, by birth or no, and I’m going to find her. I’m going to find her and take her to Atlantis, and forget this whole sorry system of planets ever existed!”
He plucked his hat from the wall and started toward the door. “Rodney!” Radek called. The voice still carried some authority for him; he paused.
“You are always welcome here,” Radek said.
Rodney fumbled with his hat. He nodded.
Rodney had brought his horse out from the barn and was checking over his gear when Laura came running out of the house, skirts held in a bunch and something white clasped in her hand. She was waving it above her head like a flag.
“Rodney! Rodney, wait!”
“I’m not changing my mind!” he shouted back, but she just shook her head and thrust the piece of paper at him. “I stole this for you.”
Rodney gave her a suspicious look, but he unfolded the sheet. A small scrap of lavender calico fell into his hand. Rodney shivered, but he pushed the feeling aside, concentrating instead on the messily written words.
I bought a small size child’s dress off a Manarian. If this is a piece of your child’s dress please bring reward. I know where they gone. -- M. Cowen
Rodney’s gaze flashed up, his hand closing tight around the calico scrap. “Cowen!” he said. “He’s got a little trading post on Dagan! If that’s where Sheppard’s gone, I can catch him, I can-”
He stared at Laura, who looked like she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to be smiling or frowning. The wind was blowing her hair and she moved a hand, gently brushing it away from her face.
“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for-” And staring at the uncertain curve of her mouth, he suddenly bent forward and kissed her.
Her hands wrapped around his shoulders and the back of his neck. She tasted warm and sweet and safe and he clung to her-for one second, two-before he had to drop his hands and let her go.
“Thank you,” he said again, hastily swinging up onto his horse. “Laura-”
He rode away before he could figure out what he’d been going to say, if he’d had it in his head to say anything at all.
Sheppard was waiting from him when he came through the Ring onto Dagan. “You just won’t quit, will you?” He held out his hand.
Rodney tried not to delude himself into thinking that there was something like respect in Sheppard’s voice. He slapped the letter into Sheppard’s palm.
“I haven’t and I won’t,” he said. Then a new wave of anger rushed at him. “We’re in this together, Sheppard! Don’t you dare leave me again! How do you think you’d like it, getting left?”
“Not much,” Sheppard said, almost idly. “Now, if you wanna stand here and talk about our feelings...”
“Didn’t know you had any,” Rodney grumbled.
They rode off together, toward town.
Rodney knew Cowen a little. Both Uncle Nick and Aunt Elizabeth had had some dealings with him; Elizabeth had never liked him much, but Rodney remembered Nick saying that he always gave a fair price for goods bought or sold. He didn’t seem to recognize Rodney when they stepped inside his establishment, but he smiled at them both and brought out a bottle.
“You’re here about the dress,” he said casually, pouring.
Sheppard put his hands over the top of one of the glasses-the one nearest to Rodney. “Hey!” Rodney said, but Cowen just chuckled and pushed one of the other two glasses over to Sheppard.
Sheppard closed his hand around it, but didn’t drink. “How’d you come by it?”
Cowen eyed him, slipping the bottle back down under the bar. “You said there’d be a reward.”
Sheppard nodded.
“You got it with you?”
Sheppard’s smile said that maybe he had it right in his pocket-that much and twenty times over. “You’ll get your reward when we find her-and if she’s still alive.”
Cowen’s expression didn’t change. “A man’s got a right to expect something,” he said, reasonably. “I paid out for that dress, and to get that letter to you.”
Sheppard made a contemplative sound. His hand dipped into his pocket, then re-emerged, heavier. He dropped a few coins onto the bar. “Show us the dress,” he said.
Cowen hesitated. “A man’s time is also worth something...”
The movement was so subtle that Rodney didn’t even realize that Sheppard had made it until he saw Cowen suck in a breath. Then he looked down: Sheppard’s hand was on top of Cowen’s on the bar, squeezing so tight that his knuckles were turning white and Cowen’s fingers were trembling.
All Sheppard said was, “Talk.”
“Smeadon of the Manarians fetched it in late last summer,” Cowen ground out. Sheppard eased up on his grip a bit. “Said it belonged to a captive child of Chief Scar...”
The name sent an involuntary shiver through Rodney, but Sheppard remained unimpressed. “Scar? Never heard of him.”
“Me neither,” Cowen said. Sheppard had freed his hand, and he moved it delicately, reaching under the bar and pulling out a pale lavender dress. He passed it to Sheppard. “The Manarian claimed he was a big Genii war chief...”
Sheppard barely even looked down, just shoved the ball of fabric in Rodney’s direction, his eyes level on Cowen the entire time. “Where’s he headed?”
“Scar’s band went through the Ring to Belsa. They were planning on laying low there for a while, stealing Terran cattle.” Cowen shrugged. “That’s what the Manarian said, anyway. Maybe he lied.”
Sheppard’s grin was friendly. “And maybe you’re lying.”
He didn’t turn to look at Rodney, but his tone shifted just enough that Rodney could tell he was the one being addressed. “That her dress?”
Rodney looked down at the bundle of fabric in his hands. He could remember the feel of it under his fingers, Teyla sitting in front of him on the saddle while he tended the cattle and occupied his mind by telling her stories. She’d been getting to be a better rider than he was. He resisted the urge to lift the dress to his nose, see if it still smelled like her.
“Yes.”
Sheppard nodded and started for the door.
Cowen called after them. “It’s getting dark,” he said. “You’re welcome to stay the night...”
Rodney’s memory shifted to another scene. Uncle Nick by the door, getting ready for a trip to Dagan. “Be careful, Nick,” Aunt Elizabeth said, forehead creasing. “There’s just something about him... You know how I have instincts about people...”
“Sheppard...” Rodney said nervously.
“We’re going,” Sheppard told the room at large.
They left.
It was getting dark, and they’d only made it about halfway back to the Ring before they made the decision to camp for the night. Sheppard led the horses down into a small dip and tied them to a tree. They were bounded on either side by higher rises, which shielded them nicely from the wind. Rodney knelt down and started building up a fire.
He got a nice blaze going and spread out his blanket roll. They had some foodbars the Zelenkas had given them, and Rodney ate one quickly, catching every crumb. He used to complain about it mightily, but boy did he ever miss Kate’s cook-
Rodney’s stomach turned, and he quickly wrapped up the small piece of leftover bar. He’d eat it come morning.
He settled down onto his side. Sheppard was still standing, stroking the neck of his horse, Memento. She looked restless: shaking her head and stamping her feet. Rodney saw Sheppard’s lips move, whispering something that looked like easy, easy...
Rodney rolled up onto his elbows. “She’s acting like there’s something out there.”
Sheppard shook his head. He went over to the fire and kicked at one of the logs that had slid a little way out. “Smells a change in the weather.”
He turned, eyeing Rodney over his shoulder. “Why don’t you bed down a little closer to the fire? I worry about you, nights like this. You weren’t raised to it.”
Rodney flushed. He wasn’t sure to be flattered by Sheppard’s concern, or insulted by the slight to his...upbringing. “I do all right,” he said, scooting a bit closer anyway.
“Sure.” Sheppard lifted up one of the saddles and plopped it down at the head of his blanket roll. Sometimes he used it as a pillow. Rodney had tried the same thing, but it made his neck ache something awful. His back was probably ruined for life.
Rodney settled down, but Sheppard was still moving around, adding more wood to the fire. He dropped a big log on and it flared up, enough to make Rodney fear for his eyebrows. “Hey!” he said. “What do you think you’re doing? I handle the camp fires, and now I see it’s for a reason!”
“Sorry.” Sheppard turned around so that his back was to the flames. He rubbed along his shoulders and the small of his back; Rodney tried not to stare when his hands dipped lower.
“I’m getting older. My bones are cold.”
Rodney swallowed. “You’re not so old as that...”
Sheppard snorted. “I have twenty years on you,” he said. “Was your age when I found you. Since then I’ve lived a whole other lifetime...”
Rodney tugged his blanket tighter around his front, then rolled so that his back was to the fire, just like Sheppard had showed him. Sleepily, “Tell me about it?”
This earned him a chuckle instead of a snort. “Some other time.”
Rodney drifted slowly off to sleep.
He woke suddenly to the sound of gunshots-very near. “Sheppard!” he said, leaping both for cover and for his rifle. But Sheppard wasn’t there. His bedroll had toppled over, spilling gear onto the ground. His saddle had a big, rough tear in it-a bullet hole.
Rodney put what little evidence he had together very fast. “That-” jerk he was going to say, asshole-but then there were more shots, two in quick succession, and a figure tumbled down into the clearing. It was Cowen.
Sheppard scrambled down the opposite rise, casually holding his rifle. He gave the corpse a bored glance, but turned and smiled at Rodney. “Thanks,” he said. “You did fine.”
“Fine?” Rodney sputtered. “You-you used me as bait!”
“Like I said, you did just fine.” Sheppard knelt by the body and began going through its pockets.
Rodney was so angry he could hardly see straight. “What are you doing?” he demanded.
“Getting my coin back.” Sheppard pulled out a small pouch, shook it. “We did all right.”
“We?” Rodney’s hands flew through the air, gesturing. “You made your nice little decoy for yourself, but me you just left staked out like... You said you worried about me, but you were just fixing it so he would get confident thinking he had a nice easy shot... He could have blown my brains out!”
Sheppard shrugged. “Figured you had plenty to spare. Besides,” he hefted his gun, “I was ready.”
“Yeah?” Rodney pushed in as close as he dared, got in Sheppard’s face. “And what if you’d missed?”
A blink. Sheppard looked honestly surprised at the thought. “Never occurred to me...”
“Ohh!” Rodney scowled. He grabbed at Sheppard’s shoulders, wishing he were bigger and stronger, wanting to shake him. “I ought to...”
“What?” said Sheppard, sounding as dismissive as if he were swatting away a fly. He stood perfectly still. “You ought to what?”
Rodney said nothing, staring up at him, chest heaving. Sheppard stared back, gaze perfectly steady. Only...only... There was something in Sheppard’s eyes, a slight widening of his pupils, maybe a drop or two of sweat, moist on his upper lip. Something had changed. Something had happened to make him afraid.
Then Sheppard was shaking him off, jerking away. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s what I thought.”
They had no other information save Cowen’s, so they decided to hope there was a grain of truth in it and deal with what else came at them when it came. Rodney had adopted the same philosophy in his dealings with Sheppard: he was a long way away from a grand, unifying theory of Uncle John, but he could collect evidence, bit by bit, and store it all away in the ample brains even Sheppard himself had admitted he possessed. It was the same old story: Rodney lacked the tools he would need to make his task an easy one (Sheppard on the surface being as flat and empty as the land on Athos) but he could study, and he could learn.
On Belsa, they stopped at another outpost and used some of Sheppard’s coin (Rodney realized that he had no idea how deep Sheppard’s pockets really went, another question he filed away) to buy goods for trade. Then they sought out the bands of nomads, the people whose homes had been destroyed by the Wraith (and some, lately, unseated by the war), who wandered and scraped what kind of living they could. They would enter a camp and while Rodney spread out the blankets full of trinkets they had gathered, Sheppard would wander around, watching and listening, seeking out the right sort of person, the type he thought might be inclined to talk. The third time they did this, Rodney had almost finished talking down the price of something akin to coffee beans (doing the best he could, in spite of the language barrier) when Sheppard stepped out of a tent and took him by the arm.
“Let’s go,” he said. “I think I stumbled onto something.”
Rodney stared back at him, surprised. “About Scar?”
At the name, a low murmur started up among the men he’d been trading with. The daughter of one of them-a slight, strawberry-blonde girl in her late teens whose pale skin was marred by a dark purple bruise across her left cheek-shot him a warning look.
Sheppard’s grip tightened on Rodney’s arm. “When are you going to learn to keep your mouth shut? Come on, we’re leaving. Now.”
“But I just bought some coffee...”
“Forget it!” Sheppard snapped. He swung up onto his horse.
Rodney looked back at the growing crowd, the angry eyes, the dark looks. Quickly, he gathered up what he could of their goods and clambered up onto his own mount.
They weren’t very far away from the camp when Rodney realized that they were being followed. Sheppard had probably known it from the start. Rodney glanced back over his shoulder, uneasily. He could only see one rider, but...
It was the girl, he realized. Seeing him turn, she leaned forward, putting in enough speed to draw even with him. She spoke-rapidly, and still in a tongue he didn’t understand. Her hands moved back and forth between them,
Sheppard had slowed his horse, was looking back at them with a sardonic expression on his face. “Look,” Rodney said desperately, “I changed my mind, you can keep the beans...”
Another rapid-fire burst of words. Sheppard began to laugh.
“What?” said Rodney, angrily. “How is it my fault that I can’t make her understand?”
Sheppard looked like his birthday had come six months early. “You’re the one who doesn’t understand, genius! You didn’t buy coffee beans-you bought her! You got yourself a wife!”
“What?” Rodney turned back to the girl, gaping. Sure, she’d be pretty if she were cleaned up, but she had to be younger than Kate-than Kate had been. And also, it was just...icky.
“No! No, you gotta tell her that she has to go back...Go back, please,” he told her, trying Ancient this time. “There’s been a mistake...”
“Stop it, she doesn’t understand Ancient anymore than you understand Genii. Didn’t your grandmother teach you anything before she died?”
Now Rodney gaped at Sheppard. “That’s Genii she’s speaking?”
Sheppard nodded. “Useful language, Genii. Not too hard to pick up. Unlike some other, long-dead tongues...”
This was almost too much for Rodney to take in at once. But he had to focus, deal with the immediate problem. “If you can speak it, tell her to go back!”
“Hell, no.” Sheppard turned his horse away. “And have her whole family after us for flouting one of their women? I’ll pass.” He beckoned at the girl, sweeping his arm out: a surprisingly grand gesture, for him. “Come along then, Mrs. McKay...”
Still sputtering, Rodney rode after them.
They camped that night by a riverbed. Sheppard was unusually talkative, making a big deal out of serving up their little bit of meat and beans. “Here you go, Mrs. McKay.” “Would you like a bit more to drink, Mrs. McKay?” “Oh, I’ll make sure to spread my bedroll over here, Mrs. McKay-give plenty of space to you and your husband!”
“Ha ha,” Rodney said. “Ow, my side. Seriously.”
At least the girl-Rodney was pretty sure she had told him her name was Sora (or else that was the Genii word for breasts-what did he know?)-seemed less than amused by Sheppard’s display of charm. She was sullen and mostly silent, and seemed relieved when Rodney moved his bedroll away from where Sheppard had laid it out, practically on top of hers. Rodney felt kind of bad for her. But mostly, he just wanted her to leave.
For all Sheppard spoke of leaving them to their “private time,” he seemed surprisingly reluctant to actually get up from the fire. He sat sipping the last of their coffee, watching Sora as she lay down, turning her back away from them both, curling in on herself.
Rodney gave him a dirty look. “Yeah, it’s just hilarious, isn’t it?”
Sheppard shrugged. “Matter of perspective.”
“Oh, enlighten me.” Rodney folded his arms. “As a matter of fact, why don’t you tell me this ‘big piece of news,’” he emphasized the words with a dismissive wave to show Sheppard exactly what he thought of that, “that had you running out of the camp before I could get this business,” he inclined his head in Sora’s direction, “straightened out. Not to mention make it so you didn’t have to go drinking the last of our coffee!”
Sheppard took a final gulp and sat back, licking his lips. “Why don’t you ask her?”
“What?” Rodney followed Sheppard’s gaze: Sora was on her feet, in a crouch; she had a knife half-pulled out of her boot and her eyes were narrowed in some complicated combination of determination and fear.
Rodney’s mouth dropped open. He tried to move, but could only stare as, with a sudden, quivering motion, Sora threw down the knife and took off toward the river bank. If she’d leapt on him, held the knife to his throat, Rodney wasn’t sure he would have reacted any different.
Sheppard was the same under any situation: swift-moving and sharp, he caught Sora before she’d gone more than a hundred meters. He dragged her back and plopped her down in front of the fire, his hand tight on her arm.
“Unt osupanet cah-nay Scar?” he asked her.
She glared at him and didn’t answer. Then her gaze flickered to Rodney. For someone who’d been contemplating putting a knife in his back, she sure looked an awful lot like she was now asking for his help.
Sheppard turned to him, too. “You ask her.” He smiled without humor. “After all, she’s your wife.”
Rodney shot him a hateful look. But he didn’t have a choice. “Sora,” he said. “Scar...do you know where he went? And if he has a girl with him, a Lantean girl?” His brain shuffled back through the little bit of Genii he’d heard spoken that day. “Nai-bist pabo taibo...?”
Sora’s lips parted, but it was a moment before she spoke. “Mah nee-koo-ur?”
“Huh? No, not my wife.” He flushed at the thought. “My-Sheppard, how do you say ‘sister’?”
Not a pause: “Nami.”
Sora looked between them both. Then she said something else, too rapid for Rodney to have any hope of understanding. But Sheppard nodded. He dropped his hand; he let her go.
Rodney watched, open-mouthed, as she gathered her meager belongings, mounted her horse, and rode off quickly in a different direction than the way they had come. He turned to stare at Sheppard, astonished. “That’s it?”
Sheppard’s lips twisted up. “So much for the honeymoon, huh?”
The information Sora had given Sheppard turned out to be a Ring address. “It could be a trap,” Rodney pointed out.
Sheppard shrugged. “Could be.”
If it was a trap, it wasn’t one set to be immediately sprung. The vast plain that led away from the Ring was empty save for a milling herd of the strange, shaggy cattle that ran wild on some of the less civilized planets. Rodney looked at them and instantly thought: Dinner!
Sheppard had already whipped out his rifle. His first shot was perfect: one of the big bulls stumbled and dropped. Rodney licked his lips, thinking: Hot, juicy cooked meat; thick, salty dried meat; praise the Ancestors, meat... But then there was another shot, and another. The herd was panicking, the animals stampeding. Sheppard had his rifle pressed tight atop his shoulder; he was firing away, mouth slanting up each time another animal went down.
“What are you doing?” Rodney yelled. “Stop, stop! We can’t possibly eat that much!”
He winged another one as it ran away. “Yeah!” he shouted. “And now the Genii won’t be able to, neither!”
“But...”
Sheppard shot him a dirty look. He kept firing until the animals were all gone, until the plain was echoing and empty.
“Other people besides the Genii depend on that cattle,” Rodney said finally. His throat felt sore, which was odd, ‘cause he’d barely been shouting.
Sheppard wheeled on him. “And I’d feed everyone in the whole damn galaxy if I could! But it doesn’t work that way, does it?”
He pulled out his knife and stomped over to the nearest bull. When Rodney didn’t move to help, Sheppard angrily turned his head.
“Well? Do you want to eat, or are you gonna go on a hunger strike in sorrow for your poor starving kinfolk? Do you wanna leave these here and hope they don’t rot before they can be eaten by your Genii wife?”
Rodney took a shuddery breath. “F-fuck you,” he said.
Sheppard laughed as he slit the bull’s throat. “That’ll be the day.”
They awoke early the next morning to the sound of ships overhead. Rodney sat up, pulling the blankets tight around his chin. He whispered the word. “Wraith?”
Sheppard stared up at the sky. “No. Terrans.” He got up and started packing away his gear. “I hope we’re not too late.”
When they reached it, the ground around the settlement was scorched. A few of the huts were still on fire, the flames curling listlessly. Rodney shuddered when he saw the smoke. There was something about that smell... He wanted to be away from here.
Sheppard charged straight in, poking at things, turning over bodies with the toe of his boot. After a minute, he straightened up. “Them, all right,” he said. “Our Genii.”
Rodney didn’t remark on the possessive. He stared down at one of the bodies, a young Genii girl smaller than both his sisters. She was face down in the mud, bleeding from her back. “Teyla?” he said.
Sheppard gestured. “Search that end.” Then he ducked into one of the huts.
Rodney hadn’t gotten far when he heard Sheppard call his name. He stepped out gratefully into the daylight, away from the close smell of burning and death. Sheppard was standing in front of one of the sturdier-looking huts. He pointed Rodney inside with a solemn finger. Rodney almost said her name again, but the word froze on his lips. He didn’t want it to end like this.
She was lying on her back, wide-eyed and staring. Rodney knelt beside her, just looking. After a moment, he carefully brushed the matted curls away from her face. With gentle fingers, he closed her eyelids.
Outside, Sheppard was waiting for him. “So I guess you’re a widower now, huh,” he said.
Rodney didn’t respond.
“She was holding this.” Sheppard pushed a small tangle of metal and ribbon into his hand.
Rodney turned it over. It was a medal-Rodney could vaguely remember seeing some of the Lantean soldiers wearing something similar, back before the end of the war. “How did she-”
“It was mine,” Sheppard said curtly. “I gave it to Teyla. Same as I gave Chuck a saber. Same as I gave Kate a locket.”
“Oh,” said Rodney. “So Sora-”
Sheppard shrugged, indifferent. “Don’t know if she was coming to warn them or to help Teyla get away. But Teyla was here. We know that for certain. We were on the right track.”
Were, Rodney thought. He glanced back at the hut. Through the shadows, he could still see the golden splay of Sora’s hair, muddy and torn.
“Why’d they have to do that for?” he asked, pointlessly. “What reason did they have to kill Sora?”
“What reason does anyone have for killing anybody?” Sheppard asked. From him, it sounded like high philosophy. “If things had gone differently, she might have killed you.”
Rodney shook his head. “No, I should have helped her, protected her...It was my, my...”
“Duty as a husband?” Sheppard asked. He turned and stalked back toward his horse.
“Yes!” Sheppard snorted. “No, listen,” Rodney said. “Sheppard...have you ever been married? Had a sweetheart?”
Sheppard paused with his hand on the pommel. “No.” And up he swung.
“If it had been Laura in trouble,” Rodney insisted. And then, when a deliberateness that Sheppard probably wouldn’t have credited him with: “If it had been Aunt Elizabeth...”
Sheppard whirled to face him, eyes dark. Rodney was pleased with himself-he didn’t even flinch.
“People die,” Sheppard said. “Sometimes no matter what you do. The sooner you learn that, McKay...”
He didn’t finish the sentence. He turned his horse around. “Let’s go pay a visit to the Terran army.” He made the last words sound like a curse.
“You think maybe they’ve got Teyla?” Rodney asked, suddenly filled with the image of her already rescued, waiting for them.
Sheppard spurred his horse. “Maybe they’ve got Scar!”
Rodney had always felt an odd mixture of fear and respect for the Terran army. He hated them as an invading force, as a conquering, occupying body. But they had incredible technology: they had made the Ancient City come alive, made the Lanteans see its true promise before they had taken it away. Rodney wanted nothing more than to live and work among them, to have free reign over their foreign wonders and those of the Ancestors combined. The outpost that he and Sheppard rode to was just that-an outpost, hardly a jewel of Terran architecture or tech-but just watching the doors slide open without a touch made Rodney’s heart beat faster. He wanted to rip open the walls: take everything apart, see how it worked.
But that would be pleasure, and they were here for business. Sheppard smirked at the young Terran officer-prim in his uniform, greeting them with an over-elaborate flourish-and stated plainly, “We’re looking for a girl. A Lantean girl.”
“She’d be about thirteen now,” Rodney offered, barely able to comprehend it. Two years. But the officer nodded. “Got a couple about that age,” he said, and led them inside.
In a back room, behind the clean and brightly lit offices, was a medium-sized holding cell. There were three women inside. Two of them were huddled in a blanket, sitting together on the bench that lined the back wall. The third was curled on the floor with her knees drawn up to her chest, rocking and singing to herself.
It was definitely not Teyla-the woman was thirty if she was a day-but Rodney still couldn’t help staring at her. The rocking motion that she made was as hypnotic as it was repellent; it looked like at any moment she might spin out of control, rock back so hard that her skull cracked against the wall. He skirted her at a careful distance. His gaze moved to the remaining two. They shifted slightly at the sound of the three men approaching; as the blanket moved, Rodney thought he caught a glimpse of a honey-brown braid swinging, swinging down.
“Teyla?” he said, hesitantly. He didn’t want, he didn’t want to scare- But Sheppard reached out and jerked the blanket away. Two girls sat before them. One, a redhead, started giggling hysterically. The other just stared. She had Genii stripes painted brightly across her arm, just below where the braid fell. But she wasn’t Teyla.
Sheppard had already turned away. The Terran officer gave him a manly slap on the back; it was only because Rodney knew Sheppard as well as he did that he recognized the flinch.
“Hard to believe they’re Lantean, isn’t it?” the officer said.
Sheppard shook his head. “They’re not Lantean anymore.”
After that the trail dried up. The Terran officer mentioned that they had found a good amount of Satedan trade goods at the Genii camp, but when Rodney suggested that they therefore go to Sateda and talk to some of the traders there, the officer had only shaken his head, chuckling. “You haven’t heard?”
“No, I’m being deliberately obtuse,” Rodney snapped. To his surprise, Sheppard grinned at him.
“We’ve been out of the world for a while,” he explained, smoothly.
The Terran nodded, looking almost excited at being the one who got to share the news. “Big Wraith attack,” he said, not near as grim as Rodney thought the situation warranted. “Localized, luckily. But Sateda got completely wiped out.”
They went anyway, just to make sure. They walked among the rubble, Sheppard tense and silent; Rodney silent, too. They didn’t stay long; there was no reason to. Afterward, Rodney dialed a planet he remembered from a long while back, a fuzzy childhood thing. They lay in the soft grass, smelling the spicy-sweet scent that permeated the air. It was warm enough that they didn’t even need to light a fire. They left room for one anyway, spreading their bedrolls several feet apart. Rodney could still hear Sheppard as he shifted and moved, see his dark shape, his head propped up on the folded pillow of his arms. Together they watched the stars.
It was a good moment, one of the few, and Rodney didn’t want to spoil it. But still he needed to ask, needed to know. “How many of them have you been to?”
Sheppard didn’t answer at first. Rodney knew he wasn’t asleep; he had grown very accustomed to the patterns of Sheppard’s breathing. Finally, Sheppard expelled a lingering gust. “A few.”
Rodney couldn’t help it: he laughed. To his surprise, Sheppard rose to the bait. “What?” he said. “What’s so funny?”
“You think I don’t remember,” Rodney said, “but I do.”
Sheppard said nothing.
“I remember your visits,” Rodney said. “Back before the war ended. Before we lost. You used to come and you’d sit down in the rocker by the fire. You’d pull Kate into your lap-she was always the lucky one, and the rest of us were all jealous. You’d pull her into your lap, and Chuck and I would settle by your feet, and Laura and Aiden if they were visiting. And you’d tell us stories. Long, complicated, wonderful stories. You’d talk and talk. It was from you that I first heard about the Ancient City. You were the first person I ever heard say the name-Atlantis.”
Sheppard still said nothing. In the dark, he was perfectly still; it was almost as if he were holding his breath.
Rodney forced another mouthful of air in and out of his lungs. “I know,” he said, “I know that bad things have happened to you. I know that bad things happen. This galaxy isn’t a good place for us right now-not for Lanteans, and not for Terrans or Genii or anybody. But it could be. It will be. Maybe it needs our bones in the ground before that day can come...”
He waited for Sheppard to interrupt, to tell him to get to the point or ask him if he even had one. But Sheppard was utterly silent, and suddenly Rodney couldn’t stand it anymore. They were silent and they had no history; they had no future.
“So the universe may have kicked you while you were down,” Rodney declared. “And maybe it keeps kicking us! But I don’t believe for a second that you don’t have stories any more, Uncle John. I think that maybe you’re just waiting for the right person to tell them to.”
There were long seconds, stretching without a sound. Then, “Don’t call me that,” Sheppard said. “I’m not your uncle. I’ve never been your uncle.”
“All right,” Rodney said. They’d had this exchange many times before, but now it seemed weightier somehow. “All right...John.”
Rodney didn’t think about it: he just reached out a hand, simple and natural as breathing. He reached out a hand and found Sheppard’s in the dark, right there, like it had been waiting for him. He squeezed.
There were a few more moments when nothing happened, when he adjusted to the feeling of Sheppard’s large, rough palm in his own. He could hear Sheppard’s breath, coming quicker and quicker, then hitching suddenly, catching in his throat.
Suddenly, Sheppard was moving, was rolling over, was on top of him. At first Rodney was frightened, but then Sheppard said his name, desperate and needy, and Sheppard touched his cheek, ran a thumb across Rodney’s cheekbone, shockingly gentle. The pieces snapped into place. Rodney’s chest felt tight with a feeling not unlike joy; he surged upward, into Sheppard’s touch, into his arms. “John,” he said, “John,” and when Sheppard kissed him, Rodney remembered what it was like to want something and actually get it; to search and to find, and to be found.
Continued in Part III