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zinnithTitle: Ghost Walk
Author: Zinnith
Recipient:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sgamadison for the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
sheppard_hc Summer Exchange.
Rating: PG-13
Warning: None that I can think of.
Word Count: ~ 20 000
Spoilers: Set between The Kindred and The Last Man.
Summary: Teyla is missing. Rodney grows more distant for every day. Nothing has gone right in John's life lately. On top of all his other problems, it looks like he's going to have to take a little stroll through the desert.
Author's note: Forsgamadison, who only deserves the best. I hope this is good enough. Many thanks to bluespirit_star for the quick and excellent beta. All remaining mistakes are my own. Prompt at the end of the story!
AO3 link
John is alone in the bed when he wakes up. He feels disoriented and no more rested than when he fell asleep... how long ago? It can’t have been more than an hour or so. He wants nothing more than to go back to sleep, preferably for a couple of days. Just bury himself under the covers and let the rest of the damn world go on without him for a while. Maybe when he wakes up, everything will be better.
It’s not likely. He has to admit that he probably hasn’t slept as much as he ought lately, but every time he manages to get a few hours of rest, he wakes up feeling even worse. Teyla is still missing and he doesn’t want to sleep away valuable time that he could have spent looking for her instead.
He’s in Rodney’s room, which is probably part of the reason for the strange feeling of displacement. He doesn’t usually fall asleep after; it’s far too risky. A bleary glance at the clock tells him that he needs to get up while it’s still early enough that sneaking out back to his own quarters won’t raise any uncomfortable questions.
But to do that, he needs to start by getting out of bed. If only it wasn’t so hard to move. The sheets are wrinkled and wrapped around his legs and it takes a moment for him to disentangle himself. The room is dark, except for the blueish light of Rodney’s laptop screen.
Rodney’s sitting hunched over the desk, head resting in his hands. At first, John thinks that he’s fallen asleep in front of the computer, but when he shoves the bedcover out of the way and swings his legs over the side, Rodney straightens up and turns around.
“Hey,” he says. He sounds rough and completely exhausted and John suddenly feels incredibly guilty for falling asleep when Rodney so clearly needs it just as much.
John rubs his eyes but they still feel heavy and gritty. “Sorry for...” Sleeping while you work your ass off as usual, he doesn’t say. Instead he motions to the bed and the tangled sheets. “You should’ve woken me up.”
Rodney swivels around on his chair, leans forward with his elbows on his knees. He’s showered and he’s dressed in sweatpants and a fresh t-shirt. John wants nothing more than to drag him back into bed, curl up behind his back and bury his face in his neck, losing himself in the scent of hypoallergenic soap and clean skin
“You looked tired,” Rodney says and then glances back over his shoulder, to the laptop that’s still running on the desk. “I had, um, I had some work I needed to get done before the mission tomorrow and...” he trails off.
John grabs a sheet and wraps it around his waist while he hunts down his clothes that ended up all over the floor earlier, suddenly protective of his own bare skin. He can count the times they’ve had sex this past few weeks on one hand and when they do, it’s always quick and frantic, like they need to get if over with as fast as possible before someone catches them having a moment to themselves. John closes his eyes as an image of Teyla springs unbidden to his mind. She looks disapproving in a way she rarely does in real life. He chases it away, finds his pants, and fumbles them on.
“What are you working on?” he asks Rodney while he looks for his socks. He’s sure he had two of them when he got here.
Rodney gets a deer-in-the-headlights expression and quickly turns around to shut the laptop. “Nothing important, really, just... stuff. You know. Stuff that needs to get done. Are you, um, leaving?”
“Yeah,” John answers and finds the other sock. He’s pretty sure he knows what Rodney’s been doing, but that is a conversation he doesn’t want to have right now. “Early day tomorrow. Who knows, we might even find something.”
His attempt at positive thinking falls flat to the floor. Rodney stands up and rubs his palms on the legs of his pants. “I’m, I’m headed for the lab. Something I have to check up, and, and, there’s this project, very important.”
It’s almost painful to watch him stutter through the explanation and the lies - John knows where he’s going and it’s not the lab. But that’s one more thing they don’t talk about.
“Okay,” he says, pretending he believes Rodney. “Get some sleep after that, okay? I need you sharp tomorrow.”
“I will, I promise. And you too, by the way. You should sleep, I mean.”
“Yeah, I guess. So. See you tomorrow?”
“Absolutely.” Rodney rubs his hands together, like he’s trying to work up some enthusiasm, but he only ends up looking nervous and uncomfortable. “Bright and early, ready to go explore Tatooine!”
The Star Wars reference gets the faint smile it deserves. Rodney leans in for a kiss, hesitating, and John allows their lips to brush together, just a quick peck. He’s pretty sure he won’t be able to stop himself if either of them goes for more. These brief stolen moments are the most he can allow himself right now. It doesn’t matter how much he wants to grab Rodney and deepen the kiss, wants to stay the night for once, lose himself in Rodney’s body and forget how shitty everything is. They won’t find Teyla that way.
Rodney heads for the lab, where he will double back once John is out of sight and sneak down to the stasis room instead. John goes back to his room where he will lie most of the night and stare at the ceiling, mulling over all the mistakes he’s made lately.
They have to find something tomorrow. It’s been too long without any good news and sooner or later something, someone, is going to break.
* * *
“Oh, wonderful,” Rodney says. “A desert. Michael couldn’t have chosen a planet with a little less carcinogenic climate for his hideout?”
John looks out over the landscape. The gate sits on top of a steep slope and below it is only brownish-red sand as far as the eye can see. The air is shimmering with heat, heavy and hard to breathe. ”I hope you brought enough sunscreen, buddy.”
“Sure the jumpers won’t work?” Ronon asks, glaring at the inhospitable terrain like it has offered him a personal insult.
“Oh, sure they will, I just spent half an hour of the mission briefing explaining in great detail exactly why the atmosphere here will wreak absolute havoc on the navigational systems as a great big joke!” Rodney shoots back. “Seriously, do you not get enough sleep during the night? I know I don’t, and even I can manage to stay awake for a simple meeting.”
John sighs and wishes for the millionth time that Teyla was here. Then again, if they knew where Teyla was, there would be no reason for this trip in the first place. “Come on, guys. Let’s do this. Rodney, you said we wouldn’t have to walk?”
“Do you think I would be here if we had to walk?” Rodney says testily. “I like my handsome visage melanoma free, thank you very much.” He studies his tablet and then scans the ground in front of the gate. “I have no idea why the ancients decided to build this outpost in the middle of the desert, but at least they were good enough to provide us with transportation. It should be right here somewhere...”
Rodney steps away from the gate, uses his foot to sweep away some of the sand and then crouches down to brush the dirt off a slightly raised plate on the ground. “Ah, here it is. Now I just have to find...” He pushes the plate down. “...the mechanism. There we are!”
Somewhere underground there's a faint click and a large portion of the ground in front of Rodney gives off a blueish glow, barely discernible in the bright sunlight. The sand is swept away to reveal a metal square lined with ancient writing set in the ground.
“It’s a transport platform!” Rodney crows triumphantly. “It’s actually of a similar design to the transporters back in Atlantis, only this one is only connected to two specific places. There’s one platform here and another one at the outpost. It should activate once we step up on it.”
“You sure about that?” Ronon asks, eyeing the platform suspiciously.
Rodney stands up and tucks his tablet back inside his jacket. His shoulders do a nervous little shrug, apparently without his leave. “Well, according to the database, that is what should happen. Bearing in mind that the Ancients haven’t been here for ten thousand years, and the last person to use the platform might very well have been Michael...”
“You go first,” Ronon says.
“Me? Excuse me? Why should I have to go first? I was just going to suggest that you...,”
”I'm going first,” John interrupts. If the transporter turns out to be malfunctioning, he's the one who should take the risk. “Let’s focus here, okay guys? This is the best lead we have to finding Teyla.”
Both Rodney and Ronon look at him and then at each other and away, the bickering abruptly finished. John closes his eyes for a brief moment and takes a deep breath, wishing again that Teyla was here. Nothing works right without her. They’re wearing on each other, nothing in between to smooth the sharp edges. Rodney is always irritable, but has become almost impossible to live with lately. Ronon seems to devote all his time to turning silence, violence and intimidation into an art form. And John... John doesn’t know what he is. He feels lost, full of doubt, like he’s making all the wrong decisions. The team is lopsided, all frantic activity and the desperate need to push on and no restraint to shore them up.
“Might be nothing,” Ronon says, breaking the short silence. “It’s a long shot.” All that led them here was a whispered rumour and a vague memory Carson - the clone - no, Carson, dammit, had managed to relay before they had been forced to put him into stasis.
John quickly shuts that train of thought down. “Right now, it’s the only shot we have,” he says. “Okay, I'm going for it.”
With the transporters back in Atlantis, you just enter at one point and exit at another without even feeling the effects. This ride isn’t nearly as smooth. The moment John sets foot on the platform, it’s like he can feel his body actually being picked apart and put back together again, all in the wink of an eye. It’s a deeply disturbing feeling and he can’t stop a shudder when they’re through at the other side and steps down from the corresponding platform.
“Whoa. That was different.” He steps down to the floor and keys his radio. ”It's safe, guys. Come on through.”
A moment later, Rodney and Ronon are standing on the platform. Ronon looks a little wigged out at the experience and Rodney is busy patting arms and legs, seemingly making sure all his body parts has made the journey.
They have materialised at one end of what looks like an empty hallway. It’s dark and John lets the light of his P-90 sweep over the interior. There are two doors, one at each end of the room. When he reaches out with his mind he can feel a warm familiar humming, similar to that of Atlantis. This is different though, weaker and patchier, like it comes and goes in waves. John can’t quite shake the feeling that there’s something wrong with this place, but it’s too insubstantial to put words on.
“No life signs,” Rodney reports, holding the LSD out for John to see. “It doesn’t mean there won’t be any hibernating Wraith of course. I don’t have to remind you of our track record with deserts, do I?”
John steps over to one of the doors. “Don’t worry, McKay,” he says. “If we run into any Super Wraiths, I promise we’ll go right back home.”
The door mechanism is similar to the ones in Atlantis. John runs a hand over it and it slides open with a weird scraping sound. On the other side is sand, sand and even more sand. The heat is oppressive, even here in the shelter of the building.
John closes the door again and turns around. “Ronon, try the other one.”
The second door opens with a similar scraping sound, like sand from outside has gotten into the mechanisms.
“Are they supposed to do that?” John asks Rodney.
“Ten thousand years old, remember? It’s not like they’ve had a little ancient custodian hanging around since then, oiling the hinges for your comfort, Colonel.”
More darkness lies behind this door. As they step through John reaches out again and thinks, ‘A little light, please?’ Nothing happens at first, so he does it again, concentrating a little harder this time. Fluorescent lighting comes to life, flickers in and out a couple of times, and then holds steady. It’s a dim glow at best and only serves to enhance the spooky feeling of the abandoned building.
At least there's enough light to see by. They have just entered a room with walls lined with consoles. In the middle is a deep hole in the floor, surrounded by a perfect circle of a steel railing. There are two other doors that seem to lead deeper into the building. John steps up to the railing and peers down, but there’s nothing but deep, black darkness to be seen.
“What were they doing here anyway?” he asks.
Rodney is already digging in his backpack for equipment to connect his tablet to one of the consoles. “According to the database, they were drilling for something. The records are a little unclear, God forbid Ancient scientists could actually keep proper lab notes or anything. In any case, the project failed and they closed the place down.” He picks a console, hooks up the tablet and then draws a finger through the deep layer of dust and sand on top of it. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s been here for a long time,” he says. “I hate to be Mr Negativity here, but I don't think this is going to lead anywhere.”
Seeing the state of the building, John has to admit that it’s not likely. There hadn’t been much hope to begin with, but it feels like Teyla slips a little bit farther out of their reach with each dead end. “Let’s go check out the rest of it,” he tells Ronon, swallowing the disappointment.
They leave Rodney to sift through the station’s database and go to make sure the rest of the building is clear. One of the doors from the main room opens into another hallway lined with several rooms. It looks like it used to be the residential area. There are a couple of bedrooms and bathrooms, a dining area, a large room that appears to have been used as a gym. Everything is empty, with no signs of having been disturbed for the past few millennia.
The other door leads to a large number of storage rooms. Most of them are empty, others are full of junk, the kind of things you leave behind when you’re moving out. There is a lot of undisturbed dust here too, swirling around their feet as they move. Ronon picks up some kind of broken-looking ancient device and turns it over in one large hand.
“You think McKay’s gonna want to take any of this back
John shrugs. “Ask him. I don’t even know what that is.”
Ronon shakes the thing and frowns at the rattling sound it makes before he puts it back down where he found it.
They go through all the rooms and closets they can find but encounter nothing but dust and disrepair. John sighs and waves goodbye to the little glimmer of hope he’s been carrying around since they stepped through the gate.
“There’s nothing here,” Ronon says, echoing his thoughts. “Hasn’t been for a long time.”
“Looks that way. Back to square one, I guess.”
John feels like hitting something, kicking and screaming. Now that he comes to think of it, this would be the perfect place. He can almost imagine what it would feel like to turn one of these junk rooms upside down and tear it apart. A little therapeutic violence. And won’t that make him look like the poster child of emotional health?
“You okay?”
John hesitates. Ronon has clearly held off asking until they were alone for a reason, to give John a chance to give an honest answer if he wants to. He’s tried to keep up appearances since Teyla was taken, to not let on how horribly lost and confused and scared he is every hour of every day. There’s no one around he can really talk to. McKay is busy enough with his own pain and the ever-present strain of keeping the city running, and Keller and Carter aren’t quite family yet. Teyla has always been the one who seems to know exactly how he feels without the need for any bothersome words. John should have remembered that Ronon is a lot brighter and a lot more perceptive than most people give him credit for, and it’s tempting, so very tempting to give in and let the mask fall for a second. But if he does, he’s not sure that he’ll be able to put it back on afterwards.
“Yeah,” he says eventually. “I’m fine.”
“Hm.” Ronon sounds unconvinced. “What about McKay?”
What about him? John isn’t sure. Rodney hasn’t said anything, but he’s not exactly his usual self either. Losing Teyla has hit them all hard, and then on top of that, they found Carson just to lose him all over again. They don’t speak about it, but John knows that when he’s not spending his nights sleeping draped over a bench in his lab, he spends them in the stasis room, carrying on rambling conversations with the frozen image of Carson in the chamber. He’s certainly not spending them with John, not lately, and John isn’t sure if he even minds all that much. It’s not like he needs any more distractions and Rodney would probably be better off without him anyway.
“I guess he’s... he’s holding up good,” John says. “Considering.”
Except for all the databases full of medical research John has caught him going through over and over again, the kind of material he usually snorts at and dismisses as voodoo. Yeah, McKay is holding up just fine.
The team is breaking apart and there isn’t a damn thing John can do about it. It has been weeks already and they have wasted their time hunting ghosts and following trails gone cold ages ago. Dammit, why did they have to go for the retrovirus experiment in the first place? It doesn’t matter how you look at it; Michael is the Atlantis expedition's creation. If not for them, he wouldn’t exist. John should’ve put a stop to it. He should’ve done a lot of things, starting with not waking up the Wraith.
“You’re taking on a lot, Sheppard,” Ronon says. He puts a hand on John’s shoulder, large and warm. Steady. John has to fight hard to resist leaning into the touch, just for a moment. “You don’t have to do it alone.”
John swallows, closed his eyes to stop them from burning (too much dust in the air, that’s all) and tries to get a hold on his emotions, stuff them back down where they belong. “I know,” he manages, finding to his surprise that his voice sounds almost normal. “Thanks, big guy.”
“No trouble.”
“So, we done with the manly heart-to-heart talk?”
“I think we are.”
“Good. Let’s get out of here.”
They make one last sweep of the storage area just to be sure they haven’t missed anything, but the place is almost tauntingly empty. John can’t quite shake the feeling of wrongness that has been with him since they arrived. It’s stronger now, the walls and the floors almost vibrating with it. He taps his radio, suddenly worried over how long it’s been since they heard anything from Rodney. They probably shouldn’t have left him alone.
“McKay? Did you find anything yet?”
There is a brief pause and then Rodney’s distracted voice echoes in his ear. “Don’t you think I would’ve told you if I had? Now shush, I’m working here.”
“Yeah, yeah. We’re heading back to you.”
The relief of knowing that Rodney’s okay is shortlived. “Um... guys?” McKay’s voice is a lot more anxious this time. “Could you maybe hurry it up a little. I think... no, I’m almost a hundred percent sure that we’re going to want to get out of here very soon.”
John and Ronon exchange a look and John reaches for his radio. “How come?”
“There’s some kind of power buildup, I don’t know where it’s coming from, but it’s getting worse fast. I’m working to reverse it right now, but just in case, could you... oh, no.”
There’s silence, save for the sound of Rodney’s fingers tapping frantically on a keyboard.
“McKay?” John prompts, breaking into a light run. Ronon follows right at his heels.
“Yes, yes, still here. Oh, crap. Get back here now, Colonel!”
It only takes them minutes to get back to the control room, but it’s the longest few minutes John can remember. Halfway there, the floor really does start to vibrate, like a miniature earthquake. It feels like the entire building is trembling, along with John’s teeth. Something is seriously wrong. Dammit, John should have said something earlier, no matter how stupid it sounded. Story of his life.
When they arrive, Rodney is sweating and red in the face. He’s hurrying to disconnect all his equipment from the computer consoles while keeping one eye one a readout from one of the monitors. It’s too far away for John too see any details, but he knows enough to realise that all those red graphs can’t be good.
“What too you so long?” Rodney shouts, voice high and tight. He’s clearly struggling to keep his panic in check. “What did you do, go sightseeing? We only have a couple of minutes here.”
“Booby trap?” Ronon asks.
Rodney shakes his head and stuffs the laptop and the cables back into his backpack. “No, I don’t think so. It looks like a flaw in the design of the building, probably why it was abandoned in the first place. The energy output had to be monitored and adjusted manually, and when we came here and activated the systems, we inadvertently opened the floodgates, so to speak, and why are we standing here discussing this when any second now the whole place cold blow up?”
“The platform,” John decides, opening the door. “Come on.”
Rodney zips his bag shut and darts for the door. Ronon follows and John brings up the rear, throwing one last look at the control room. The floor is shaking now, like something huge and hungry is building underneath, and it makes it hard to keep his feet.
The control panel beside the door starts giving off blue sparks as they pass through it. The smell of ozone is heavy in the air and John feels the hairs on his arms and neck stand on edge. The transportation platform is crackling with energy. It looks far from safe to use, but they’re running out of time.
Rodney gets there first, stops short just on the edge of the platform and turns around. “Come on, come on, come on!”
The earth rumbles then and the entire installation shakes and shifts and John feels the floor disappear out from under his feet. He ends up on his hands and knees, disoriented for a second, before he manages to get up again and keep running. Sparks are flying around him from the door and from the transporter and it hits him like a punch in the gut that he’s not going to make it in time.
“Go!” he shouts to Ronon. “Get out of here!”
Ronon turns his head, takes in the distance between John and the platform, the control pad that’s beginning to give off smoke, and the next moment he’s grabbed McKay by the shoulders and dragged him bodily onto the transporter platform. It activates instantly and the two of them flicker in and out of existence a few times, like the picture on a badly tuned TV.
The last thing John sees before they disappear altogether is Rodney’s face, mouth open in a wordless scream, arm stretched out toward him. He’s so close their fingers are almost touching. The next moment they’re gone. The control pad sputters, the platform goes dark.
After that, all John remembers is fire.
* * *
The smell of smoke wakes him. It stings his eyes and nose and he wants nothing more than to sink back into the darkness, but something keeps pushing insistently on the edge of his consciousness.
Teyla.
Desert planet. They had been looking for Teyla, and then... it’s hazy.
John blinks, tries to cough some of the smoke out of his lungs and clear his eyes. Moving hurts, too much for him to just ignore it and tuck it away in the back of his mind. His ears are ringing, his head is about to turn itself inside out, and something seems to be wrong with his right shoulder. It throbs with a sharp pain and turning over on his back nearly makes him black out again. He stays there for a moment or two, tries to catch his breath without starting to cough again. Then he manages to drag himself into a sitting position, using his good arm for support. His head spins and the tears are streaming from his eyes. When he raises his head, he finds out where all the smoke is coming from.
The compound is on fire. John can see the flames lick out of the entrance he can vaguely remember throwing himself though... how long ago? Minutes? Hours? The sun is still high in the sky so he can’t have been out for long. The sand around him is littered with metal scrap, burned pieces of ancient crystals, frayed wires, the twisted, scarred remains of a door panel. He remembers the control room, the shaking floor, McKay’s barely contained panic...
Shit, McKay.
John is on his feet before he even has time to consider how much it’s going to hurt to stand. Once upright, he has to close his eyes for a moment as his shoulder and arm explodes in agony. There is no time for that, he needs to get moving.
“Rodney!” he shouts, staggering closer to the burning building. “Ronon! You guys okay?”
There’s no answer. The heat hits him like a punch to the face. Trying to go back inside isn’t an option. Not that it would do much good anyway.
John screws his eyes shut against the smoke, tries to think. His head is pounding like a jackhammer and it feels wobbly on his neck, like it’s about to fall right off his shoulders. When he raises his hand to the back of his head, he finds a sore bump. His fingers comes away bloody. Something must have hit him.
He can only hope that Rodney and Ronon got through okay. There’s no way to tell. It’s doubtful if the transporter was still functional and even if it was, the platform on John’s end is inside the building that is currently on fire.
“Let’s face it, John,” he mutters to himself. “You’re pretty much screwed here.”
Okay. Time to make a plan. He can’t stay here, the heat from the fire is quickly becoming unbearable and he has already inhaled more smoke than is probably good for him.
He tries to remember the geographic data, digs around in his fractured memory until the facts float up to the surface. The terrain between the gate and the outpost is all desert, deep wadis and wind-worn cliffs. Under normal circumstances, with proper gear and supplies, a hike like that would be unpleasant. Now, injured as he is, it’s going to be a nightmare.
It isn’t like he has much choice. Except for the burning wreckage of the ancient outpost, there is no shelter around to be seen. If Rodney and Ronon got through the transporter okay and were able to return to Atlantis, they are probably mounting a rescue mission right now. If not...
Shit. He can’t wait. He has to get back. Maybe their signatures are still stored in the transporter’s buffer, maybe Zelenka and Carter can find a way to get them out.
John steps away from the building and slogs through the sand, kicking at the shrapnel from the explosion as he goes. The sun hasn’t moved at all since first woke up. How long are the days on this world anyway? He tries to remember, but the number flits away, out of his reach.
“Great,” he tells himself again. It isn’t like there is anyone else around to talk to. “You have a head injury and you’re trying to make decisions that will be vital to your continued survival. Good luck with that.”
He can’t see anything around that seems to be of any use. A quick search of his pockets yields his sunglasses (thank God for that), a couple of powerbars and some field dressings. His shoulder is throbbing mercilessly but it doesn’t feel dislocated. There’s a fair bit of swelling though, and when he prods the front of the shoulder, over the clavicle, he can feel a raised bump that hurts like hell when his fingers skims over it. Broken collarbone, most likely. Well, this is going to be fun.
“No time like the present,” he mutters, turns his back on the burning compound, and sets off in the direction of the gate.
Part 2
Author: Zinnith
Recipient:
sgamadison for the sheppard_hc Summer Exchange.Rating: PG-13
Warning: None that I can think of.
Word Count: ~ 20 000
Spoilers: Set between The Kindred and The Last Man.
Summary: Teyla is missing. Rodney grows more distant for every day. Nothing has gone right in John's life lately. On top of all his other problems, it looks like he's going to have to take a little stroll through the desert.
Author's note: For
sgamadison, who only deserves the best. I hope this is good enough. Many thanks to bluespirit_star for the quick and excellent beta. All remaining mistakes are my own. Prompt at the end of the story!AO3 link
John is alone in the bed when he wakes up. He feels disoriented and no more rested than when he fell asleep... how long ago? It can’t have been more than an hour or so. He wants nothing more than to go back to sleep, preferably for a couple of days. Just bury himself under the covers and let the rest of the damn world go on without him for a while. Maybe when he wakes up, everything will be better.
It’s not likely. He has to admit that he probably hasn’t slept as much as he ought lately, but every time he manages to get a few hours of rest, he wakes up feeling even worse. Teyla is still missing and he doesn’t want to sleep away valuable time that he could have spent looking for her instead.
He’s in Rodney’s room, which is probably part of the reason for the strange feeling of displacement. He doesn’t usually fall asleep after; it’s far too risky. A bleary glance at the clock tells him that he needs to get up while it’s still early enough that sneaking out back to his own quarters won’t raise any uncomfortable questions.
But to do that, he needs to start by getting out of bed. If only it wasn’t so hard to move. The sheets are wrinkled and wrapped around his legs and it takes a moment for him to disentangle himself. The room is dark, except for the blueish light of Rodney’s laptop screen.
Rodney’s sitting hunched over the desk, head resting in his hands. At first, John thinks that he’s fallen asleep in front of the computer, but when he shoves the bedcover out of the way and swings his legs over the side, Rodney straightens up and turns around.
“Hey,” he says. He sounds rough and completely exhausted and John suddenly feels incredibly guilty for falling asleep when Rodney so clearly needs it just as much.
John rubs his eyes but they still feel heavy and gritty. “Sorry for...” Sleeping while you work your ass off as usual, he doesn’t say. Instead he motions to the bed and the tangled sheets. “You should’ve woken me up.”
Rodney swivels around on his chair, leans forward with his elbows on his knees. He’s showered and he’s dressed in sweatpants and a fresh t-shirt. John wants nothing more than to drag him back into bed, curl up behind his back and bury his face in his neck, losing himself in the scent of hypoallergenic soap and clean skin
“You looked tired,” Rodney says and then glances back over his shoulder, to the laptop that’s still running on the desk. “I had, um, I had some work I needed to get done before the mission tomorrow and...” he trails off.
John grabs a sheet and wraps it around his waist while he hunts down his clothes that ended up all over the floor earlier, suddenly protective of his own bare skin. He can count the times they’ve had sex this past few weeks on one hand and when they do, it’s always quick and frantic, like they need to get if over with as fast as possible before someone catches them having a moment to themselves. John closes his eyes as an image of Teyla springs unbidden to his mind. She looks disapproving in a way she rarely does in real life. He chases it away, finds his pants, and fumbles them on.
“What are you working on?” he asks Rodney while he looks for his socks. He’s sure he had two of them when he got here.
Rodney gets a deer-in-the-headlights expression and quickly turns around to shut the laptop. “Nothing important, really, just... stuff. You know. Stuff that needs to get done. Are you, um, leaving?”
“Yeah,” John answers and finds the other sock. He’s pretty sure he knows what Rodney’s been doing, but that is a conversation he doesn’t want to have right now. “Early day tomorrow. Who knows, we might even find something.”
His attempt at positive thinking falls flat to the floor. Rodney stands up and rubs his palms on the legs of his pants. “I’m, I’m headed for the lab. Something I have to check up, and, and, there’s this project, very important.”
It’s almost painful to watch him stutter through the explanation and the lies - John knows where he’s going and it’s not the lab. But that’s one more thing they don’t talk about.
“Okay,” he says, pretending he believes Rodney. “Get some sleep after that, okay? I need you sharp tomorrow.”
“I will, I promise. And you too, by the way. You should sleep, I mean.”
“Yeah, I guess. So. See you tomorrow?”
“Absolutely.” Rodney rubs his hands together, like he’s trying to work up some enthusiasm, but he only ends up looking nervous and uncomfortable. “Bright and early, ready to go explore Tatooine!”
The Star Wars reference gets the faint smile it deserves. Rodney leans in for a kiss, hesitating, and John allows their lips to brush together, just a quick peck. He’s pretty sure he won’t be able to stop himself if either of them goes for more. These brief stolen moments are the most he can allow himself right now. It doesn’t matter how much he wants to grab Rodney and deepen the kiss, wants to stay the night for once, lose himself in Rodney’s body and forget how shitty everything is. They won’t find Teyla that way.
Rodney heads for the lab, where he will double back once John is out of sight and sneak down to the stasis room instead. John goes back to his room where he will lie most of the night and stare at the ceiling, mulling over all the mistakes he’s made lately.
They have to find something tomorrow. It’s been too long without any good news and sooner or later something, someone, is going to break.
* * *
“Oh, wonderful,” Rodney says. “A desert. Michael couldn’t have chosen a planet with a little less carcinogenic climate for his hideout?”
John looks out over the landscape. The gate sits on top of a steep slope and below it is only brownish-red sand as far as the eye can see. The air is shimmering with heat, heavy and hard to breathe. ”I hope you brought enough sunscreen, buddy.”
“Sure the jumpers won’t work?” Ronon asks, glaring at the inhospitable terrain like it has offered him a personal insult.
“Oh, sure they will, I just spent half an hour of the mission briefing explaining in great detail exactly why the atmosphere here will wreak absolute havoc on the navigational systems as a great big joke!” Rodney shoots back. “Seriously, do you not get enough sleep during the night? I know I don’t, and even I can manage to stay awake for a simple meeting.”
John sighs and wishes for the millionth time that Teyla was here. Then again, if they knew where Teyla was, there would be no reason for this trip in the first place. “Come on, guys. Let’s do this. Rodney, you said we wouldn’t have to walk?”
“Do you think I would be here if we had to walk?” Rodney says testily. “I like my handsome visage melanoma free, thank you very much.” He studies his tablet and then scans the ground in front of the gate. “I have no idea why the ancients decided to build this outpost in the middle of the desert, but at least they were good enough to provide us with transportation. It should be right here somewhere...”
Rodney steps away from the gate, uses his foot to sweep away some of the sand and then crouches down to brush the dirt off a slightly raised plate on the ground. “Ah, here it is. Now I just have to find...” He pushes the plate down. “...the mechanism. There we are!”
Somewhere underground there's a faint click and a large portion of the ground in front of Rodney gives off a blueish glow, barely discernible in the bright sunlight. The sand is swept away to reveal a metal square lined with ancient writing set in the ground.
“It’s a transport platform!” Rodney crows triumphantly. “It’s actually of a similar design to the transporters back in Atlantis, only this one is only connected to two specific places. There’s one platform here and another one at the outpost. It should activate once we step up on it.”
“You sure about that?” Ronon asks, eyeing the platform suspiciously.
Rodney stands up and tucks his tablet back inside his jacket. His shoulders do a nervous little shrug, apparently without his leave. “Well, according to the database, that is what should happen. Bearing in mind that the Ancients haven’t been here for ten thousand years, and the last person to use the platform might very well have been Michael...”
“You go first,” Ronon says.
“Me? Excuse me? Why should I have to go first? I was just going to suggest that you...,”
”I'm going first,” John interrupts. If the transporter turns out to be malfunctioning, he's the one who should take the risk. “Let’s focus here, okay guys? This is the best lead we have to finding Teyla.”
Both Rodney and Ronon look at him and then at each other and away, the bickering abruptly finished. John closes his eyes for a brief moment and takes a deep breath, wishing again that Teyla was here. Nothing works right without her. They’re wearing on each other, nothing in between to smooth the sharp edges. Rodney is always irritable, but has become almost impossible to live with lately. Ronon seems to devote all his time to turning silence, violence and intimidation into an art form. And John... John doesn’t know what he is. He feels lost, full of doubt, like he’s making all the wrong decisions. The team is lopsided, all frantic activity and the desperate need to push on and no restraint to shore them up.
“Might be nothing,” Ronon says, breaking the short silence. “It’s a long shot.” All that led them here was a whispered rumour and a vague memory Carson - the clone - no, Carson, dammit, had managed to relay before they had been forced to put him into stasis.
John quickly shuts that train of thought down. “Right now, it’s the only shot we have,” he says. “Okay, I'm going for it.”
With the transporters back in Atlantis, you just enter at one point and exit at another without even feeling the effects. This ride isn’t nearly as smooth. The moment John sets foot on the platform, it’s like he can feel his body actually being picked apart and put back together again, all in the wink of an eye. It’s a deeply disturbing feeling and he can’t stop a shudder when they’re through at the other side and steps down from the corresponding platform.
“Whoa. That was different.” He steps down to the floor and keys his radio. ”It's safe, guys. Come on through.”
A moment later, Rodney and Ronon are standing on the platform. Ronon looks a little wigged out at the experience and Rodney is busy patting arms and legs, seemingly making sure all his body parts has made the journey.
They have materialised at one end of what looks like an empty hallway. It’s dark and John lets the light of his P-90 sweep over the interior. There are two doors, one at each end of the room. When he reaches out with his mind he can feel a warm familiar humming, similar to that of Atlantis. This is different though, weaker and patchier, like it comes and goes in waves. John can’t quite shake the feeling that there’s something wrong with this place, but it’s too insubstantial to put words on.
“No life signs,” Rodney reports, holding the LSD out for John to see. “It doesn’t mean there won’t be any hibernating Wraith of course. I don’t have to remind you of our track record with deserts, do I?”
John steps over to one of the doors. “Don’t worry, McKay,” he says. “If we run into any Super Wraiths, I promise we’ll go right back home.”
The door mechanism is similar to the ones in Atlantis. John runs a hand over it and it slides open with a weird scraping sound. On the other side is sand, sand and even more sand. The heat is oppressive, even here in the shelter of the building.
John closes the door again and turns around. “Ronon, try the other one.”
The second door opens with a similar scraping sound, like sand from outside has gotten into the mechanisms.
“Are they supposed to do that?” John asks Rodney.
“Ten thousand years old, remember? It’s not like they’ve had a little ancient custodian hanging around since then, oiling the hinges for your comfort, Colonel.”
More darkness lies behind this door. As they step through John reaches out again and thinks, ‘A little light, please?’ Nothing happens at first, so he does it again, concentrating a little harder this time. Fluorescent lighting comes to life, flickers in and out a couple of times, and then holds steady. It’s a dim glow at best and only serves to enhance the spooky feeling of the abandoned building.
At least there's enough light to see by. They have just entered a room with walls lined with consoles. In the middle is a deep hole in the floor, surrounded by a perfect circle of a steel railing. There are two other doors that seem to lead deeper into the building. John steps up to the railing and peers down, but there’s nothing but deep, black darkness to be seen.
“What were they doing here anyway?” he asks.
Rodney is already digging in his backpack for equipment to connect his tablet to one of the consoles. “According to the database, they were drilling for something. The records are a little unclear, God forbid Ancient scientists could actually keep proper lab notes or anything. In any case, the project failed and they closed the place down.” He picks a console, hooks up the tablet and then draws a finger through the deep layer of dust and sand on top of it. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s been here for a long time,” he says. “I hate to be Mr Negativity here, but I don't think this is going to lead anywhere.”
Seeing the state of the building, John has to admit that it’s not likely. There hadn’t been much hope to begin with, but it feels like Teyla slips a little bit farther out of their reach with each dead end. “Let’s go check out the rest of it,” he tells Ronon, swallowing the disappointment.
They leave Rodney to sift through the station’s database and go to make sure the rest of the building is clear. One of the doors from the main room opens into another hallway lined with several rooms. It looks like it used to be the residential area. There are a couple of bedrooms and bathrooms, a dining area, a large room that appears to have been used as a gym. Everything is empty, with no signs of having been disturbed for the past few millennia.
The other door leads to a large number of storage rooms. Most of them are empty, others are full of junk, the kind of things you leave behind when you’re moving out. There is a lot of undisturbed dust here too, swirling around their feet as they move. Ronon picks up some kind of broken-looking ancient device and turns it over in one large hand.
“You think McKay’s gonna want to take any of this back
John shrugs. “Ask him. I don’t even know what that is.”
Ronon shakes the thing and frowns at the rattling sound it makes before he puts it back down where he found it.
They go through all the rooms and closets they can find but encounter nothing but dust and disrepair. John sighs and waves goodbye to the little glimmer of hope he’s been carrying around since they stepped through the gate.
“There’s nothing here,” Ronon says, echoing his thoughts. “Hasn’t been for a long time.”
“Looks that way. Back to square one, I guess.”
John feels like hitting something, kicking and screaming. Now that he comes to think of it, this would be the perfect place. He can almost imagine what it would feel like to turn one of these junk rooms upside down and tear it apart. A little therapeutic violence. And won’t that make him look like the poster child of emotional health?
“You okay?”
John hesitates. Ronon has clearly held off asking until they were alone for a reason, to give John a chance to give an honest answer if he wants to. He’s tried to keep up appearances since Teyla was taken, to not let on how horribly lost and confused and scared he is every hour of every day. There’s no one around he can really talk to. McKay is busy enough with his own pain and the ever-present strain of keeping the city running, and Keller and Carter aren’t quite family yet. Teyla has always been the one who seems to know exactly how he feels without the need for any bothersome words. John should have remembered that Ronon is a lot brighter and a lot more perceptive than most people give him credit for, and it’s tempting, so very tempting to give in and let the mask fall for a second. But if he does, he’s not sure that he’ll be able to put it back on afterwards.
“Yeah,” he says eventually. “I’m fine.”
“Hm.” Ronon sounds unconvinced. “What about McKay?”
What about him? John isn’t sure. Rodney hasn’t said anything, but he’s not exactly his usual self either. Losing Teyla has hit them all hard, and then on top of that, they found Carson just to lose him all over again. They don’t speak about it, but John knows that when he’s not spending his nights sleeping draped over a bench in his lab, he spends them in the stasis room, carrying on rambling conversations with the frozen image of Carson in the chamber. He’s certainly not spending them with John, not lately, and John isn’t sure if he even minds all that much. It’s not like he needs any more distractions and Rodney would probably be better off without him anyway.
“I guess he’s... he’s holding up good,” John says. “Considering.”
Except for all the databases full of medical research John has caught him going through over and over again, the kind of material he usually snorts at and dismisses as voodoo. Yeah, McKay is holding up just fine.
The team is breaking apart and there isn’t a damn thing John can do about it. It has been weeks already and they have wasted their time hunting ghosts and following trails gone cold ages ago. Dammit, why did they have to go for the retrovirus experiment in the first place? It doesn’t matter how you look at it; Michael is the Atlantis expedition's creation. If not for them, he wouldn’t exist. John should’ve put a stop to it. He should’ve done a lot of things, starting with not waking up the Wraith.
“You’re taking on a lot, Sheppard,” Ronon says. He puts a hand on John’s shoulder, large and warm. Steady. John has to fight hard to resist leaning into the touch, just for a moment. “You don’t have to do it alone.”
John swallows, closed his eyes to stop them from burning (too much dust in the air, that’s all) and tries to get a hold on his emotions, stuff them back down where they belong. “I know,” he manages, finding to his surprise that his voice sounds almost normal. “Thanks, big guy.”
“No trouble.”
“So, we done with the manly heart-to-heart talk?”
“I think we are.”
“Good. Let’s get out of here.”
They make one last sweep of the storage area just to be sure they haven’t missed anything, but the place is almost tauntingly empty. John can’t quite shake the feeling of wrongness that has been with him since they arrived. It’s stronger now, the walls and the floors almost vibrating with it. He taps his radio, suddenly worried over how long it’s been since they heard anything from Rodney. They probably shouldn’t have left him alone.
“McKay? Did you find anything yet?”
There is a brief pause and then Rodney’s distracted voice echoes in his ear. “Don’t you think I would’ve told you if I had? Now shush, I’m working here.”
“Yeah, yeah. We’re heading back to you.”
The relief of knowing that Rodney’s okay is shortlived. “Um... guys?” McKay’s voice is a lot more anxious this time. “Could you maybe hurry it up a little. I think... no, I’m almost a hundred percent sure that we’re going to want to get out of here very soon.”
John and Ronon exchange a look and John reaches for his radio. “How come?”
“There’s some kind of power buildup, I don’t know where it’s coming from, but it’s getting worse fast. I’m working to reverse it right now, but just in case, could you... oh, no.”
There’s silence, save for the sound of Rodney’s fingers tapping frantically on a keyboard.
“McKay?” John prompts, breaking into a light run. Ronon follows right at his heels.
“Yes, yes, still here. Oh, crap. Get back here now, Colonel!”
It only takes them minutes to get back to the control room, but it’s the longest few minutes John can remember. Halfway there, the floor really does start to vibrate, like a miniature earthquake. It feels like the entire building is trembling, along with John’s teeth. Something is seriously wrong. Dammit, John should have said something earlier, no matter how stupid it sounded. Story of his life.
When they arrive, Rodney is sweating and red in the face. He’s hurrying to disconnect all his equipment from the computer consoles while keeping one eye one a readout from one of the monitors. It’s too far away for John too see any details, but he knows enough to realise that all those red graphs can’t be good.
“What too you so long?” Rodney shouts, voice high and tight. He’s clearly struggling to keep his panic in check. “What did you do, go sightseeing? We only have a couple of minutes here.”
“Booby trap?” Ronon asks.
Rodney shakes his head and stuffs the laptop and the cables back into his backpack. “No, I don’t think so. It looks like a flaw in the design of the building, probably why it was abandoned in the first place. The energy output had to be monitored and adjusted manually, and when we came here and activated the systems, we inadvertently opened the floodgates, so to speak, and why are we standing here discussing this when any second now the whole place cold blow up?”
“The platform,” John decides, opening the door. “Come on.”
Rodney zips his bag shut and darts for the door. Ronon follows and John brings up the rear, throwing one last look at the control room. The floor is shaking now, like something huge and hungry is building underneath, and it makes it hard to keep his feet.
The control panel beside the door starts giving off blue sparks as they pass through it. The smell of ozone is heavy in the air and John feels the hairs on his arms and neck stand on edge. The transportation platform is crackling with energy. It looks far from safe to use, but they’re running out of time.
Rodney gets there first, stops short just on the edge of the platform and turns around. “Come on, come on, come on!”
The earth rumbles then and the entire installation shakes and shifts and John feels the floor disappear out from under his feet. He ends up on his hands and knees, disoriented for a second, before he manages to get up again and keep running. Sparks are flying around him from the door and from the transporter and it hits him like a punch in the gut that he’s not going to make it in time.
“Go!” he shouts to Ronon. “Get out of here!”
Ronon turns his head, takes in the distance between John and the platform, the control pad that’s beginning to give off smoke, and the next moment he’s grabbed McKay by the shoulders and dragged him bodily onto the transporter platform. It activates instantly and the two of them flicker in and out of existence a few times, like the picture on a badly tuned TV.
The last thing John sees before they disappear altogether is Rodney’s face, mouth open in a wordless scream, arm stretched out toward him. He’s so close their fingers are almost touching. The next moment they’re gone. The control pad sputters, the platform goes dark.
After that, all John remembers is fire.
* * *
The smell of smoke wakes him. It stings his eyes and nose and he wants nothing more than to sink back into the darkness, but something keeps pushing insistently on the edge of his consciousness.
Teyla.
Desert planet. They had been looking for Teyla, and then... it’s hazy.
John blinks, tries to cough some of the smoke out of his lungs and clear his eyes. Moving hurts, too much for him to just ignore it and tuck it away in the back of his mind. His ears are ringing, his head is about to turn itself inside out, and something seems to be wrong with his right shoulder. It throbs with a sharp pain and turning over on his back nearly makes him black out again. He stays there for a moment or two, tries to catch his breath without starting to cough again. Then he manages to drag himself into a sitting position, using his good arm for support. His head spins and the tears are streaming from his eyes. When he raises his head, he finds out where all the smoke is coming from.
The compound is on fire. John can see the flames lick out of the entrance he can vaguely remember throwing himself though... how long ago? Minutes? Hours? The sun is still high in the sky so he can’t have been out for long. The sand around him is littered with metal scrap, burned pieces of ancient crystals, frayed wires, the twisted, scarred remains of a door panel. He remembers the control room, the shaking floor, McKay’s barely contained panic...
Shit, McKay.
John is on his feet before he even has time to consider how much it’s going to hurt to stand. Once upright, he has to close his eyes for a moment as his shoulder and arm explodes in agony. There is no time for that, he needs to get moving.
“Rodney!” he shouts, staggering closer to the burning building. “Ronon! You guys okay?”
There’s no answer. The heat hits him like a punch to the face. Trying to go back inside isn’t an option. Not that it would do much good anyway.
John screws his eyes shut against the smoke, tries to think. His head is pounding like a jackhammer and it feels wobbly on his neck, like it’s about to fall right off his shoulders. When he raises his hand to the back of his head, he finds a sore bump. His fingers comes away bloody. Something must have hit him.
He can only hope that Rodney and Ronon got through okay. There’s no way to tell. It’s doubtful if the transporter was still functional and even if it was, the platform on John’s end is inside the building that is currently on fire.
“Let’s face it, John,” he mutters to himself. “You’re pretty much screwed here.”
Okay. Time to make a plan. He can’t stay here, the heat from the fire is quickly becoming unbearable and he has already inhaled more smoke than is probably good for him.
He tries to remember the geographic data, digs around in his fractured memory until the facts float up to the surface. The terrain between the gate and the outpost is all desert, deep wadis and wind-worn cliffs. Under normal circumstances, with proper gear and supplies, a hike like that would be unpleasant. Now, injured as he is, it’s going to be a nightmare.
It isn’t like he has much choice. Except for the burning wreckage of the ancient outpost, there is no shelter around to be seen. If Rodney and Ronon got through the transporter okay and were able to return to Atlantis, they are probably mounting a rescue mission right now. If not...
Shit. He can’t wait. He has to get back. Maybe their signatures are still stored in the transporter’s buffer, maybe Zelenka and Carter can find a way to get them out.
John steps away from the building and slogs through the sand, kicking at the shrapnel from the explosion as he goes. The sun hasn’t moved at all since first woke up. How long are the days on this world anyway? He tries to remember, but the number flits away, out of his reach.
“Great,” he tells himself again. It isn’t like there is anyone else around to talk to. “You have a head injury and you’re trying to make decisions that will be vital to your continued survival. Good luck with that.”
He can’t see anything around that seems to be of any use. A quick search of his pockets yields his sunglasses (thank God for that), a couple of powerbars and some field dressings. His shoulder is throbbing mercilessly but it doesn’t feel dislocated. There’s a fair bit of swelling though, and when he prods the front of the shoulder, over the clavicle, he can feel a raised bump that hurts like hell when his fingers skims over it. Broken collarbone, most likely. Well, this is going to be fun.
“No time like the present,” he mutters, turns his back on the burning compound, and sets off in the direction of the gate.
Part 2
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-01 11:43 am (UTC)I'm so looking forward to reading this again - it's absolutely fantastic!
Hee! Another lovely story to take on the plane with me. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-01 12:01 pm (UTC)I can't wait until tonight when I get to read all these great stories. But first, I'm going to spend some time in the sun (and try not to burn myself as crispy as John...)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-01 02:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-01 02:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-01 11:51 am (UTC)This will have to wait for when I get home tonight to read and fully appreciate it--but I am so looking forward to it--thank you!
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-01 11:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-02 01:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-01 04:58 pm (UTC)And already I'm like "Oh! Oh!" because there's the Team being fractured and unbalanced without Teyla (and it so *would*) and everyone walling themselves off in little islands of pain, and *Ronon* reaching out to John but John's just 'fine'. And a hike through the desert *shudders* with a broken collarbone, not knowing if Ronon and Rodney are still alive!
And this:
“Great,” he tells himself again. It isn’t like there is anyone else around to talk to. “You have a head injury and you’re trying to make decisions that will be vital to your continued survival. Good luck with that.”
That is so *John* it makes my heart clench. *beams and runs off to next chapter*