CONSANGUINITY -- Part One
SUMMARY: When the team seeks shelter from violent weather during a mission, Sheppard comes out the loser during an encounter with the local wildlife. Shep whump. Team-fic / Friendship
Notes: Set in mid-S3; vague references early S3 eps
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consanguinity
- noun 1. A close affinity or connection.
From the latin: com- "together" + sanguineus "of blood."
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"Oh no..."
McKay frowned as he glanced between the hand-held scanner and the ominous dark grey clouds that were fast approaching.
"No no, I do not like the look of this."
Sheppard's brow furrowed only slightly when he glanced skyward, as he and the team trudged up the steep, wooded hillside. The terrain here in this region of P3X-055 was more like a small mountain, part of the foothills to a majestic, snowcapped mountain range beyond.
He took off his sunglasses and slipped them into a pocket of his tac vest. "So we might get a little wet. You're not going to melt, Rodney."
"I'm not talking about a little rain shower. The electrostatic buildup in that storm front is growing by the minute. It's already screwing up the readings. I think it's going to get nasty."
"Define 'nasty'."
"Try a lightning storm, and maybe a monsoon at the same time. We should go back to the jumper."
"It's too far." Sheppard looked up to the top of the rocky outcrop. "We're well past the half-way point. If we need to, looks like there are some caves up there where we can get out of the rain for a while. In the meantime, get out your rain-gear."
"We need to. Now," McKay said as he opened his pack, fishing out the black plastic rain slicker. "We'd better hurry up!"
"You're the one that's been slowing us down," Ronon grumbled.
As the wind kicked up, the first bolts of lightning began to spider-web along the clouds, thunder rumbling ominously.
"It would have been nice if we'd had some advance warning a storm was coming," Sheppard said, looking pointedly at McKay.
"What am I now, the weatherman?"
"Yes, you're the science guy; you're supposed to keep me informed about these kinds of things."
"Hello? Blue skies when we came through the gate...? How am I supposed to know the atmosphere was this volatile? These Ancient devices, they're not tricorders, you know, that can tell me every little thing about the planet."
"I'm surprised you haven't built something like it already, just so you could call it 'a tricorder'," Sheppard smirked.
"Yea, well maybe I will, one of these days... Kirk," McKay said.
Sheppard just shook his head.
Ronon moved closer to Teyla. "What are they talking about?"
"I have no idea," she said.
The rain was falling hard by the time they reached the rocky outcrop, making it more difficult to struggle upwards as the firm ground beneath their feet turned to mud.
They all leaned against the rocks as they took shelter beneath an overhang, breathing hard and shaking off the rain.
As Sheppard moved along the rock ledge, nearing the entrance to a cave, he slowed, looking at the LSD. "I'm not entirely sure we're alone up here."
Ronon moved forward to draw even with Sheppard, his pulse pistol raised. "Wraith?"
He shook his head. "It's hard to get a reading, but I think it's an animal. A big animal, if it's registering on this thing." He pulled off his rain gear and raised his gun, looking around warily.
"Oh great, that's just what we need," McKay moaned. The rain was coming down in sheets now, the wind occasionally pushing the rain into them, drenching them further. He and Teyla clutched their weapons. "Maybe we should keep going and find an empty cave!"
"I can't tell for sure where it is exactly." Sheppard shook the malfunctioning LSD in frustration, then shoved it into a pocket on his vest. "Might be just fine inside, and the animal is on the other side of the ridge."
Lightning cracked directly overhead, close enough to raise the hairs on their bodies, and they all flinched. "We gotta get under cover!" He turned on the P-90's light, and he and Ronon ventured forward. "You two stay there; we'll check the place out."
They moved together cautiously, staying close, sweeping the darkened confines of the large, high-walled cave with their lights for a few minutes.
"Looks okay," Sheppard finally said, relaxing a little. "I think we'll be safe here for --- "
As he spoke, he heard an ominous growl from behind and above him.
"Oh crap...," he muttered as he whirled around, raising the muzzle of the P-90 higher. But the thing was too fast, moving in a blur, all teeth and claws, and Sheppard yelped as it slammed into him, knocking him to the ground. The cave lit up with weapons fire as Ronon fired, and he himself managed to squeeze off a few rounds.
The animal bellowed in rage and pain, Ronon's blaster knocking it back and away from Sheppard, and Ronon fired again several times, killing the beast, and it slumped to the ground in a corner. The cave went silent except for the wind and rain howling outside.
"What the hell was that!?" McKay's voice came a few moments later from outside.
"Colonel┘? Ronon?" Teyla called. "Are you all right?"
Ronon stood over the large creature, pulse blaster pointed at its head as he kicked it a few times. "Wait...!" He swept the space again, firing a few shots up into other possible hiding spaces, bringing down dust and shards of rock
"Clear!" he called out when he was sure it was safe. "It's dead."
Teyla came quickly into sight, P-90 raised, and saw Sheppard lying on the ground, Ronon standing protectively between him and the slain animal.
"Colonel!" She hurried to his side, dropping her weapon and falling to her knees.
The breath had been knocked out of him when he went down, and Sheppard was just now getting it back, the stars in his eyes fading slowly. But when he tried to sit up and raise his weapon, he found that his right arm would not cooperate, a wet warmth pooling around and under his shoulder and his left leg. Pain did not register yet, only dull amazement and confusion.
Looking down in the dim light, it surprised him to find blood welling out of the four long slashes in the right side of his chest and arm.
When the beast had come at him, he had thought that he had evaded the massive paw that went for his face. But in fact, he had only avoided having his throat ripped out. Instead, its claws had raked across his upper chest, shoulder and arm, opening him up from collarbone to bicep, the shredded tac vest perhaps having prevented an even deeper wound.
The tattered fabric along his left hip and thigh were cause for concern also. He reached down with his uninjured arm, gingerly touching the torn cloth and finding the torn flesh beneath, his fingers coming away thick with blood.
"I think it got me...," he said dazedly, looking up into Teyla's worried eyes.
"Yes, it did, Colonel. Now lie still, and let us see what your injuries are."
McKay was crouching at his side now while Ronon continued to stand over the animal.
"Make sure it's the only one, that it didn't have a mate or cubs or something!" McKay yelled, eyes darting around warily, holding his 9-mil in front of him
"I already did," Ronon said.
McKay glanced down at Sheppard. "I told you we should have tried someplace else!"
Sheppard grimaced. "Yea, in hindsight, I'd have to agree with that."
He looked over at the animal, which resembled one of the big cat species on Earth, a sort of cross between a mountain lion and tiger, with shaggy tan fur and wide brown stripes. The cat's own blood was dark, almost black, but its muzzle and claws were stained with bright red blood.
His blood.
"Crap."
"Rodney," Teyla said, "He needs a doctor. Call the rest of the team at the gate."
⌠Right," McKay said, still clutching the gun as he scrambled back to the mouth of the cave, calling out on the radio.
"How bad is it?" Sheppard asked her as she continued to examine him, using a knife to slit open his sleeve all the way to the shoulder, ripping the fabric further to expose the wounds.
"I am not a doctor, but I believe it is serious."
He nodded. He could feel the shock and adrenaline starting to wear off, the pain beginning to make itself known.
"But you are going to be all right, I am sure of it," she said, her voice calm and reassuring.
There were additional slashes across the front of the vest, but the Kevlar within and the equipment in his pockets had prevented anything going through to his torso, as they discovered when Ronon helped her ease Sheppard out of his vest and jacket, slitting open the black T-shirt beneath so his bare, bloodied chest was exposed..
Her fingers probed at the gashes in his shoulder, separating some fabric that had been pulled into the wound, and he hissed in pain, tears forming in his eyes.
"I'm sorry," she said, backing off, moving to the other side to look at his leg, ripping the side of his pants open too.
He tried to move, to see what the damage was down there, but instantly regretted it, gasping as pain flared in his shoulder.
"Stay still, Colonel, please."
As he gritted his teeth, she grabbed her pack, starting to rip her extra jacket into strips. "I need bandages, cloth, anything to stop the bleeding," she told Ronon, who started doing the same.
McKay came back, rifling through his own pack and the small, woefully inadequate first aid kit. He held up a tiny foil pouch of antiseptic, rolling his eyes as he tossed it to Teyla. "Oh, that's a lot of help," he quipped. Between the four of them, they had 6 military field dressings, some extra gauze, a small roll of tape, the antiseptic, two Tylenol, an alcohol wipe, a couple of band-aids and two small thermal blankets.
"What about the radio?" Sheppard asked. "Are they coming?"
McKay averted his eyes. "I can't get through to anyone. It's the storm -- the atmosphere is too electrically charged."
They all stilled, eyes taking in McKay's very worried expression.
Sheppard swallowed hard. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, of course I'm sure! You think I didn▒t try a dozen times?" he snapped. "The radio's useless right now."
Sheppard shook his head slightly, tapping the comm in his ear. "This is Sheppard to Jumper 1, do you copy...?" Static crackled in his ear as lighting and thunder continued to flash continuously. "We have a medical emergency, do you copy...?" He tried several more times but there was only static on the line, and finally he tapped it off.
"Terrific," he muttered as he closed his eyes for a few moments.
The team continued to work in earnest to stop the bleeding. The field dressings were used, pressure was applied, and the cloth strips were wrapped around his arm and shoulder in addition. But blood continued to flow, turning everything crimson.
McKay was grimacing as he held the compress down on the thigh wounds where the beast had apparently started to take a bite out of him. Fortunately, it did not seem to have had time to fully close its jaws, but the punctures from the long incisors and deep ragged gashes from the other sharp teeth remained.
"It didn't get the artery, did it?" Sheppard asked, knowing full well that if the femoral artery had been cut, most likely he was a dead man, that he would bleed out before help ever came.
"No. No, I just can't stand the sight of blood."
Other things began to worry Sheppard. "It didn't get...you know... anything else... vital... down there, did it? It's just my leg, right?"
"What?" McKay looked confused, then flushed slightly. "No, no┘ you're, uhm, intact┘ down there."
"Thank god," he sighed.
"He needs Doctor Beckett." Teyla was talking to Ronon and McKay as she applied pressure to his shoulder. "We don't have the supplies we need, not for this."
"I know that, but the storm is too intense. The radios don't have the power to cut through something like this," McKay said.
"We must do something. We cannot wait for the storm to pass."
"I'll go back on foot," Ronon announced as he stood up. "And I'll bring the doctor back from the gate."
"Wha -- ? No way!" Sheppard said. "It's too dangerous out there. This much rain in this terrain means flash floods. That ravine we crossed will be a river by now, not to mention the damn lightning."
Ronon shook his head. "We're wasting time talking. I'm not going to sit here and wait. Besides, it's my fault. I should have shot it before it could reach you. I was slow."
"Hell, so was I," Sheppard said. "But it was hiding up on that ledge where we couldn't see it -- it's not your fault. So just wait until it lets up a little out there."
Ronon continued to get ready to go, leaving behind anything that was not absolutely essential, including his long heavy coat.
"Ronon, it's too much of a risk," Teyla said.
"I'm ordering you not to go. At least give McKay some time to fix the radio," Sheppard said.
"Sorry, Colonel. I can't sit here and do nothing. You don't need three people to hold your hand."
"Wait, what if there are more of those - those mountain lion things around?" McKay said.
"Then shoot them," Ronon said as he headed out.
"Ronon!" Sheppard yelled, with more strength than he could really spare, trying to push himself up with his good arm, ignoring his body's protests. But Ronon did not look back, disappearing, and Sheppard swore as he fell back. "Dammit!"
Silence fell for a few moments as the three looked at each other.
"Well now┘ I gotta say that nearly becoming an afternoon snack wasn't exactly what I had in mind for this little trip," Sheppard quipped.
"Since when do things go according to plan around here?" McKay said. He looked at Teyla. "Aren't we supposed to be doing something else? You know, like try to make him more comfortable?"
"It is probably best not to move him too much. But yes, we might have to wait for a while; we should try to make it easier for him."
"I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't talk like I'm not here." Sheppard shifted experimentally, and even though everything hurt like hell, he was not incapacitated, not yet. "I can move -- just go slow, ok?"
They did shift him around a bit, moving him closer to the mouth of the cave where the ground was smoother and there was more light. His clothes were loosened so he could breathe easier, and his holster removed, with his belt used to bind the leg wound more securely. They discovered there were a few more claw marks on his right leg, shallow wounds that were not life threatening.
But it just contributed to the overall misery, and he gritted his teeth as they dressed those too before helping him sit up long enough to drape his jacket over his shoulders again to try to keep him warm. Then they spread a rain poncho on the ground, placing one thermal blanket on top before shifting him onto it. When he had lain down, they covered him with a second thermal blanket and a poncho with Ronon▒s coat on top.
He managed to be stoic about the pain -- not wanting to appear weak in front of them -- enduring their attempts to help him as best he could.
They used a rounded, smooth rock under his knee to elevate the injured leg, and Sheppard held his hand down over the top of his thigh, helping keep the bandages in place. Settling into the pillow Teyla had made out of a backpack, he closed his eyes gratefully, all the movement tiring him out quickly and making him realize just how bad off he was.
"Colonel." His eyes opened, slowly focusing on her. "Please, try to stay awake if you can." She dabbed at a small cut on his jaw with a scrap of fabric, wiping away the blood that had trickled down his neck.
"I'll try," he sighed, looking over at McKay who was busy working on trying to make radio contact again. "I'll be ok," he said to her, trying to sound more optimistic than he felt. "This is the most normal injury I've had in a while. Iratus bugs, Wraith feedings, the retro-virus -- I've survived them, so this isn't such a big deal. And it could have been worse -- could've gotten knocked back into the rocks and split my head open."
"Of course you will be okay." She squeezed his hand. He shivered slightly and she asked, "Are you cold?"
He nodded. "A little. It's just so damp." The temperature had also dropped noticeably since they had first arrived at the gate, the warm summer day turning blustery and chilly.
"I'll see what I can do about starting a fire," she said.
TBC