oOo
Dust still misted the thin beam of the flashlight that he worked by.
He dabbed with the cotton, turning its pure white to red.
The scratches were superficial, except for one: a deep cut to the palm, dark looking and oozing. From the water bottle he dribbled a tiny amount of water over it. Then, pressing a pad to the wound, he carefully bandaged around and around, his own hands shaking.
There had been no sound from the depths of the rock fall, while he completed this task. Rodney felt like he was on auto-pilot. His head was fuzzy. There was no pain; after the initial crack on the head as the roof came down on them, he had known nothing until he had opened his eyes to darkness and dust and the colonel's hand lying still next to him. Desperately searching for a pulse and then for the rest of Sheppard, he quickly realised that only his friend's hand was exposed, the rest buried beneath tons of rock.
He tied off the small bandage, wiping his hands on his pants.
"McKay..?" Sheppard's voice sounded muffled and weak.
"Yes, still here..." Rodney shuffled nearer to the pile of rocks from which the voice had risen. He settled himself against the rocks and took John's hand carefully in his. It was cold.
"Shall I... say something profound?"
"Don't bother. Save your strength." Rodney gulped.
"McKay... I want to say... I've no regrets.. none of any kind... that's all."
The last part held a finality Rodney didn't like.
"Tell me... alright. How bad is it?" the scientist asked, voice tense, breaking slightly.
There was only silence.
"Just hold on... they're coming for us" he said, not knowing what the silence meant.
"I'm turning off the light, okay?" and Rodney held his breath for a moment, waiting for the reply that didn't come. Shifting his fingers he slid them round to Sheppard's wrist, relieved to still feel the pulse of life there.
He flicked off the flash light, plunging them once again into the inky darkness, stifling and relentless. Closing his eyes now, he felt a wave of utter hopelessness and he bit back a sob. Unconsciously, he had been rubbing gently at the hand in his, trying to pass on some warmth and comfort.
In his mind's eye he could see it: the fingers curled loosely around the palm, battered and bloody, wrapped in the white bandage.
A soldier's hand; the nails short-clipped and square. Not overly calloused, yet it had purpose etched in every line and defect. A hand very much like his own, in fact.
He had seen it so many times before, this man's hand:
...white-knuckled and sweaty, locked around his own wrist, as John held him, dangling, for long, agonising minutes before, finally, he'd found purchase with his feet and was able to scramble back up the cliff face;
...each finger outlined in red, as Sheppard forced a rolled-up shirt painfully into his shoulder with one hand, pulling around his chin with the other, saying, "I need you to focus, McKay."
...wrapped solidly around the handle of a gun, his face grimly determined to defend his people at all costs;
...laying gently across Teyla's forehead, holding a cooling cloth, as she mumbled and flinched through fevered dreams;
This man's hand, that had pushed him to safety, as the cave walls shook and rumbled, announcing their intention to fall.
"Hold on... " he whispered to that hand, "hold on..."
oOo
Just a little thing 'cos I'm feeling angsty...