"A Hundred Echoes" by Krissy Mae Anderson
Summary: Ack. I can't think of a coherent summary. Angst happens:-)
Rating: M-ish
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Spoilers: general season 2 spoilers up to "Aurora".
Disclaimer: Still not mine, alas!
Warnings: non-con (although not very graphic) somewhere down the road
Author's note: The idea for this fic came to me after I read yet another badly done non-con on Area 52, and was bitching to Waldo
that I was really tired of the Magical Healing Penis fics. The fic
title is taken from a quote from a book by Milan Kundera. It's not really betaed, so
feel free to yell at me if you spot any mistakes. It might take me a while to update this, since I am kinda iffy about SGA at the moment, and am in the middle of a move.
Acknowledgements: The most thanks goes to Waldo,
who was my cheerleader and sounding board for the outline of this fic
and who gave me many great plot suggestions. I would also like to thank Neth Dugan, jenra, shippygem, sapphocried and everyone else who has been badgered by me about the Evilfic.
Rodney was pissed.
For one, Teyla was kicking his ass in Tic Tac Toe. If the word would get out in Atlantis, he'd never live it down. Also, he was out of food, and if he couldn't find something to snack on in the next hour, he was definitely going to go into a hypoglycemic shock, and that wouldn't be pretty, not pretty at all. And lastly, it had been quite a while since they had been locked away in a small dimly lit room while the local warlord negotiated with Colonel Sheppard and Lieutenant Jensen. At least Rodney hoped they were negotiating. His stomach uttered a low wail of desperation and Teyla won another round. Rodney located a little piece of chocolate in his vest pocket and sucked on it, his brain now turned to the negotiations. The warlord, Maxim- Naxor- whatever his name, seemed sane enough, and maybe the Major- John- could persuade him they were just peaceful visitors. If anyone could do this, John certainly could. John could persuade anyone to do anything sometimes, Rodney thought, recalling the very memorable Friday night the week before. He never knew it was possible to use peanut butter in such perverse ways-
"-or? Doctor McKay?" Teyla's voice cut into Rodney's pleasurable flashback and he snapped back to reality, noticing that he was turning his last O into a smiley. Rodney dropped the pen, and his stomach growled again.
"Uh- Sorry, Teyla, my mind's elsewhere," he mumbled, trying to will his stomach to shut up. "Mind if we take a break?"
"Not at all," Teyla said pleasantly, and began practicing some kind of Athosian meditation. Rodney wished he could relax as well, but unfortunately he never learned any yoga back on Earth, and the thing that Teyla was doing was a little bit too complex to pick up by watching - so back to thinking it was. Rodney mentally cursed the culture of R9K-39F, which put anyone in the uniform (such as Lieutenant Travis Jensen, USMC, who barely knew his head from his ass and was only along because he knew a lot about shooting people and blowing up things) above the most brilliant mind of the century. Thankfully John was the one talking to Marx- Xerm- damn it, the guy's name just kept eluding him – along with Jensen; if Jensen would've been in charge they would have been fucked big time. Damn it, he missed Ford – he had been annoying at times, but he was funny, at least, and was at any rate somewhat more intelligent than the average Marine in Atlantis. Hopefully the negotiations wouldn't take too much longer, because it was the most damned boring room Rodney had been inside of in his entire life, and if he had to spend another couple of hours inside these four gray walls, he would crack up.
Rodney tried to think about the new theory Zelenka had been explaining to him at breakfast, but his brain complained about the lack of fuel and vetoed any scientific thoughts. Oh God, he was going to die of boredom, the greatest scientific mind in two galaxies extinguished by lack of food and intellectual stimulation. Teyla was fun to be with when stuff was going on and your ass needed saving, Rodney mused, but John was so much more fun to be trapped in a small dark room with. If guards were present, they could talk about such informative concepts as concurrent development of pants on different planets or argue about beer and sports. And if there were no guards – well, Rodney could think of much more pleasurable things to talk about. But John was off negotiating, and Teyla's toes were behind her ear, so the only source of entertainment left was to stare at the wall and try to count all the cracks.
The wall was not terribly exciting and Rodney's thoughts soon turned back to their captors. What was it with the Pegasus Galaxy and crazy aliens who dressed like SCA rejects? First the Genii, who made sure Rodney would never be able to view the Amish the same way again, and now the Irulians, who looked like refugees from a Shakespearian play... Unfortunately, just like the Genii, this motley crew possessed decidedly un-medieval weaponry, as the Atlantis team had discovered when they literally walked into a circle of Irulian warriors. There were about forty of them, and John had wisely decided not to shoot his way out, although Jensen seemed quite tempted. After reluctantly handing over their weapons, the Atlantis team had been taken to their current location, which was a rather large stone building that looked like it came from an Edward Gorey book.
Once there, they had been taken to Maxor, – that was it! – the warlord dude, who stood around and looked menacing for a while before doing the requisite evil villain speech about spies and traitors. John, as the unanimously elected enemy alien spokesperson, lied his ass off about their origin but was quite truthful about being part of a peaceful mission. Maxor didn't seem to believe him about the "peaceful" part, and immediately accused all four of them of being Turmian spies. After blank looks from all four of them Maxor eventually believed that they were not collaborating with yet another race of crazy warrior aliens, but didn't let them go. After more talking and a couple of glasses of something called ckor that tasted like rocket fuel with some solvents thrown in for a good measure, Maxor said that he would negotiate, but only with the warriors, gesturing dismissively towards Rodney. Rodney bristled at that and was about to say "What am I, furniture?" when John kicked him under the table, so Rodney kept his thoughts to himself and kicked John back.
It turned out that Teyla, as a woman, was also not considered a warrior by the Irulians, and thus was expected to leave along with Rodney. After giving Maxor her best "go impale yourself on something pointy" look, Teyla rose and walked to the door, with a morose Rodney following her. And thus, they ended up locked together in this room, waiting for negotiations to end and in Rodney's case, just being bored to tears. Rodney listened to his stomach's complaints for a while, then switched his attention to Teyla's truly impressive contortions, trying to convince himself that he needed to think positively – if everything would go well, he could be sleeping in his own soft bed tonight, instead of sitting in the damn chair that was probably giving him hemorrhoids – and maybe he could persuade John to come over to his room and see what they could make with some chocolate bars, a Bunsen burner and a bowl. Friday was their usual night, but they could do Wednesday this week…
Rodney's reverie was interrupted yet again, this time by a muffled blast that sounded very much like a concussion grenade. Teyla instantly snapped out of the meditation pose and assumed a fighting stance, her eyes trained on the door. Rodney gulped and looked around the room, searching for something to use as a weapon, but everything was nailed to the floor, and oh shit, U.S. Armed Forces grenades didn't mean a good end to the negotiations. Another grenade exploded, this time much closer, and Rodney's brain asked its owner derisively why he ever thought that going to another galaxy was a good idea. Before Rodney could concede that he was not thinking straight when he made that decision the door burst open, revealing a bloodied Jensen clutching two P-90s.
"We're getting the hell out! Go! We'll meet you outside!" the Lieutenant yelled, and Rodney knew that now was definitely the time to haul ass, and haul it as fast as possible. Rodney didn't consider himself very fit, but fear for his life had become a finely honed instinct over the course of last year, so he took off at a speed that would make an Olympic athlete proud. The sound of shooting behind his back and the periodic fwhoomps of the grenades spurred him on, and soon he was outside, following Teyla into the forest. Half a minute after a particularly loud fwhoomp they were joined by Jensen and John, who were looking particularly grimy and ruffled. John looked even worse than Jensen – if the latter was splattered with blood, John looked like he had bathed in it. What the hell happened? But now there was no time to think – they needed to get to the Stargate before the Irulians did, or their ass was grass, so Rodney suppressed his curiosity and ran on.
When they still had about a mile to go, Rodney realized that he was about to cough up a lung. Damned asthma, always picking the completely worst moment to manifest itself, he thought gloomily, fumbling for the inhaler that seemed to have relocated to the very bottom of what he had begun to refer to as his medical pocket. Since he had "Doctor" attached to his name, everyone seemed to think that he was supposed to have more medical knowledge than the rest of the team anyway, so Rodney just took to carrying some extra medical supplies along with his inhaler. And at the moment, the before-mentioned medical supplies seemed to have swallowed his Albuterol whole, and Rodney was beginning to panic – he'd keel over, and the Irulians would catch up, and the rest was just too unpleasant to contemplate. Finally, his fingers found the familiar curved piece of plastic, and Rodney cheered up when he managed to get a quick puff as he darted around a tree. Still, his elation was somewhat short-lived, because John suddenly stumbled and went down heavily, slamming into the ground with a muffled "Fuck!"
Rodney rushed to his side, and got to John just as Jensen appeared from the thicket of trees behind them.
"Ankle," John hissed, pointing at the body part in question with a slightly shaking hand. "'s broken, I think. Go on- I'll slow you down. I'll keep them back for as long as I can…"
"No!" Rodney hissed back, fighting the urge to smack John on the head. Of all the times to be dramatically heroic... "You don't leave people in the hands of the enemy, as you're so fond of saying, and I'm not leaving your stupid heroic ass behind. Jensen, help me get him up, and Jo- Major- Colonel, get your arm around my shoulder, and Jensen, you take the other side, and we're going to run like hell!" John and the Lieutenant did as instructed, and in their little formation that looked like a very battered chorus line they were soon once again making their way towards the gate. John's fingers were painfully digging into his shoulder, and Rodney knew that he'd have bruises afterwards, but at the moment he couldn't give a flying fuck.
Finally, the gate came into view, and Rodney breathed a sigh of relief, which turned out to be somewhat premature when the Irulians, who had finally caught up with them, started shooting. The men stumbled towards the gate with renewed urgency, while Teyla returned fire as she stood by the gate.
"Atlantis, we're under attack, be ready to raise the shield the moment we come through!" Jensen yelled into his commlink.
"And get the medical team down to the gateroom!" Rodney huffed out and pressed on forward, trying to ignore the tight feeling in his chest. Just another hundred meters and they would be fine. One, two, three, Rodney counted silently as they moved forward, eyes fixed on the gate. Almost there, almost there-
A bullet whizzed by his ear and Rodney leapt into the event horizon full speed, and a moment later, landed hard on the floor of the control room in a tangle with John and Jensen, with Teyla hitting the floor right behind them. Rodney felt strangely detached when he heard several thumps against the shield, and sadly wondered when it had become commonplace for him to be so blasé about people dying, even if they were enemies.
Carson was already waiting with a gurney – it's like he's got a sixth sense or something, Rodney thought - and John gratefully collapsed on it after getting untangled from Rodney and Jensen. Rodney's mind briefly flashed back to a similar scene only two months before – John on a gurney – John in a coma – let's not go there-, and he forgot to complain to Carson about his asthma as he tagged along to the infirmary along with a gaggle of concerned onlookers. On the way there, he noticed that one of John's boots was missing, and frowned – this seemed slightly odd, somehow. Rodney thought back to their flight from the Irulians, and he could now remember that the boot had been missing ever since they had all met up. Strange, Rodney wondered, almost running into a doorframe, wonder how he lost it. Soon, they were in the infirmary, and John was whisked off to a separate room. Rodney tried to sneak in and give moral support, but was intercepted by a burly German nurse, who politely booted him out of the infirmary after his physical checked out and told him to come back later.
Not wanting to risk another capture by Nurse Heuberger, Rodney decided that he might as well have some food while he waited for John to be patched up, and even managed to get two and a half meals out of the nice Athosian lunchlady by playing the "pity the poor emotionally distressed scientist" card. He wrapped up some of the pear-things that John really liked in one napkin, and some meat on sticks in another, and ate the rest. After the meal and some good lab coffee hand-delivered to him by a concerned Miko, Rodney felt decidedly less jittery, and had decided to attempt another assault on the infirmary. When he got there, Heuberger was gone, and it took him less than a minute to find out that John was in one of the small rooms reserved for those who had earned an overnight stay. After thanking the nurse profusely, Rodney quickly scanned the horizon for any hostile medical personnel, saw none and headed towards John's room.