A/N: This is a rip-off of John Ford's, the Three Godfathers. Just a little Christmas story to tide us over. Spoilers for anything up to Irresistible. This is just whump for whump's sake. Let's call it team whump with a bow. I ask you stow the BS meters and medical impossibilities…Thank you. Now enjoy…
Disclaimer: Three Godfathers is definitely not mine. Anything in the Stargate universe is not mine. I'm just putting them to use and returning them, like a pair of bowling shoes.
Warning: Language
Four Patrons for Rewapeh
Scene I
The Crash
Mom was going to be pissed. This was the second or, maybe, the third time he had crashed the station wagon within two years. The insurance was going to go through the roof…and Dad, he did not even want to go there.
Sheppard shifted slightly as voices from not too far away filtered through the static and pounding in his head. He shifted again and discovered the nine kinds of pain his body was experiencing. From the top of his head to tip of his size ten and a half's, nothing seemed immune. He screwed his courage to the post and tried to pry his eyes open. The batteries running his eye lids must have been low, because it took him more than one try. When he finally accomplished that small miracle of muscle control, blanket gray greeted him.
"Shit," he hoarsely whispered. Panic tried to spike until he realized he was face down on some sort of dash board. The station wagon…no…something else…something much cooler. If it was the family wagon, then the steering wheel should have been imbedded in his sternum, but something else poked him a little lower…joysticks? A flight simulator maybe?
"Geez Colonel, you cracked the control interface," someone astutely observed. The high-pitched sound that followed the observation proved that he was not the only one in nine kinds of pain.
"Dr. McKay?" a feeble female voice softly asked after him.
"Just…hit…my…mother…fu-lovin'…arm…"
"Suck it up, McKay."
Sheppard almost laughed at the advice, but could not quite get the lung capacity.
"SUCK IT UP? Let me hit your arm you lice-infested baboon!" Heavy breathing and more muttering followed.
Crank call. This had to be a crank call yanking his chain. If this situation was that serious, then they would sound a little more concerned, right? The fire department would be here and cops would be talking to them…except that was not right either. Mom was really going to be pissed if he was past curfew…but his Mom was dead…who was he thinking of then?
"Come here and let me jostle that shoulder, and then tell me to suck it up!" There was a brief pause before, "AAAAH! SON OF A…WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?" There was a pause and then more yelling, "You purposely hit me there!"
"I'm not a baboon."
"Boys," the feeble female voice, to his right, returned with righteous indignation and effectively stopped the argument. "Helping us is still on the list of things to do, is it not?"
"Uh…yeah," the self-important voice answered sheepishly. "It's just we need to move the baby out of the way first."
BABY?
The file cabinet that was Sheppard's brain started to thumb through any pertinent information that could explain the reason for an infant to be here, and came up empty.
BABY!
He wanted to scream that a flight simulator or a totaled station wagon was no place for a baby…except neither one of those things was right. This was still something else…
An image of a skeleton with skin scraping, dragging and crawling across the dirt and reaching up for…
This definitely was no place for a baby. Rodney was…Rodney! That was the first name of the irritating and irritated voice mumbling from below him.
"--now I see, the coupling and bolts--"
A high pitch wail drowned Rodney out. It filled the cabin of the whatever John was sitting in and made his head throb even worse.
That same keening echo had bounced off stone so they could find it…
"…yes, I see what I need to do…Can you please get it to stop doing that?"
"Trying," the gruff voice replied. Ronon was the name that went with that particular voice.
"Let me see her, I've nothing better to do…" Teyla said dryly…his team. The crying ceased with snuffling increments. "Where are the supplies from the mother?" she asked as the keening calmed, then rose, and then calmed again.
"Somewhere in the back. I'll go look," Ronon said moving farther away. "It's a mess back here!"
Puddle Jumper…not a family car but a Winnebago. Things started to fall into place as his head revolted at his displeasure. He went to move.
"Whoa, sit still Colonel!" Rodney commanded. Sheppard felt a prickle of irritation at that; he was the one usually giving the commands. "You're pinned, so is Teyla. The front end of Jumper has you trapped."
Sheppard slowly opened his eyes and looked out the windshield at rocks the color of sand. White and tan boulders gleamed in the sun. He then noticed their almost straight down view of a valley below them. The jumper apparently came to rest against a few boulders facing downwards. Crashing into a mountain also seemed to crumple the front of the Jumper and pushed it back against him and, as he looked to his right, Teyla.
Teyla gave a quick, worried reaction from his look while rocking a bundle of blankets. "Rodney, check the Colonel's head," she almost demanded, but requested, instead.
After a couple of seconds, a hand rested on his back. "Colonel, I'm going to help you sit back in the seat." Rodney did just that and took in his own quick breath of air. "Yikes, nice cut and you got two black eyes there, Sheppard."
Big surprise, Sheppard thought, because that was what his head was telling him. But that was not the worst of it; his chest and stomach were hurting just as badly. And to top it off, even sitting back in the chair, his abdomen was still squished by the console.
"Ronon! Have you found the first aid kit yet?"
"Quit yelling, McKay," Sheppard asked as politely as possible.
"Yes!" A sliding sound accompanied the answer.
Sheppard huffed and asked again, "Please, stop yelling."
"Thanks!"
He moaned and let his head hang forward forlornly. "McKaaay…"
McKay saw it and mumbled, "Oh, sorry. Suppose that hurts the head…"
Yeah, it does dumb ass, he thought at his genius of a friend.
As Rodney tended his head, Sheppard's thoughts meandered to explain the current situation, to explain a baby.
Culled…a planet…not the one they were on, presently…going back to the Stargate…maybe good for bridge…Wraith scouting party…
"Okay, Colonel this is going to hurt…Ronon little help!"
Stop yelling, he thought again about ready to cry, but not really.
Gauze was pressed against his forehead and he tried to hit the hand away. Another hand grabbed his as a foot pressed on the crook of his other arm pinning it to the back of the seat.
"Sorry, Colonel," Rodney apologized, "We need to stop the bleeding; you've left a mess on the face of the controls and on your shirt and now the seat of my pants…"
Fuck them both.
Rodney sat on the dash and used his foot to hold John's arm in place as he took care of his head. Rodney also held one arm close to his body trying not to move it. Ronon did the same as he used his good arm to hold Sheppard's arm down. Soon Rodney's other booted foot took Ronon's place as Ronon became Rodney's other hand helping to tape the gauze in place.
The situation was obviously serious. Teyla and he were trapped; these two were injured; and they had an infant on board (hopefully, sans ridiculous, little yellow sign). Mom…no, Elizabeth was going to have a passel of cows. This time it was not entirely his fault; the Wraith caused the crash. They had spotted them getting into the Jumper and took an educated guessed where to shoot. Their guesses paid off and damaged the cloak. Then the chase was on…wait, where was the mother?
Sheppard let his eyes slide towards Teyla's direction and the little bundle of blankets squirming in her arms.
"The moth'r?" he asked, slow and deliberate. His thoughts tried to fragment and dart into a thousand different directions.
"Dead. Drained by a Wraith and left to die. For some reason, he did not finish."
He remembered. The skeleton with skin. Dry desiccated lips kissing her daughter good-bye…hair falling out in clumps…skin flaking off as she caressed her daughter one last time…
"Hunh, maybe they do get full?" Rodney chimed in.
"Not funny McKay," warned Ronon from the other side of Sheppard.
"Not meant to be, but sorry just the same." He sounded dutifully chastised.
Sheppard looked at Rodney and noticed the blood staining his face and hands. He too had bruises and winced with the slightest movement. Sometimes, he stopped to catch his breath.
"Brok'n arm?" It was so hard to talk when breath did not like to enter the lungs. It was so hard to focus on one thing as your brain felt as battered as Rodney, Ronon and Teyla looked.
"Yeah, Ronon too, but maybe his is more clavicle or something." Rodney finished taping the gauze in place and looked right in his eyes. "Anywhere else we need to know about?"
"Whole torso hurts…" he paused, "…not sure 'bout legs."
"Let's get a peek under the ol' shirt, Colonel." Rodney lifted it up and hissed. "Looks like the joysticks got you…and…I can't see anything past your navel. Lots of bruising."
Rodney awkwardly moved to get down off the dash. He narrowly missed bumping his head and stepping on Sheppard's hip. He did a kind of one legged hopping dance to catch his balance.
"Let me finish looking for the supplies for the baby before it gets testy," Ronon said catching Rodney before scuffling to the back of the Jumper.
"I'll check Teyla," offered Rodney as he took up the same position, sitting on the crumpled dashboard in front of Teyla. It had to be very uncomfortable because he had to remain stooped over in order to sit there.
Rodney hissed again probably from viewing Teyla's injuries or it could have been from his own. As he assessed her injuries, Sheppard dozed off for a second or a year; he was not sure, nor, in his mind, did it matter. A loud, frustrated roar woke him back up.
"AAAAH! Dammit! Found the bottles of goat's milk or whatever that four-legged, shaggy thing was! Only four survived!" Ronon stomped his way back to the front. "There goes the plan of staying with the Jumper. Atlantis won't contact us for another three days, their time. We were coming back very early."
Atmospheric reentry…more shots fired…big, honkin' mountain filling the view screen…controls fried…
Puddle Jumpers were not naturals at gliding-- more of a full soda can plummeting to earth kind of thing.
"We will thin it out as much as possible," Teyla suggested. "Rewapeh can survive for a couple of days…"
"Yes, we have some water and we're on the planet the Gate is located…" added Rodney with his worried, optimistic voice.
Deep well…a cry echoing from inside…what was once a young woman crawling, crying, dying…
He dozed again.
"Okay, this is a two man operation," Rodney said, waking John up. He was talking to someone right near his chair. "We'll have to remove the connectors to the floor and ease them back. We're gonna hafta do Teyla first since she's smaller. Then, hopefully, she can help when we move the Colonel…"
The Jumper chose that time to shudder. John watched through the front window as gravel and sand rolled away from them. Everyone froze except for the baby safe in Teyla's arms.
"I believe the time table has changed-- we need to get them out in a faster manner than previously believed," Rodney hurriedly said. "The tremors are increasing in frequency. Ronon, I'll start undoing Teyla's chair; you open the back hatch and start getting necessary supplies out. I'll call you when I need you!"
The shuffling increased in urgency and the light started to filter from the rear and brightened incrementally as the gantry lowered. For a brief moment, Sheppard realized he should be slumped on the control console due to the angle. The artificial gravity must still be on, there must be some power. Lights started flickering responding to his thoughts. The HUD blinked on and resembled colored oil in water, kind of like the beginning of a James Bond flick.
"Stop Sheppard, the HUD's not working; the engines aren't working; we've been through this…" Rodney sounded exasperated. "I know you don't remember, but we've got everything under control."
Sheppard decided to fall asleep again since he was not needed, until he heard--
"--slowly, slowly--"
--followed by a soft thud.
"How do you feel, Teyla?" Ronon asked quietly.
She let out a soft moan before informing them, "My left knee is injured. I think that that is all besides the other."
"Can you help us?" Rodney asked.
"If I sit."
"It'll have to do."
Sheppard felt his chair start to shake and teeter and then slide backwards. He felt his legs scraping on Ancient polymer and composite. It snagged his pants and scraped his skin. He gave a guttural moan as his lower abdomen was freed from the console. As innards moved and fluids flowed, his ears roared and people called his name. The Puddle Jumper started to shudder in response as he looked at the ceiling of the Winnebago in his tipped over chair.
He had to hold it together for just a few more minutes…
"Sheppard! Stand up! Teyla is free and we need to go," Ronon forcefully ordered as he pulled on him with his good hand.
More shuddering…
Must go…always have to go here and there…must meet the damn, stupid, obsessive compulsive quota…must throw Rodney's socks in the hamper…owed Rodney payback for that…must go, go, go…
"He threw my baby in the well!" The talking corpse had cried…Like dirty socks, he had thought. Like Rodney's dirty socks…really did owe him big time for the herb incident…
Daylight gouging his eyes, stabbed him. Sand, white as snow, blinded him. Ronon said the he must keep moving.
"Run, Sheppard…can't carry you!"
"Not going anywhere after this, is he?" Rodney's voice joined them and grabbed him on the other side.
Rumbling and tumbling and sliding and crashing…
The baby did not have a scratch on it. The well was covered with wood slats about five feet down to keep the children from falling into it. A hole in the middle of the cover allowed for the bucket. The baby had been lying just inches from the hole. It was the sort of thing that made a Christmas miracle movie for Hallmark.
They finally stopped. His stomach lurched from the exertion, the head injury, and the thought of mere inches. He puked and the sand turned from white to red. The two mixed to create a beautiful, rosy pink, like a child's cheeks.
Staring at the mixture, his hands clung to the hard, hot surface under the sand. He had dug his fingers into it and had stopped when they hit rock.
He never wanted to move again.
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