Stuck

"Rodney, I'm telling you, curling is NOT a sport" Shepard was enjoying his verbal sparring with his friend, as usual. They were walking back to the gate after surveying the seemingly lifeless area. So much for hopes of trading partners here.

"I don't know how you…" Rodney started to respond, giving as good as he got, but was cut off.

"Shhh…"

"I will NOT 'shhh' just because you're losing the…."

"Rodney, stop," John reiterated, "I hear something." John pulled Rodney behind a nearby tree, away from the unidentified noise.

The colonel talked into his walkie, "Ronan, Teyla, give me your position."

"We're by the gate, John, as you requested," Teyla answered first, but with Ronan's response moments behind.

"Still waiting for your sorry butt, so we can go back to Atlantis. What's taking you so long anyway? If you needed help burying McKay's body, you only had to ask."

Rodney rolled his eyes and huffed, and John chuckled but continued, "We've got movement in the bushes…"

The movement became people…angry people apparently…a LOT of angry people…moving quickly toward John and Rodney.

"Shepard? Say again?" Ronan tried to get John to finish the sentence, but soon noticed movement in the brush around the gate, as well. "We've got movement too." Given the sheer numbers of irate natives, Ronan knew the gate would be overrun in moments. "John, there are too many of them. We're caught in the open here." Ronan and Teyla ducked behind the DHD, which was the only cover in the area.

John was still running, but managed to get his walkie to his mouth. "Get out of there Ronan. Bring back help."

"I don't want to leave you and McKay."

"Staying by the gate, getting killed, isn't going to help. Go! Bring back reinforcements."

With that, Ronan turned to see that Teyla was ready to break cover and dial home just as soon as Ronan could lay down some covering fire. "Go" He murmured and started firing wildly. While he really had no trouble killing as many of the natives as possible, he knew John wouldn't want innocents slaughtered if this was just a misunderstanding that could be dealt with. These people only had bows and spears but there were just so many of them. He spared a second to wonder where they had been moments (or hours) ago, when they had been conducting what they thought to be an exhaustive search for indications of a civilization on this planet. Of course, they weren't looking for people who were hiding, so, he guessed the team could easily have missed them…obviously HAD missed them, in fact. Right now was not the time to debate it, however, so as soon as the gate whooshed open, he and Teyla darted through the event horizon.

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As soon as he gave Ronon the order to move out, an arrow caught the walkie almost dead center and Sheppard was glad it didn't get his hand as well. John dropped the ruin gadget, grabbed Rodney and started back the way they came. He knew he had seen what looked like an entrance to a small cave. He just hoped it was actually big enough for the two of them. It wasn't that he thought he could hide there, since the natives were right behind him, but he was hoping that it was at least defendable. He didn't want to kill any of his pursuers but he could at least make a lot of noise… and would kill as a last resort.

As they neared the cave entrance, Rodney went down. John picked him up by the back of his jacket and all but pushed the man into the shelter. Just as he turned to lay down cover fire if necessary, he was shot himself. The arrow went into his left shoulder and felt like it lodged in his shoulder blade. He practically fell backward into the cave, catching himself at the last moment with his right hand.

"Rodney?" John called since the other man was not in sight.

"Back here John." Rodney had crawled around the sharp corner just inside the opening. "My leg hurts like a son of a bitch."

"I'm sure." John agreed, but didn't mention his own injury. "Don't touch it until I get there. Get in your pack and use some of the water to wash out the wound. The arrow was probably dipped in something." He was pretty sure of this because his own wound was tingling and he knew that couldn't be good.

He peeked outside and saw that the natives were keeping their distance, but were still there in force and weren't trying to hide. John figured they were just waiting for the two intruders to pass out from whatever poison was on those arrows. What they would do then was something John would rather not contemplate.

He ducked back out of sight and leaned against the short little wall right before the corner, around which he'd find Rodney. While he was still out of his teammate's sight, he decided to check his wound. The arrow was lodged pretty tight and wasn't going to move in either direction. John used his knife to cut off the shaft, rinsed the wound with water from his pack and crammed his handkerchief into the hole as well as possible. Then he took his jacket from his pack and covered the wound entirely by putting on and zipping up the outerwear. When he finished that, he rigged the entrance of the cave with booby-traps using grenades and fishing line and made his way around the corner.

By the time he got back to Rodney, his shoulder was so stiff he could barely move it and he was sure he was sweating buckets. Rodney was so engrossed in his own injury, however, that he didn't seem to notice. John figured that they just had to wait an hour or so for Ronon to get reinforcements, permission to come back, and then to find them. He told Rodney as much but the other man didn't seem to share John's optimism. After about half an hour, John was no longer quite as confident that he would last long enough for Ronon to get there. He was sure he had a fever, his vision was going intermittently blurry, and it was becoming harder and harder to think.

Rodney wasn't in much better shape. John had broken off the shaft and pulled the arrow through Rodney's leg as soon as he had gotten to the scientist's part of the cave. It had gone clear through the leg, initially, so John hoped the other man didn't have much of the poison in his system, but he was still obviously suffering from more than just blood loss. Rodney, for his part, was being uncharacteristically stoic until John dumped some disinfectant on the wound.

"What the shit are you doing?" Rodney had demanded. "You said the arrow could be tipped with something and then you go and dump more chemicals on it? You didn't know what the interaction would have been. You could have blown my damned leg off!"

John had tried to stay calm at the time, and looking back now, he was glad that had happened early on because he wasn't sure he could manage it now. "Well pardon the hell out of me, McKay. Next time you get a poisoned arrow through your damned leg, I'll just let it get infected… besides, you washed it thoroughly almost right away so that should have taken care of any poison at the site." When Rodney had sighed in relief, John couldn't help but tease a little. "Of course, it wouldn't have done shit for the poison that was already in your bloodstream." He had to chuckle a little at the look of absolute terror on Rodney's face.

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Ronon shouted for Elizabeth almost before he was fully out of the wormhole. After the quickest briefing on record, the remaining half of John Sheppard's team, along with more marines than Ronon cared to count, were armed with zats and orders not to kill the indigenous personnel unless absolutely necessary. As soon as the marines poured through the stargate, Ronon was glad that one shot from a zat wouldn't kill because every marine there (along with Teyla and himself) starting laying down fire. In all the turmoil, he hoped (in the back of his mind) that no one native was getting shot with more than one zat blast, but as a few winked out of existence, he realized at least those few must have gotten three blasts in quick succession, so most likely some of the downed bodies were dead and not just unconscious. Right now though, all he could think of was getting to John.

He called to his friend via the walkie, but there was no answer. He knew his and Rodney's last position, so he led the marines there. As they went, though, it was obvious that there were a lot more natives than just the ones they could see. Arrows darted from behind trees and had the troops shooting at invisible targets. Several of the marines went down but were immediately grabbed by the nearest soldier and hulled behind trees. They were trapped like this for some time, 'cut off from Sheppard's last known location, by pissed off pigmies with darts' Ronon thought to himself.

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At the hour mark, John was becoming worried. Rodney was getting feverish and his leg was turning black.

"So much for rinsing away all of the poison from the site," McKay had bitched.

John was concerned about the apparent necrosis and asked Rodney if he still had feeling around the wound. He asked this, of course, because he had lost feeling around his own wound long ago and the numb feeling was starting to creep down his left arm.

Rodney reported that his leg was numb but that he could still move it and then said he was going to sleep because he felt dizzy. John took the opportunity to sneak around the corner, supposedly to check on the natives and his booby trap, but really, he had wanted to look at his wound and perhaps debride it somewhat to minimize damage. Before he could even open his jacket, however, he became so dizzy himself that he threw up on the floor of the cave. Thankfully, Rodney must have already been asleep because the scientist didn't comment on the noise. John sank to the floor and braced his head on his knees, hoping that would keep the cave from spinning. It didn't help much.

"Where the hell are you Ronon?"

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It had taken a long while, but they seemed to have neutralized most of the natives over the next half hour and could finally push forward once again. Ronon found John's discarded walkie and knew they were on the right track, but another group of natives surrounded them.

"What the fu…" Ronon muttered as what seemed like millions of natives poked arrows in their faces and tried to lead them away from either the stargate or the direction that Ronon believed John to be.

Instead of going peacefully, though, the marines opened fire, again using just the zats, and mowed down the nearest line of defense. The others seemed as though they were just going to close ranks again, when one of the marines pulled out his machine gun and fired over the enemy's heads.

The natives were pelted with branches and leaves from the tree the soldier had just massacred and pulled back. Others brought out their machine guns and fired above the heads of the unfriendlies on their respective sides. The natives pulled back but refused to leave and still had them surrounded.

They were at a stalemate.

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At the two hour mark, John figured they were well and truly screwed. It was getting dark and he figured any rescue that might be planned would have to wait until morning. He gathered small pieces of wood by the opening and pulled them carefully past his booby trap. He didn't see any natives out there right now, but he hadn't seen them before, either, until they had wanted to be seen. So, he wasn't really willing to take the risk of dismantling the booby trap and trying to get to the gate. But, he also didn't want to be in a completely dark cave with unfriendlies outside. So, he brought the wood back into the main part of the cave, where Rodney was dozing again.

He sat the wood in a pile and called to his friend as he looked in his pack for a lighter and something to use as kindling. When Rodney didn't answer, he abandoned his fire-making efforts and made his way to the injured man's side.

"Rodney," John called a little louder, while jostling McKay with his right hand. John's left hand (and entire arm) was becoming just this side of useless as he lost more and more feeling in it, but his right side was still fine and Rodney was out of it enough most of the time so he hadn't really noticed John's awkwardness.

When he still got no response from his friend, he slapped his face and called even louder. That got a muttered response from Rodney. "What the fuck, John. Let me sleep. My leg is killing me."

John took comfort in the fact that Rodney didn't seem to be too much off his usual game, and rummaged through the nearest pack for some pain killer. "Here," John droned, "This should help." He didn't tell Rodney that those were the last of the small supply they had with them. John had taken some earlier, but they hadn't really helped.

Sheppard returned to work on the fire while Rodney rolled to his side, still bitching about 'military types who can't let an injured man rest'. The scientist didn't notice when his friend lost his fight with unconsciousness.

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It was getting dark, and Ronon was tired of the standoff. He took out the machine gun and started firing at the feet of the natives in the direction he wanted to go. They, understandably, jumped back out of the way, and Ronon and the other soldiers advanced, shooting some more, as necessary. For the first time since they got back to this god-forsaken planet, Ronon felt like they were making some advances toward rescuing his teammates.

He had almost walked by the small shelter, but he had noticed, at the last moment, that the entrance was booby-trapped. He knelt down and called to John while the marines watched the natives.

"John, McKay?" He called.

"It's about fucking time, Conan." Rodney groused back. "We're back here!" McKay looked over to where John was slumped in a heap by the fire. "Come on, fly-boy. The Calvary is finally here!"

John didn't answer.

Ronon rounded the corner and saw Rodney first. "You okay McKay?"

"Leg was shot, but John took care of it. It's not too bad." But then the scientist added. "Still hurts like hell though."

"Sheppard." Ronon looked toward the fire. "How about you?"

There was no answer, so Ronon quickly closed the small gap between himself and his fallen friend. "John?" He touched his shoulder, trying to get his attention. When that didn't work, he shook it more firmly. "What's wrong with him, McKay? Did he get shot too?"

"No." McKay answered. "He was fine. He booby trapped the entrance, made the fire, took care of me. He was fine!"

"Well, he's burning up now." Ronon unzipped John's jacket, in an effort to cool him off, and saw the wound in his shoulder showing through his ripped shirt. "Christ, McKay! I thought you said he wasn't shot!"

"He wasn't!"

"Well…this sure as hell looks like an arrow to me." Ronon picked John up and started back toward the entrance, shouting for more men to help Rodney. The Setedan wasted no time getting John outside, where the marines were still holding the natives at bay. Once two soldiers got Rodney outside and were prepared to help him walk, Ronon started out at a brisk pace. The marines closed ranks around the injured men. Some held flaming sticks from John's fire, others held flashlights, since it was now almost completely dark, but enough still held weapons that the natives pretty much kept their distance while the group made their way toward the gate.

At one point, when several natives on one side surged forward, one of the soldiers brought his torch toward the dry brush near the natives. It quickly lit the tinder and the natives were frantically trying to put out the small fire before it could spread. After that, the natives didn't seem to have it in them to try to stop the strangers. They seemed to collectively breathe a sigh of relief when they saw that the entire group appeared to be leaving the planet.

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Beckett was on standby in the gate room when Ronon burst through carrying Sheppard. He quickly had the Setedan place the injured man on the gurney, and was checking for a heartbeat. By the time Rodney and his two helpers got through the gate, Beckett was already bustling John toward the infirmary.

"What's wrong with him?" Rodney asked, yet again. "He was fine. What happened?"

Ronon could take it no longer and strode into the scientist's personal space. "What happened is that you were too damned busy whining about your own minor injury that you couldn't be bothered to see that John still had a damned arrow in his chest!" With that, the bigger man marched out of the gate room, leaving a bewildered scientist behind.

"He said he was fine." Rodney muttered. "He didn't look like there was anything wrong."

Teyla put her hand on the man's shoulder as she passed, on her way to the infirmary herself. "He didn't want you to know, Rodney. You know how John is."

"But…" Rodney stood still in shock, even though he wanted nothing more than to follow his friend's gurney. "He said he was fine." He muttered.

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Elizabeth had finally unfrozen Rodney from his spot by the gate and ushered him to the infirmary herself, where he was examined by one of the nurses and was now tucked up in a bed while everyone was still waiting to hear about John.

Beckett had already taken John into surgery by the time Ronon and Teyla had gotten there, and had been there for almost two hours now. By the time he made his way toward the small knot of friends by Rodney's hospital bed, he looked grim.

Elizabeth spoke first. "How is he Carson?"

"Lucky to be alive, quite frankly." He looked toward the nearest nurse. "I hear Rodney was shot too…did you debride the wound thoroughly?"

"It already looked pretty good by the time I saw it." She answered efficiently. "Blood work shows very little of the toxin in his blood stream."

Carson nodded and returned his attention to the group of John's friends. "John had significant amounts of an unknown toxin in his blood. Not only has it caused necrosis of the tissue around the wound itself…and I mean all the way back to the scapula… it has also caused quite a few worrisome symptoms. John's fever is over 104, he shows signs of having thrown up at least once, and his left arm is not responding to any test of reflexes."

"What does that mean for his prognosis, Carson?" Weir asked what everyone wanted to know.

"It means it's way too early to tell what it means!" Beckett answered gravely just as a corpsman wheeled John beside a nearby bed. As the stricken man was lifted into bed, his friends looked on with concern. He looked awful. He was pale and still…way too still for John…and looked more vulnerable than anyone had ever seen him – and they'd seen him in some pretty desperate situations. Beckett continued, as he too watched the Colonel. "He's got a long road. I'm not sure how he survived this long, truth be told…let alone care for Rodney too."

At that, everyone looked at McKay again, who suddenly went on the defensive again. "He said he was fine. I didn't even know he'd been shot! He never said anything. What did you want me to do?" His voice was becoming louder with each sentence and Ronon looked like he was about to tell the man just what he should of done, but Elizabeth stepped in with the voice of reason.

"You did everything just right, Rodney." She glared at Ronon, daring him to contradict her. "If John wanted you to do anything differently, he would have told you he was shot. Ronon," and she turned to look at the other man, "You said you had to unzip his jacket to see the wound. He hadn't been wearing the jacket to begin with. He wasn't only 'not saying anything' about the injury, he was actively trying to hide it. There was no way for Rodney to know if John didn't want him to. You know how John is about putting his team first."

Ronon muttered, "I would have known," as he strode over toward John's side. Elizabeth didn't call him on it.

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It was days before John opened his eyes even once. Beckett was struggling to keep his fever under 102. His heart had stopped several times, and Carson continuously reminded the team and Weir that John wasn't anywhere near out of the woods yet.

The tissue around the wound in John's shoulder was debrided often, and kept clean but there was no way they could replace all the muscle lost. Carson was also very concerned about the continued lack of reflexes in the left arm.

Rodney continued to beat himself up over not noticing that John was hurt and became increasingly withdrawn and irritable…even for Rodney. He spent as much time as John's side as possible, but would leave if Ronon was already there or when he showed up.

Elizabeth finally had enough of it and ordered them to 'knock it off'. Since Ronon didn't think he had done anything wrong, and Rodney wasn't really disagreeing with Ronon that he had, they weren't really able to put it past them as well as Weir had hoped but they at least attempted to give the appearance of doing so.

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Finally, John's fever broke and he woke up. Rodney happened to be by his bedside at the time.

"Hey, you." Rodney almost whispered when he saw that John's eyes were opened. "You had us a little worried there."

They talked for a short while, John getting caught up with what had happened after he passed out, and Rodney working himself into a guilt-induced tizzy again. "God, John. I'm so sorry."

John was genuinely confused. "For what?"

"I should have noticed you were sick. I should have helped out more. I could have made the fire. I could have taken care of myself more and spared you. I didn't know!"

"I didn't want you to know, Rodney." John reiterated what others had already told McKay several times. "I was in charge. You were injured. We had unfriendlies at the door. I'm military; you're not. It was my responsibility. My choice." John looked at Rodney and tried to hammer home his point with shear force of will. "You have nothing to feel sorry about."

"Yeah, well…tell that to Ronon." Rodney mumbled.

"I will if I need to…but I'm sure he already knows that if I wanted you to know…you would have known." John looked pointedly over Rodney's head, toward the door, when he saw that the Setedan had just entered.

"I know." Ronon mumbled. "I was just angry at the time."

Rodney nodded and John yawned. "I'll let you get some more sleep John," the scientist muttered and left, still giving Ronon a wide berth as he passed.

Ronon sat in Rodney's abandoned chair and was prepared to wait for John to wake again, but the Colonel opened his eyes almost immediately. "You were really trying to make him feel guilty all this time?" John looked disappointed.

"Not all this time…just the first day." John still looked less than pleased. "I was pissed, okay? He was complaining about his own injuries and you were laying there in a heap…I just got mad."

"You know how he is, Ronon." John answered softly. "He bitches when he's scared. That's why I couldn't tell him I was hurt. He was already scared enough. He's come a long way…but he's not a soldier, Ronon."

The bigger man nodded. "Yeah, I know." And the subject was dropped.

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It took two more weeks for things to get back to what John termed 'the new normal'. Carson insisted there was no way to regain the lost muscle in the left arm, and that the nerve damage was too extensive for John to ever qualify for the field again. John had other plans, and was sparring every spare minute with Teyla or Ronon and working with weights the rest of the time. It would be a long road maybe, but he refused to believe it was impossible. He was making improvements every day. It would just be a matter of time before he was back in the field.

He had to believe that, or –to his way of thinking - he might as well have died that day on that god-forsaken planet.

"Where there's breath, there's hope." He told himself. "And where there's hope, there can be victory…in time."

End