Many thanks to Lady Hawk for beta.
He woke to white. Soft white that brushed against his eyelashes and cheek. He was cold right through. So cold that he couldn't seem to feel his extremities. He tried to move but all he could manage was a little wriggle. He wasn't shivering and that was bad.
He didn't remember snow. It had been wet and muddy, as the worlds of the Pegasus Galaxy often were. How had he wound up in a snowdrift? Avalanche? He didn't think they had been that close to the mountains, but his mind was as sluggish as his body. He tried to reach up and find the radio headpiece, to see if it was still there, but his arms wouldn't move from where they were curled into his lap. If his kinaesthetic sense was any use at all, he was lying on his side, half curled into a ball with his head upwards.
The cold was draining his consciousness away and he tried to struggle, to move, to free himself from where he had been buried but nothing happened. He found his voice and tried to shout for help- they'd be looking for him, surely?
He managed a halfway decent yell of "Hey!"
It echoed.
Why would a snowdrift echo? He was still trying to fathom that when everything faded away softly.
It was still white, but there was a different quality to it now. His mind seemed a little clearer this time and perhaps the snow, if it was snow, had insulated him because he felt a little warmer. Or perhaps he was in the final stages of hypothermia, the bodies' final attempt to save itself, precious heat flooding out from his core to be dissipated at the extremities as he fell asleep for the last time.
He struggled against that thought and discovered that he had more movement now. He could move his legs and straighten his back a little, but his arms seemed dead, his wrists caught together somehow. His fingers moved and he could feel the fabric of his trousers and something …sticky and scratchy that definitely wasn't part of his uniform. Snow didn't feel like that. Puzzled, he opened his eyes.
There was white, but now he could see that it was a layer of something, with dim light behind it. He could move his head a little and he tried to get a different angle through the semi-translucent layer. He was still cold but there was an unnatural quality to it that disturbed him.
He had just a moment's prescience that something was terribly wrong. There was movement beyond the layer and he opened his mouth to yell, to summon help, before his own movements gave him a clear view.
The sound died in his throat as he saw where he was.
His cry would summon only death in this place.
Carson Beckett shut his eyes and closed his mouth on what might have been a sob.
He was on a Hive ship. Trussed up, cocooned and waiting for the end.
He remembered now. They had been running a clinic on PMX-338. Medical services in trade for foodstuffs and seedlings. He'd actually been enjoying the work. The people were friendly and eager to learn and it was surprising the difference that just a few simple things could make to the quality of life for these folks.
Really basic things, like "boil the water for 10 minutes before you drink it." Which
should take down the incidence of the river-borne internal parasites, which caused much
of the sickness he was seeing.
They were well nourished but basically ignorant of even the simplest principles of
hygiene. He'd been lecturing a group of laughing women about washing when the first
dart had come through the Gate.
It's shrill harmonics had set his teeth on edge as their field hospital had emptied with screaming locals running for illusory safety. He'd told his staff to run for the jumpers, heard their military escort order the same over the radio as he ran in that direction himself, when his world had stilled in a burst of crystalline blue.
He'd woken to white.
He'd been Taken.
He felt himself slip into the cold softness, and went under without a ripple.
He lifted his head off his arms and stared blearily at his workspace. He'd fallen asleep again. He'd been waiting for the sequencer to finish its analysis and just put his head down for a moment . . .
Oh dear. He shuddered. That had been a spectacularly nasty dream, which was probably no more than he deserved for eating a late supper of alien foodstuffs and then heading back to his lab to see if he could catch the results of his experiment before going to bed.
Supper sat in his stomach like a lead lump and he got up wearily to find an antacid. He knew better than to eat late, it had never agreed with him, even when the food had been normal, well as normal as it got round here.
"Working late again, doctor? You're getting as bad as McKay." Helen Chapman told him as he walked through the infirmary.
"If you're going to be that rude, lassie, I can see that you stay on the night shift indefinitely." Carson told her with a grin. "It's just good to be able to do my own research for a change."
"Yes," She replied. "It's nice not to have any patients cluttering up the place, isn't it? Stomach problem?" she queried as she saw the pharmaceuticals drawer he had opened.
"Just a touch of acid. Shouldn't have eaten so late, so 'tis my own fault." He replied.
"Tell you what," She offered. "I'll pop the kettle on and make you a cup of tea. That should help."
"Och, you don't have to run around after me," Carson said, knowing that his tea-drinking habits were well known to his staff. He'd stayed awake through his residency on the stuff and he was probably just as bad as the Science division's notorious coffee-dependency. At least he didn't have to fight Rodney off when supplies ran low and it was all caffeine anyway when all was said and done. He just preferred his with a touch of theophylline.
"Mmm, " Helen replied, "I'm so busy just now that I might even finish next week's inventory sheet."
"In that case," Carson said. "I'd love a cup."
He headed back to his workspace chewing on the antacid. Noise from the caged mice distracted him.
"What are you lot up to?" He asked. More active at night, even through generations of breeding for lab purposes, they were often quite amazingly noisy for their size. He spotted what seemed to be a melee going on in one cage and reached in and grabbed the largest male mouse from the group.
"You're a troublemaker, aren't you?" He told it. He tried not to have favourites, nor to think of them as pets, but he was very proud of them. He had the only Ancient mice in two galaxies, courtesy of his experimental gene therapy. Used to his scent and touch from birth, the mouse sat up in his hand and started grooming itself. He stroked its' soft back gently with a fingertip and it took off, scrambling up the sleeve of his lab coat.
"Stop that." He said, catching it as it reached his elbow. "We can't have you lot getting loose in the city." He smiled at a daft mental image; Elizabeth, standing on her desk and shrieking as a throng of mice ran riot across her floor.
The mouse was a yellowed-white against his lab coat's white sleeve. He stared at it for a second, caught in the memory of the dream. Chills ran through him and he shut his eyes against them.
"Carson? Are you alright?" Helen asked. She was holding the mug of tea. "You've gone very pale."
He tried to tell her that it was just a dream, a nightmare he'd had but his throat had seized up.
She reached out to touch his shoulder, obviously concerned for him . . .
Pain exploded in his shoulder and it was so unexpected that he yelled with the shock of it. He opened his eyes- and screamed.
The Wraith laughed at him, it's horrible grey dentition spread wide in a parody of amusement. It yanked the pronged device out of his upper chest and shoved him roughly back into his niche. Terrible cold sleeted through him and he understood. The Wraith kept their prisoners drugged and torpid to preserve their body energies. Until they were needed.
He'd dreamt Atlantis.
He was still on the Hive ship.
There would be no rescue. His military escort were as likely to be neatly stored alongside him as anything else; and if the Wraith had kept the gate open till they were done, as was their habit, Atlantis would not have known till it was all over. Assuming there was anyone left free to open the gate and tell them.
Carson thought about his staff, hoping that some of them had got to the safety of the jumpers. Please God, let some of them have been spared this.
The cold was pooling freshly inside him now and he felt himself fading away. He didn't fight it, but welcomed it as the better alternative. He thought of home, of safely grey, rainy Glasgow days. The colours of wet slate roofs and granite walls and old stone pavements. His lips moved softly with the words of familiar prayer, drummed into him at the Sunday school where his Mum had taken him as a boy.
"Be a light in the darkness, Dear Lord we pray, and while we lie sleeping, keep Evil away . . ."
He woke to screams. Terrible, agonised screams that reached a crescendo and then faded abruptly. Then started again. The Wraith were feeding.
It was pointless, but he tried to move, to at least die on his feet, even if he was no soldier, no Ronan capable of fighting his way out. Stiff from an unknown length of captivity and still drugged, all he could manage was an uncoordinated wriggle, which flopped him onto his face, still wrapped in the cocooning material.
He was hauled roughly upright and inspected . . . It smirked at him, clearly enjoying his
shocked trembling. It ran its hands across his upper body appraisingly, and then leant in
close and sniffed at him, its face terrifyingly close to his.
It's breath smelt chemical and he was trying to place the compound when the Wraith
gave a disapproving snort and he was shoved roughly backwards into his niche. When he
staggered awkwardly he was cuffed hard across the face, so he let himself drop to the
floor, still seeing sparks.
He'd been rejected?
He had no idea how long he lay there, his face hurting, half curled into a ball, his wrists tethered together. He closed his eyes and sought the coldness again, but he wasn't able to fall into it for a long time.
Not 'till the screaming finally stopped.
The voices were familiar, calling his name. Curled into a ball on his side, Carson smiled softly to himself. Well, if he had to dream voices, Rodney and John's were good to hear. They couldn't possibly be here in this awful place; how would they even have begun to find the hive ship, much less got on board it?
Still. It was good to hear them one last time.
Rodney was calling with a kind of quiet-shrill desperation and Carson wanted to tell him to hush because he'd wake up if he made too much noise, but that was really silly . . .so he didn't say anything.
The voices went away.
He was being pulled around violently and his whole body hurt. He was stiff from being still so long and nothing worked properly. Something tugged hard on his wrists again and again and they came apart, although he couldn't really feel them much.
"Carson! Wake up!" Rodney hissed. When he opened his eyes it was Rodney, still holding the knife he'd used to cut the bindings on his wrists. Rodney was . . .crying? He tried to reach out and touch the man's cheek, but his co-ordination was shot and he ended up bumping his neck instead.
"Ow! Your hands are cold." Rodney complained.
"I'm cold." Carson told him.
"For Chrissakes, Rodney! Get a move on." John Sheppard called from the corridor's end. He was carrying a Wraith stunner as well as his normal weaponry. He waved them on with it.
"Carson. You have to walk. I can't –I can't carry you any more. John's got to have his hands free for fighting. Please, Carson. Walk for me, it isn't much further." Rodney was pale and tense and clearly afraid.
The man was daft. Where would they walk to on this mobile charnel house? There was nowhere to go to. Carson wanted to sit down and let the coldness take it all away again and perhaps he could dream again . . .
Or was this a dream?
Rodney tugged at him, pulled Carson's arm over his shoulder and fairly hauled him down the corridor. It hurt and Carson's feet didn't seem to be hitting the floor right but Rodney was insistent, shoring him up and dragging him along. Carson thought that if this was a dream it was better than what he would wake to, so he would go with it.
Rodney was pleading with him to walk, to move, please, and he didn't like to see the man so obviously upset, so he did the best he could.
They were moving slowly along, obviously trying to avoid detection, ducking into alcoves and remaining still until whatever danger was past. Whenever they were stopped, Carson would just sink into a stupor again and Rodney would have to shake him awake before they moved off.
Carson became aware that they were stopped outside a door of sorts, John was holding him up and Rodney was fiddling with the Wraiths' organic circuitry.
"There." Rodney said, as it irised open. "You're sure it's the right one?"
"Don't even joke about that!" John snapped at him, clearly tense, his eyes roving up and down the corridor.
"I wasn't joking," Rodney huffed as they got into a small chamber and he closed the door behind them. "You know how I feel about explosive decompression-"
"Just do it!" John snarled. Rodney hesitated, and then activated a switch. Another door opened. There was a ring of oddly organic-looking, puffy material and something beyond it. Something familiar, but Carson couldn't place it for a moment. It was really cold and when he looked through the puffy material he could see stars.
They were in an airlock?
Rodney was shoving him forwards and he was trying his best, but when his feet hit the puffy material they seemed to tangle and he fell forwards bringing Rodney down with him.
"Ow, ow! Carson!" Rodney complained.
"C'mon, we're almost there." John said, and Carson could hear the stress harmonics breaking his voice. "Just drag him, will'ya?"
Oh very nice. He was about to comment on this when he saw Rodney's face, close up as the man bent over him. Rodney was pale and sweating, but there were lines of stress on his face that hadn't been there before and something else, something that Carson couldn't quantify at all. This Rodney was a stranger to him and so he shut up and helped as much as he could as he was dragged forwards.
Something opened outwards and down and Carson's brain slowly processed the data and he realised that he was looking into the rear of a puddle jumper. It all made a kind of sense, now. The puffy material was some sort of docking ring from the Hive ship, given its organo-technological nature. They'd docked the jumper onto the ring backwards so that the hatch would open into it.
Very clever. But how had they known about it? Puzzled and still slow Carson let himself be dragged onto the grid work of the hatch where he was able to get some purchase with his feet and push himself inboard. As soon as he was clear of it Rodney slammed the hatch closure and the back folded up.
He was aboard a jumper. He was safe?
There was no celebration. From the forward compartment, John yelled "Disengaging from the Hive ship. Rodney-?"
"Gotta go, Carson." Rodney said softly to him, pulling a foil blanket out and draping it over him. "This is the tricky bit. We have to get away clean. If they detect us, we're dead. We have no drones, no back-up and we're days from the nearest Stargate-"
"Rodney!" John yelled.
"Stay there." Rodney told him and ran forwards to the co-pilot's seat. From where he was down on the floor Carson watched as they did unfathomable things with an obviously jury-rigged system.
After a while there was a soft, disquietingly sucking noise from the rear, and the star field visible in the windshield started to rotate slowly.
Rodney said, "Powering down." All the lights on the jumper went out. After a moment Carson's eyes readjusted to the available light coming in through the windshield.
"O-kay." John said. "We're disengaged and floating free. Just some harmless debris here. Nothing to be worried about. Ignore us, guys." When Rodney gave him a look, he shrugged his shoulders and said, "Well, it worked for Han Solo."
He would have expected Rodney to make some flip comment about that. Instead he just gave a ragged gasp and buried his face in his hands.
"I can't do this any more." He said unsteadily, clearly on the edge of losing it completely.
"We're done, Rodney." John said. To Carson's utter surprise, John got up and pulled Rodney into a tight hug. "You did good, you did great Rodney. We found all our people. Now we go home." John's face creased with emotion and he obviously was holding onto Rodney as much to keep himself upright as anything else.
From the floor, Carson couldn't see anyone else on the jumper.
"All?" he asked softly.
John dug a hand in the pocket of his flak jacket and held something out. It glittered in the dim light. For a second Carson couldn't make it out, then he got it.
Dog tags. Two pairs of dog tags.
"How many were Taken?" Carson asked.
"Four." John said. "You, Lieutenant Ashley, Sergeant Diaz and one of your nurses, Rebecca Barrowman."
"Oh God." Carson said.
Rodney pushed himself away from John and came and sat down next to Carson.
"We found them. We walked round that Hellhole for hours, hiding from the Wraith the whole time." Rodney said his face working with emotion and Carson began to understand why Rodney had looked so distraught. "They were all . . .you know." He shook his head, swallowing.
"I asked Becky out on a date." John said, abruptly. "She was pretty and fun and so . . .alive. When we found her she-" His voice caught.
"Looked about two hundred." Rodney finished for him. "They were all long gone and I figured you would be the same, but-"
"He wouldn't give up. We walked right past you-" John said.
"I heard you," Carson said. They stared at him. "I thought I was dreamin' you. The Wraith drug their prisoners, maybe the ones they want for later. It makes you feel cold and then you pass out for long periods. I dreamed I was back on Atlantis once. It was so real. Then I woke up." He shivered with more than just the cold.
"C'mon, Rodney, give me a hand here. Let's get him all wrapped up and warm. We can't do anything else for a couple of hours, anyway, unless our little "friends" back there decide to be helpful and jump to hyperlight." John said. He turned and started rummaging in a supply bin, then yanked out several sleeping bags.
Carson let himself be rolled onto one and zipped in. He should mention the wound in his shoulder, but he couldn't bring himself to trouble them. Warm and safe was the best prescription for now.
Except he wasn't warm. He must have said something because there was zipping and rustling and then Rodney was scrunched up against him, and John was tucking another bag around them both.
"I'll keep watch. You try and get some sleep." John said, looking down at them. He looked so tired and worn as he walked back to the pilot's seat. Carson wanted to look at him properly, but the cold was back and he was stilled against Rodney and he was slipping away again. He fought it this time, not wanting to lose contact with them.
"Carson?" Rodney said softly.
"Yes."
"Are you real? Did we really find you? Or is this just another twist to the damn nightmare I'm living in?" Rodney asked.
"Am I dreaming you?" Carson whispered back. A hand grasped his and held on tightly. "Don't let go. I'm falling into the cold. Don't let me wake up on the Hive ship again. Rodney?"
"Right here." Rodney's hand squeezed his. "Got to sleep now. So tired . . ."
Carson let his eyes close and he listened to Rodney's breathing for a time. He tried to move, and fought panic when he realised that he could neither move nor feel Rodney's hand any more. Inside his head, Carson was screaming, scrabbling frantically for any grip on consciousness, but his body was utterly still. And he was falling, fading away into the awful whiteness . . .