Forged in Flame

by Eildon Rhymer

Fire, fever, fury and fellowship. Three times the flames almost killed them, and once when they helped them find home.

Written for the "burning up" flashfic challenge on LJ a few weeks ago.

1. Fire

He was trapped, and he was going to die. This was it. He was going to a fiery grave with his Nobel physics prize unwon, his name in no history books, all his greatest achievements still classified as top-secret, and one game down in his ongoing chess tournament with Sheppard, if you could call it a tournament when there were just two of them, and it was just occasional games, anyway, and nothing formal, and…

"It's not really the time to think about such things," he said, into the hand that covered his face. "Think about trying to get out."

It was too late for that, though. No clever science could get him out of this one. He'd gotten himself turned around, managed to blunder deeper into the fire. One minute Sheppard had been next to him, a dark shape against the flames, and then Rodney had been all alone.

"I don't want to die alone." Stupid thing to say. "Don't want to die – that's the important part. The alone part…" He coughed into his palm. "Not so important, really. Shouldn't be." He coughed again, choking on smoke. When he had finished, he pressed his knuckles to his mouth, as if he could filter the air through his fist and make it pure. "I can't…" It was muffled, then nothing.

Words… God. He needed words. People had told him he'd go talking to his death. Sometimes they said it in a way that made it seem as if they wanted him to die right now. "You'd probably talk Death into handing you back to the land of the living," Sheppard had said once, "just to get himself a bit of piece and quiet." It hadn't felt like an insult, though, but it's still a stupid thing to think about right now. Focus. Think. Less of the Death talk; more on the getting out.

He was backed against a wall. Flames crackled floor to ceiling on the far side of the room. The doorway was a wall of fire, and it would be instant death to walk there… Or not instant. Agonising. Smelling your own flesh burning.

He wanted to cry. He wanted to be able to do something. Was there anything in his pockets that could be used to conjure up a…? No, stupid idea. Stupid. Rodney McKay had finally met something he couldn't contrive his way out of. His brain had failed him. Burnt in a fire – a stupid fire, a stupid one. They'd told him not to go in, told him it could go up any minute, but he'd flapped his hand, barely listening to them. "Energy readings, remember? Look!" He had thrust the scanner at Sheppard's face. "I'm going in." And Sheppard had come in with him…

God! Sheppard! Was he all right? Was he facing his own fiery hell in another room? At least Ronon and Teyla had stayed outside, wrangling natives. Teyla was good at that, while Ronon just looked so scary that they shut up and did what he asked. Rodney tried very hard to be polite – at least, he had tried a few times; once, anyway – but just got them riled, and what was wrong with them all, for crying out loud? Couldn't they see he was on a different plane from them, and couldn't they just tug their primitive little forelocks and…?

No. Back to Ronon and Teyla. At least there'd be two of them left on the team after he died. That meant something, didn't it? No, three, because Sheppard wouldn't be so stupid as to get lost in a fire. Sheppard was good with fire. Sheppard liked to strap himself to nuclear bombs and blow himself up; it was his hobby. The flames probably thought of him as a long-long brother, and…

"Oh God. Oh God." His eyes were hurting so much he could hardly open them, but even when they were closed, all he could see was orange. He slid down the wall, bringing his knees up. If I'm going to die, I might as well die comfortably. Then he thought of all those pathetic little bodies at Pompeii, curled up and cowering, frozen for all eternity.

He heard a window shattering. The whole building would fall next, and he would…

I don't want to die. It was a stupid thing to say. Ronon would be fighting the flames. Teyla wouldn't be so stupid as to get caught in the first place. Sheppard would face the flames stoically and heroically – "so long, Rodney" – like a captain going down with his ship. I could do it, he thought, if it would make a difference, but this was so pointless. He didn't even have an armful of little children to save. At least that would make it worthwhile, he thought. He'd protect them with his own body, and tell them stories to stop them feeling scared. Maybe they'll lie at my funeral, he thought, and say they found a rosy-cheeked three year old slumbering like an angel beneath my corpse.

But he stood up, though. Can't sit. Can't just sit. There had to be some way out, some miracle he hadn't thought of. He was good with miracles. It was all science, of course, but ignorant masses gasped and thought they were miracles. Rodney McKay could get out of anything. Rodney McKay could…

"Are you going to stand there all day?"

He struggled to open his eyes. "Sheppard?"

"Yes. Come on."

"How…?"

"No time."

Sheppard's face was streaked with ash, and shiny with sweat and flame. He was hunched over, pulling at Rodney's arm. "You…" Rodney tried to speak, but his lungs were full of smoke, his throat raw with it. Covering his mouth, he tried to take a step.

"No. Keep low." Sheppard pulled him down. "Air's cleaner. You know that. It's physics."

Of course. He flapped his hand. But there's no way out. The door…

"Came through the window."

There's a window?

"Yes. Here." Sheppard unfastened the black cloth he was wearing around his face, and passed it to Rodney. "Put that on."

His lungs were burning too much to argue. The cloth was warm and damp with Sheppard's breath, and remind me to tell you afterwards how disgusting this is, and how we never speak of it again.

"Now go ahead of me. Head over there."

They kept to the floor, pressing themselves against the wall. Rodney's world narrowed to his hands, to his breathing, to the wall of heat behind him. Soon his hands met broken glass, and the pain was horrible, but at the same time, he barely felt it. "Stand up." He got the impression that Sheppard was shouting it, although it was barely louder than a whisper over the flames. "I'll help you up. Careful of the glass."

It was hazy after that. He was aware of Sheppard holding him up, of his feet stumbling, of a steady voice at his side. The sound of flames surged until it filled everything. Then he was falling, and he tried to cry out, tried to scream, because the fire would take him, and it would take Sheppard, too, if he dragged him down.

"Breathe," a voice said. "Breathe."

And he opened his eyes, and saw blue sky above him, covered with a veneer of smoke. Grass was moist beneath his hands. No, no, that was blood. He turned his hand upwards; saw how the palm was lacerated. "My hands are bleeding," he said, and they hurt, now, terribly, worse than his burning lungs.

"A medical team from Atlantis is on its way," Teyla told him.

Rodney blinked. He could still barely see through his gritty eyes, and he was light-headed from lack of oxygen. His skin felt tight, as if he had been badly sun-burnt all over. He was about to say something about that when he saw Sheppard. Sheppard was sitting on the grass as if his legs had given out and deposited him there. His hands were limp in his lap, palms upwards, and a worse mess than Rodney's. One sleeve was badly burnt, and he seemed to be having difficulty staying conscious.

"He came back for me," Rodney rasped.

"Of course," Teyla said. Ronon and Teyla were also smoke-stained and scorched, Rodney realised. They had all gone back for him, he realised; it was just that Sheppard had happened to find him first.

"You could have died," he said, but he couldn't muster any anger. He thought of the terror of the flames, and thought that perhaps he was on the point of tears.

Sheppard's eyes met his. I would walk through flames for any of you, those eyes said, and Rodney had to look away, but he understood.

So would I, he thought.

end of part one