Many, many thanks for the wonderful feedback. I'm happily surprised by the enthusiastic reception the first chapter of this story has received!
Chapter Two
Carson wakes to see tree limbs moving overhead. Two people walk at his head and two at his feet. They are carrying him on a pole stretcher of some sort. He is sick with the motion.
John says, "On your feet," and Carson is pulled to standing. His eyes are closed and his legs are scarcely strong enough to hold him. People walk him forward and set him to lean against a wall.
"What is he?"
"Doctor. Took him from the hospital."
"You think he'll cooperate?"
No one answers but Carson thinks that someone may have shrugged.
"Put him over there."
He is made to sit on a floor, where he rolls onto his side and holds his head in his hands, because it feels half-exploded. As long as no one makes demands of him, he will be okay. He either sleeps or loses consciousness and, when his eyes focus again, he sees John Sheppard sitting nearby in a flimsy metal folding chair. His legs are akimbo and he slouches, relaxed, but perfectly alert. Carson doesn't believe he's ever seen John appear more predatory.
"You chose the wrong side," the Colonel says, sitting up and resting his elbows on his thighs.
"Wh-what?"
"The wrong side. As in the bad guys."
"You're…"
"Ibani," John completes for him.
"You're not Ibani, Colonel. You're American, I'm Scot. Neither one of us has any reason to take sides here."
John's feral smile sends ice water down Carson's spine. "I'm with the good guys, Carson."
"What happened?"
"Captured by the Berlish, just like you. Shipped off through the gate to this planet, just like you. I escaped to the Ibani, though. You've been too busy saving the lives of murderous Berlish assholes to pay much attention to the bankrupt principles they stand for. I can enlighten you if you want."
"Don't bother."
Two Lantean teams had met with the Berlish to discuss trade. The war was a secret to many, certainly to visitors from other worlds. Carson's team was attacked in the capitol, but he doesn't recall much about that. Sheppard had obviously met the same fate. At first, at any rate.
They sit together, not looking at each other. The place where Carson has been taken is an apparent outpost or an annex of the Ibani resistance. The scruffy troops and primitive accommodations attest to that. A uniformed fighter brings water and a plate for Carson, who has no appetite but drinks a little.
"They forced me to, Colonel."
"Sure." He gets up and holds a hand down to Carson, who takes it and is pulled to his feet. John tips his chin towards a door on the other side of the room.
Carson runs his hands over his face, through his hair. He winces when he comes to a large goose egg on the left side of his head.
"You could have fractured my skull," he says. "Maybe next time you'll think to ask. I would have come willingly."
"Yeah, you're a real joiner, aren't you?" And with that, Sheppard shoves Carson ahead of him.
It is all that Beckett can do to keep from falling over. His head injury is serious enough, but the added fear is giving him fits. They leave the cabin and walk toward an outhouse. Sheppard stands outside as his fellow Lantean enters. He is close enough so Carson can hear his boots scraping along the gravelly dirt.
Carson leans his shoulder against the wall, then bends and vomits into the opening. He doesn't have any food in his stomach, so it's mostly dry heaving, which leaves him shaking and makes tears spill down his cheeks.
"Bad day, Carson," John says, through the thin outhouse wall. "Bad day when you decided to work for them."
"No…no choice," Carson replies.
"There's always a choice."
"Bloody hell there was, Colonel."
"There's always root."
Beckett slams open the outhouse door. He's rarely felt such outrage, and the sudden movement drives him to his knees. He keeps his arms outstretched to prevent himself from falling on his face.
John's beside him, takes his arm and helps him up. Carson notices the harsh line of the Colonel's jaw. This is John before he takes the weapon that he holds so closely and uses it for its created purpose.
"Not so fast, Carson. Up. C'mon." The sharp edge in his voice feels like paper cuts as he whispers in the doctor's ear.
When Beckett looks at John's face, he sees abject hatred and profound confusion and maybe even a little fear. "What are you doing?" he asks.
"Over there," John says, indicating the woods at the end of the outpost clearing. "We're leaving."
The Colonel wraps a steely hand around Carson's upper arm and pulls him along. His feet scrabble in the pebbly soil, but he stays upright, which is good, considering.
Beyond the Ibani camp to the west lies open land, mesas and great sweeping piedmont, glorious in its expansive and unrefined splendor. Berlish-occupied territory lies to the east. Each day the Berlish move farther westward. They gain a few feet or a few yards or even a mile of Ibani land, and take it for their own. They have not grown flowers on every hillside as they had promised. Instead, the land they possess is torn and wasted from weaponry or from the strip mines that have sprung up to take things from the ground. To the east, rolling hills escalate into old mountains covered with broken trees. This is the direction in which Carson is led, tripping along as Sheppard pulls him.
John loosens his grip on Carson's arm and glances around. "How cooperative are you willing to be?"
For the first time since their reintroduction, Carson feels as if someone he knows is living in John's skin.
"How cooperative do you need me to be?" he responds.
Trust and distrust and friendship and unquenchable loathing move across the Colonel's face, a mixture that Carson's at a loss to explain. He questions with caution.
"Did you know I was at the field hospital?" Carson asks, as they approach the eastern-most boundary of Ibani land, as they near the beginnings of the Berlish zone.
"Nope."
"McKay..."
"We've had the technology sector under observation for a while."
Carson swallows, trying to moisten his dry mouth. "The others?" he asks.
"They made it through the gate."
"Thank G—"
John yanks him roughly. "Shut the fuck up! If you're lucky I'll give you a chance to beg for your life before I kill you!"
"Wha--?" Then Carson sees several Ibani at the edge of the compound, some of them smoking indigenous cigarettes that smell like dill. John nods to them as he pulls Carson to the forested area. The Ibani watch the two and they smile when John lifts his rifle to show them.
Carson allows John to lead him into the forest. They walk past the tree line and continue until they are deep into the greenery. Then John unhands Carson quickly, so the doctor falls onto a bed of velvety moss. The Colonel lifts the rifle, chucks a round into the chamber. He looks like a killing machine, thinks Carson. This is the side of Sheppard that shot Ronon and Rodney and it is the side of him that is always there, running just under the surface.
"You're going to kill me?" he asks, trembling, thinking yes, thinking no, thinking yes…
"In a manner of speaking," comes the reply. John stands above him, tips his head back and stares at Carson from under hooded eyes. The effect is so halting Carson feels the very breath leave his body.
Then, with the skill of an expert, John shoulders the weapon, aims it heavenward and fires a single shot, which cracks and explodes and then echoes in the dense forest. It is followed by the sounds of birds alighting and small mammals skittering through the undergrowth. Then, in the far distance, they hear the Ibanis, the ones they passed on their way here, laughing in the dimming twilight.
"Bang. You're dead," says John, looping the rifle's thick strap across his torso. Again, he extends his hand and helps Carson to stand. "That way," he says, pointing farther east.
"Where are we going?"
"To get Rodney and then head home. You in?"
"God save us," Carson replies.
"He's got nothing to do with it, Doc, but you just go ahead and think what you will."
If John's voice were even one degree warmer, Carson would think that they had no differences.
TBC