Please see first chapter for disclaimer, rating, warnings, pairings, etc.

Part 2/?

-Chapter 2-

Darkness

"Elizabeth, I'm telling you, it's a conspiracy! The entire galaxy is out to get me, or at least make my life very difficult! Everyone is borrowing my equipment without asking, never putting it back where it belongs, and – and – I'm sick and tired of it! Can't you have a talk with them and tell them to respect my workspace?"

Doctor Elizabeth Weir patiently listened to her chief scientist's tirade, trying to hold back her amusement at the way he practically hopped around her office. He looked as furious as he sounded—not an uncommon occurrence in Atlantis—and she surreptitiously moved some of the more fragile items on her desk a little further away from the edge, just in case.

"And, on top of that, you want to know what Doctor Williams said? He said I don't even know what I'm doing! And how long has he been on Atlantis? Three months! How long have I been here? Over four years! Perhaps a little bit of the proverbial pot calling the kettle black, eh?" With this dramatic finish, Rodney McKay stopped in front of her desk, red-faced, and waited for her to say something.

Elizabeth took a moment to make sure she was suitably composed. Careful to keep her expression neutral, she leaned forward and rested her elbows on the surface of her desk. "I'm not sure what you expect me to do about this, Rodney."

He looked startled. "You're the leader of this expedition, the diplomat, the – the peacemaker! Elizabeth, please, you have to help me! I can't get anything done as long as things are missing, and I have to go chasing the person who has them all over the city after finally tracking down who borrowed what!"

She was accustomed by now to Rodney's spells where he would go off on one or many of his fellow scientists. But why was it that she often felt like a frazzled mother trying to run a very large, unorganized household instead of a well-ordered scientific expedition? Soothingly, she said, "Just ask them please to let you know before they borrow things. Or failing that, tell them to leave you a note when they do. And then ask them nicely to put things back exactly where they borrowed them from."

"What about. . .oh. That even takes care of when I'm off-world!" Rodney's eyes brightened just a bit. "Aha, thank you, Elizabeth. Now if everyone else can just understand the concept. . ." He was already walking off across the short bridge leading from her office to the control room as he spoke the last. As his voice faded away she finally allowed herself a smile.

Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard, the expedition's military commander as well as the leader of Atlantis's flagship team, entered through the door on the other side of her office. He saw the smile on her face and, "What's so funny?" he questioned, perching on the edge of her desk.

"Rodney." Elizabeth turned to her laptop and resumed work on the next month's provisional duty roster. "He just came to me complaining about his fellow scientists."

"He not playing nice with the other kids again?" John questioned, arching one eyebrow curiously. Apparently he followed her train of thought, and considered himself the other head of the Atlantian household. "What happened this time?"

Elizabeth hit the save button, She turned back to her husband, at the same time picking up and cradling a cup of coffee in her hands. "He claims everyone is taking things from his lab and putting them back in the wrong places, or not bringing them back at all. I just told him to ask the others nicely if they could let him know when they borrowed something and then put it back when finished."

John reached across the desk and plucked the mug from her hands He took a long drink before handing it back, empty. At her glare, he shrugged. "What? I'm sleepy. Besides, I thought Beckett told you that you weren't supposed to have coffee."

Elizabeth winced. "I know what he said. But it was just one cup. . ." At his look, she sighed and gave it up. "There goes my stress level for the rest of the day."

John came around the desk to kiss her. "Only two more months, 'Lizabeth. Then you can have coffee again. I think."

Elizabeth rested her hands on the swell of her stomach where their child rested and grew. "A little less than two months. Right. I can make it." She smiled, then sighed and closed her eyes. "Okay, I need some Athosian tea. Don't they have a brew for stress?"

John cocked his head to the side. "I think so. But if you're feeling stressed, maybe you should. . ."

She held up her hand. "I am not taking another day off. Now I can finally work again, I'm not taking a day off until this little one decides she's ready to be. . ." She was interrupted when one of the Gate technicians, Chuck, stuck his head in the door.

"Doctor Weir, Colonel Sheppard," he said, a concerned look in his eyes. "There's something wrong in one of the labs."

-Mainland-

Ronon slowly lifted his head and squinted his eyes open the merest crack. His blurred surroundings tilted unsteadily, making him have to swallow hard against the bitter taste at the back of his throat. The jumper had, at least, landed right-side-up. Through the gaping hole up front where the wide port had been, he saw that the sun was halfway down the sky towards the horizon. So, he thought muzzily, he hadn't been out for long.

Slowly the memory of what had happened came back to him. Teyla! Johnson! He groaned and slowly sat up, wincing as shattered pieces of control crystals and larger

chunks of the windshield pressed against his hands. His right arm nearly gave under him as pain shot through his shoulder. Instinctively drawing it up to protect it, he gritted his teeth in determination. Pushing with his left arm and both legs, he heaved over onto his knees, closed his eyes to shut out the world's spinning, and crawled toward the nearest remembered support. Grabbing the doorframe between the cockpit and the rear bay, he pulled himself erect on aching, unsteady legs. His forehead felt strange, slick and sticky at the same time. He ran his forearm across it, then stared blankly at his sleeve. Blood. Doesn't matter. Gotta move, gotta find Teyla—

He took one unsteady step toward the front of the jumper, another. His foot caught on something, nearly pitching him forward. He looked down. Johnson lay sprawled between the pilot's seat and the one directly behind it, legs protruding into the center aisle. His head was twisted at an unnatural angle, his eyes open and staring. Steadying himself with a hand on the passenger seat, Ronon carefully stooped and placed the fingers of his left hand against the young Marine's neck, knowing already he would find no pulse. Drawing his hand over the dead eyes, he gently closed them with a murmured, "Thank you, Lieutenant." He knew the crash could have been much worse. The young man's determined piloting had at least kept them aloft long enough to reach the mainland, buying them a chance for survival.

Straightening, Ronon turned his head to the side, eyes searching for Teyla. His heart began pounding erratically when he didn't see her. Had she been thrown from the jumper during its wild tumble? Was her body even now floating somewhere out at sea? No, no, he wouldn't accept that. She had to be here!

"Teyla!" Her name tore out of him as he staggered to the copilot's seat, swiping at his eyes with a hand in an effort to clear his vision. She had to be here, she had to be here!

She was, her slight body wedged into the knee space under the copilot's controls. His gut twisted in dread when he finally saw her. Blood covered the side of her face visible to him, oozing sluggishly from a gash on her forehead. She looked so still, so pale. . .

"Teyla!" Please don't take her away from me, I can't live without her. . . He dropped to his knees so quickly he nearly blacked out again. Hanging on to consciousness by pure will, he pushed her blood-matted hair away from her neck with shaking fingers to check for her pulse. For a long moment he was unsure if what he felt was actually her pulse, or only what he hoped to feel. But there it was again, and he could have wept in relief: her pulse, faint and fast, throbbing against his fingers.

Moving awkwardly, partly because of the tight confines, partly because of his own injuries, he reached out to put his arms around her slender form. Pain shot from his right collarbone again, but he ignored it. "Teyla?" He started to draw her gently to him.

Three things happened simultaneously: Ronon felt a resistance, as if something were holding her back; Teyla's body shuddered in agony; and a faint gasping cry passed her lips.

Instantly withdrawing his arms, Ronon leaned closer and squinted, trying to see what could possibly be holding her in place. No good, too dark. Need light. Yet again he made the effort to stand. Stepping carefully over Johnson's legs, he made his way to the back part of the jumper. Fortunately, most of the fastenings on the equipment nets along the bulkheads over the benches had held. He located a flashlight, returned as quickly as he could to kneel again by Teyla. Switching on the light, he winced briefly at the brightness before moving it methodically around, looking, looking—

There! His heart clenched and his breath hissed between his teeth as he leaned in for a closer look. Oh, Ancestors, no! Some kind of clear, thin yet rigid conduit running from the underside of the control panel had partly ripped free during the crash. The lower end was still attached to the jumper. The other held Teyla impaled, piercing like a spear between her ribs about four fingers' width below and a little to the side of her right breast.

Since he was no longer trying to move her, she had gone limp again. The light allowed him to see, though, the effort it cost her to breathe. "Teyla, just please hang on!" He didn't know if she could hear him or not as he withdrew head and shoulders from the knee space. Still kneeling, he twisted his upper body and reached for the controls. As close to complete panic as he'd ever been, he picked out the one for communications and slammed his hand down on it. "Atlantis, this is Ronon, we need help!"

The control flickered once, spit static, went dark.

"No!" Ronon thumped his fist on the console and tried again. "Atlantis, this is Jumper Seven, can you hear me?"

Nothing, not even static.

Think, Ronon, think! His left hand groped over his head; no headset, must've torn loose and disappeared in the crash. Teyla hadn't been wearing one, but Johnson had. He pivoted on his knees, bracing his right elbow on the pilot's seat, reaching with his left hand for the pilot's body. He forced himself not to rip it away, but to remove it carefully, with respect for the young man's sacrifice.

It didn't work either.

Ronon closed his eyes, trying to fight back the despair rising into his throat from deep in his belly. The Athosian settlement was on the other side of the mountain; many long miles of ocean separated them from Atlantis; and Teyla—

He couldn't deny the stark truth. Teyla had a punctured lung along with he didn't know what other injuries. She needed medical assistance in the worst possible way. But he couldn't move her. The thin conduit violating her body also held her immobile.

Panic threatened to overwhelm him. One thought pierced through all the others in his scrambled brain:

Now what do I do?

-To Be Continued-