Disclaimer: MGM owns Stargate Atlantis; I do not.

Rating: T (for language, violence, and sexual situations)

Time Frame: After "Missing" (Season 4 Episode 7)

Canonicity: AU diverging after The Return (Season 3 Episodes 10 and 11)

Note: To answer a question, the title "Aftermath" is a double reference. It refers 1) to the aftermath of the Bola Kai incident, and 2) to the aftermath of the events of the story itself. (Also, I had absolutely no idea what else to call it.)

Stargate: Atlantis

AFTERMATH

by Koinekid

Part 2

"How were we supposed to know the guard was Olmos' son?"

Ronon growled, and Rodney shrank back. He and Sheppard had put their plan into action as soon as the guards marched Ronon into the cell. They seemed to be going for it too. The younger left with a promise of retrieving the guns and one tac vest. ("It has my allergy pills," Rodney lied.) Instead, he brought back his pit-faced father. They took Sheppard then. That was some time ago.

Rodney turned his attention to Watkins. The corporal's fever had spiked, and Rodney tried in vain to recall how Jennifer cared for him during his various illnesses. Unfortunately, those memories focused more on her gentle touch than her medical technique, and he doubted playing with the hair on the back of the corporal's neck would lower his temperature. More likely, the resultant embarrassment would raise Rodney's own.

Mopping the forehead with a wet cloth might be the way to go. Once during a bout with strep throat, his mother spent an entire night at his bedside with a cloth and a bowl of cool water. He awoke every few hours to find her hovering over him with actual concern in her eyes. Resentment replaced concern the next morning, still it was one of his fondest childhood memories.

Rodney had neither cloth nor canteen at hand. He checked the corporal for loose clothing. Finding none, he settled for his own dry shirtsleeve. Let none ever accuse Rodney McKay of not being a team player.

He offered to check Ronon's wound as well. For what he did not know, unless some long buried memory of his mother treating a bullet wound suddenly resurfaced... No? The Satedan rebuffed the offer anyway, telling Rodney that the villagers had "dug out" the bullet. Eww. Rodney thought it a good sign until Ronon disabused him of the notion. "They're keeping us alive to make us slaves."

Hours had passed since his last meal, and his captors hadn't fed him. Rodney knew he should conserve his strength but ended up wasting precious calories on pacing. It helped him think, and he had to think or he'd scream.

In desperation his mind cycled through all the escape movies he'd seen: The Great Escape, The Wooden Horse, The Shawshank Redemption, and for good measure five or six episodes of the Prison Break television series. Lack of time and resources would prevent him from putting Andy Dufresne's or Michael Scofield's plans into action. He needed something simpler.

Though it was not strictly an escape movie, his mind kept returning to the Sergio Leone western For A Few Dollars More. Its one actual escape involved well armed bandits rescuing their incarcerated leader. Rodney supposed his brain might be telling him to sit tight and wait for Colonel Carter to send a rescue party. She would if his team missed more than one scheduled check-in.

That was the safest course, but his brain should know better than to suggest inaction. He'd never go for it. Dr. Rodney McKay might hesitate to walk directly into danger, he might even freeze when danger walked in on him, but he could not stand idleness. So, what was his brain trying to tell him?

Another scene from For A Few Dollars More came to mind. In it, Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef break into a shack housing the proceeds from a robbery. Eastwood wants the money; Van Cleef wants revenge on the bandit who murdered his daughter. The shack is heavily guarded, so the door is a no go. Instead, they come in through the roof.

Could he? The ceiling was too high. Could they? Quickly, Rodney reviewed what he knew about the building. It was a single story structure with a gabled roof, windows apparent on at least three sides, and a single door facing away from the trail so that the villagers had to circle most of the perimeter to enter.

"Ronon, wake up." Rodney nudged the Satedan with his foot. "Come on, up and at 'em, big guy. I need a boost."

To his relief Rodney found the ceiling was not solid but tiled, and the tiles were of a manageable weight. Once among the rafters, he had the run of the building. He had hoped for a clear shot to an exit, maybe through a removable air vent. But the air holes were cut directly into the wood. Plan B, then.

Testing each step to avoid creaking the rafters, he advanced until directly above the outer door. The building had a central hallway leading to the double doors of what he assumed was a master suite. Rooms, including the cell, were located to either side of the hall. Prying up a tile in the hall would be too risky. A room, then, preferably one of the two nearest the exit.

Problem: those were the rooms most likely to be occupied if the villagers were thinking logically. Were they? Escaping the cell had been exceptionally easy, and Rodney was ashamed it had taken him so long to figure out how. Maybe Sheppard was right, and the villagers weren't too bright. Or maybe they never had cause to hold more than one prisoner at a time. With no furniture in the room, not even a pallet for a bed, the ten foot walls could not be scaled without a team effort.

One prisoner at a time. The thought chilled him. Because he knew of no one, not even a peaceable trader, who would willingly travel the gate network alone. What do they do with the other prisoners?

He decided to risk one of the closest rooms. Prying a tile from above proved more difficult than pushing from below, and he longed for a flathead screwdriver to use as a wedge. When he managed to lift the tile a few inches, it slipped from his grasp and clattered back into place. He stopped breathing and strained his hearing. He shut his eyes too, a conditioned reflex when death was near.

Thirty seconds passed with no muffled shouts of "Intruder!" or "He's right above us, boys!" More importantly, no bullets punctured the ceiling, though phantom sounds convinced him he'd heard gunshots. Even when reasonably certain he was safe, he hesitated.

Stay put, fear's siren song demanded. Ronon would escape and save them all. Carter would send help soon, probably had already. Those phantom shots weren't phantom at all. Marines were even now swarming the village, demanding his safe return. Right? No sense getting himself killed when help was only minutes away.

"Goddamn it."

A deep steadying breath, and Rodney told his cowardice where to go. Hands shaking, he began working on the tile again, grumbling all the while that a scientist shouldn't have to put up with this kind of bullsh—

Got it. Tile out of the way, he could see the room was empty. A single candle banished enough darkness to reveal not sleeping quarters as he expected, or a storage closet as he hoped, but what appeared to be a shrine. Benches lined every inch of the wall, and in the center stood a kneeling altar. Rodney grinned. That was no religious icon on display atop it; that was a tac vest.

He dropped into the room, trying to fall into a crouch but ending up on his butt. The carpet absorbed the sound of his fall, though. He snatched the vest and tried it on. Too small. It wasn't his, meaning there would be no life signs detector. But there might be...yes, a power bar. Half of one anyway. He made a face, ate around the teeth marks, then tossed the crumbs and the wrapper behind the altar. He adjusted the straps and zipped up the vest.

He turned, intending to give the room a final once-over before trying for the exit but stopped dead when his eyes settled on the altar. The vest's placement had obscured a gruesome mural. Robed revelers, their rifles raised in exultation, surrounded a man tied to a stone slab. Looming above him was a feral, gray-haired man, knife poised for a killing blow. The scene was set indoors, but the stargate was distantly visible through a window over the feral man's shoulder.

It clicked. That's why the entrance was behind the building – so the picture window in the main suite would have a view of the stargate. Rodney's team weren't in a prison. They were in a church. And they weren't spared to be slaves but sacrifices.

Sheppard!

Rodney was turning the doorknob before he stopped himself. The villagers could be right outside, and getting himself captured again would do his teammates no good. He checked the mural. Assuming it was accurate, the cult observed its sacrifices at sunrise. No sunlight had shown through the building's ventilation when he'd been up there. He might still have time.

In a perfectly ordered universe, he'd find a robe hanging nearby to use as a disguise. No such luck. Maybe he shouldn't have said goddamn earlier. He cracked the door a smidgen to survey the hall, then eased it shut. A half dozen men in robes milled about. All were armed.

Standing atop one of the benches, he could just about touch the ceiling. Fortunately, they weren't bolted down, so he arranged the lot of them in a stairstep fashion that enabled him to reach the rafters and cross to the room opposite. He'd noticed an icon on the altar that looked like a shield. The villagers might well have identified the tac vests as armor. There was no mistaking the P90s though. They were definitely weapons. It stood to reason that, if they enshrined armor under a shield icon, they might enshrine a gun under a weapon icon.

Two extra clips were attached to his vest. If he could get his hands on the gun, he could mount a rescue mission of his own. When he lifted a tile over the second shrine, however, the P90 wasn't there. And the room wasn't empty.

To be continued

Thanks for reading. Reviews are appreciated.

Rev. Jan 2011