Careful Hands
2
Rodney
"John? Colonel, can you hear me?"
Sheppard blinked, as a pair of hands carefully cradled his head. Rodney McKay was leaning over him, his blue eyes intense as he gazed down.
"Yeah," Sheppard finally managed, his voice little more than a croak, and he gave a short cough and tried again. "Yeah, I think so."
"Are you sure, 'cause you cracked your head pretty good back there."
He winced at the pounding behind his eyes, but nodded. "I'm sure, Rodney," he replied, trying to sound as annoyed as possible. "Just...help me up, will 'ya?"
"Sure," McKay said, his hands already shifting from behind Sheppard's head to his shoulders as he levered the colonel into a sitting position. "Good news is, we took out every Wraith on the planet."
Sheppard heaved in a sigh as he sat up. "What's the bad news?"
McKay made a strange noise and crossed his arms. "What makes you think there's bad news?"
"Because I know you," Sheppard said, throwing a chuckle on the end just to keep his friend from bursting a blood vessel.
McKay just stared at him, but Sheppard couldn't tell if it was because of the laugh or not. Then, the scientist reached into his tac vest and pulled out a bandage. Sheppard tried to take it, but McKay shook his head and moved it out of his reach.
"Just sit still," McKay said, his voice surprisingly gentle. Likewise, his fingers were careful as he dabbed at the knot on Sheppard's head, wiping away the blood that flowed sluggishly down the side of his face.
"McKay, what's the bad news?" Sheppard asked again, and his friend huffed, pausing in the middle of taping down the bandage.
"We lost communication with Lorne's team."
Sheppard's heart jumped into his throat, and he pushed Rodney's hands away, trying to stand up. "What? How long ago?" He asked.
"Sheppard..."
"Why didn't you tell me sooner?"
"Sheppard, stop moving!" McKay shouted then, his hands firm on Sheppard's shoulders as he pushed him back onto the ground. "You might have a concussion. You can't just go running around after a blast like that."
"I need to find Lorne..." Sheppard insisted, but McKay was stronger than he remembered. Either that, or he really was more injured than he thought.
"No. You need to stay here. It's getting dark, and since they have the Jumper, they're in a better position for a rescue than we are. They'll have to come looking for us before night falls. Our best bet is to stay put, light a fire, and wait."
Sheppard scowled at him for a while, but then finally sighed and gave up. "Fine. I'll go look for firewood, then."
"Fine," Rodney conceded.
Sheppard slowly pushed himself to his feet and managed to take three steps before dizziness washed over him, and he started to collapse. He closed his eyes, expecting to feel himself hit the ground, but it never came. Instead, Rodney's arms were wrapped around him, holding him up. Intensely horrified that he had nearly passed out again, Sheppard managed to get his feet under him again, and Rodney helped him sit back down on the ground, his back resting against a fallen log.
Rather than the smug I-told-you-so he had been expecting, Rodney simply said, "I'll go," and immediately started off through the surrounding field, his eyes searching the ground at his feet for sticks and branches. Sheppard sat watching him for a while, but when his head began to pound harder he closed his eyes and listened to the sounds around him. Birds sang high up in the trees, enjoying the sunset before them as if it were the last one they would ever see. The river was somewhere nearby; he could hear water rushing over rocks, then trickling down into small pools below. Off in the distance, a dog howled, probably from one of the villages on the other side of the hills. A moment later, another dog howled in reply, and Sheppard smiled as he recalled the way his hound used to sit in the backyard and howl at the moon, just as these two were now.
A twig snapped close to where he sat and Sheppard instantly sat up, his eyes opening at the same time. It was dark all around him now, and Rodney had yet to return. Where had he gone? Was he all right?
When another twig broke, even closer than before, Sheppard's hand reached instinctively for his sidearm. Finding nothing, he growled as he recalled that he'd lost it right before their little "bomb" had gone off. Though the air was cool, he felt sweat stand out on his forehead, and he forced himself to stay quiet in case the noise he'd heard was not Rodney returning. His hands searched the grass around him for a weapon – a stick, a rock, anything he could use to defend himself with – and came up with a thick branch covered with slimy moss. Oh well, it was better than nothing, he told himself. Grasping the branch like it was a baseball bat, he wound up and waited for another sound.
What reached his ears then was not the sound he had wanted to hear.
A low growl, gutteral and hungry-sounding, came from somewhere to his left. Keeping his breathing slow and even, his head turned an inch at a time until he was staring at a pair of glowing amber eyes. A huge, wolf-like creature was crouched nearby, its nose low to the ground as it sniffed at a few drops of blood that had fallen there when Sheppard had been injured.
"Oh, crap," Sheppard muttered softly. Then, his eyes still locked on the creature, he pushed himself up some more and tried to look bigger and more intimidating than he knew he was.
The canine's back end suddenly lowered to the ground, all its bulging muscles tensed and locked, ready to leap forward. Sheppard closed his eyes, knowing that there was nothing he could do to prevent the attack from happening. A heavy weight landed on his chest, and heat seared through his shoulders as the creature's claws dug into his skin. Sheppard pried his eyes open, but all he saw was grizzled fur and a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth. The wolf's jaws snapped shut inches from his face, the sound vibrating his whole body.
Sheppard pushed his fingers through the wolf's fur around its thick neck and then grabbed on, yanking back as hard as he could. He had to keep those jaws as far from his face as possible, at least until he could figure out how to either make it leave him alone, or kill it. He really didn't want to kill it, but right then it was wolf against Sheppard, and he really wanted to live.
The wolf growled as he yanked on its fur, and then sank its fangs into Sheppard's shoulder in retaliation. Sheppard cried out in pain as he felt his flesh tear open, and blood began flowing freely down his chest and back. Already weakened from his previous injury, Sheppard scrabbled for a better hold on the animal, but his fingers were having a hard time finding purchase, and his vision was just beginning to darken around the edges.
"No!" he shouted, either to himself or the wolf, it didn't matter. He would not just lay down and die here. Rodney would come back and see him here, half-eaten...no, he couldn't let Rodney go through that. It would scar him indefinitely.
Just as he had found the wolf's windpipe and began to pinch it shut with his fingertips, it gave a sudden yelp and released his torn shoulder. Confused, Sheppard blinked and shook his head to clear his vision, in time to see the wolf's coat ripple and then turn red.
"Get away from him!" Rodney's voice yelled over the sound of a gun firing. Even as woozy as he was, Sheppard counted the shots. Thirteen.
The creature stumbled away from Sheppard and turned to face Rodney, still growling though it sounded more liquid than before. Sheppard's blood dripped from its snarling jaws, pooling with its saliva and forming a large puddle on the ground below. As Sheppard clamped his hand over his ragged shoulder, the wolf took two more staggered steps toward the scientist, who reflexively shut his eyes and emptied the remaining two shots into its face. The wolf pitched over onto its side at once, heaving out its last breath as Rodney tucked his Beretta into his vest and ran over to Sheppard.
"Oh, my God," he breathed when he saw the torn flesh of his shoulder, the dark blood oozing through Sheppard's fingers.
Sheppard tried to grin at his friend. "I'm okay, Rodney."
"Like hell you are!" McKay replied as his hands desperately searched his pockets. "I knew I shouldn't have left you alone."
More bandages appeared and were pressed to his wound, and he bit down on his lip to keep from cursing at the pain. Once more, blackness crept into his sight, but this time no matter how hard he fought it, it only grew darker.
Right before he lost consciousness, he was aware of the sound of a Jumper landing, then a flurry of voices, and the last thing he felt was the soft pressure of McKay's hands as they carefully peeled the shredded remains of his shirt away from his wound.
TBC...Next Chapter is Keller...naturally...
