Day two in the infirmary was even more tiring than the first. At least he'd had the painkillers to soften the blow, but now they had worn off and Keller would only give him the mild stuff today.

"You know, some morphine would do wonders right now, Doc," he mentioned as she passed by during one of her rounds.

She smiled. "I'm sure it would, but you're clearly not in too much pain anymore, Colonel." She placed her hands on her hips, "And by the way, I wasn't too impressed with the expensive jewelry present left on my desk this morning."

John grinned at her. "Sorry Doc, thought you mighta been wooed with diamonds. Or, in this case, a massive ruby."

"I much prefer the simple things in life, Colonel. You're lucky the thing was already dead when I got there."

"You're the one that killed it!"

"Yes, well…an unfortunate victim of circumstance, that was…And wait a minute, you needed help to get that into my office. Who helped you?" she said, an accusatory glare accompanying her question.

"Can't kiss and tell now, Doc, now can I? They'll be afraid to come in here!"

"Yes, well, they should be. I have very pointy objects at my disposal." He gulped. "Carry on, Colonel. I stopped by earlier while you were asleep to check your blood pressure and became enthralled in your story." She motioned to his journal. "You should keep it up."

"Yeah…" he mumbled, concerned about Keller's appreciation for mediocre writing. "Maybe she thought it was a comedy…" He opened the journal again. "It would make a pretty nice comedy, I think."

Picking up the pen, he began to think about another possible story he could write about. "Hmm…" he thought aloud, "There's the not-berries….and the not-pears….but those aren't quite as exciting…Let's try something a little less fruity…"

The Tale of John Sheppard versus the Not-Bear

It didn't take very long for things to go from worse to downright terrible, especially whenever a certain John Sheppard was involved. He'd been separated from the rest of his team about three hours after coming through the 'Gate. They immediately were met by a new group of people, the Goldovans. Admittedly, they were nice, but they had also requested that in order to form some sort of trade deal one member from their party must venture from one end of the woods to the other, retrieve a gold nugget and then trek back.

Really, it didn't sound too difficult. But, what the Goldovans neglected to tell anyone was that a murderous, rampaging animal that looked a lot like a bear lived in these woods. And the best part? He'd only seen one the entire time, so it probably was the only one, hence this ridiculous journey ritual.

He was allowed to enter the woods fully equipped, which he was very thankful for. Rodney, Teyla and Ronon stayed back to mingle with the natives (though John knew Teyla was the only one of the three who would actually do so). While prepping John for his trek through the forest, he overheard one of the young men talking about a being called the Grohlnir, or some such weird word. He assumed that whatever it was, he could shoot it dead easily.

Some things were much easier in theory than in practice.

He could see the end of the tree-line on his way to the golden nuggets when he heard something roar. A roar so loud the trees shook, birds flew into the sky, and the ground trembled. And then he heard something running.

The feet of this animal pounded so hard John's legs shook. He quickly glanced to his left and there, far off in the distance, he could make out a distinct brown mass charging in his direction. Without waiting to see whatever the hell it was, he fired. Bullet after bullet tore into the creature and John thought for sure that whatever it was now resembled a block of swiss cheese. Boy, was he ever wrong.

The thing kept moving, kept pounding and John took off in a run towards the tree-line. "Damn, Sasquatch can run!" he yelled, nearly tripping over as he attempted to run faster than his feet would carry him.

As he broke the tree-line, everything stopped. The trees stood still, the ground stabilized and the large, brown mass of John-Sheppard-must-die disappeared from view. Panting like he just ran a marathon, John stepped forward and fell to his knees in front of a small stream.

Apparently gold was in abundance on this planet because everywhere he looked along the stream nuggets of gold lined its banks. He was told, however, to only take one. Any more, or any less, and the negotiations were off.

Picking one up carefully, John placed it into his front, right pocket. "Step one, complete!" he announced and turned around to face the forest. "Step two…" he paused. "Why does step two always suck?"

Reloading his P-90, John took stock of his inventory. A military issued knife attached to his waist on his right, a small flashlight next to it, several more rounds for his P-90, and, of course, his tactical vest. His communication unit had to be left behind for this journey to count, as well as any extra bags.

"Time to face the beast," he said, and took off at a run. Whatever was waiting for him had retreated at some point because everything seemed to be all clear. The nearly two hour trek into the woods was pretty nice, actually, until the end. Now he was on edge with adrenaline coursing through his veins. The paranoia of a giant man-eating creature ready to pop out and devour you was enough to put anyone on the precipice of crazy talk. And so that's what he started to do.

"It's okay John, it's just eats people. It's cool, it's cool," he repeated, trying to calm himself down. "Was it a bear? I think it was a bear…"

No sooner had the words exited his mouth when to his right the trees rustled. Aiming his P-90, John tried to inspect between the branches. The effort ended up being futile when, seconds later, an eight-foot tall being pushed aside the trees—literally, knocking them the hell over!—and stood there in all its glory: the Grohlnir.

The not-bear, because it looked like a bear, but wasn't quite a bear, was absolutely terrifying. Its teeth reminded John of a great white shark's, each tooth almost a perfect triangle polished to glistening perfection. A coat of light brown fur matted its massive body and it was at least as half as tall as all the surrounding trees, if not taller than that. Craning his head, the not-bear's eyes stared back at him with a predatory leer. Yellow, beady, cat-like eyes.

Before he could even contemplate running away, the Grohlnir raised it's claws as if to strike. Seven—yes, seven. He double checked—claws hung over him, like curved icicles waiting to impale him. Every single one was about six inches long and reminded him of ivory tusks on an elephant.

Scariest goddamn not-bear he'd ever seen.

And in his shock, he barely had time to move out of the way before those dagger-like claws dove towards him, narrowly scratching his right shoulder. "Damn, damn, damn," he repeated and took off running through the forest. Giant firs loomed over him and the rumbling of the ground started again. Evergreen needles rained down over him as he ran, the ground slightly wet and sticky after a few quick rain showers.

"Are you freaking kidding me?" he shouted, taking a hard left when he came to a sudden ravine. The not-bear, with all its momentum, didn't have time to correct its course and it soon tumbled into the small chasm.

"Take that, Smokey!" John called out before glancing over the edge to make sure it'd be safe to walk all the way back now.

And suddenly wished he hadn't.

Other than the creature's height, weird eyes and creepy ass, super-long claws, John soon realized another reason why this thing could never be compared to a regular bear.

This thing could climb cliff walls.

Deep claws dug into hard rock and the Grohlnir growled, its anger evident in the way everything around it shook. It started to ascend, ivory finger tusks embedding themselves into tough stone that not even a jackhammer should cut through.

"That is so not fair!" And it wasn't long before John took off running again. He jumped over ditches, leaped over logs and fumbled over flora before stopping to catch his breath. He'd ended up just outside a sizable open meadow complete with tiny flying insects and not-dandelions.

It wasn't long after that that he heard the next roar and the impending earthquake of doom behind him. The sudden thought of that giant rolling boulder scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark suddenly came to mind and he'd have laughed if it wasn't for the incoming eight-foot tall, mutated teletubby of absolute terror. In the near distance he could see branches being slashed to shreds and loud cracks as entire evergreens snapped in half at the Grohlnir's brute force.

Looking around, John decided this was a better place than any to fight back. Spotting a log surrounded by moss and what he hoped were thick, sturdy trees, he hopped over to the other side, readied his P-90 and waited with baited breath.

It took maybe fifteen seconds before the not-bear appeared and John quickly ducked down. Peeping through a hole in the log, he observed it moving its head from side to side so fast he thought it might break its own neck.

"Would never be so lucky…" he mumbled and the thing had to have Superman hearing because it turned its damn head towards him and activated its turbo boosters. It was like a damn bullet train!

He started firing. The bullets seemed to pass through it like a hot knife through butter and the thing barely slowed down. It was on him in seconds. Throwing himself under the log, he waited for the inevitable 'crunch,' but it never came. The not-bear flew over him and kept charging, unaware that it had just passed him completely.

Not being one to question luck—and boy, did he have a never-ending supply of that!—John Sheppard stood up and darted off to the side as quietly as he could. Thankfully, the Grohlnir was making much more noise than he was in its blind rage, so he didn't have to worry about being so discrete.

So John decided to do something he thought he excelled at. He decided to be sneaky.

And after about an hour and a half, he came to the conclusion that the sneakiness was definitely working. With no sign of Too Fast Too Furious—and he would kick Ronon's ass later for getting that reference stuck in his head—he figured he was pretty much home free.

But nothing ever came easy for John Sheppard.

With only a few hundred yards left to go, the tree-line visible through all the foliage, Smokey must've thought John had caused a forest fire because that earth-shattering roar was back and his thoughts flashed back to that time he'd watched Jurassic Park.

"Oh, come on!" With a quick burst of energy, he made a beeline for the village. Cranky, McGrumpy wasn't far behind and John couldn't even get to 'Five Mississippi' before he was promptly knocked off his feet. Thank goodness for small miracles, however, because the sideswipe of the giant not-bear threw him out of the forest and right to the feet of Rodney McKay.

"Took you long enough, we've been waiting for hours," Rodney complained, a life signs detector in his hands. "Did you get the piece of gold?"

He started coughing up a lungful because the landing knocked the wind right out of him. He suspected Teyla and Ronon were nearby because he felt more than saw someone help him to his feet and it sure as hell wasn't Rodney.

"Why thank you for doing all the hard work, Sheppard," John mimicked, his imitation of Rodney McKay not at all accurate, nor was it meant to be. "Please, let me help you up and see if you're injured after nearly getting mauled to death in the forest!"

"Oh please," Rodney countered, "You look perfectly fine. A scratch on your shoulder," and he was right, it had already stopped bleeding, "And a little short of breath. You know that you could find any old piece of gold in any creek on this planet and then give it to them? I followed you on the detector, you actually went all the way to the other end of the forest! There's water everywhere and you took the long route!"

John blinked back at him. "Are you serious? I did all that work and all I had to do was stop at any damn creek and find a piece of gold?" He turned to Teyla, his eyes expectant.

She sighed and nodded at him. "Yes, it is true. The water beds all over this planet are abundant in small pockets of gold. They showed us several of their springs and it even resides there, too. I am sorry, John."

"Well, that's just great! I could've saved myself all that trouble! I stopped to fill up my canteen halfway in and thought they'd know if I picked up those rocks!"

Ronon stepped in, "No, we sat down and had a feast after they gave us a tour of the place. No one was watching you at all."

"Oh, For crying out loud!"

One of the elders sauntered over to them then and took note of Sheppard's disheveled appearance. "My, my, you look like you've had a tussle with the Grohlnir! Are you okay?"

He couldn't hide the anger coursing through his body. "No, I'm not okay. I'm exhausted, bruised, more than a little on edge, and I just found out about the shortcut!"

The elder raised his eyebrows at the word 'shortcut,' but couldn't discern John's meaning. "I am sorry for your troubles, Mr. Sheppard. Did you, by chance, happen to recover one of the golden nuggets?"

"Yes," he spat, "I have one right here." Reaching into his pocket, he felt around. All that came up, however, was air. "Are you kidding me?" He shouted, rooting around in all of his pockets. "It was right here!"

The elder shook his head sadly. "Many have tried to achieve this goal, but none have managed to do so as of yet. They have all perished at the hands of the Grohlnir. You should be proud, Mr. Sheppard, to be the only one to make it out of there alive. However, without the golden nugget, we can not trade with your people."

Turning his back to them, the elder began to walk away. And that's when Rodney stepped in. "Uh, wait…" He waved his arms in the direction of the elder, "…you, old person!" Rodney said, and produced a golden nugget out of his pocket, larger than the one John had taken from the stream at the other end of the forest. The elder turned around. "Look! He found it! He gave it to me when he came out of the woods to show me."

The elder ambled back over and grasped hold of the nugget. "Well, my, my, you've done it! Congratulations, young man, you have achieved a feat which no one else has managed to do! You have outmaneuvered the Grohlnir!" The elder turned once more, this time to the villagers gathered behind him. "Elsa! Felder! He's done it! The young lad has done it! Prepare the celebration!"

"Come, come," he motioned to John and his team, "Join us! We must celebrate in your honour!" The team followed him, the other three moving slowly to match John's tired gait.

"Rodney…" he said through gritted teeth, "Where the hell did you get that?"

"Oh, that?" he said, "When they showed us the hot springs I picked it up off the ground. I have five more stashed away in my pockets somewhere. I'm going to send them to Jeannie, see what I can get for them."

John smacked his hand on his forehead. "You've gotta be freaking kidding me."

He closed the journal and yawned, a bout of sleep coming on.

"Get some rest, John, you've been writing all afternoon," Keller said, walking past him yet again.

"Yeah, you're right," he replied, setting the book on a nearby tray.

He smiled a lazy smile, draping the blanket over his body. He thought about how they used the Grohlnir—dubbed Smokey by the Atlantis crew—as a template for describing wild animals that looked a lot like bears.

He remembered just a few weeks ago when Lorne came back from one of his missions. Just stepping through the Stargate, SGA-2 walked back into Atlantis just as John and his team were getting ready to head out.

"Major! How was the mission?" he asked, taking stock of Lorne's team. None had any injuries and they weren't in a rush or calling for a med team, so he figured they were all okay.

"Pretty good," he replied. "Tiring. Ran into a few not-bears, of course."

"Oh? Smokeys or Winnies?"

Lorne smiled. "The Pooh Bears, sir."

"Damn it," he complained, "How come you guys always get the softies!"

"Luck of the draw, sir. Luck of the draw."

And with that memory in his head, John settled into the infirmary bed, a soft smile on his face, and fell asleep.