The morphine appears to take the edge off and the Colonel lapses into a semi-doze, waking every few minutes with a strained breath and the occasional attempt at coughing. At first she returns to him every time this happens, but as he rarely seems aware of her, she decides to concentrate on her work.

For Teyla, in an endeavour that is probably ill advised at best and dangerous at worst, is trying to repair the communications system so they can contact Rodney and Ronon (the former at least always carries his radio). At least, she thinks it is the communications system. Having clambered up what used to be the floor of the Jumper, she is precariously balanced on the back of the pilot's chair, leaning over towards the console. There are only a limited amount of panels she can reach, and she has vague memories of the central one, the panel she can barely reach if she leans right over.

After the Siege of Atlantis, she'd insisted Rodney give her some basic engineering lessons, "if that wraith had fed upon you before I got there, who would have installed the ZPM?" It was not the wisest remark she ever made, but it had the necessary effect. On several occasions when he could spare the time, generally when he was supposed to be training with Colonel Sheppard or Ronon, Rodney took her down to the Jumpers and gave her a series of brief lessons in 'what goes where, what does what, and what will blow up if you go anywhere near it'.

She'd paid particular attention to the last part.

Unfortunately, it had been some time since Rodney had given her a lesson and the pain, like claws repeatably scraping the inside of her skull, was not helping matters. Add to this the fact that Rodney was never a particularly clear or patient teacher, what are you doing, no no no no no! Do you want to kill us? The result is that her effort to repair the systems is more guesswork than memory.

It all comes to a rather painful end when something goes wrong and sparks inside the console, giving her a sharp shock which throws off her uneasy balance. She tumbles off the chair, falling from the front to the back of the Jumper, landing a merciful few feet away from John Sheppard.

The impact knocks the air out of her and starts a fire at the back of her skull that threatens to make a sizzling mess of her brain. She curls up, clutching her head, and tries to stop the tears that are forced out with every throbbing beat of her heart.

"Teyla?"

She cannot answer in case words release the scream at the back of her throat.

"Teyla!"

There is a scrabbling sound; she draws in a couple of deep breaths. She will sit up in a minute, answer John, and fix everything. It will all be well; she just needs a minute…

There is a grunt, a small thud, and a drawn-out, choking moan.

And her minute is over. The process of crawling to John can only take a few seconds, but it stretches out along that long, thin sound into hours. The air about her sways and shifts as if she never stopped falling, and she slips, three times or more, hitting the floor or the ceiling or the sides of the ship. But she gets there, and she's with him and he's still somehow alive.

John gapes up at her, jaw working but producing no sounds now, other than a wheeze behind his feeble attempts to draw in air. Both hands clutch at the metal piercing his chest, knuckles white and sharp.

"John," panic and bile threaten to break her voice, she swallows them down, "let me see," tugging his hands away from the wound. The bandages are stained red in places, but nothing to indicate the metal has penetrated further. She grabs the morphine syringe again, tapping away the bubbles.

"No."

She wants to laugh or cry, "John! Are you—"

"Tried to sit up." His voice comes in a whisper that fades in and out. "Damn stuff messes with my head, forgot—. You fell, you okay?"

Her skull felt how one of her jilapos, her fighting sticks must feel when she brings it down on Ronon's solid bulk when sparring. "I am fine. I have fallen from greater heights today."

His lips twitch, the closest he can get to a smile, and takes a second to gather air before asking, "what happened?"

She frowns, "there was an accident, we crashed, the Jumper was on the edge of the cliff and then—"

He is shaking his head, "after we fell. Why aren't we underwater?" A gasp, "Can't be floating…I get seasick real easy."

Startled, she automatically glances up towards the window. Sunlight shine through the scratched, but amazingly uncracked material. "I do not know… there was a series of rocks along the base of the cliffline. Perhaps we landed on those…or in very shallow water."

"Hey, not arguing," he replies, giving her a breathless smile that shows every tooth. "Better rocks…than water."

Given their landing, Teyla disagrees, but she lets it pass.

"Are you feeling better?" she asks instead, hoping against hope for a positive.

He tries to reply but his words have lost any sound. He tries to draw in a deep breath, but flinches as the air reaches his chest. Her answer.

She brings the syringe into his line of vision, "Another dose? It has been more than an hour."

Another flinching breath and he shakes his head.

"Colonel you are helping no one by putting yourself through unnecessary pain. Rodney and Ronon—" she remembers the dull look in Ronon's eyes last time she saw him, and sees the same shadow pass over John's face, "—will be quickly found when Doctor Weir sends a rescue team, Rodney will make sure of it. They will show the others where to find us, and we will be rescued." She refuses to consider their teammates may presume them dead, or that this assumption might prove correct if help does not come quickly, and even if it does. She does not recall Ronon's subdued behaviour, or Rodney's stiff walk. She would not serve under John Sheppard if he needed to be reminded of these things.

There is a strange expression on John's face when she dares meet his eyes again. Worry and fear and pain, and something like pity…but it vanishes quickly enough in a strangled half-breath that has him clutching at his side, not the wound this time, but his ribcage. She twists her face into a smile as she gives him another quarter-dose, and when his grip loosens, she takes his hand, pressing it between hers. And then she begins a prayer to Gods she has not talked to in months, since she stopped believing that the ancestors were there for her, since they cast her away.

"Pere lume tempo e teri….aba nado fallie, aba"

Fathers of Light of the Everlasting Temple…please spare him. Please.

Author note: hates me, or perhaps it loves Sheppard. Either way it has refused to post this chapter until now. The first part of Teyla's prayer is of course stolen from Hailing's prayer in Hide and Seek, the rest was taught to me by the purple ancient fish that lives in a puddle in my room. I'm not entirely sure if it's real or not as I caught a flu bug this week and have been blissfully malingering. The fact that this is getting updated at all is due to the evil Rachel who seems to believe illness should cause even more whumpfic. This chapter can, as ever, be blamed on her.