John was grateful by the time the approaching sunset was starting to show on the horizon. Rodney had spent most of the afternoon alone in the Jumper and John had just been glad that Rodney wasn't arguing. He had hoped that things would work themselves out if they just tried, but Rodney didn't appear to want to work things out between them.
John had hoped that Rodney would get over being angry at himself and forget for a moment that this had only affected only him alone. But he was being his typical self, only thinking about one person - Rodney. He had apologized to John and had seemed rather desperate for forgiveness but not so much genuinely contrite. He was more astounded and angry at the possibility that he could have failed at such a scale. He and Rodney were overdue for a conversation, but he wasn't sure the physicist would listen.
At the moment, John's biggest concern was getting back to Atlantis in one piece. The Jumper looked pretty banged up; John had seen the dents in the hull. He hadn't seen any cracks and Rodney had assured him there weren't any, but John still felt uneasy about the rather long trip back. He had crashed a Jumper before. They had been shot down from low altitude on a mission a few months ago and that Jumper hadn't come up again. They had been under intense time pressure to repair the craft then--a group of armed prisoners had been threatening them--but still the Jumper had to be retrieved later and dragged through the Gate. They had to escape through the Stargate.
This time, they had no choice but to get the Jumper operational again. It would take around ten hours for a rescue team to reach their location, but their colleagues in the City had no idea where to start looking for them along the route to Karas. It was too dangerous to turn on the hyperspace beacon. The Wraith still believed that Atlantis had been destroyed, and if they found the Jumper, they would realize that they had been fooled. Their hopes rested on Rodney. John hadn't dared to ask about the progress of the computer diagnostic that Rodney was running. He had learned years ago not to ask unnecessary questions. If there were problems, Rodney would mention them if need be.
John checked his wristwatch; it was past seven p.m. He was allowed another dose of Tylenol. Over the course of the second day, the pain had gotten worse, not better. John hadn't taken the bandage off again after Ronon had changed it in the morning, but from the throbbing beneath it, he could tell that the Satedan had been right--he had caught an infection. He hadn't been around when his team-mates, presumably Ronon, had done first aid on his injured arm, but there had probably been soot and maybe fragments from the explosion in the wound. The thought made John dread the coming night and the ten-hour flight back to Atlantis. John would be able to fly the Jumper with only one hand. Not only had the Ancients built an efficient autopilot system which would bring them safely back to Atlantis on its own, but the Puddle Jumper responded to John's mental commands. He could always ask Rodney to take the controls for the trip home; almost all of the gene carriers had been given pilot training since their arrival in Atlantis fourteen months ago. Rodney still couldn't fly in a straight line, but he had come a far way since his rather rocky first attempts. John just wasn't sure this mission was a particularly good time for Rodney to get some more piloting practise.
John washed down two Tylenol with the rest of the water in his canteen. They had filled up their canteens on Karas. Rodney had taken his with him on the Jumper and John had just finished the last of his. Ronon and Teyla had brought all their supplies into the cave. It wasn't time to be worried yet; they had carried an emergency supply of water on the Jumper.
John slowly got to his feet. After sitting in the same position for hours, his joints had locked into place and the Tylenol hadn't kicked in yet.
They had packed up their supplies some twenty feet into the cave to shield them from predators just in case there was native wildlife. So far, they hadn't observed any animal live on the planet, not even the presence of insects. Things weren't looking good, should they be trapped for a longer period. There was no clean source of water and no plant or animal life; they could be in for a couple of very hard days while waiting for a team to come to their rescue.
The walk downhill to the shore was more painful than John remembered. It seemed that his arm was getting more and more painful every hour. Every movement jarred at the broken bones and sent a stab of pain across his arm and upper body.
Despite the cooling temperature of the evening, the combination of a lingering infection, pain and exertion had John sweating and breathing hard before he reached the Jumper. John bent over and braced his good arm on his knee to catch his breath. He hadn't felt this exhausted since the Wraith had besieged Atlantis. In the days and weeks before the Wraith's inevitable arrival, the frantic search for a defence against their enemy had kept them up for days at a stretch.
Not for the first time, John had the faint feeling that something was wrong. In the back of his mind, alarm bells had been ringing since their arrival on the planet, but he was becoming more and more aware that they were in danger. John couldn't pin down the feeling, but there was something about this place that set him off.
It was already fairly dim, but there was no light coming from the Jumper. The lake was perfectly silent; all John could hear was the sound of his own breath.
It was unlike any place John had been to before. Even the desert in Afghanistan hadn't been such a dead and lifeless place. John felt a shiver run over his back. Determinedly, he pulled his jacket closer and walked towards the darkened Jumper.
"Rodney!" John called to announce his presence, not to alarm Rodney. There was no response. John stepped around. It was dark inside the Jumper and at first, John couldn't see the physicist.
"Rodney?" He called again, a bit louder this time. The sound of his own voice sounded foreign to him; the sound disappeared into the empty desert around him
It was almost black inside the Jumper. John stumbled and nearly fell over something on the floor.
His eyes were just adjusting to the darkness when John heard a noise coming from outside. He whirled around, but before he could see anything, a heavy weight tackled him to the ground. The ensuing scream echoed from the Jumper walls.
"Rodney!" John gasped. The pain from his broken arm was driving tears in his eyes and the weight pressing him to the ground was lying very uncomfortably on his ribcage.
"What the hell!" A very bright light blinded John and he had to close his eyes, but he recognised the voice immediately as Rodney's.
"Major! I could have shot you! Why were you sneaking up on my like a Goddamn Wraith!"
"Put the light away!" John shielded his eyes with a hand and blinked at Rodney.
Rodney finally set down the storm light on one of the benches and sat down. John sat back up, very aware that the incident hadn't done his broken arm any good. The fracture hurt viciously and he didn't feel any benefit of the Tylenol he had taken earlier. He was about to give Rodney a good lecture about leaving the Jumper unguarded, but when he looked at Rodney, he was a miserable and exhausted man. Rodney sat on the bench, shoulders, slumped and eyes barely open.
John swallowed his anger. "Rodney, are you all right?"
"Yes, I'm fine," Rodney replied in a flat tone of voice.
"Let's go back to the cave. We can take turns guarding the Jumper, just in case there is anybody out there," John proposed, trying to sound more cheerful than he felt.
Rodney nodded and followed John back to the cave without comment.
John didn't intend to mention the incident between him and Rodney, but he hadn't considered the sharp senses of the Pegasus Galaxy natives. He hadn't even sat down when Ronon shot him a telling look. And Teyla asked: "Is everything all right, Colonel Sheppard?"
"Yeah, I think I should have a look at that burn," John grudgingly admitted.
"I will gladly give you a hand." If Teyla suspected he was in pain, she said nothing. Instead, she brought their rather meagre first aid kit. Dr. Beckett had ordered the kit stocked up with some non-standard extras after the first few missions, when they had run into some nasty critters.
John started shrugging off his uniform jacket. Teyla was watching him silently, but when he began to tug at his tee shirt with one hand, Teyla pulled it over his head without comment. John hated relying on someone else's help, but at least Teyla didn't make a fuss about it.
She quickly untied Ronon's bandage that had tied John's arm to his chest. As soon as support holding his arm gave way, a stab of pain shot through his arm. John hadn't known that a simple fracture could hurt that much, but then he had never walked around with an untreated fracture for days before.
"Your hand feels cold," Teyla remarked and gently squeezed it. "Can you feel this?"
"Yeah, but it's sorta numb," John replied. "Can you feel a pulse on my hand?" John asked the critical question. If he had twisted his broken arm in the wall badly enough to cut off blood flow from a major artery, he needed to get his arm set fast.
Teyla started unwrapping his forearm. The bandage and gauze pads were sticking to the burns on his arm and John had to fight not to wince as Teyla peeled them off.
Ronon had definitely been right. The burns were infected. His skin was angry red, inflamed and blistered. Teyla and Ronon had done their best to wash away the debris and soot, but there were still oozing spots and blisters, probably from embedded splinters of the console.
"Give me your arm." Ronon walked up to John and Teyla. Ronon was holding a canteen. He pulled John's arm over with more care than John would have expected from Ronon and started pouring the contents of the canteen over the burns on John's arm. In the poor light, it looked like water, but it smelled strongly of Iodine.
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" John raised an eyebrow. Lieutenant Ford had been the one with the medical training on the team; the rest of them had participated in Beckett's field training for the Pegasus Galaxy.
"I'm sure Beckett mentioned it," Ronon replied calmly.
John would have returned a reminder for Ronon to pay better attention in the future, but the mixture that Ronon had poured over his arm burnt like hell. John had to grind his teeth together not to yelp when he had the feeling of being bitten by thousands of fire ants at the same time.
"It's working," Ronon commented dryly and sat down next to Teyla. "But you have a problem, Sheppard."
"I know, I fell," John admitted and nodded. He had seen it too. The fracture hadn't been clearly visible before. But now, although the bone hadn't broken the skin, the bump was clearly visible under the skin. John hurt just looking it his arm and he knew it needed to be set soon, before he got to Atlantis.
"Has either of you done this before?" John asked.
Teyla and Ronon both nodded. It figured. They had both been on the run from the Wraith for years; do-it-yourself medical skills came in handy.
"It's a shame we didn't bring any strong drink. You could use it now," Ronon stated coolly.
"I appreciate the sentiment, but I think I'll rather go with the painkillers," John said and turned around. The truth was he didn't feel at all confident at the thought of Ronon resetting his arm. He was rather fond of the appendage and while he didn't particularly distrust Ronon's medical skills, he didn't relish the thought of his bones fusing together crookedly. But he couldn't wait until he could get an X-ray and a professional opinion.
"We should get it over with as long as there is still some natural light," Teyla remarked, as she came over and carried one of the preloaded morphine syringes.
John looked away. He was a in a lot of pain now, but it was going to get a lot worse when Ronon set his arm. It was going to be excruciating. He knew he was going to need the morphine then.
Teyla had paid attention in Beckett's courses and knew where to hit him. She jabbed him in his exposed upper arm, straight into the muscle.
The effects were immediate. John knew that the preloaded syringes from the field kit didn't contain enough morphine to knock someone out; it was just enough to tie you over until medical help arrived.
The warm and heavy feeling wasn't as unpleasant as John remembered from a far past time. After a day and a night of unrelenting pain that the Tylenol tablets had never completely controlled, the relief was a blessing and he didn't so much mind the numbing fog that settled over his mind.
TBC