Chapter 7: Havin' one girl who loves you …
When Sabina's phone rang some time later and she blinked awake, she realised she'd actually fallen asleep. The sun was much lower in the sky too – it was close to sunset. God, what had she been thinking?! She must have been really tired to sleep for so long in a parked car on the side of the road. Anyone could have found her. "Stupid," she muttered as the phone rang again. Picking it up she fumbled for a moment before pressing the right button,
"Hello?" she said, her voice croaky.
"Sabina, its Major Lorne."
"Did you change your mind about checking to see if Detective Sheppard is okay?" Sabina asked hopefully.
"Ah, no, not exactly," Lorne replied. "That's not why I'm calling."
"You know where he is," Sabina realised abruptly.
"Yeah, we do," Lorne admitted.
"Is he okay?" Sabina asked quickly and then shook her head. "He's not, otherwise you wouldn't be calling me."
"To be honest we don't know and we can't contact him. He's out of cell phone range," Lorne replied. "Listen, do you have GPS?"
"Yes," Sabina replied.
"Punch in these coordinates," Evan reeled off a series of numbers.
Sabina punched them in, watching the map as the destination appeared. She'd been on the right track but she just hadn't gone far enough. John was about forty miles up the road.
"It's close - I can get there within a few minutes," she said. Not waiting for him to offer up any suggested course of action, Sabina started the engine, pulling back onto the road and accelerating quickly. "What happened?"
"Sheppard found the Wraith," Lorne replied. "We lost contact so we don't know his current status. What I can tell you is that the Wraith and the device he was working on have been neutralised."
"How?" Sabina asked, even though she wasn't sure she really wanted to know.
"Air strike," Lorne admitted. "We had no choice Sabina. That Wraith was trying to send a signal to his people. If he'd been successful we'd have a fleet of hive ships in orbit with no way to take them out."
"What do you want me to do?"
"We don't have anyone close by and the tech we'd use to get to Sheppard won't work because of the interference caused by the explosion," Lorne explained. "Any resources we can send are hours away, and leaving things as they are, without knowing whether Detective Sheppard survived is unacceptable. We don't leave people behind."
"I'm already on my way," Sabina admitted. "I'll go look."
"Carefully," Lorne ordered. "Don't take any chances."
"I won't," she promised.
"You won't be able to talk to me once you get close," Lorne reminded her. "Whatever you find, as soon as you know anything, you drive back until you have a signal. Contact me immediately."
"Okay," Sabina put the phone down, turning her eyes to the road, her foot pressing down full on the accelerator.
She saw the smoke first, from small fires spread out over a wide area, the debris scattered everywhere. Then she saw John's car … off to the side and looking surprisingly intact. Pulling up beside it she braked sharply and left the car running, jumping out and hurrying to the driver's side.
There was no sign of John - it didn't look good. Wrapping her arms around herself, trying not to cry, Sabina turned. That's when she saw him.
Stretched out on the ground, a gun in one hand, his face turned up to the sky.
"Oh God," she exclaimed, running towards him, dropping to her knees beside him. His eyes were closed and he looked so pale. There was blood on his shirt, high on the left side.
She knew what that meant and a wave of cold, sick dread swept over her. She was afraid to touch him at first, afraid to find out the answer to whether he was alive, or not. Until she knew for sure his future could be anything. Once she knew, if it was bad, there was no going back. Hand shaking, Sabina reached out, hovering close to his face, straining to feel him breathing.
Was that a waft of warmth or was she just imagining it because she wanted it to be true?
"John," she whispered, touching his cheek.
His eyes snapped open and connected with hers. "Hey," he croaked.
"Hey yourself," she returned, smiling even as tears welled up and spilled over.
"You stayed," he slurred, his lips shifting into a half smile.
"I suppose I did," Sabina agreed. "And I'm not leaving you … I'm going to get you to help."
"Sorry," he murmured in a too low voice. He was slipping back into unconsciousness.
"John!" Sabina said sharply. "Stay with me okay? You're too big for me to carry – you have to help me."
"'Kay," he whispered.
"Okay, we're going to stand up," Sabina announced. She couldn't worry that she'd hurt him more by trying to move him - if she did nothing he'd die anyway. Getting to her feet she grabbed John's right hand, pulling even as he sat up, swaying drunkenly. Before she could stop it, he fell back to the ground with a growl of pain.
"Can't," he said with a grimace.
"Not an option!" Sabina shot back stubbornly. "You need to try harder."
"Didn't mean it," he muttered, grabbing her hand and squeezing it in an effort to make a point that eluded her. "Best thing …," he trailed off, his eyes closing.
For a moment Sabina thought she'd lost him completely. "John!" she yelled, shaking his shoulder. He moaned weakly but he didn't wake up.
"Damn it!" Sabina looked around desperately but of course there was no help. She checked her cell phone but there was no signal, just as Major Lorne said there wouldn't be. She was on her own.
"Fine, we do this the hard way," she growled, moving to stand at his head. Bending low, she got her arms under his armpits and pulled him up off the ground as far as she could. Then she dragged him, in a half circle first until she was pointing in the right direction, and then slowly across the dirt towards her car. She fumbled behind her to open the back door, blindly stepping up into the car and dragging him with her. She was at the limit of her strength and never more glad that she was the opposite of the petite, feminine woman. Straining she managed to get John's upper half up against the seat. Running around to the other side of the car, she crawled across the seat, grabbing John under the arms again and dragging him across until he was mostly in the car. She slammed the door, running back around to push his feet inside, cursing that he was too tall to lie stretched out, before closing that door too.
Then she was in the driver's seat and speeding away, checking her cell every few seconds for it to pick up a signal. When it did she almost cried in relief.
"Major," she rushed out as soon as he answered. "I've got John but he's hurt, pretty bad."
"Details Sabina," Lorne ordered in a purposeful voice that somehow helped her calm down.
"It looks like a chest wound, maybe shoulder, I can't tell for sure," Sabina reported. "There's evidence of blood at his ears too. Maybe from the explosion?"
"Is he conscious?"
"No, but he was, for maybe a minute," Sabina glanced in her mirror, frowning at the figure sprawled across her back seat. "Breathing is shallow and slow and he's pale. After he lost consciousness, I couldn't wake him up again. I'm scared Evan … we're a long way from the nearest hospital. I don't think he's got that kind of time."
"Where are you?" Lorne demanded. "Give me the coordinates."
Sabina read them off the GPS, panic making her twitchy as she waited for the Major to tell her what to do.
"Pull over and stand by Sabina," Lorne said. "We've got you on sensors," he continued as Sabina stopped the car at the side of the road. "Don't panic okay, we're bringing you to us."
She would have questioned what that meant but she didn't get a chance. There was a wash of warmth all over her and a tingling sensation that was just getting to the irritation stage when a blast of bright light hit her. When she opened her eyes what she saw defied explanation. Instead of being in her car, she was in what was clearly a medical facility. People rushed towards her and then past to the figure stretched out on the floor behind her.
John.
The place was a hive of activity as they tended to their patient and all she could do was step back out of the way.
"Sabina."
She turned and saw Major Lorne walking through the doors. It was mortifying but as soon as she saw that one familiar face in a sea of strangers she burst into tears.
"Hey now, none of that," he said, putting his arm around her shoulder and drawing her into his side. "He'll be okay. Got the best doctors here and they've handled way worse than a gunshot wound."
"I'm sorry," Sabina mumbled, struggling to get herself under control. "It's just been a hell of a day, you know?"
Lorne laughed. "Well, it's done now. You made it through and you saved Sheppard's life."
"Go me," Sabina joked weakly, wiping her face on her sleeve. She looked around again, frowning. "Where the hell are we anyway?"
"Time for another one of those stories," Lorne said, urging her to walk with him. "Did you ever watch Star Trek?"
Sheppard woke up slowly, staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling and wondering why it wasn't the sky his last memory supplied.
He'd been sure he was dead … the pain in his chest, the fact that he couldn't even stand straight let alone walk away, and that he'd been alone miles from any hope of rescue kind of pointed in that direction. He'd had some kind of waking dream there for a few minutes though, that Sabina found him. She's stayed too … in his mind she'd been his Johnny Cash girl. It was a nice fantasy.
"You're awake."
Startled, he turned his head and saw her … his fantasy girl, sitting beside his bed.
"Hey," she said when he met her eyes.
"Hey yourself," he said, his voice dry.
"Here," she reached to the side and brought him a glass of water with a straw, helping him drink before taking it away. "They said you'd be pretty thirsty after the surgery."
"Surgery?" he asked.
"For the bullet in your chest," Sabina supplied. "The Wraith shot you. You were lucky – an inch lower and we wouldn't be talking now." Her eyes glittered for a moment and she looked away.
"Where am I?"
"Now that's a story in itself," Sabina replied, smiling. "We, my friend, are smack in the middle of a science fiction story. If you can believe it, after I dragged you to my car and drove us back into cell phone range, they beamed us here, just like on Star Trek."
"Where's here?" Sheppard asked.
"On a ship called the Daedalus, in orbit above the Earth," Sabina explained succinctly. "If that isn't science fiction awesome, I don't know what would be."
"And the Wraith?"
"Destroyed," Sabina revealed. "The signal he sent out apparently got through to some of those alternate realities but not here. Because of you, he didn't get the chance to bring more Wraith to our Earth. You saved us all."
"Neat," John murmured, smiling faintly. Neither commented on the fact that while they'd been lucky, the versions of them they'd each been told about would probably not be equally as lucky. In their reality, the Wraith could already be launching their campaign to reach Earth. There was no point in commenting because there was nothing they could do, even though the fact that those other versions of them existed was probably the reason Sabina had been able to call in help to save John.
They were quiet for the moment and he was drifting, not sure how he should feel now. He'd thought it was all over but it wasn't and he had no idea what should be next.
"What did you mean, back at the scene, when you said you didn't mean it," Sabina asked in a low voice.
He knew what she was talking about – his vision that wasn't a vision at all but reality. It was scary but getting that close to death was a life changing lesson he had to learn from. Just because he'd lost so much in the past was no reason not to man up and risk himself again. And if he didn't do this now he might as well chuck it all away.
"The things I said to get you to leave," he admitted, his voice still too weak. "I was needlessly cruel and I'm sorry for that." He looked at her and some of what he was feeling came through - it was there, in his eyes, if she would look closely enough. "I know it's fast but … you didn't give up on me, and because of that I'm alive when I should be dead. You were right Sabina … I wasn't a solitary man by choice and I knew it … I was too freaked out to admit that you were the girl good ol' Johnny was singing about."
"I was following you," Sabina admitted, "like a crazy stalker lady which is so not me, not that I expect you to believe that. Nothing has been normal since I met you. I feel like we've been on fast forward, like everything was pushing us to get somewhere we needed to be and there was no time for it all to go at the usual pace."
"Exactly," John agreed, his voice a bit stronger now. "It's sappy as hell but you have to think this is fate. That McKay guy said it was amazing how one incident could so radically change the course of a life. Something happened to me that changed mine … threw me off course. Meeting you has forced me back on track."
"I don't know if there was one thing that caused me to be so different from that other Sabina," she responded. "I don't think there was … it was just that you weren't there … so there was no need for me to be there either, not until now, when we can have a chance at that other life together." She flushed. "That sounds so presumptuous. I know what I want John. I've been alone for a long time and I used to like it that way - did everything I could to stop anyone from getting close. Until you. I don't care that we haven't known each other very long – a chance at the future Major Lorne told me he saw for me in that other reality. I hope you want it too but I'll try to understand if you don't, if it's still too fast for you."
"A few hours stretched out in the dirt with nothing but the empty sky for company helps a man catch up," John drawled. "We can slow things down a bit ... see what happens."
She smiled, her eyes shining and hopeful as she nodded her agreement.
"Come here," he murmured. "I need to check something."
Her eyes narrowed but she leaned closer until her face was hovering above his. John threaded his hand through her hair and drew her down the last inch until his lips were on hers. He kissed her, the two of them smiling as they realised simultaneously that the magic wasn't something they'd imagined.
"Well?" she said when she drew away.
"I was right," he gave her a sexy half smile, noting the way her pulse beat strong and fast at her neck. "That electricity between us is no accident."
"Apparently it's in our genes," Sabina smiled, her hand finding his and holding on tight.
"Our genes?" John couldn't stifle the yawn that took him. He was still tired and though he wanted to resist sleeping and talk to Sabina some more he knew it wouldn't be long before he cashed out for a few more hours.
"It's a long story. Close your eyes," Sabina urged. "I'll tell you all about it when you wake up."
"You promise?" he asked intently.
"I promise," she said simply. "Rest now, okay?"
"'Kay," he murmured, his eyes drifting shut.
"John," she whispered just before he dropped off.
"Mmm?"
"You're my best thing too."
"Sweet," he said, mostly asleep now.
Sabina smiled, taking his hand again because she could. She'd wait for him to wake up again … and then they could work out what was next together.
The End
Author's Note:
Okay, so that's it for my version of Vegas, Fortunate Journey style. I'm continuing to write FJS5 as part of the July Camp NaNoWriMo and hope to have it mostly done by the time the month is over. If you want to know where I'm up to, I'm updating my profile page with a note on what episode I'm up to as I work through them all. Thanks for reading ... don't forget to let me know what you thought of the story now its finished! Cheers :D
