A/N: Itty-bitty little Common Ground spoiler, just so you know. The muses and bunnies are tossing out virtual candies for the reviews. The bunnies are frolicking while doing so, and the muses are laughing at them. (rolls eyes) eesh. Hold on tight, yon whumpers, because here we go...
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Hasta la vista, Baby
Every bone in John's body vibrated on impact with the slime covered floor. He gasped going for a deep lungful of breath, and ended up only a third of the way there when his ribs grated in vociferous complaint.
"Don't think I'll make this quick for you, Kell," Ronon taunted. "You have a lot of lives to answer for."
John would have responded with something witty and nasty had he the breath to do so. A vicious stomp to his ankle encouraged him to suck in a little more oxygen.
Through the haze of oxygen deprivation, John saw Ronon's lip curl in a sneer.
"I'll break you one bone at a time."
John's witty retort was a painful and pathetic cough. Ronon's heavy boot moved from the now cracked ankle to his already broken chest, and pressed down. Agony robbed John of the little air still swimming in his lungs. He could feel his ribs give, hear them rub against each other, and he distantly wondered if fires could be started by rubbing two bones together. The ribcage was supposed to protect the poor, defenseless, yet frighteningly vital organs that couldn't defend themselves. Now the ribcage had turned, and was probably mere centimeters away from pricking those poor defenseless, vital organs.
John felt it safe now to panic, ego be damned.
"R-R-Ro... Ro – non," he wheezed. "P-p-please... Please... S-Stop... Please. It's... me... John. P-Please..."
John felt an annoying tickle in his lungs that he couldn't cough out. Black spots flashed with white sparks in his eyes, and his heart wasn't helping the situation by pounding oxygen-less blood through his veins. That same blood was screaming in his ears until he could barely hear his own wheezing.
"You're going too fast. Ease up. He must not die all at once."
John rolled his fading vision toward the sourced of the very cold, heartless female voice. The foot on his chest eased but the pressure was still tight. Pulling in air was like breathing through a straw, and though the dark splotches faded, the sparks still flashed like the Fourth of July.
John eyed the new comer as best he could. It was her. He knew it was by a feeling, like a bad case of Deja vu. She was tall, slender, with long black hair that came to her waist, wearing a tunic and pants more akin to something the Ancients would have worn. She would have been quite attractive if it hadn't been for that whole homicidal, genocidal, racist against humans streak burning in her wild gray eyes.
She knelt beside John as the rest of her infested minions hung back. Her assessment of him was like the owner of the Sirloin Steakhouse assessing cattle for tonight's menu. When she touched him, it was light, almost gentle. His face first for her fingers to brush the massive shiner that had his eye swelling shut. Next his neck and the finger-shaped bruises around his throat. His collar bone that Ronon had cracked before slamming him to the floor. Down his ribs pausing at the breaks. She moved on to his arm lying useless and at an odd angle at his side. She trailed her fingers down to his wrist.
It was like being touched by the dead. There was no warmth in Carus' skin. It was all Antarctic cold, like flesh pulled over metal.
Carus, the name popped into John's head without permission. Carus gripped John's wrist and lifted his hand. Pain pulsed, and John gave up the air he managed to intake for a small yelp followed by a whimper. Carus caressed the back of John's head with her other hand.
"You, my dear mongrel," she purred dreamily. "You are mine now. All mine. I thought I would savor your death like a sweet dream, but I find your pain to be more pleasurable." She gripped John's forefinger tight, and pulled back.
The finger cracked, pain exploded, and John forced his lungs to push out a broken cry.
"You are the epitome of abominations. You are a mutt." She pulled the middle finger back, and John cried again. "A cur." The next finger, and John both cried and whimpered. "Filth not worthy to breathe the same air." The pinky finger. John was sobbing now. Hot tears tickled down his face.
"You do not deserve a quick death." She gripped his hand and his wrist, and twisted. This time, John screamed, arching his back off the floor.
"You will die slowly, and you're friends will watch," Carus said above the shrieking. John's screams died when his lungs compressed out every last molecule of air.
Carus' hand returned to stroking his head. "Now where are they, cur? Where are your friends?"
John had to wait until his lungs recalled how to breathe before speaking.
"Go to... Hell... Robobitch."
Carus' hand paused in its caressing. With speed that would make a cobra jealous, her hand shot to his throat, lifting him upright to bring him scant inches from her face. The murderous rage in her eyes actually had John trembling from more than just pain and cold.
"You know I will find them eventually. Why not make this easy on them? You tell me where they are, and I will make their deaths quick. If not, then their deaths will be slow, and you will be the one forced to watch."
John smiled drunkenly, flashing her his blood-stained teeth. "Ultimatums, ultimatums. Die fast or die slow. So many choices."
Carus released him and he crumpled in an agonizing heap to the floor, then she kicked him in the stomach. John curled in toward the pain trying to suck air through the equivalent of a swizzle stick. He was starting to miss oxygen rich nasal cannulas.
Carus stepped over John and squatted on his other side to dish out some robotic female wrath on his other arm. She had his arm lifted, ready to twist and snap the bone into jagged splinters.
She didn't. She just sat there, unmoving, as though someone had flipped the off switch, and John prayed that someone – namely Rodney - had flipped that switch.
Then Carus' head tilted to one side like a curious dog.
"I know where they are," she said. She stood, and stepped over John.
"Bring him. His punishment is only just beginning."
Ronon smiled wickedly and gathered John none too gently into his arms. He made sure to adjust John in ways that had him yelping, crying out, and whimpering.
"You so owe me... big guy," John gasped. Ronon adjusted again.
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Rodney glanced askance nervously at the trussed up infected squirming in futility against the wall, glaring daggers, bullets, and wraith cullings at them all.
"You sure she can hear us through him?" Lorne asked from his spot against the wall next to the infected. He nudged the infected in the thigh with his boot.
Rodney looked back at his Dell and let his fingers fly. They had to time this right. Get Carus in and shut as many of her minions being tugged along on their invisible leash out. The moment she set foot through the doors, then swish went the doors.
"Colonel Sheppard said he thought he'd felt or seen a presence. At first I passed it off as delirium, because it was better than panicking over how deep Carus' influence had infiltrated. Now that I've had time to think about it, I really need to learn to give into panic. These infected people aren't just her minions, they're her eyes and ears. So, yeah, definitely working."
"Okay," Lorne said. "Makes sense. What doesn't is why this human hating movie projection is so keen on helping us."
"It's just a program," Rodney said. "It has to help us, bad attitude not withstanding."
Lorne perked. "Oh, all right. So it's completely incapable of back stabbing us then, right?"
The information on the laptop kept trying to blur together in his eyes. Rodney sighed heavily, gulping several times before speaking to keep the bile at bay.
"At this point, we can only hope so. If not, then we can only hope for a quick death."
"That's not encouraging, Rodney," Carson remarked from his post beside a bandaged Vasquez.
"It wasn't meant to be. Reality bites, Carson, get over it."
Lorne chuckled, then his hand shot to his com. "Lorne here... Copy that. Whatever else you need to do, doc, you better pick it up. We've got bogies headed our way. A herd of them, and they don't look happy."
The clattering report of P-90 fire had every head whipping toward the door. Lorne's hand shot back to his com.
"Fall back! Repeat, fall back! Bring them in!"
Shots intermixed with gun fire and stunner pulses, then came feet pounding the metal pavement. The men Lorne had stationed outside the lab to keep watch raced in.
"Everyone take cover," Lorne ordered. Men ducked behind machines and consoles. Lorne helped Beckett move Vasquez behind a counter, and Rodney grabbed his laptop and ducked behind the holographic platform, peering out enough to see who came through.
The infected strode in like they owned the place, led by a young woman Rodney swore he had never seen before, and kind of wished he had because he was rather hot...
It took a moment to realize Silbar's holographic image wasn't projecting. The electronic ghost of the old man was gone. Lorne had been right in inquiring into possible back stabbing.
"Son of a bitch!" Rodney squeaked. Oh well, at least they still had plan B.
The dark haired woman who had to be Carus by her very ancient dress stepped into the lab with Ronon the loyal pitbull beside her. Ronon was carrying something in his arms, something dirty, limp, bloody, bruised, and spiky-haired.
Rodney gaped. "Oh my gosh."
"Dr. McKay! The doors!" someone hissed.
Rodney jolted and hit enter. The doors slid shut right after three more of Carus' minions slipped through. One of them Elizabeth. Rodney had nearly sliced Elizabeth in two.
Carus did not seem to care that she was cut off. Why would she? She was robo-babe, capable of breaking all their necks in five minutes or less, then juggle their corpses just for fun.
"You might as well come out," Carus said. "There is no point in playing these games. You can either make this easy on yourselves, or hard."
Ronon stepped forward and dumped his burden carelessly to the floor. Rodney cringed at Sheppard's combination sob and yelp. The man never even shed a tear, said 'I'm good' when he was bleeding out his ears. For him to so much as gasp in pain meant that pain was going to require surgery to fix.
"Bloody hell, what've ya done to him!" Beckett appeared from around the counter making a B-line for the broken Colonel. Ronon's precious materialized, and Beckett stopped – thankfully not dead yet – three feet from his patient.
"Ronon, lad, please don't," Carson begged.
" Shut up," Ronon snarled. To emphasize his misplaced hatred for whoever or whatever he was hating on, Ronon placed his foot on John's chest.
Rodney had only seen John that terrified one other time – when he was being fed on - and even now it still made him sick. Sick enough to nearly vomit, but ended up with only a few gags. John's pain-filled and high-pitched whimpers sent shocks of cold racing down Rodney's spine.
"Ronon," Carson continued to beg.
"You will all come out of hiding," said Carus, "or I will kill this precious mongrel of yours."
Ronon pressed harder, and John cried out.
Rodney stabbed at his keyboard trying to find some way to initiate Silbar's hologram.
"Get back here you racist son of a bitch!"
"Dr. McKa-ay," Carus sing-songed. "Come out, come out, where ever you are. Major Lorne, no reason to waste bullets and stuns, they will not work on me. I will kill your Colonel, and all those present if you do not emerge now." Proving her point, she stepped back and placed her hand on the back of Dr. Weir's neck ready for the fatal twist. Ronon's foot continued to push down on John's chest until John had no air left to even wheeze.
Carson stood there helpless.
Rodney sat there helpless.
Lorne rose up from behind his hiding place looking pissed.
Carus smiled, and tightened her hold on Elizabeth's neck.
"This will be so much easier now."
"Carus."
Rodney flinched when Silbar frizzled and fuzzed back into existence.
"Carus, child. It is I. It is father..."
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Carus forgot all else. Her minions, her goals, the mutt, synaptic signals of captures and kills from the infected as they ran about doing her bidding. All of it became white noise in the distant background as her world shrank to only her and the father who she thought had abandoned her.
Except he hadn't. He was here, now, standing before her with open arms.
"Father?" she said, barely above a whisper.
Carus smiled, accentuating the wrinkles on his face. "Yes, cherished one, it is I. I am sorry I did not come for you sooner. It was not possible for me. But I am here now. Here to take you home."
Carus did not have the means to shed tears, so her infected shed tears for her.
"Oh, father. I thought you had left me."
"I did, but I have returned for you now."
Something within Carus shattered. All the anger flitted away from her like the Earth creatures called birds being released from a cage. She stumbled toward her father. Then she ran to him with arms wide open. She threw herself into his embrace, passed through it, and yet did not realize. As she stood within his holographic form, the same nanites she had spread like a plague through the filthy humans now filled her, altering her own electronic synapses to believe that Silbar's arms were around her. She could feel his strength, his warmth, and let herself sink into it.
She was no longer alone.
"Oh father."
"It is all right now, Carus. Everything will be all right."
"Father, I am so tired."
"Then rest, cherished one, rest."
Carus felt herself sink, and a warm, comforting darkness flooded up around her. She curled up on the ground still feeling her father's arms around her, and let herself be absorbed into the darkness.
---------------------------
Carus laid herself down to sleep, and immediately after every infected in the room crumpled like boneless sacks to the ground. Beckett moved fast taking Ronon's pulse. He nodded with pursed lips, then turned his attention to the more immediate problem of a broken and bloody Colonel Sheppard.
Rodney crawled out from around his hiding place. "That's it then? She defeated or shut down or whatever?" he asked, looking up at Silbar.
"Shut down was initiated. Would you like me to reprogram her?"
"Not on your half life, buddy! She's down and she stays down, got it! And what the hell took you so long?"
"I needed to deactivate in order to prepare Carus' own deactivation program. It would have absorbed an unnecessary amount of power otherwise. Is the filth pleased with current results?"
Rodney pulled himself to his knees using Silbar's platform. "Yes, the filth is very pleased."
"Then I take leave of you."
Without even a parting 'curses to all human mutts', Silbar fizzed out leaving only the human shell of his daughter behind. Homicidal robot or not, Rodney found something very cold about the whole ordeal. Hugs and kisses, then 'I killed my daughter, hope that pleases you, bye now and never contact me again'. Like father like daughter, no doubts there.
Rodney wanted to melt into the floor. Except there was still one crises to be tense about. He didn't have the strength to stand, so he crawled over to Carson who was checking Sheppard over. The look on the physician's face was making Rodney's stomach twist. When he looked down at Sheppard, he had to slap his hand over his mouth to keep from heaving.
Carson had the filthy scrub top pulled up so he could have a listen to the man's chest with his stethoscope. There were bruises on bruises all over Sheppard's body, and Rodney could actually see the breaks in the ribs. John's oddly angled arm too, his fingers, ankle...
Rodney couldn't hold it in anymore, and crawled over to the holographic projector to puke his guts inside out. It was a short lived affair. He'd already puked everything and the kitchen sink. Free of the need, Rodney crawled pathetically back in time to hear Carson say something about there being no breath sounds on the right side.
John began to stir, rolling his head from side to side. Suddenly his body jerked and he began to cough. Blood sprayed from his mouth coating his face in a fine mist of red.
"Damn it we need to get him into the infirmary! Someone bring me the something to bloody carry him on!"
John's eyes were open and rolling like glass marbles in his skull. His head lolled in Ronon's direction, and the movement stilled. He began shaking, hard, and tried to push himself away from Ronon with his good but weak arm.
"No..." he choked, shaking his head. "No..."
Rodney scurried like a pug dog to Sheppard's other side, effectively placing himself between Ronon and John's line of sight. He grabbed both sides of Sheppard's face and locked gazes.
"Sheppard! Sheppard, it's all right. Look at me. It's me, it's Rodney, you're going to be all right. It's over. Do you hear me? We got to the lab, figured it all out like we always do, and saved the day... Again. Ronon's not infected anymore and you're going to be all right."
The terror and hope Rodney saw in John's eyes was almost heartbreaking.
"W-won?"
"Yes, won. We won. It's all over."
John's body shuddered, and a tear squeezed free of the corner of his eye. "Promise?"
Rodney nodded. "Yeah, promise."
John nodded. "Don't... leave me alone... Just in... Case. Please..."
Rodeny couldn't hold back a shudder himself. John never begged. "We won't. We'll be there."
John nodded again, then promptly passed out.