AN: Okie, dokie. You people keep reading my story and some of you have even left a comment in the reviews. I'm going to be a good girl and I won't keep you in suspense as to how the story goes. I hope you'll like this chapter.
Rage During A Storm
John and his team set in positions by the treeline of the Stargate clearing. It had just begun raining and they weren't dressed properly. John's team really regretted not taking their uniform jackets.
"They could have mentioned the rain," John muttered to himself while moving behind one of the trees. He looked thoroughly at the ground but didn't seem to find Rodney's footprints.
Jorgenson heard him and supplied: "It's a rainforest, sir."
Aiden looked at them and wondered aloud as if he hadn't caught their talk: "Aren't rainforests supposed to be steamy and hot?"
They all scanned the sky for the Extra-Invincible Dart, seeing nothing. Hearing nothing, not even a static from their radios if Rodney tried calling.
"There are more types of a rainforest," John explained. "There is the tropical and the temperate one."
He stopped abruptly because he felt like Rodney when explaining something to them. And that meant he was saying too much when not needed. But then, he desperately missed those words flowing from Rodney's mouth. He would provide them with tons of useless but highly interesting information.
He wanted to know where Rodney was, if he had stayed in the ruins, if he was alright. Why? Because he knew Rodney had never ever listened to any orders when he thought they weren't right, he was stubborn like a mule and he would rush to the Gate as soon as he thought it was possible to return to Atlantis. And if he had been wrong…
John shook his head and took a life-sign detector out of his breast pocket. It showed his current team, nine dots, in the centre, and a few more lonely here and there. "It's useless," John sighed. How could a life-sign detector detect all forms of life? Well, obviously, it was in its name. John decided to make Rodney change at least one of them to detect only people and the Wraith when they got him back. That way it would be easier to find missing people. However, the 'when' seemed menacingly close to an 'if'.
John was upset that the detector wasn't able to read his mind like Jumpers did. He shoved it back into his pocket and turned at Stackhouse.
"Stackhouse, can you see anything that would tell us if he got here?" he asked, partly expecting a negative answer.
"None that I can tell, sir," he replied shielding his eyes. "But I can't see or hear the Dart, either."
John grimaced and hoped dearly that for once Rodney had been a good boy and obeyed. Despite that, he looked around once again and tried calling out. "McKay?"
Then he activated his radio and called using it and even his own voice: "McKay, what's your position?"
The entire team was hiding under trees to be shielded from the rain and possibly the Wraith.
"McKay, respond!" John shouted into his comm. Mentally he pleaded, 'Come on, Rodney, don't do this to me. If you're pissed, fine, let me suffer during finding you but at least peep up so we have a starting point. So that we know you're alive.'
He didn't have the courage to say that aloud. Unfortunately, the only answers were wind blowing through branches and constant drumming of the rain.
John put his hands around his mouth and called: "McKay! Rodney!"
His call was deadened by the weather conditions and earned him a couple or pitiful glances.
Carlos moved to Allan and whispered urgently in his ear: "Sir, shouldn't we keep quiet when there can be ground drones around?"
Allan shook his head, turned his back at John's team and said: "Let him be. Dr. McKay must be gone when he doesn't respond."
"Do you two have something to share?" John demanded just from behind Allan. He came to them as soon as he noticed Carlos going to Allan.
Carlos prepared to answer but Allan spoke up instead. "We're just unsure if shouting is smart at this particular moment, sir. It might lure the Wraith to our location and you've given specific orders not to shoot the Dart down."
John suppressed the urge to roll his eyes upward before replying: "I see. But if they're near enough to hear my shouts, they already know that somebody came through the Stargate, that we're here."
This ended the discussion for John and he turned and walked away. He called again, unsuccessfully trying to hear a reply or a snide comment on his account.
He couldn't imagine losing Rodney. He was very valuable, very important. They wouldn't have survived without him in the first place. His ideas, his brain had saved them so many times. And now John longed for his sarcasm, their friendly banter, which had become a bit strained after the incident with Chaya but, fortunately, was resolved quite soon, their bickering, him raving on Ancient technology they had found in one of the labs.
John bit his lower lip because he was afraid that if Rodney wasn't waiting for them here or replying from the ruins, then there was the only other obvious explanation…
"Where's the Dart?" John asked quietly. Aiden and Teyla read his question from his lip movements as their team had got used to one another's speech and face features.
Teyla walked over to him, put her hand on his arm and responded loudly enough so that others could hear her as well. "It hasn't shown up since our arrival. And I can't sense the Wraith, either."
"Might it be out of your reach?" Maria demanded worriedly. She was afraid that Rodney had been culled because she obeyed her CO and not her own instincts.
"I'm not sure. I don't know…" Teyla shifted her gaze from Maria to Sarah, who kept shivering, to John.
Allan interrupted her. "It may be lying in wait right now somewhere. You needn't be able to register them. But it probably has Doctor McKay by now."
Those cold words caused some sort of primal response in John and he reacted without much thinking, ready to send a roundhouse punch at his face. Only Teyla's quick hand saved Allan from a broken nose when she turned John back at herself.
"John…" she pleaded with him. This one word made John stop and behave according to the protocol. It meant so much more than just a name. It was so much more than a bare plea not to hurt anyone without a proof.
He nodded and turned at Allan. "We haven't even begun searching properly, yet!" he snapped at him with all his suppressed emotions; anguish and fury making up the most of his tone.
Everyone jumped up due to it, not even the targeted person. Allan shuddered uncomfortably and others gave it to the rain instead of real fear.
John knew he had gained others' maximal attention so he asked the question which had been chewing his inside since he had found out about Rodney. "Why did you leave him here in the first place?!"
Allan blinked in astonishment before the significance reached him. He stiffened, scared that the truth may come on the light, but he knew that he needed to stick to what he had already said in front of Dr. Weir. So he looked at John calmly and answered: "We had no choice. We couldn't shoot the Dart down, we returned to the Gate but he was good twenty minutes away. Well, considering his physical fitness, it would have taken him good thirty minutes or even more to reach the Stargate." Allan shrugged and went on: "My team was in danger. I needed to act."
John dragged a hand along his face to wipe rainwater and to calm himself down not to break into a storm, which was likely to occur after these two sentences. Teyla noticed his tensed jaw and knew well what it meant. She only hoped John had enough self-denial to solve this in tranquillity.
"He was a part of your team," John reminded him with closed eyes, putting stress on every word.
Allan's team knew he had put a foot in it again. He said completely the same face to Dr. Weir and she was equally upset about them not counting with Rodney.
John opened his eyes again and stared into Allan's. "Elizabeth approved your mission. He came with you. He shouldn't have been left alone in the ruins at the very start."
Stackhouse and Markham together guarded the sky when they noticed how concentrated on the issue others were and hoped that everything would end up all right.
Allan returned John's gaze while his team stood behind him. "There wasn't any reason to expect an assault or a Wraith attack. Nobody lives in the radius of several miles. When we checked the planet yesterday, we couldn't find any colonies or villages to start with."
John shook his head. "There is a protocol to follow. It's a standard procedure not to leave anyone alone on an entirely new planet and especially when the said person is a civilian."
John's voice was even, without the smallest hitch of emotions, but his eyes were burning holes in Allan's head. Carlos and Maria wondered if John was seeing red at that moment. Sarah was unhappy, sorry that they were like dogs and cats.
However, John hadn't finished by saying that. "Scientists don't have the combat training we, military types, have got on the Earth. And you know yourself how engrossed in studying new things they can get! Hell, McKay can get so involved in playing with those toys that he'd never notice a bomb going off right next to him."
Jorgenson shifted his jaw, clearly understanding what John had meant. Sarah was his second scientist. The first one had been killed by hostile natives when he persistently tried to work on sacred ruins, because he was so sure they were hiding access to an Ancient weapon, and the natives didn't like it. The arrow was precise and he didn't suffer much. Nevertheless, it hurt immensely the entire team every time somebody reminded it. They had failed to protect him and Allan blamed himself for not getting him away sooner. Sarah didn't know the complete story but had heard enough to make a picture.
John's eyes had glinted for a few seconds before he got a hold of himself and sighed slowly. Teyla touched his healthy shoulder and he sent her a thankful smile. She knew how he had to be feeling and this was the only comfort she could provide him with.
Aiden approached him as well from the other side. "We can't waste more time," he added, nudging John verbally.
John nodded and looked at Allan's team, Markham and Stackhouse evaluating their possibilities. "All right. Stackhouse, Markham, you stay by the Stargate. If anything moves around, call. Don't let anything pass through but watch out for incoming wormholes. We won't be able to reach you fast enough if needed."
"Don't worry, sir," Sgt. Stackhouse said encouragingly. "We know what to do. And if the Dart appears, we'll try to disable it but not to hurt those aboard."
John nodded apprehensively and turned at Allan. "You take Vegaz and Dr. Ginger, and go search through the forest. If McKay left the ruins, and I'm pretty sure he did, he can be somewhere there. My team and Sgt. Vysockaja will go to the ruins and search there. Understood?"
Everybody nodded. John didn't wait and turned to the direction of the ruins. Others followed immediately. Allan caught up with John and said: "Major Sheppard, I'm sorry for my coldness."
John nodded and demanded slightly mollified: "How did it happen? How did Rodney remain in the site alone?"
Allan expected him to ask that and he didn't have to lie himself because Sarah hadn't told him the truth. "Dr. Ginger needed to return to the Stargate with photos for Dr. Weir and Dr. McKay wished to remain in the corridor and work on the translation. She told us that he had seemed very concentrated on it and she hadn't wanted to bother him."
John's features softened. "That's him. He wouldn't leave a place until he knew everything about it."
Suddenly, he frowned and turned at Allan. "Wait, you left two scientists alone and took two soldiers to the Stargate?!"
Allan didn't know what he was implying. "And I shouldn't have? I didn't see it as a problem because Dr. McKay has been on your team for about nine months and therefore should be able to protect them both from basic threats like animals or traps in the corridor."
"But he's a civilian, not a soldier!" John repeated, again angrily.
"Sir, I supposed they could manage for an hour tops when they had sent us away not to be in their way and were alone for much longer only with my occasional checks on their progress."
Teyla stole a few glances in Maria's direction and noticed that she looked troubled.
Maria sighed silently, wishing she hadn't stopped and reached the ruins. It wasn't like she could be court-martialled for disobeying direct orders. Dr. Weir would not let it go this far, although she had to put Rodney under house arrest when the entire base had thought that he had helped Brendan Gall on the old Wraith's planet as he considered him a threat to his position. Damned herd behaviour! One foolish sentence and such a craziness had begun. Brendan had been Maria's close friend but she knew Rodney wouldn't kill him at any costs.
John was more than aggravated. "And you didn't think of sending someone back when she reached you?"
"No, because she had got to us just before we closed the wormhole!"
"But if you had sent someone ahead to hurry to protect his…"
"Then we would be missing two people instead of only one!"
Maria shook her head and looked at John and Allan. They were still walking side by side but the tension between them grew every passing second and their shouts made it even worse. Maria wasn't the only one to notice that but she didn't need to say anything because Aiden took it into his hands.
"Major, we should separate now. The sooner Captain Jorgenson starts looking in the forest, the sooner we'll know if Dr. McKay had got there."
They stopped. Allan's teammates had never dared to say such things to their team-leader in front of others. They expected John to say something about authority but he only tilted his head a bit to the left and pressed his lips into a thin white line. "Right," he said in a thankful tone that somebody finally found their common sense and suggested it.
"So, as we agreed, I take Vysockaja with my team and you go search in the forest. I know it'll be hard as the rain washes away footprints but try."
Allan nodded but was sceptical about finding Rodney. They hadn't heard the Dart, McKay hadn't raised them, it was raining, they were cold and the forest was pretty dark itself. He could clearly imagine a nice Halloween picnic in there.
The trio set off and John called after them: "Maintain radio contact. If you find something, anything, let us know."
"We will," Sarah promised looking at him tightly.
"So, Sergeant," Teyla looked at Maria, "lead the way."
Maria scanned them all, their facial expressions, their body language. Everything screamed at her just how worried about their friend they were. She muttered silently to herself: "He's not at all the man that arrived from Antarctica. He does have changed. A lot."
"I beg you pardon?" John asked because he caught a word here and there.
"Nothing," she answered with a fake smile.
John shrugged and she led them to the ruins taking exactly the same path her team had had the first time.
