Also, I've never thought Torca to be a 'Mary-Sue,' but the subject of 'Mary-Sue's' has been showing up lately, and someone turned me on to a test that you can take to determine whether or not an original character actually is a 'Mary-Sue.' I had Torca take the test, and I am happy to say that she passed it with flying colors! So, just in case there was a little inkling of thought in any of your heads that this chick is a 'Mary-Sue,' well, I hope I've dispelled it.
Alright, enough! I hope you all enjoy this chapter!
Emrys
The Weight of an Oath - Part 14
Rodney's disposition had not improved during the time it took them to walk down the gentle hill that lead to the entrance of the Hollows. Beckett couldn't really blame the man since he, himself, held reservations about undertaking a journey that apparently was to be on foot. Torca's resolute refusal to explain anything more, and the short tumble he had experienced halfway down the hill had also made it difficult for Carson to take any sort of action against Rodney's incensed behavior.
Being careful to keep his voice low, McKay had nevertheless made his displeasure well known and had continued to do so all the way down the hill. He glared balefully at Torca's doggedly postured back and growled out a stream of words that had not stopped even while he had helped Carson back up to his feet after the fall.
Beckett was actually pretty impressed by the man's unlikely control over the volume of his tirade until he saw Teyla placing a calming hand on Rodney's arm every time the timbre of his voice became too loud.
Now, peering into the dark entrance of the Hollows which turned out to be a series of caverns through which they were supposedly going to travel, Torca finally turned to face her aggressor. Beckett watched both Torca and Rodney with intent interest, but at the same time, he stood close to Sheppard who was lying where Ronon had placed him gently on a shady spot of ground.
Unbelievably, both scientists stared antagonistically yet quietly at each other for a time, and Beckett found himself losing patience. They needed to get over this glitch in their shared venture and get on with things. Fatigue and a nagging ache in his left knee that had begun bothering him soon after his fall incited him to begin the conversation.
"Torca, lass, why didn't you tell us that we would have to travel on foot for some time?" he asked, pushing down his own frustration at the situation. He ignored Rodney's affronted look by maintaining complete attention to Torca's uneasy expression. He knew that the physicist would want to take the lead in this matter, but Beckett needed fast answers if he had any hope of getting Sheppard back to Atlantis alive. Rodney's adversarial techniques, albeit effective in their own way on Atlantis, would not serve to make Torca more inclined to explain things.
Torca was practically bristling with some emotion that Beckett found hard to decipher. Her mouth opened and closed briefly before she seemed to be able to control herself well enough to respond.
"He," she said with a scathing glare and a contemptuous gesture towards McKay, "is difficult."
Taken aback by what he now could ascertain was heavy anger from the Netharian woman, Carson didn't know what to say in response. He turned to the others and was surprised to see Ronon huffing in agreement and Teyla unsuccessfully attempting to hide a knowing smile. Rodney appeared to have been struck speechless by Torca's audacity and seeing the incredulous look on McKay's face made Carson smile a bit as well.
"I could not have persuaded Doctor McKay that to attempt to operate the city Stargate was suicide," Torca continued to explain.
"That is beside the point," Rodney had managed to find his voice, and his words were angry and resentful.
"It is exactly the point!" Torca responded instantly. "I had little time to orchestrate your escape, and far from enough skill in these matters to strategize a way past the Citizen's Guard that has been surrounding the Stargate since your arrival to this world. Since I knew that this area would be secluded, and I am well aware of my people's propensity for avoiding the countryside, coming here to search for a less guarded Stargate seemed to be the most feasible course of action to take. And I am confident that there is another Stargate within these caverns, and that we will be able to find it."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa," McKay said as he edged his way closer to Torca in a predatorial way that caused Beckett some small amount of alarm. "Confident? Confident! You mean you don't KNOW where it is!"
"Well, not exactly, no," Torca admitted as she slowly backed away from the approaching man. "I have only heard stories from my father and from people who knew him. But the stories are reliable, and I know that we will find a Stargate within these caverns."
Rodney had stopped moving forward and seemed only able to gape and utter short bursts of half-words. Afraid that the man would give himself a heart attack, Beckett stood up as Rodney's face reddened with apoplexy.
Ronon got to the physicist first and in an uncharacteristic motion of sympathetic understanding, placed a solid hand on Rodney's shoulder.
"I'll scout it out," he said, matter-of-factly. "We have no choice now," the Satedan added just for Rodney's ears, but Beckett was close enough to hear the words all the same.
Ronon cautiously entered the cavern, and Rodney began pacing the grassy area in front of the entrance. Beckett saw McKay share an anxious look with Teyla before the man took up his unhappy muttering again.
Carson sighed heavily and thankfully sat on the ground next to Colonel Sheppard's supine form. He monitored the unconscious man's respiration and pulse again and was even unhappier with the results this time around. Fumbling through their pack of meager supplies, Carson pulled out one of the Netharian syringes of oxygen. He had just begun preparing the Colonel for the injection when both Rodney and Torca yelled out simultaneously.
"Not again!"
"You must not!"
Startled, Carson pulled the syringe away from the Colonel and glared at both scientists.
"What is the problem now?" he asked, staring at his two companions with irritation.
"He's going to start that caterwauling again," Rodney whined. "I don't think I'll be able to handle it."
"He must be quiet," Torca said, eyeing Rodney with contempt. "Although secluded and not well known, it is possible that the area surrounding the Stargate will be guarded."
"You don't even know for sure that there is a Stargate here!" Rodney exclaimed.
"That is beside the point," Torca said scornfully. "Administration may well know of the stories about this Stargate, and it is possible that they will have determined our goal. We must be quiet and careful, and as we have seen, administering the oxygen to Colonel Sheppard will not allow for either condition."
"We have no choice," Beckett said and with his free hand indicated the blue tinge around the reclining Colonel's mouth. "He won't make it far without respiratory support, and the injection is all that we have left."
Worry flitted across both Rodney and Torca's features, and they shared a look that was, for once, somewhat lacking in disdain. Rodney brushed a hand through his already rumpled hair and sat heavily beside Sheppard. Beckett saw Torca's eyes soften before she turned away from the scene.
"Then we will have to keep him quiet some other way," the Netharian murmured as she turned to stare with unreadable eyes up the deserted hillside.
888
John opened his eyes when he was gently lowered to a patch of cool, shaded grass that thickly covered the edge of a dirt path. Weakness swiftly forced his eyes closed again, but while consciousness briefly lingered he was aware enough to know that Rodney was vehemently arguing with someone. Sheppard wanted to enjoy what seemed to be winding up to an all out rant, when awareness was stolen from him yet again.
His next memory was an impossibility, because standing before him, weaving drunkenly on his feet, was his oldest friend, Memphis Bledsoe. Memphis absently fingered the guitar he was holding, and for no reason whatsoever, John suddenly remembered that although he had been born in Tennessee, the man had never actually seen the city for which he had been named.
"You oughtn't sing when you're on a drunk, John," Memphis said seriously. The man's Southern drawl had become pronounced after the first shot of bourbon, forcing John to take a moment to allow his own disoriented brain time to translate the man's words. Once he realized that Memphis was insinuating that he had a poor singing voice, John felt angry. But after he saw his friend duck his head in a motion that was meant to hide his self-consciousness, John remembered that Bledsoe was a truly considerate man who would be feeling poorly for being too honest. His anger was tempered a bit with that insight, but not enough to agree with Memphis' assessment.
"I sing just fine," John slurred in return. He still felt slighted despite the fact that he knew that Memphis always looked out for his best interests. "Perfect...pitch."
"It's true," Memphis allowed. "You do sing a sweet song when you're sober. But not when you're tanked. Man, it only takes one beer before your perfect pitch gets itself not so perfect. Do us all a favor and don't waste your breath on that drunken caterwauling that surely is not singing."
"Sing...just fine," John insisted and felt another flash of indignation before his world shifted and cleared.
He blinked his eyes to find that in Memphis' place, Beckett now stood over him. He felt a pang of loss as he realized that the conversation with Memphis had been nothing more than the hallucination of a real memory. Memphis had been killed a week after that particular conversation had taken place, and the guitar that his friend had fingered with such familiarity now made itself at home in John's Atlantis quarters.
Thoughts of Atlantis allowed him to dispel the sad memory of his lost friend, and he drew his attention back to Beckett. The doctor seemed to be talking adamantly about something, and with marked effort, John focused his failing resources towards listening in.
"...Need to be quiet, Colonel. We don't know if anyone is actually in the caverns, but we can't take the chance of being found. Do you understand?"
"What?" John asked stupidly.
"Just give him the damn shot, Carson! He's obviously so out of it that nothing's getting through that dense skull of his."
"Shut up...McKay," John gasped in a response that had become reflexive and indicative of their ongoing SNAFU-filled relationship.
"Aye! Then you're with us again, Colonel!" Carson exclaimed.
"S'pose so," John said, but when he felt his eyes sliding shut, he wondered if he was only experiencing delirium again.
Carson seemed to understand John's plight, because he lightly slapped John's face. It was an action that grabbed Sheppard's attention and made him swear softly.
"Colonel," Carson said. "You need another shot of the oxygen, but it had an adverse effect on you before. I wish the injection wasn't necessary, but you won't make it to the 'gate without it."
"Almost there?" John hardly dared to hope that this nightmare would be over soon.
"No, Colonel," that was Rodney's voice, but John could barely bobble his head around to stare up at the physicist. When he managed the task, he felt vague amusement to see that Rodney was clearly cheesed off.
"Things not going...according to your...plan, McKay?" John asked as a weak smile involuntarily spread across his face.
"Oh fine. Be all amused and full of 'I told you so's!'" Rodney exclaimed, sneering with poorly concealed displeasure. "But that kind of attitude isn't going to help the situation at all!"
John vaguely remembered having an argument with Rodney about some Master Plan and felt it appropriate to snort in response. But any pleasure he might have garnered from seeing the physicist torqued up was lost when he found himself gasping desperately for breath afterwards.
"Rodney, stop this. I need him to understand what's happening!" Beckett scolded McKay. John sorted his breathing out and then turned his attention back to Carson.
"The thing of it is, Colonel," Beckett said, uneasily. "We need you to try to keep from, well, singing when we give you the injection. Actually, we need you to try to keep completely quiet until we make it to the Stargate. Do you think you could do that?"
John's vision wavered momentarily, and he remembered the similar conversation he had just re-lived in his delirious state. He did not enjoy the irony of the situation, but he could appreciate its seriousness.
"Do my best," he gasped, and Beckett nodded with wary satisfaction. Rodney just looked even more aggravated.
John didn't remember anything too clearly after that except for the small, stinging pinch that he felt in the crook of his arm shortly thereafter.
888
As John's gaze drifted and his eyes slowly slid closed, Rodney felt defeat press down hard on him.
"This is never going to work," he said to Beckett, heatedly. "He's never going to be able to keep his mouth shut."
"You should give the Colonel a little credit, Rodney," Beckett said, and brushed dirt off the knees of his pants in what was a useless attempt to tidy up. "He didn't know what was happening to him the last time. Hopefully it will be easier for him to understand that he needs to remain quiet now that he knows that the injection has a...peculiar effect."
Carson noted that Rodney didn't seem convinced, but he ignored the irate man. Standing up, he again tried to brush off some of the grime that covered him but failed miserably.
He was a mess. Between the layer of dust that had covered him ever since the mansion and the grass stains that he had incurred after falling down the hillside leading to the Hollows, he doubted that his uniform would ever be clean again.
Remembering the dust caused him to cringe in reaction to the certainty that Sheppard would soon develop an infection that would be worse than the one he had originally contracted. Tending to the wound on the man's side in an environment that had been so unsanitary had been a necessary, but risky decision that had bought them all only a short amount of time.
Carson bent down to check for fever in Sheppard, but happily found none. The longer the man went without the complications of the infection, the better off he would be. Even in Atlantis, the contradicting ailments that the man was suffering from would be difficult to treat. Beckett needed to depress the Colonel's immune system in order to buy time to find a cure for the disease that had inadvertently been caused by the injection of the modified Hoffan serum. At the same time; however, depressing the man's immune system could prove fatal if he was suffering from infection.
Despite the difficulties and if given a choice; however, Carson would certainly prefer dealing with the tricky nature of Sheppard's treatment in the controlled environment of Atlantis' infirmary.
Torca had continued to watch the hillside uneasily during the conversation with the Colonel, but now Beckett noticed her turn her attention back to the three of them.
"We should leave soon," she said and nervously glanced into the dark cave in which Ronon had entered only moments prior. "When do you think he will return?"
"He must have time to perform this reconnaissance," Teyla responded, reasonably. The Athosian woman had been standing near the mouth of the cave for some time, giving the impression of relaxed confidence. But she had been studying the immediate area with keen focus, and Carson knew that Teyla was prepared to protect them all if the situation called for it. "It would be unwise to bring Colonel Sheppard into the caverns without having some knowledge of the terrain," Teyla added.
"He is taking too long," the Netharian woman said with an unhappy shake to her head. "We could be seen here."
"We're just fine," snapped Rodney. "Oh, and I still blame you for all of this," he then added, almost as if he couldn't help himself. "I don't understand how you could think that it wouldn't be important for us to know that you have no clue about what you're doing!"
"And I suppose you know exactly what you're doing, Doctor McKay!"
"I always know exactly what I'm doing!"
"Certainly, I can see that!"
"And what is that supposed to mean?"
"It means that if you knew exactly what you were doing, you and the rest of your team would not be in such a desperate state of affairs, and maybe Colonel Sheppard would not be dying before our eyes!"
Rodney opened his mouth as if to reply, but then abruptly closed it. A stab of guilt crossed over his features, and the fight seemed to leave him suddenly.
"Maybe you're right," he conceded and then, with a deflated air about him, returned to Sheppard's side.
The fire that had been so strongly residing in Torca's eyes rapidly vanished, and she shared a stricken look with Carson. Beckett suddenly realized that the Netharian woman had no awareness of Rodney's depth of feeling, and that it was only now, after the failed interchange that she understood the mistake in judgment she had made in regards to the man.
"Doctor McKay, I'm..."
But Torca's apology was cut short by Ronon's sudden appearance.
"Let's go," the Satedan announced brusquely.
Carson saw Torca bite her lip in consternation when Rodney turned away from her to help support Sheppard's fragile weight.