Part Five Into the Night (x)
John squinted, trying to see through the cloud; there was a darker shape on the ground.
"Stay with Teyla!" he yelled over his shoulder and ran down the hill, refusing to think about the possibility that it could explode again. He skidded to a halt beside McKay face down in the dust, his arms outstretched.
John rolled him over, clearing mud and other detritus from around his nose and mouth and pressed his fingers to Rodney's neck.
McKay gasped and sat up like a Zombie jolted awake by the first lightening bolt of the evening. He started coughing violently, clutching his chest with one hand and flapping the other madly as if he was trying to wave the explosion away.
"If I have punctured a lung," he rasped, "and drown in my own blood then you do not get to read my eulogy." He dragged in a few whooping breaths and slumped back on the soil, arms outstretched.
John sagged in relief. "You're okay," he prodded the prone scientist affectionately with the toe of his boot.
His friend sat up again. "Says you." He coughed some more and looked around, blinking, grey and ghostly from the dirt plastered to his face except for tear tracks making pink, zebra stripes on his cheeks. He stared up the hill, they were only thirty foot from the bottom. "Wow," he coughed convulsively, "I was halfway up when_ wow."
"Can you stand?" asked John, not unsympathetically.
"Yeah, probably," Rodney waved an arm at him, "don't just stand there."
John dragged him to his feet and gave him a pat on the back, gently pushing him in a down hill direction. "Go fix the gate Rodney."
McKay glared at him over his shoulder. "Your concern is so touching."
Sheppard gave him a look and another, slightly harder shove in the downward direction.
The Doctor stumbled off, muttering and frantically scanning every inch of ground while walking on tiptoe.
John watched him go and then looked up the hill; it was a long way back up and now that there wasn't the impetus of panic for Rodney's well being the possibility of further explosions was hard to ignore.
Teyla was up there, sick and possibly dying.
He started back up the hill, moving fast, but picking his route with care even though he had no idea what he should be looking for.
