A/N – This is a continuation of the 'Hundred Ways Rodney Felt Pain' story I wrote called 'Yellow.' I'll paste it at the start to save you from having to go back and find it to recap.

Yellow

"I can feel my skin stretching and blistering in this heat," Rodney complained honestly.

"Aren't you wearing your sun cream?" Sheppard asked.

"Yes," he snapped. "But it doesn't stop me being hot!" He felt anger building up inside him.

His team mates ignored his moaning, even as his feet sunk so deeply into the fine sand with every step that the grains flowed over the opening of each shoe.

He had sunglasses on, but there was only one colour filling his vision on the desert world.

Sheppard laughed as they crested the top of a high dune, but the sound was devoid of any happiness. "Well, we've got the sand, but where's the beach?"

"And the scantily clad women," Rodney added with a sly smile.

Ronon smirked and Teyla rolled her eyes at the men.

The twin suns shone down and after a while Teyla said, "This heat is most unpleasant. Where is the energy reading, Dr McKay?"

Rodney was pressing the skin of his right forearm, checking for burns. He abruptly stopped and folded his arms over his chest, "See, even Teyla says this place is awful!" He waved up at the suns and grimaced, "We'll all get instant skin cancer in this inferno. We should have brought a Jumper instead of going on this death march."

Ronon looked indifferent as he spoke, "You said the reading was, 'close to the gate,' McKay."

"It was!" Rodney whined. He lowered his voice and said under his breath, "But it's moved away now."

Sheppard sighed and spun around to look at him sternly. Rodney flinched back and was glad he could not see his team leader's eyes. He only saw the endless sea of sand reflected in the sunglasses.

"Why is it moving away from us?" Sheppard asked.

"I don't know!" McKay squeaked indignantly, "Maybe your hair scared it away."

"Or it heard your whining," Ronon mumbled.

"How far?" Sheppard asked in disappointment.

Rodney drew his scanner forward miserably and said, "Ten miles."

Ronon grunted, "That's not far."

"It is in this sauna! Especially when your feet have been rubbed raw by sandpaper and your skin's crispy burnt and hanging off!"

Teyla winced and Sheppard's face fell as he said, "Alright, you win, McKay. Let's get a Jumper."

Rodney smiled smugly, but quickly stopped when his dry lips split open.

They all turned around and retraced their rapidly fading foot holes in the shifting sand back to the gate.

Rodney knew there was sand chafing the skin in between his toes and it felt like he was bleeding. He doubted whether he would be able to walk at all very soon. He looked at the scanner again sadly and the energy reading was now completely out of range.


A Ray of Sunshine

The Jumper flew through the gate a day later and they were once again back at the desert world, but this time they were flying above the sea of sand as they tracked the moving energy reading.

Rodney sighed in relief as cool air flowed over him from the air conditioning in the Jumper and belied the temperature of the air outside.

John grinned over at him and said, "Maybe we should turn up the heat a little? It'd give us more of a feel for the mission."

Rodney glared at him in disbelief and Ronon chuckled in the seat behind them.

"Just bring up the HUD, Sheppard," Rodney ordered.

John gave him a lopsided smile before turning to the front again. The display flickered on and the image zoomed out until it was showing readings for the whole continent.

"What is that?" Teyla asked when a bright white line of energy came into view.

Rodney hummed and tapped a few of the controls on his console. The HUD changed until it showed the atmosphere and the land was a horizontal line across the image.

"Is that a space station?" Sheppard asked.

"Yes, well, there's definitely something in orbit. The energy reading is coming from it and moving across the surface of the planet."

"What's in orbit?" Ronon mumbled.

Rodney looked up and out of the window, "I don't know! But whatever it is it's channelling massive amounts of power down to the surface. In fact it's a good thing we never found the reading visible on the planet as the beam is superheated and moving at hundreds of miles per hour according to this."

"So we'd have been more crisply grilled than just by the suns?" John said.

Rodney looked at his arms again where he was wearing a short sleeved t-shirt in anticipation of possible extra vehicular activities on the scorching planet. He winced at the redness of his skin which had still not fully healed despite the balm Carson had given him to rub in.

He did not grace Sheppard's comment with a verbal reply but said, "Take us into orbit and we can run some more detailed scans to find out exactly what it is."

John nodded and gave the energy beam a wide berth as he piloted the Jumper up into the sky and out into space. He flew it towards the flat, circle of energy floating in space on the HUD.

Rodney examined the readings on his tablet and his eyebrows rose. "It's definitely a space station, probably Ancient." His eyes suddenly widened in excitement, "Hmm, whoa! It's massive! These readings indicate that the whole structure is at least a mile in diameter."

"What is it doing?" Teyla asked as she leant forwards in her seat so that she could peer at the HUD and out of the windscreen.

"It seems to be channelling energy from the suns' rays. It's absorbing them through a large disc and focusing them so that only a single beam is emitted on the other side."

"Like a solar powered space gun?" John asked excitedly.

"If that works for you, Sheppard."

"Cool…"

"Can we take a closer look?" Ronon asked. He did not need to lean around McKay to see the readings. He just stretched his neck a little and was able to get a clear view over the top of the hunched scientist's head.

Rodney clicked and clacked on his computer for a few seconds. "Yes. There's a docking port and what looks like a control centre here."

He pointed to the schematic of the approaching station on the HUD and indicated a small protrusion from the main ring structure. "The rest of the station is purely for collecting and focusing the energy. There are no other sections accessible."

Sheppard guided the Jumper over and into an open door. They flew through a short and well lit tunnel before emerging in a Jumper sized airlock. John sat back in his seat and said, "Autopilot's been engaged."

The space station snagged the craft and cycled it through the airlock before another door opened and it was lowered down to the ground in a bay.

Rodney was tapping his armrest nervously and said, "Definitely Ancient. Let's just hope it lets us get away when we're done."

Sheppard gave him a reassuring smile, "Don't worry. We'll be fine."

Rodney grimaced and muttered, "Not now that you've said that."

The Jumper landed and the rear hatch automatically opened. The air was clean and at a comfortable temperature despite the station being abandoned for so long.

Ronon stepped out of the Jumper first and drew his blaster. Rodney was staring at his small hand scanner and said, "No life signs other than us, although some sections may be shielded."

John walked out of the Jumper last and saw that there were two doors leading out of the bay. Rodney indicated the left one and said, "The control room's that way."

John nodded, "Okay, Teyla, Ronon, go right. McKay, you're with me."

Teyla and Ronon looked relieved that John had decided to endure a whole load of nervous and excited astrophysicist rather than them this time. Rodney had his back turned and was walking over to the door so he did not see the exchanged glances.

"Meet back here in an hour and we'll see what we've got. Call us on the radio if you need anything."

Rodney turned around and said angrily, "An hour! This could be the greatest find we've ever made! If we can figure out how this place works we could harness the energy ourselves instead of having it burn a hole in the planet below."

John took point and went in front of Rodney through the door. He drawled patronisingly, "We're a recon team, McKay. That means we check it out, judge if it's good, bad, useful or just plain ugly, and go home. Then we can send out the teams to figure out how things work."

Rodney grumbled and muttered behind him, but John ignored the complaining and swept his eyes across the wide corridor to make sure nothing leapt out at them. There were two large vertical panels on either side of the corridor, but otherwise it was eerily featureless and burnished the same dirty gold colour as most of the corridors back on Atlantis.

The lights were bright, almost to the point of being blinding, and the walls seemed to glow under the harsh glare.

Rodney squinted at his scanner and pointed to a door on their right. "The control room."

John raised his eyebrows, "That was quick!"

Rodney shrugged, "I told you this place is tiny compared to the rest of the station. It's only about the size of Atlantis' control room and Jumper bay put together."

"What about maintenance and research and all the other Ancienty things they used to get up to."

"It's automated, Sheppard," Rodney ground out. "Or did you wonder why the place was still online after ten thousand years without anyone here. It must be malfunctioning to be firing at the planet like it is."

"But you can fix it, right?"

Rodney frowned in annoyance, "I don't even know what it is yet!"

The door opened when Sheppard waved his hand over the sensor and they entered a cramped room with consoles and panels with many coloured flashing lights lining the edges of the rectangular room. Many of the lights were red. Rodney ignored them and went straight over to the main console, pulled the tablet from the back of his tac vest and plugged it in.

John let him work and tapped his radio, "Sheppard to Teyla and Ronon. Report."

Teyla replied, "We have found several living quarters and what may have been a mess hall."

Ronon grunted, "Nothing."

John smiled, "Alright. Keep looking. McKay's messing around with the systems in the control room to find out about this place."

Rodney stopped typing where he was bent over at the waist and straightened up. He folded his arms over his chest and said, "I am not 'messing around!' This is delicate and complex work I'm doing, trying to decipher thousands of years worth of data."

John shrugged and gestured at the tablet with his hand, "So what have you found."

Rodney opened his mouth to retaliate again, but he just sighed heavily and shook his head as he leant over the console again.

After a few minutes he said, "Hmm, that's strange. The database has sensor readings of a planet similar to Earth in ecosystem. Oceans and grass… mountains. Deserts… but certainly nothing on the scale of how the planet is now."

"So this station destroyed it?"

Rodney stopped typing briefly and said, "Possibly. It's an orbital weapon platform and according to these readings, it's only at one percent output at the moment. There's evidence of a large ruin buried beneath the sand in the southern hemisphere."

More red lights suddenly appeared to the accompaniment of blaring sirens.

John walked over to him and shouted, "What did you do?!"

Rodney's eyes went wide in panic, "Nothing! I just wanted more information."

"McKay!"

He waved his hands about, "Alright, alright, I might have hacked through a few lockouts," Sheppard grabbed his arm tightly and Rodney winced, "B-B-But I do it all the time and nothing's ever reacted like this before."

John's hold tightened and then relaxed. Rodney rubbed his arm absently and then frantically typed on the computer.

Sheppard drawled, "I suppose it didn't like you playing around with it this time."

Rodney kept his eyes firmly glued on the screen and then suddenly stammered, "No no no no no no! We need to get out of here now!"

There was a dull clang from outside in the corridor, followed by another and then another. The sirens still rang out and John tapped his radio, "Teyla. Ronon. Head back to the Jumper. We're leaving."

There was no reply.

"Teyla? Ronon?" He stepped right up to Rodney, "McKay!?"

Rodney straightened up and looked at him in shock, "The self-destruct is armed. We've only got a few minutes."

John raised his eyebrows, "Well then disarm it!"

"I I I can't! There isn't enough time."

"I'm not liking what I'm hearing, McKay."

"That's not all," Rodney said miserably. "The automated defences have been activated. The panels we passed led to vacuum containers, but they're open now. Whatever was inside would have been perfectly preserved over the millennia."

John grabbed Rodney's upper arms and shook him, "What was in those walls?"

Rodney mumbled, "I'm sorry, so sorry," and stared at the ground with his eyebrows furrowed.

John's face softened and he let go, "Alright. Let's leave."

Rodney stowed the tablet in his vest and ran out of the room behind John. He skidded to an immediate halt and nearly barged right into Sheppard who was standing still in the corridor where two large robots were blocking their path back to the Jumper. The golden metal creatures were larger than men and had pincers for hands. They did not move away from the alcoves where they had just been released.

John spoke quietly from the corner of his mouth, Rodney had to strain to hear his words above the wail of the sirens. "Can you shut them down, McKay?"

Rodney pulled out his scanner again and dashed to a panel on the wall. There was a loud clang behind him and a dull thud.

Suddenly the sound of P90 fire filled the corridor and even drowned out the sirens for a moment. Rodney screwed his face up in discomfort at the deafening racket as he pulled wires from the wall and plugged in his equipment. He had trouble accessing the robot control mainframe as all the systems were now heavily encrypted and locked. He stole a quick glance behind him.

He had a fleeting view of John being picked up and thrown across the corridor and he stopped firing. The other robot suddenly clanged over to Rodney and hit out at him with one of its clawed hands. The movement was so fast it took Rodney by surprise and the claw punched through his tac vest. He was forced back into the wall and pinned.

He dropped the hand scanner and it swung back into the wall and dangled on the wires. Rodney gripped the robot's pincer and tried to pull it out of himself. He could feel it jabbing into his abdomen and his shirt was soon sopping with blood. He struggled and whimpered in pain, but the robot seemed to think its job was now done as it made no other movements.

Rodney closed his eyes and his fingers fumbled against the metal robot desperately. His roaming hand found a lead in the robot's arm. He knew he was about to die anyway so did not even think about electrocution as he curled his hand around the lead and yanked it with all his strength.

The robot abruptly shut down and fell over backwards. Rodney was pulled with it a short way, until the pincer was ripped from him. It tore his tac vest and took some of his skin and blood started to freely flow from the wound it had inflicted.

Rodney grimaced and pressed a hand on the injury to keep his insides where they should be. He staggered along the corridor and knew that time was still ticking down before they would all be vaporised.

The other robot was standing over John and it turned and saw Rodney approaching. McKay tried to double back and get to the panel in order to try and shut it down, but he was not fast enough.

The robot hastily clomped over to him and he drew his sidearm and emptied the entire clip into the metal. The bullets ricocheted around the corridor and he could not even see any dents from their impact. He dropped the gun and raised the arm not clamped over his bleeding midsection in a futile gesture to ward it off.

The robot reached forwards and opened its pincer. Rodney tried to dodge, but it grabbed his right forearm and crunched down on the scientist's arm until there was a snap and a loud cry from McKay.

It kept hold of his arm and Rodney sagged down to the floor with his face tightly screwed up. He struggled again and the robot sensed he was still a threat to the station. It forced him to the floor and opened its other pincer. It placed it over Rodney's chest and pressed down.

McKay was only able to draw in one shaky breath before all the air was crushed out of him. He would have heard a thoroughly unpleasant popping sound as the metal pincer slowly broke several of his ribs, but all that he could hear was the sound of blood rushing past his ears in fear and adrenaline. However, he did feel the pain as the bones inside his chest were fractured and would have screamed if he had had any air to do so.

His eyes started to darken and he glanced up at the robot blearily. He knew he was either going to die from his injuries or that the self destruct of the station was about to take him away.

He was grateful for that knowledge, because he knew that at least the agony was not going to be too prolonged, but in the pain every moment stretched out forever and a second was an eternity of misery for Rodney.

He stretched up with his shining red free hand and trembled as he moved it around behind what seemed to be the robot's head. He felt another wire and pulled. His arm fell back down and he closed his eyes and hoped he was either going to pass out or die soon.

The grip around his fractured arm and on his chest lessened and the robot fell backwards off him.

Rodney was able to breathe, but it felt like knives were rubbing against his insides and he grimaced as tears leaked from his eyes.

"Sheppard, Teyla and Ronon!" He whispered and rolled over. Thick red liquid dripped from him onto the ground as he crawled on his undamaged arm and legs.

He found Sheppard and ignoring his own hurts, he curled his hand in John's tac vest and dragged him along the corridor. He whimpered and gritted his teeth, but the station was going to explode soon and he was not going to leave his friend behind, even if it killed him.

John had a nasty gash on his head, but seemed otherwise unharmed.

Rodney held his broken arm against his shattered chest, but did not stop torturing himself as he sucked in rapid, shallow breaths through his teeth.

He was just about to collapse when Teyla and Ronon came through the Jumper bay door and ran towards him.

Teyla's eyes widened in fear when she saw the robots and the state Rodney was in. She said, "We could not reach you on the radio, but we thought that there may be a problem."

Rodney let go of the handle and collapsed to his knees. The jarring passed up his legs and into his pelvis, which swiftly went through his abdomen and set his chest alight with renewed vigour.

Ronon picked up John and ran back to the Jumper with him. Teyla grasped Rodney's good arm and quickly pulled him upright. They staggered back to the Jumper together and she deposited him in the pilot's seat.

Rodney pressed his hand on his middle and cried out weakly as fiery tendrils of agony threatened to consume him.

He whispered harshly to himself, "We need to leave or we'll get caught in the explosion."

Teyla came back a moment later and lifted his hand away so that she could place a bandage over the gaping hole in him. Rodney returned his hand and held it over the dressing as he gathered his thoughts and powered on the Jumper.

Teyla left him again and he felt cold and shivery and his breathing suddenly became very difficult. He wheezed noisily and the Jumper's engines shut down when he closed his eyes.

Teyla called out to him, "You must hurry. John has a serious head injury."

Rodney opened his eyes and grumbled, "Hey, I'm seriously injured here too. The only part they didn't get seems to be my head."

Ronon said, "Then use it to fly the ship, McKay."

"Did I mention that I'm bleeding a little bit and I think something quite important's broken inside me?"

Rodney looked down at his throbbing arm and immediately wished he had not when horror and nausea threatened to make him lose his last meal. He also knew he should have worn a long sleeved jacket so that his eyes would not have seen it. His forearm was swollen and purple and there was an unnatural bow in the limb where it had been crushed.

He turned back to the console and frowned in concentration. The engines activated again and he was able to fly the Jumper up into the air. The autopilot grabbed it and guided it through the airlock and then pushed it out into space where it was quickly untethered to go on its way.

Rodney turned it towards the stargate far below on the bright yellow world filling the windscreen. He willed himself not to pass out and was grateful when Teyla came back with another bandage and a gentle touch. She pressed down on the bleeding wound and Rodney tried not to cry out, but did not quite succeed. He shuddered violently and Teyla put her hand on his shoulder to steady him.

"You are doing very well, Rodney. We will be home soon."

McKay looked at her in disbelief. He gasped, "It hurts! I think I'm going to pass out and if that happens we're all dead!"

Teyla furrowed her brow and her hand moved around until it held his and squeezed gently, "I believe you will be able to find it in yourself to get us back to the gate safely."

"What little there is left in me that hasn't leaked out, you mean?" Rodney muttered quietly.

A sudden flare in the back of his mind from the neural interface made him bring up the HUD. He watched with Teyla as the space station behind them was obliterated in a massive flash of energy and the beam angled towards the planet vanished.

Rodney sighed sadly and flinched as a loose rib turned in his chest and cut into his lung. Blood flowed up his throat and he choked it out onto the console in front.

They were in the lower atmosphere now and Rodney used the last of his reserves to wobble the Jumper on an unsteady course over to the gate. The small black circle was a harsh contrast against the yellow sand. Fortunately Teyla hit the address into the DHD, but her grip on Rodney's hand had to be released to do so. He felt himself floating down into darkness without any touch left to guide him.

Teyla grabbed hold of him as soon as she was able, but Rodney had his eyes closed and could no longer feel it as the Jumper flew through the gate and was snagged by the Atlantis autopilot.


"You should've shut down the robots instead of coming to get me, Rodney." John said quietly to the sleeping scientist.

He frowned at the lack of response from his friend and continued, "Ronon and Teyla were coming too. I reckon Ronon's blaster would probably have stopped those things in their tracks."

Rodney stubbornly ignored him as the ventilator inflated his lungs and then released so that he could exhale.

John had a concussion, but had already been released. Now all that he could do was wait with Rodney and hope that he did not die from his injuries.

Ronon and Teyla had headed back to the Jumper when Rodney and John had lost contact. They said they retraced the path John and Rodney had taken when they found that both men were missing, but did not think for a moment that they would both be so very badly injured, Rodney even more so than John.

Sheppard felt the usual guilt he experienced when Rodney was hurt on his watch. His frown deepened at the white sheet pulled down to Rodney's waist so that the infirmary staff could see the bandages wrapped around him and make sure he did not start bleeding again. His fractured arm was in a plaster cast and resting on the bed next to him.

John admired Rodney's strength of character to have kept going despite the pain of the blood loss and wounds he had received from the guardian robots. It did not make him feel any better though.

"I should be the one in the bed with enough needlework in my skin to make me seem like a patchwork quilt. Not you, Rodney. Never you."

The breathing alarm suddenly sounded on Rodney's monitor and Carson rushed over and shoved John away.

Sheppard watched as Carson pulled the tube from Rodney's mouth and waited. The room was tense for a few seconds while everyone kept their eyes on Rodney's chest.

Suddenly his chest rose jerkily and then gradually evened out into a steadier rhythm as he breathed on his own. Carson sighed in relief and patted Rodney's shoulder before smiling at John and moving away.

Sheppard pulled up the chair again and started to feel a little bit better all of a sudden. Rodney was on the mend and he hoped it would not be too much longer before he would be conscious again.


"How is Rodney doing, Dr Beckett?" Teyla asked a few days later as she sat with McKay. John and Ronon were also there for the team visit where Carson had allowed them just a few minutes together.

Carson stood nearby as he checked Rodney's monitors and fussed over the lines in and bandages wrapped around the scientist. He stopped for a moment and turned to the apprehensive faces looking at him, "Aye, much better. He should be waking up soon, but he's going to be very sore for a while."

"Got that right," a quiet whisper came from the man lying completely still on the bed.

Teyla smiled and looked down at him, "Welcome back."

"I haven't been anywhere, have I?" Rodney croaked. Carson gave him some water and he tried to move to get more comfortable. He quickly stopped with a grimace and a fine tremor ran though his body. He let out a small defeated sigh and closed his eyes again.

Carson topped up his painkillers and rested a hand on Rodney's shoulder as he smiled down at him, "Call me over if the pain gets too much for you, Rodney." McKay nodded slowly and Carson walked away.

Rodney blearily opened his eyes again and glanced around at his team, "We made it back then."

"Thanks to you, McKay," Ronon said and patted Rodney's leg.

John sat up and said, "Your tablet was completely smashed on your back, but Zelenka got some data from it about the station, which was thoroughly obliterated by the self destruct by the way."

Rodney winced and furrowed his brow, "That's a shame. It had so much potential."

"He said it was definitely a weapon, but it's the reason why the planet we visited was completely dead and turned to desert."

Rodney frowned, "Oh."

Teyla said, "It had been firing like that at the surface for at least ten thousand years. The oceans evaporated long ago and any plant and animal life would have been burnt."

Rodney's eyebrows rose, "But it wasn't firing that powerfully."

John said, "Ten thousand years is a long time, McKay."

Rodney relaxed into the bed and nodded. "I wonder what destroyed the outpost on the planet and why the Ancients abandoned it."

Ronon grumbled, "We'll never know now."

Rodney sighed sadly and no longer had the strength to stay awake as his injuries caught up with him.


A/N – I found this request the other day. It was posted on the McKay Whumping! thread on the GateWorld forum last September: Whumped Rodney saves whumped John. Preferably with Rodney being more seriously injured and involving lots of blood and broken bones. It has to be gritty physical saving too. Ouch!