Chapter 15

Elizabeth folded her arms in an effort to appear calm and in control, rather than fidgety and on the verge of panic. She felt her eyebrows contract and her mouth tighten and thin and she made a determined attempt to smooth her features back into her diplomat's bland competence.

"You're sure there's been no activity, either at the farm or the cave."

"Nothing, Dr Weir. It's a clear half hour after the deadline, but nothing's happening." came Lorne's voice over the comms. "And Dr McKay and Dr Beckett..."

"Yes?" Elizabeth noticed her voice drop into the lower register that always seemed natural when exercising determined restraint. She wondered what predicament the two men had got themselves into and who had been the instigator; her money was on Rodney.

"We left them at the camp, but they're not there now."

"Any signs of a struggle?"

"No, Ma'am! And their packs are gone."

Elizabeth felt tension creep into her expression once more. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and then opened them again.

"Major, do you think you can take the farmhouse?"

"I think so. We can use a cloaked Jumper, throw a couple of flash-bangs through the windows and then go in."

"I'll leave the details up to you. Report back in one hour. Atlantis out."

oOo

Teyla knew the time was near and she could feel that John knew it too. Karron still maintained a distance, still held his weapon trained on them, still gestured them to go first with sharp jerks of his flashlight, but he was on the edge of panic. They stumbled forward, barely able to see in the fleeting flickers of light, moving by touch and instinct, hands feeling for walls either side and obstacles ahead. Then, once again, the walls flared out and the sound of their laboured breath and weary, uneven progress whispered off into a void. First John and then Teyla let themselves down a short drop onto a smooth, gritty surface and Karron's flashlight shone out over the mirror-like surface of a lake.

"Move away!" Karron stuttered, nervously. "Right away! And turn around!"

Teyla trod slowly down the gentle slope to the water's edge, John at her side, his arms tight around his body, his breath harsh and shuddering. They needed to get out and get warm. Teyla had kept going through force of will and repeated bursts of adrenaline, but she knew she could not carry on much longer and John was clearly hypothermic. Nevertheless, when their chance came, they both needed to be able to react.

The sound of a heavy fall and the wild bouncing of the light announced Karron's landing.

"Stay there!" His voice was even more unsteady and Teyla could tell the effects of his soaking in the icy water were taking their toll. The light dimmed suddenly and jolted as Karron tried to shake some more life into its depleted power cells. Teyla looked at John and met his eye; the light failed.

She dived to one side and hoped John had dived the other way as shots rang out and, in the split-second flashes that accompanied each report, Teyla turned and marked Karron's position. He stopped firing and she could hear him heaving great, sobbing breaths.

"Don't move!" There was desperation and near madness in his broken cry. "I know you're there!" He fired again, wildly and the gritty surface crunched as he took a few hasty steps along the shore.

Teyla hoped John would stay still and trust her; he could not move with anything like her stealth on a good day, and this had not been a good day for John Sheppard. She closed her eyes, which made no difference to the light levels but helped Teyla to focus her other senses. Softly, slowly, she turned and, raising one foot, brought it down ahead of her, so, so gently that there was barely a whisper of sound. In her mind, Teyla prepared; there would be no mercy for this man who was prepared to hurt and kill, to kidnap and conspire, to lead others into darkness and risk, and not count the cost. It was easy to be fooled into thinking that Teyla's calm demeanor and considered actions meant that she could not be coldly, brutally pragmatic if the need arose; the need had arisen and Teyla intended to kill rather than subdue. Their own lives were in danger and a murderous prisoner would exacerbate their problems; therefore he would die.

"Where are you?" The gun fired again. Teyla moved in a wide arc, picturing the underground shore in her mind, aware of the place where the rock sloped up toward the passage. She felt the stir of the air around her as Karron pivoted and knew his weapon was pointed her way. She dived at his feet as he fired, then leapt up suddenly, grasped his wrist and twisted so that he dropped the weapon with a shriek of pain. Then, in a long-practised move, which she had used on both John and Ronon many times, but now used in deadly earnest, she forced Karron's arm up behind his back, the angle straining the joints near to dislocation. Her other arm gripped the man's head and, within a split second, Teyla's years of focussed training coalesced; a moment of perfect clarity brought total awareness of her body in relation to his, of the forces she would exert and the opposition he would bring to bear. She broke his neck.

She held her position for a long breath in and out and then, still moving with cold economy, Teyla laid the body down, in the dark, far underground, where he would stay. She knelt, her head bowed, the weight of her actions heavy on her shoulders. She did not kill without thought, without conscience. Her ending of this life would not torment her, and yet there was sadness and solemnity in the ending as there was at the finish of any living thing. But he had died and not John and not herself.

"Teyla?" John's voice came out of the darkness, as he had come years ago in the darkness before dawn, and since then had been a steady beacon of resistance against all the evil in the galaxy.

"John," she said and rose and trod carefully toward him, hearing him struggle toward her.

"You killed him?"

"Yes."

They met in the darkness and held each other and sank down to the ground. Teyla felt John shaking and realised she was shaking too, with cold and fear and adrenaline.

"Did you see a way out of here?"

"No."

They clung together more tightly. The blackness was complete. They had no idea which way to go.

oOo

"I think we should go back!" Carson had stopped and Rodney stopped too, without turning round. He looked down at his boots and then ahead, to see Boudicca's eyes, glowing with reflected light.

"Rodney, we don't even know this is the right way!"

Rodney turned round. He could see Carson's flashlight, aimed at the rocky floor, and points of light here and there on drips of water running down the walls.

"We're not going back," he said flatly.

"Rodney..."

"Boudicca knows what she's doing! I trust her."

"Look!" Carson shone his light onto his reel of fishing line. "I'll carry on for now, but when this runs out, we're going back."

Rodney glared, but simply turned and carried on, into the darkness. They picked their way over the uneven floor, sometimes slowing to a literal crawl, sometimes nearly jogging where the strata in the rock gave a flat surface. Hurrying along, Rodney nearly tripped over Boudicca, who had stopped, stock still in the middle of the passage. She stood, one front paw poised, her tail stuck straight up, her fur bushed out as if standing on end.

"What's up with her?" whispered Carson.

Boudicca growled uncertainly, then let out a high-pitched yip and sped away into the darkness.

"Boudicca! Wait!" Rodney set off in pursuit, but soon had to slow down as the passage twisted and turned and the floor became jagged and difficult to negotiate once more. Then there was the reverberating crack of gunfire coming again and again; silence, then another shot, a pause and then another. Rodney scrambled forward, deaf to Carson's pleas to wait.

oOo

Karron was dead but they were lost and alone in the darkness; and cold, so very cold. John knew they had to move, follow the edge of the cavern by touch, find a way out, maybe a breeze that would tell them which way to go, but somehow the will to move wasn't enough. He sagged against Teyla and felt her peel off his soaking wet fleece and t-shirt and try to put her own jacket on him, then give up and drape it round his shoulders when it wouldn't fit. He could hear her make encouraging sounds, but the words were blurred and didn't make sense.

Then there was warmth; warmth and softness and something wrapping round him. Something that moved and breathed and made sounds that didn't need to make sense; sounds of comfort and worry and reassurance. He heard Teyla laughing, a laugh that was nearly a sob and the sound made him pull himself up and open his eyes. At first it made no difference; there was still the warm softness around him and a gentle, padded touch to his shoulder, but he could see nothing. Then he blinked, because there were dancing spots of light in front of his eyes. The spots grew and flared out and he could see.

Teyla sat by him, her profile in shadow, light reflecting off lines of dampness on her cheeks. And Boudicca was draped over and round them both, engulfing them in as much of her sinuous body as she could. Then flashlight beams were bouncing back and forth, shining in his eyes, and he could hear voices: the voices of his friends.

oOo

Carson had nearly fallen in the lake. He had scrambled after Rodney, unbalanced by his pack, legs trembling with fatigue, and he had thought the flat surface ahead of him was a sheet of rock, until his flashlight illuminated a slight ripple. He stopped himself, just in time, whipped the beam left, then right, spotting Rodney's bobbing light in that direction. He set off once more in pursuit, gladly reached a narrow, pebbly strip and followed it as it broadened out, hurrying as Rodney let out a shout of recognition.

They had found them; Teyla and John, huddled together on the underground shore, alone, with no light to guide them. Apparently, they had broken free from their captors, and there was an interesting story to tell if the body lying further up the slope was any indication. Carson shuddered at the thought of what would have happened to them if Rodney hadn't insisted on following his animal friend. But speculation was a waste of time; they had found the Colonel and Teyla, and neither of them in the best of shape.

Carson wasted no time in assessing their injuries, while Rodney broke out his canteen and supply of power bars as well as the thin survival blankets. Both the Colonel and Teyla were obviously exhausted and covered in multiple cuts and bruises. Carson was worried about John's ribs, but thought they were probably cracked rather than broken; broken ribs could have been fatal, under these conditions and with a difficult route to navigate to the surface. Carson rebandaged John's arm and then they had a general redistribution of clothes so that everyone had at least two layers. He had wrung out John's pants and then swapped with him, so that John could wear the dry ones, which left Carson with a tight waistband and cold, clammy legs; he didn't care.

oOo

"Come on, Sheppard, just a bit further, keep going!" Rodney felt he'd been saying the same thing for hours and that his words had long since stopped having any meaning for either himself or John. His friend's weight was heavy on his shoulder and their progress was painfully, creepingly slow: slow where the going was easy, and where the floor jumped up and down in jagged steps and leaps, they were almost brought to a standstill. Rodney had even resorted to reaching down and lifting John's booted foot onto the next step a couple of times.

"Time for a rest!" Rodney said, bending his knees stiffly and setting John down to lean against the wall. He crouched down and shone his flashlight on John's face, at an angle, so the light wasn't in his eyes. Cuts stood out livid against his paper-white skin and he sagged, limp and boneless against the clammy rock. His eyelids flickered slightly.

"Teyla?"

"Carson's taken Teyla on ahead. He's going to come back and help."

"'kay." John's eyes closed again and Rodney thought he was asleep or unconscious, until he murmured, "Rodney?"

"Yes?"

"Thanks." And then John really was unconscious and Rodney, not knowing what else to do, pulled his friend close and wrapped the survival blanket round both of them.

oOo

"All clear, Sir!"

The farmhouse was empty. Major Lorne had planned his attack carefully, but, approaching in a cloaked Jumper, his scan with the LSD had revealed no life signs to be present. The rooms were empty not only of life, but of furniture or any indication that the house had recently been inhabited. The fireplaces were lifeless and the ash cold. Yet there had been soldiers here, patrolling recently; and Smeadon had come through the front door, spoken to Dr McKay and neither he nor anyone else had slipped past Lorne's vigilance since then.

"Sir!"

Sergeant Coughlin was in the small back room. Lorne joined him and studied the trapdoor in the corner.

"Open it, Coughlin." Lorne kept his weapon trained on the hatch, while the Sergeant swung it up to rest on the wall. A wooden staircase led down into darkness. Lorne took his flashlight, crouched down and flicked it round the cellar that was revealed. He could see a desk, some shelving and another door in the far wall. Gesturing to Sergeant Coughlin to follow, Lorne trod carefully down the stairs, his weapon ready. He crossed the room and stood, listening; he heard nothing. The Major stood with his back to the wall, his weapon ready, and nodded at Coughlin, who flung open the door suddenly. They burst out onto a stone landing, lit by an electric lamp hung on the wall. A steep, narrow staircase, carved into the rock, led downward.

It began to make sense to Lorne. The farmhouse and the cave system were linked and Smeadon, his troops and presumably their hostages, were below. But why had they abandoned the farmhouse? And why hadn't Smeadon taken the opportunity to escape, using his hostages to reach the Gate? A garbled burst came from his radio and he gestured Coughlin back into the cellar room and up the stairs, where the signal was clear.

He heard Dr Beckett's voice, requesting a Jumper. Apparently, the Colonel and Teyla had from escaped their imprisonment in the caves below.

oOo

Rodney didn't realise he'd been dozing until a tug on the line, which he'd kept wrapped round his fingers, woke him. He'd turned the flashlight off to save the batteries, but could see a dim reflection of light on the dripping walls; Carson was coming.

Rodney switched on his own flashlight and the doctor emerged from the darkness, dirty and puffing with exertion, his expression reflecting his single-minded determination to do his duty. His eyes fell on Rodney and John and he quickened his awkward scramble.

"I couldn't get him any further on my own!" said Rodney.

"Let's see what we can do together, then," said Carson, checking John's pulse.

"He'll be okay, won't he?"

"Yes, but we need to get him to the surface, quickly. I've called for a Jumper."

They couldn't move quickly and, for Rodney, the journey felt like it went on interminably. Rodney carried John by reaching under his armpits, while Carson, facing the front, grasped John under his knees. It would have been difficult on level ground in the daylight, but in the darkness, with their flashlights stuck awkwardly in pockets and the rough floor of the passage, it was exhausting and dangerous.

They had both fallen several times and couldn't tell whether they'd injured John further; Rodney knew both of his knees were bleeding. John began to stir and struggle and they had to put him down. Then there were voices up ahead and lights and, to Rodney's relief, Sergeant Stackhouse's team were there, with a stretcher, and suddenly the ordeal was over. Rodney found himself swiftly helped along and out into the gray light, squinting up his eyes against the brightness.

There was bustle and activity and shouted orders, and after so long underground in the dark and silence, and so long on the verge of panic, Rodney found himself suddenly feeling shaky. He sank down in a heap on the rocky ledge and put his hands over his face, wondering if he could stop himself crying with relief and exhaustion and thinking maybe he should just give in and let it happen. Then he was engulfed in brown fur and he sank his face into Boudicca's comforting softness gratefully; and if a few tears were shed into the fluffy depths, who would know?