So, this was a fun chapter to write! (Although, actually, they all are.) There's a hint of John's backstory and a flying lesson, and I think I'm probably as surprised as you are at some of these events - they just seem to write themselves!

A substantial chunk of Chapter 6 has also been written, so if ideas continue to flow, I should be able to post at least a chapter a week. I hope you enjoy this one!

Chapter 5

John hesitated on the threshold of the infirmary. It seemed deserted.

"Where's the doctor?" Carson was white-faced and sweating as he held his burnt arm. "This bloody hurts!"

The sharp click of heels in the corridor behind them heralded an arrival.

"More customers? And only the first day!"

John turned around. The clicking heels halted. Dr Fraiser, only a few inches taller than himself even with her heels, raised an eyebrow.

"Back again, John?" She caught sight of Carson. "And with a friend this time. What's your name?" She didn't waste time waiting for an answer, but steered him over to one of the beds and helped him to scramble up onto it.

John stood awkwardly, holding both of their uniform jackets, while Carson told the Doctor what had happened. She peeled back his sleeve and began assembling what she'd need.

"And I don't suppose any of you were wearing protective equipment? Goggles? No?"

"We had lab coats." John said.

"Not enough," she snapped.

It would be interesting, he thought, to see who would win a confrontation between Doctor and Wraith. Professor Theodorus appeared to John to be every inch the predator that his ancestors had been, but the auburn-haired doctor made him think of those wildlife programmes where they tell you what happens to people who get between lionesses and their young. Or maybe a rhino-mom. She wouldn't hold back, that was for sure.

"This isn't too bad," she said. "Just a little ointment and a dressing and you'll be fine."

"It doesn't feel fine."

"It'll hurt for a while. I can give you something for that, though. And you'd be wise to take it." Her brown eyes met John's meaningfully.

She'd offered him painkillers for his burnt hand, but he'd said no.

"There we are." She stuck down the edge of the dressing on Carson's arm. "Your turn."

"No," said John. "I'm fine."

"Really? Where did those holes in your shirt come from, then?"

John looked down at his chest, where he could see through several small round holes to angry red skin below. "I'm fine." He folded his arms tightly across his body.

"Sit there and take that off." She pointed to the bed next to Carson's.

John shook his head.

Doctor Fraiser matched his folded arms and tapped one pointed toe. "You know," she said, conversationally, "I may not look particularly impressive as an opponent, but trust me, John Sheppard, you don't want to take me on."

Still he hesitated.

Her voice changed. "Let me help." She patted the bed.

John's arms slithered to his sides. He hauled himself up onto the bed. The doctor whisked the privacy curtain around him and he grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it off.

Doctor Fraiser's eyes darkened and her mouth thinned. Of course she could see the scars, not, as he now knew, from the belts crossing his carseat, but from the hand of some malevolent, monstrous Wraith Queen. But she would have been expecting those. It was the bruises that she hadn't been expecting, the fading purple and yellow fist marks that he'd wanted to hide, that were bringing a martial light to the Doctor's eyes; on his ribs, front and back, where they wouldn't show under his clothes.

"Foster brother," mumbled John.

"Older?"

He nodded. "Um. Will you have to tell anyone?" Imagine if they took him away from Atlantis, back out into the real world, to be interviewed by police and maybe even passed onto another foster placement where the authorities could keep an eye on him.

"I'll have to tell Professor O'Neill," she said.

"Oh."

The Doctor began treating the small, round burns on John's chest. "You know, I think you can trust the Professor with this one. Or with anything."

Trust was something that John didn't give easily. Except he did trust Rodney, and Teyla, and Carson, too.

"Life's not been easy for you, has it?" Dr Fraiser paused and he met her eyes briefly, before looking down at the hole worn in the knee of his jeans.

John shrugged. "I guess not."

oOo

"What have we got today?" asked John, piling a large helping of scrambled egg on top of his bacon and sausage.

"You know very well what we've got today." Rodney looked doubtfully at the baked beans and then ladled a healthy portion into his plate, swamping his toast. "Assorted boring pointlessness this morning, that is, lessons without a shred of hard scientific or mathematical fact shared between them, followed this afternoon by the dubious pleasure of biology with Professor Brown, and then the highlight of your day, or possibly life, in the form of our first flying lesson." He poured himself a large glass of apple juice and made his way to the Athar table.

Rodney had enjoyed his first week at Atlantis Academy, barring Professor Theodorus' lesson, and the grumpiness from the rest of Athar house when they realised they were thirty points down on their first day. His friend, however, had been paying less and less attention in lessons as his excitement ramped up with each passing day, toward his first experience of learning to ride an air board.

John was still grinning when they sat down. "Flying surfboards. I can't wait!"

"We know," said Rodney, sawing vigorously at his bacon. "Whereas I could wait a long time."

"Come on, Rodney - it'll be fun!"

"It'll be terrifying!" said Carson. "They won't expect us to go up high, will they?"

Up high. Carson was right. It was terrifying.

"That'd be so cool! You could fly all around Atlantis!" John slurped his orange juice and dug enthusiastically into his scrambled eggs. Rodney's stomach wasn't as welcoming to his breakfast as usual.

"We will be staying very low to the ground to begin with," said Teyla. "Jinto!" She called along the table. "Jinto, what did you do in your first flying lesson?"

Jinto looked at Wex and they both laughed. "Got detention," he said.

Teyla rolled her eyes. "I am sure if we do exactly what Mr Ford tells us to, we will all be safe."

"Safe?" John picked up a sausage in one hand. "Where's the fun in that?"

"Hmph," snorted Rodney. "Shall I just book your detention now?"

The table wobbled and some of Rodney's juice spilled.

"Sorry!" Professor Jackson apologised vaguely to the table in general and then turned back to Professor Brown, talking animatedly. Both of them held empty trays and were heading away from the teacher's table.

"Clumsy oaf," said Rodney. "He doesn't seem to be able to get through a meal without knocking into something or dropping things or both."

Jinto and Wex slid down the bench toward them, eyes alight with gossip.

"It's because he's not wearing his glasses," said Wex.

"Blind as a bat without them," agreed Jinto.

"Then why…?" Rodney began.

"We think he's in love with Katie," said Jinto.

"Who?"

"Professor Brown!"

"They've been seen together a lot."

"We think he's working up to asking her out."

"Can't he wear glasses for that?" asked Carson.

Jinto shrugged. "He must think he looks better without."

"That's stupid." John polished off the last of his sausage.

"It's totally illogical," said Rodney. "What's the point in talking to her if he can't see her?"

"There is seldom much logic where love is concerned," said Teyla, wisely.

oOo

"Ooh, Raaahdney, you're so clever!" teased John. "Let me give my favourite student a pat on the head!" He swung an arm around Rodney's shoulders and slapped him several times on the top of the head before Rodney wriggled free.

"She didn't say that!" Rodney slipped on the grassy slope, then regained his footing on the well-worn path that led away from the biology labs and attached greenhouses. "And anyway, it's high time someone recognised my genius! Professor Brown showed great discernment."

"That wasn't genius she recognised," smirked John. "That was sucking-up!" Rodney hadn't been nearly that polite or helpful in any of their other lessons, even Professor Carter's, although that was because her presence seemed to reduce him to spluttering speechlessness.

"No it wasn't! I fixed her microscope, which was child's play, actually. And then fixed the connection to the whiteboard. And you should be grateful I've made up some of the lost House points that people have been giving us grief about."

"It was nice to see Hamish swimming about happily," said Carson.

John wasn't sure how you could tell if a turtle was happy, but agreed anyway.

"I did not enjoy the part of the lesson in the greenhouses," said Teyla. "It was cold."

"McKay didn't feel the cold because Katie was standing right next to him." There was a hard shove between his shoulder blades and John stumbled and then swung around, laughing, to grab Rodney's jacket and pull him off balance. They lurched into Carson who fell over backward into the heather bushes at the base of the half-buried tower they were passing.

"Stop messing about, you great pair of pillocks!"

"Sorry, Carson." John reached down to haul his friend to his feet.

"Hey, look." Rodney had pushed his way in between the heather and was examining the side of the tower. "This looks like it was a door. Or a window."

John forced his way in between the densely packed branches and looked over Rodney's shoulder. There was a frame in the characteristic shape of doors on Atlantis, a rectangular shape, with a smaller cut-out rectangle on the top. The doors were embedded in the soil and looked like they hadn't moved in many years.

"Think we could get it open?" said Rodney.

"What for?"

"Because it's closed. And you never know if you'll need another entrance."

"What, are you planning on having to escape from hordes of red-haired biologists?"

"Oh, ha ha. Just try, Sheppard."

John placed his hands on the door. There was a whisper of a response in the back of his mind. If he just…

"John! Rodney! We will be late!"

Teyla's voice broke him away from his exploration. They couldn't be late to the best lesson ever. "Come on, Rodney."

"But -"

"Another time." John regained the path and ran on ahead, hearing the others pounding the dirt path behind him.

They rounded the corner of a blocky tower and before them was a wide open space, with rows of boards on the ground and most of the Athar and Merlin first-years already standing one to a board.

"Come on guys, we're ready to start!" The teacher, one of the youngest members of staff, grinned at them and waved them toward the boards.

The only spaces remaining were uncomfortably close to the Merlin students. John avoided Kolya's eye and fixed his attention on Mr Ford, eager to learn as much as he could.

"Okay, hands up who's handled one of these before!"

John looked around. A few people put their hands up, including Kolya.

"Well, we're going to be starting with the basics, so I can make sure everyone's got the right technique. So, first thing I want you to do is lie down full length on your board."

John dropped immediately and flattened himself out. They were more like paddle boards than surfboards, long and broad and with a pronounced upward curve. John's was obviously old, its black and white pattern scratched mostly down to white. He could feel it, though; that little tickle at the back of his mind. He wondered if the Ancients had used these things or had someone just thought up a fun way to use their technology.

"Okay, great!" Mr Ford's voice sounded somewhere above his head, moving down the row as he talked. "Now, I don't want anyone flying off into the sunset! All I want you to do is turn your board on and see if you can get it to raise up just a couple of inches off the ground."

John's board rose before he was even aware of thinking. He eased his body to one side and then the other, feeling it tip along with his shift in weight. Then he tried it again, but held the board steady with his mind. Then he wriggled and allowed the thing to bob around in response. It was a wonderful feeling, even hovering at the immense height of three inches; wonderful, because John could feel that this was a lesson he wouldn't have to learn - this was something he could just do.

He could hear the teacher's voice distantly, encouraging and praising students, his enthusiasm for even this limited progress coming over loud and clear.

John raised his head and supported himself on his elbows. Rodney was hovering next to him, his board brushing the blades of grass, his eyes tight shut. To his other side, Teyla was smiling, her board bobbing gently. On the other side of Teyla, right next to Acastus Kolya, was Carson.

"I can't get mine to move." Carson screwed up his face and mouthed, On, on, on! but nothing happened.

"This is pathetic." Kolya knelt up easily on his board, keeping his balance perfectly. "I've been flying since before I could walk!"

John laughed and his board jiggled as if it were chuckling too.

"You think that's funny, Sheppard? Let's see if you find this funny!" Kolya reached forward and touched Carson's board, which immediately rose a foot into the air.

"Leave him alone, Kolya!" John's board slapped down on the grass and he leapt to his feet.

"No, I don't think I will." Kolya still had his hand on the board, but his eyes didn't leave John's as he drew back his arm and swept it forward and up.

The board curved up into the sky. Carson yelled and his hands clutched at the side of his board. It rose higher and higher, its surface rising more and more steeply toward the vertical, but then, like a swing reaching the end of its arc it slowed and faltered.

"Even it out, Carson!" John shouted. "Flatten it out!"

It was clear Carson had no control. His fingers slid down the board, his feet kicking for purchase.

Pounding feet approached and Mr Ford shot past John and positioned himself beneath Carson, his arms held out, just in time for the boy to plummet into his arms. They both smacked into the ground and the teacher rolled them out of the way before the falling board crashed down next to them.

There was silence. Then both Mr Ford and Carson sat up. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

Carson held his wrist and his face crumpled.

"Can you walk? Let's get you to the infirmary." The teacher helped Carson to his feet. His face was stern, his lighthearted enthusiasm gone. "All of you will stay here. None of you will even touch one of the boards until I return to supervise you. Do you understand?"

Heads nodded solemnly.

The teacher and the sagging form of Carson made for the nearest tower.

John rounded on Kolya, who had moved away from his board at Mr Ford's stern warning. "You got my friend hurt."

Kolya shrugged, casually. "Maybe if he hadn't been such a dunce he would have been able to control his board."

John's fists clenched. Right. It was time to take this guy down. He wasn't going to have his or his friends' school career blighted because of this over-privileged bully. He marched toward Kolya and was surprised to find Teyla and Rodney flanking him. He'd never had back-up before in a fight.

Kolya laughed and stepped onto his board. "You think I'd engage the likes of you in a fist fight? I don't think so." He lifted off the ground and adjusted his stance, spreading his legs wide, his knees flexing and bending easily as his board shifted beneath him.

"You coward," sneered John. "You're just going to run away on that thing?"

"Oh, I was thinking that you might join me."

"John, no!"

"Don't do it, Sheppard. Don't let him bait you."

His friends were right. He'd have to take Kolya down another time.

"Not keen?" the bully jeered. "Ah, but maybe this'll change your mind." He dived and skimmed the grass, scooping something up in his hand. "This creature belongs to your pathetic friend, I think. Maybe I'll just leave it on one of the towers. Or just see what would happen if I drop it from, oh, shall we say, fifty feet?"

Kolya swept up into the sky, his arms spread wide, both knees bent sharply to bring him low over his board.

"John, don't do it. You'll be killed! Or expelled!"

John shook off Rodney's restraining arm. He could do this. "I have to. He's got Hamish." Why had Carson taken his turtle from the tank where it was supposedly happy? John jumped on the battered black and white board and copied Kolya's pose.

The bully jeered at him from the sky.

John sent his awareness into the curving shape beneath him. It felt wrong. The link was there and he knew it would respond, but something stopped him. Suddenly he thought of salt spray and glittering sunlight on water. Then he kicked off his battered running shoes and pulled off his socks and his bare feet slapped on the surface of the board.

"What are you doing?"

John didn't answer. He couldn't stop his grin or his laugh. This felt right. This was the way to do it. The board was part of John, and the same leap of triumph that had surged through him in the Ancient chair now flowed through him and the board both, making them one joyful, life-filled creature - a creature that could fly on pure instinct.

Then the sky was around him and he could feel the air currents and almost see them as they swirled around the towers of Atlantis; he could read the shape of the City and the land and he knew where updrafts would be where he could rise more quickly or where cold patches lurked that might pull him down. This was a world that was his to ride and to explore.

John jinked left and right, the air coursing beneath him like waves rolling toward the shore. He whooped and hollered and shot high into the sky, crouching low, the air whipping through his hair and clothes. Then he levelled out in a moment of heart-singing lightness and spread his arms wide and let the light of the setting sun bathe him in gold.

"Having fun, Sheppard?" Kolya circling him, spat his name with something close to hatred.

"What's your problem, Kolya?"

"You! You're my problem! The great John Sheppard who saved us all! Who are you to be held up as an example? You're nothing! Nobody! You didn't save anyone! It was an accident, just an accident!"

Kolya whipped right and left in front of him. John held his crouched position, ready to respond with movement, with violence, with whatever it took. "I didn't ask for it. I don't know what happened."

"And now look at you!" Kolya continued as though he hadn't spoken. "Your first time on a board and you think you can out fly me?"

John couldn't help smirking. "Looks like it."

Kolya snarled and his board whipped away toward the higher towers of the Academy. John followed, urging his board on, faster and faster. Kolya made for the Control Tower and banked left. John banked right and urged his board higher, leaning into its gradient, not thinking about the small, flimsy surface beneath him or the long, long drop below.

Then Kolya was in front of him and they both pulled up but couldn't stop and John instinctively clamped his hands either side of the leading edge of his board as they shot nearly vertically up the side of the tower. Kolya twisted away at the top and surged up one diagonal edge of the Jumper bay. He let his board touch down on the summit and held out his hand, his fist curled around the hard shell of Carson's turtle.

"Don't do it, Kolya!" Bitter-cold gusts of wind blustered around John, whipping his words away, driving any hint of warmth out of his body.

Kolya met his furious gaze fearlessly, raised his hand and threw the creature away.

John didn't hesitate. He flung himself flat on his board and dived over the side of the control tower, searching the air beneath him frantically, locking onto the tiny, plummeting speck. His eyes streamed with wind-blown tears, but he couldn't blink or he'd lose it. Faster and faster John urged his board down and down, the side of the tower whipping past in a blur. He was a missile; a missile locked on its target and he gave no thought to the ground beneath or to Kolya, or to any consequences.

John stretched out one arm, his fingers spread wide, his target clear before him. In the back of his mind a warning shrieked, triggered by the scent of the sun-warmed earth and the vague remembered knowledge of the solid world below where people walked, anchored to the ground. He ignored it. He reached. And the little object smacked into his hand.

Then awareness smacked into his mind and John flung his will and his body into pulling up out of his hurtling dive. The green and brown earth filled his vision and it was too late, he couldn't, he couldn't pull up. The board juddered and strained and John pulled and pulled with his one free hand and all of his mind and then the green and brown blur was whipping past beneath him and coming no closer. He'd done it.

John sagged, his body chilled, his mind exhausted. The board faltered and lurched. He snatched at the reins of control again, but they slipped away and he dragged hard on the surging energy, damping it, slowing it, calming it with what remained of his strength. It was working. Their speed dropped. He'd be able to land and Mr Ford wouldn't be back yet and everything would be fine.

But John's relief betrayed him. The board lurched again and jerked and then there was empty space beneath him. He curled his body around the tiny, rescued form and that impact was the ground and that and that and then nothing.

oOo

"That was horrible. Just awful."

"Yes, Rodney, it was." Teyla slid her rock closer to his.

The campfire flames flickered and leapt, but Rodney found no comfort in their friendly glow or in the presence of his friends. "The way he hit the ground…"

"He'll be okay. They said he'd be okay." Carson looked smaller than usual, huddled on a rock, his left arm strapped up and resting in a splint, his wrist sprained rather than broken. He'd got off very lightly.

"They won't let us see him, though, will they?"

"Doctor Fraiser is right, Rodney. If John has a concussion, he needs to rest."

"Yes, and the next thing we'll hear is that they've shipped him off to some hospital, out there…" He waved his hand toward the darkened window. "And we'll never see him again!"

"Professor O'Neill would not do that."

"Wouldn't he?"

"Jinto and Wex have been in trouble many times -"

"Yes, but I bet they've never pulled a stunt like that!"

"Perhaps not," conceded Teyla. "But I still have faith in Professor O'Neill. He would not send John away."

"Well, we'll see, won't we?" Rodney rubbed his eyes. "I'm going to bed."

"We should all go. Do you need help, Carson?"

"I'm okay. I'll just sit here for a bit longer."

"What, wallowing in guilt?" His friend's pale face fell even further. "No you won't. Come on." Rodney helped Carson to his feet.

"It was my fault. If I hadn't taken Hamish with me…"

"Kolya would just have found a different way of getting John to do the same thing," Rodney interrupted.

"I believe that is so," said Teyla. "He would have forced a confrontation no matter what."

"Maybe O'Neill will boot him out," Rodney said, hopefully. "Send him back to whatever hole he crawled out of."

Teyla shook her head. "The Professor has never expelled a student."

"Oh well, at least that works in John's favour. Come on, Carson."

Helping his injured friend to undress, Rodney's eyes were drawn repeatedly toward John's rumpled bed and his few possessions scattered around the nightstand and the window seat. It was hard to believe he'd known John less than a week.

Rodney should have stopped him. He should have found a way. Next time he would, because there was bound to be a next time, and perhaps that would be his main role as John's friend - to stop him, so that he wouldn't get into trouble or hurt himself and end up in the infirmary.

They'd go and see him tomorrow. Insist on seeing him, in fact. And it was Saturday, so no lessons. They'd get hold of some chocolate and spend the day with John and Rodney would try really hard not to eat most of the chocolate himself. Plan made, he got into bed and let his heavy eyes fall shut.

Ooh, dearie me. Honestly, I didn't intend for it all to go so wrong… But it's dangerous and they were flying so high and it just seemed like that's the kind of thing that would happen!

Anyway, I'm well on with Chapter 6, so once I've got a chunk of Chapter 7 written I'll post that. I thought it would be good to be a chapter in hand. Please review - let me know what you think!