I will not faint. I will not faint.
"Shit. Oh, God." Rodney began to back slowly towards the door, holding on to the cool, comfortingly smooth wall for dear life. Despite his best efforts, he doubled over, and soon what had only recently been a turkey sandwich was drifting sickeningly in a still-spreading pool of blood. At that sight, he dry-heaved a few more times, then took a few deep gasping breaths and forced his eyes upward, reaching for the intercom. "Carson, I need you to get to my lab. Now."
"What's wrong?" Carson asked groggily.
"I don't have time . . ." Rodney could feel himself beginning to hyperventilate. He needed to get out of here. "Just get here as quickly as possible."
"If you say so."The intercom crackled, and then the doctor was gone.
A thought drifted dimly through Rodney's mind: John didn't do this. He wouldn't . . .
Then again, a day ago, he wouldn't have expected John to be threatening him with a sword, either.
Closing his eyes, Rodney moaned softly and pounded a fist into the nearest table, trying to calm down. It didn't work very well, not with two other scientists still lying dead on the floor next to him.
A sudden noise from somewhere on the table had him immediately alert and open-eyed again. His scanner was beeping and flashing wildly, looking as though it too was on the verge of hysteria. Rodney grabbed for it and saw at a glance that a massive power spike was taking place somewhere down the hall.
The Stargate. Had to be.
Half a second later, Rodney was dashing for the door, still clutching the scanner in one hand as tightly as if his life depended on it—although it wasn't his life he was worried about at the moment.
He arrived just in time to see a lone dark figure barely a step from the event horizon. "John!" he called, his voice cracking in fear. And again, more quietly, "John . . ." The figure paused, turning to glance back at Rodney with clouded eyes, and then shook its head once and vanished through the Stargate.
Rodney glanced quickly at the DHD, taking advantage of the last few precious seconds he had to memorize the address before it disengaged. Okay. Now what?
As if there were any doubt about that.
Rodney had never undressed that evening, so all he needed in that respect was to find a spare jacket somewhere. It shouldn't be too difficult; as always, there were a few packs and some other equipment lying ready in a corner in case someone needed to leave on extremely short notice. The scanner went in a pants pocket for safekeeping, After a moment's thought, he took the rations out of another pack and jammed them into the one he'd taken; you could never be too careful, after all. Finally, he found a scrap of paper and scribbled something more or less coherent on it. He wasn't hyperventilating any more, but panic and uncertainty—and the all-to-fresh memory of Braun and Hamilton—were still nudging at him, telling him he was losing his mind. Assuming, naturally, he hadn't totally lost it already.
It was enough to stop Rodney in his tracks, if only for a second. Holy crap, what am I doing?
Saving all their asses, of course, he told himself immediately. Because he was the only one who knew where John was right now. And without John, they were all pretty much screwed. Because Atlantis needed him.
And so do I. But that too was unimportant right now, and Rodney tried to shove the thought out of his mind, just like he did every time it appeared.
Most likely, of course, he was going to get himself killed. But at least he'd have tried. So Rodney took a deep breath, moved to the DHD, and pulled the address he needed back out of his short-term memory.
Rodney's last thought before stepping through the Gate was that he was analyzing the situation the same way John probably would have. It was all the encouragement he needed.
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The planet on the other end was nothing but desert for as far as Rodney could see. In fact, it looked a lot like Mars did in most sci-fi movies; the sand was dark red and so fine that much of it drifted in the air, turning the atmosphere into a reddish haze.
There was, not too surprisingly, a line of footprints in the sand leading away from the Stargate. They looked alarmingly purposeful, heading on a straight line to the right and disappearing over the top of a dune. The scanner confirmed a single human lifesign about a mile away in that direction, so Rodney set off, one hand again clutching the scanner. The other was scrambling for his gun—just in case.
It took only five minutes to reach the top of the dune, and there he stopped and looked around. The trail continued on its perfectly straight way to another slope further on, leading ultimately to a dark cave mouth that gaped in the side of the hill. Even with binoculars, Rodney couldn't tell what was inside. John was, presumably, but God only knew what else might be in there that the scanner wouldn't pick up.
If there was anything, whatever it was, he'd find a way to deal with it. Solving problems was his job anyway, wasn't it?
Upon arrival, Rodney discovered that the mouth of the cave was larger than it had seemed from a distance. He hardly had to duck at all to get inside, and the cave itself had a high ceiling. He switched on a flashlight and looked around. John was huddled in a far corner of the cave, seeming to be barely even aware of Rodney's presence. He wore his habitual black pullover and jeans, but—for the second time that day—his clothing was spattered with blood. It was hard to ignore the smell of it.
The sword handle glinted on the ground a few feet away.
Rodney went over and crouched down beside him, but it was John spoke first, without looking up. "Well, last time I checked you weren't exactly stupid. So do you just have the world's biggest death wish, or what?"
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AUTHOR'S NOTE: Fun times ahead . . . possibly because after this chapter, or maybe the next, I'm not quite sure what I'm doing. If this fic keeps going as easily for me as it has been, though, everything should turn out OK in the end.
I've been listening to French music again. "Goutte de pluie dans l'ocean seraient tous les mots, tous importants et tous inutiles, goutte de pluie dans l'ocean." Like raindrops in the ocean all the words will be, all of them important and all of them useless, like raindrops in the ocean.