Into the Woods

By Ellex

See chapter one for disclaimers, etc.

Chapter Three: Bang! Crash! And the Lightning Flash!

"Sheppard! Teyla!" Serena screamed their names. She scrambled to her feet, staring in dismay at the solid pillar of multicolored light that obscured the hapless scientist from view.

As Sheppard ran up to them, mouth dropping open at the sight of the light show, Serena tried to reach into it. She was immediately flung several feet away by a blinding flash. The light vanished to reveal McKay, who crashed to the ground, gasping and twitching slightly, as if he'd been shocked by a taser.

Teyla arrived and he directed her to Serena, who was sitting up and clutching her arm. John knelt beside Rodney and checked his pulse. His heart was racing, he was gasping for air, and he blinked rapidly as tears streamed down his face.

"McKay? Can you hear me? Come on, Rodney, tell me what's going on?" His heart twisted with anxiety. He didn't think he could stand to see McKay back in the infirmary again, not after the weeks of recovery last time. Maybe he should have Rodney transferred to another team, he certainly didn't seem able to keep the man safe himself…

"Uh…I…I'm okay…I think…" The stricken Canadian sucked in huge gulps of air and grabbed at John's arm. He could feel Rodney's fingers twitching in small involuntary movements, but his grasp was reassuringly firm. "Did – did I just get struck by lightning?"

"I don't know. Serena? What happened?"

"I touched one of the runes and the light just shot out – " He looked over to see her curled around her right arm, a grimace of pain twisting her face. Teyla was supporting the machinist, looking grim.

"She has been injured, Major Sheppard. It looks like a burn – or perhaps a scald. We need to return to Atlantis immediately."

"Serena?" McKay rolled over and tried to push himself up, but was still shaking so badly that it took several tries for Sheppard to help him into a sitting position.

Teyla carefully cut Serena's shirt sleeve away from her rapidly swelling arm. McKay fumbled in his pack until Sheppard took it away from his trembling hands and fished out the first aid kit. He handed gauze bandages to Teyla, who wrapped them gently around the angry red flesh, and pain relievers to Serena, who swallowed them gratefully.

"I've had better days, and it hurts like you wouldn't believe." Serena gave him a shaky smile. "Rodney, are you okay?"

Sheppard was trying to check him over for burns but McKay pushed him away. "I'll live. I may not want to in a couple of hours, but I'm sure I will anyways." He looked down at his hands. There was still a slight tremor in his fingers, and a kind of shimmery halo around everything he looked at, and he was fairly sure that the ringing in his ears would evolve into a full blown migraine before long…

Serena wasn't looking at him anymore. "Umm…I think we found the door." She pointed to the rock and they all turned to see an opening in the previously solid stone.

"We can come back another time," Sheppard said. "Next time, don't touch anything until you know what it does," he continued sharply.

McKay snorted. "Oh, and you've never touched anything without knowing exactly what it does," he muttered.

"I don't need defending, Rodney," Serena told him.

"Well, excuse me for thinking you did."

"I don't! Why do you always have to – "

"Enough!" Teyla cried. "This is not helping."

Serena took a deep breath. "Could we just sit for a few minutes? We've been walking for hours already. Major, you could take a quick look inside and then we'll know if we should come back again."

"That's an excellent idea," McKay announced. "There's no point in making the trip again if we don't have to. Maybe we'll find out just what that – whatever hit us – was."

"Rodney, you should - "

"I'm fine, Major," he snapped. "I'm sure Carson will be all over me when we get back, but I feel fine. Right now I want to have a look in there."

John held out his hand to help Rodney up, but the scientist ignored it and stood easily. Whatever that light had done to him, the effects were wearing off quickly and he felt almost normal.

"Alright then. We'll be back in fifteen minutes." Sheppard said.

As the two men entered the structure, a dim blue light began to glow behind the interior walls, illuminating a room that looked much like the Ancient outpost in Antarctica, complete with the chair on a dais in the center of the huge room. But the floor was cracked and uneven, littered with fallen chunks of ceiling and walls.

"It looks like the ground has shifted. Even the Ancients couldn't build to withstand seismic activity," Rodney said quietly.

They carefully picked their way through the debris to a control panel that was listing at nearly a forty-five degree angle. McKay touched the controls to no effect, while Sheppard sat gingerly in the chair. An ominous creaking issued from the ceiling and the lights flickered wildly. He quickly slid off the chair and said, "I think we'd better get out of here before this place falls down around our ears."

They emerged into the sunlight to find Serena standing up and Teyla examining something in the underbrush.

"Major Sheppard! Look at this." She pointed to a familiar-looking metal device lying in the dirt. A small round light in the middle of it pulsed alternately blue and red.

"It looks like a Wraith signal device. It's set in a direct line with that door. I think perhaps it is meant to tell them when the door has been opened."

"Which means," Rodney said sourly, "that the Wraith are probably on their way here right now."

TBC