Chapter 2

He shifted again, his hip throbbing - it woke him and he opened his eyes, there was faint moonlight coming through the mouth of the cave, an easement to his eyes after the sharpness of the lightning and the solid blackness that followed. The rain had passed, and the night breeze brought a clean scent into their dark world.

His wound was through and through, and he felt a slight grating every time he moved that warned him it was likely that the bone was involved. He could feel the thick tackiness of the dried blood on his clothes, stretched across his groin and buttocks - he'd simply shoved the sleeves torn from his shirt in under his pants, over the wound, letting the uncertain pressure of the fabric serve as a temporary bandage. Under that, though, he felt the warm, slow slide of continued bleeding. He had no more cloth, and did he have it, he would not have used it on himself.

There was only the torso left of the shirt he had ripped off to serve as wadding, once the extent of their wounds had been apparent, and that had been pressed into use to staunch the stomach wound...it was now sodden, not enough. He'd pulled the vest tightly closed over the shredded tissue and pitifully small pad, cursing the fact they'd been so ill equipped - but the Bancek were trustworthy trade partners, they'd been traveling here often, and the sudden attack by the unknown assailants was utterly unexpected. Ford and Teyla had gone one way; they'd made tracks the other, with little more than the clothes on their back. They'd evaded the attackers, but then there had been some very bad luck.

There had been no time for more comprehensive aid. The hunters were behind them, too close, and he couldn't let them get closer, wouldn't let them know how close their shots came to doing what they were meant to. The pursuers were shooting to kill.

Their blood was still flowing, and he knew, within himself, that they were both engaged in the serious business of dying.

He had held firm against despair for this long, through the hours, feeling the skewering pain of his own wound deepen to a throb that none-the-less paled, he knew, in comparison to what the physicist was enduring. He had held the quivering body, gentled the spasms as best he could. He had railed against death, against the loss he could not endure again, but still he had not permitted despondency entry.

Now, lying together, sharing the little warmth they had remaining, sharing space, sharing breath, their blood mingling together beneath them, he squinted his eyes shut and permitted himself one instant, one sob of grief, one moment of hopelessness. Loss of his own life he could accept, loss of someone who had filled a role in his life the way he had always imagined a brother would - the bickering, the wit, the amiable, affectionate silences - that was much harder.

He felt a slight shudder, and knew McKay was aware again.

"Rain's stopped," he whispered. "They must have made it back." It was a statement based simply on hope. "They'll be searching."

He felt McKay stiffen, knew another of the endless cramps was spreading tendrils of pain. He gasped faintly, a thin edge of a cry, and Sheppard whispered to him, nonsense, enticements, trying to give him something else to concentrate on, to cling to.

And, after an eternity, the pain eased again. Words had finally failed, Sheppard simply held McKay as awareness of a world beyond suffering came slowly back to his friend.

"...how're you?" The concern was evident in the almost inaudible question.

Sheppard closed his eyes against tears, born of exhaustion and pride. How the man had changed, a McKay lay in his arms that wouldn't exist had it not been for Atlantis. He weighed the answer, but honesty had been so much of their friendship - it couldn't be dismissed now.

"Not great," he admitted. "Doing my best. Hanging on."

"...y're cold..."

"We're both losing blood. It's shock." He had been trying not to shiver, not wanting to jar them both, but discussion of it made him more conscious of it, and he couldn't restrain a shudder. He waited for the cramps to submerge the physicist in the burning sea again, but seconds passed, and it seemed that they'd been granted a few moments of respite.

"...me, too." A shallow breath. "Hanging on...'s hard..."

He drew a breath to respond, but suddenly a spear of pain drove unexpectedly into his chest and he tried to gasp, lungs refusing to inflate; he felt McKay reach for him, spending the last vestiges of his energy in an enormous effort to grasp his hand, try to help...he clamped down on it in terror, lungs like frozen rocks around his heart, which laboured now...he felt the grasp returned, a twitch of the fingers. He fought to remain conscious, for himself, for McKay, but his ears were filling with sand...

It was almost like a brisk hike in the old country.

Well, apart from the fact the terrain was rockier, wetter, muddier and colder, and there were heavily armed Marines leading the pack, an alien huntress bringing up the rear, and the gnawing fear that no matter how fast they moved, it would be too slow for his friends.

He glanced down again at the monitor. The tracker worked more precisely in Atlantis, with all the sensors ranged around the city, and this had caused some consternation for the group when he first turned it on, standing in front of the ruins of their camp. There had only been one blip visible in the direction that Sheppard and McKay had last been seen going. Teyla had paled, and he could feel the colour leaving his face too. But there had been nothing for it; they'd started the climb, leaving the rest of the team to tend to the surviving Bancek below. The Genii were racking up the payment due. He spared a moment to hope that he'd be there to see it when that bill was finally called in.

The blip had resolved into two between one step and the next. He'd stopped dead, heart in his mouth, and Teyla had delegated the rearguard to Farrar, running up the path to stop by Carson, staring up at him, dark eyes hopeful. He'd simply turned the monitor to her, nodding beyond to Ford.

"We've got two!" the man behind him spoke into his radio.

"Confirming, Sergeant, we have two targets." The relief in Ford's eyes was visible. He nodded sharply, and they kept going.

They were so faint. He tried to concentrate on the path they were climbing, it was necessary, it was very rocky, but he couldn't keep from glancing down. Often. Just to make certain.

The pathway leveled out a bit, and he looked around, trying to imagine how Sheppard, wounded, had dragged McKay, also wounded, up this far. The sharpshooter hadn't been able to contain his pride, informing those from Atlantis that they might as well not bother; when he shot someone they were dead… Teyla, unsurprisingly, had attempted to gut the man, and it had been Ford that had managed to restrain her, even though the question of 'why bother' was clear in his face. He was a good soldier, though. The orders had been to attempt to keep the attackers alive. It was political, he presumed, something that Weir could use to negotiate a hands-off agreement between the peoples involved.

Ford simply wanted them neutralized. It was an un-physician-like thought, but Beckett did too.

They'd seen scat from the hunter animals lower down, he recalled, and given the size of the leavings he could estimate the size of the beast. Maybe it wasn't so hard to imagine after all, making the trek up the steep foot of the mountain; even injured, if you had three of those things baying at your heels.

Beckett shook his head, trying physically to clear the mental images. That had been his own weakness, observed by many of his professors. He had too much empathy. It had almost been a career-crippling issue, but he had taught himself to deal with it, with the constant realization that he could do everything right and still lose the patient. His imagination was constrained through practice, his natural amity curbed. And then the mission to Atlantis happened, he found himself in charge of maintaining the health of people he came to consider friends, and found himself closest to a couple of them who seemed to spend an alarming amount of time in his infirmary. He still managed to deal, but without the emotional distance from his patients, every situation became a personal battle to fight off the inclination that all medical cases had towards entropy. Loss was a ghost he was becoming very familiar with.

"Not these men. Please," he whispered.

He stopped again. The image showed them almost on top of the targets. He held up his hand, stopping those behind, and Farrar radioed a quick "hold it" to the scouts in front.

"They're nearby." He tapped his headset. "Look for signs. A cave, a rock cut. Won't be any real trail, not after the rain."

With two marines keeping watch, they began to search the hundred or so yards they'd been able to narrow the area down to. The wall was pockmarked with breaks, but they weren't deep enough, none of them, none were large enough. He searched with Teyla, methodically, patiently, and cultivated his restraint, though his anxiety was growing with every passing moment.

And then Farrar's voice, urgent, on the headset. "Got something."

He climbed the last twenty feet of screed just as Farrar was backing out of a low cave, and he looked stricken, ill. He held up a hand as Ford covered the last few feet towards them, coming from higher up the path, shaking his head.

"Let the Doc in. We can't help them," he said quietly.

It did nothing to quell his concern. Catching Farrar's eye, he ducked into the narrow opening.

"...a dhia..."

Bad habit, scolded a tiny part of his mind, but he'd been fed Gaelic with his mother's milk and it was still his language of emotion, passion, compassion. He crossed himself, instinctively, knowing just from standing hunched in the gap in the rocks, just from playing his flashlight briefly over his friends, that he would need more than earthly help.