AN: Oops! I fixed the doc with my beta copy, but forgot to save, so it uploaded the old unedited version so, this is the beta'd CORRECT chapter, eek! That's what I get for not doing a preview.

Part Five

What happened next, was a trip down the rabbit hole that would've made Alice jealous. I had a vague memory of slamming into inflexible surfaces, and hearing panicked shouts following me down. And then it all went incredibly blank.

I don't know how long I was out for, but I woke to utter silence. Panicked, I rolled to my side, and started searching for two things - location, and McKay. We'd fallen into a sinkhole that was created by the quake, and judging from the daylight above, it was a good twenty feet up a steep and crumbling slope. Now McKay, he wasn't far from my position, but he was at an awkward position. Half on his side, and back, and I saw blood.

Sweating bullets that weren't from the heat, I stumbled over, and carefully rolled him till he was flat on his back. There was a vicious rip in his long sleeved shirt that I'd thought he was nuts for wearing, and the source of the blood was apparent. When he'd rolled down, he'd gone up against a sharp rock, and lost.

While I hastily reached for his pack, thankfully not far from his body, I also started scanning for the other two members of my team. Shit! Where were Beckett and Roberts? Thanking McKay for bringing his jacket, I propped his head on the improvised cushion, and dug out his med-kit.

"Beckett!" I shouted, fighting to keep the desperate edge toned down. "Roberts!"

Blood was everywhere, even as I tried unsuccessfully to bind the ragged wound. On my hands, arms, shirt, and spreading in the clay underneath me, causing a blood mud to cake on my knees.

"God damn it, would you quit fucking bleeding, McKay!" I swore, angry at the crawling fear. It wasn't just the cut, it was also the fact that I was sitting here yanking and pushing on a massive injury, and the man hadn't flinched yet.

Finally, despite hands so slick you would've thought it was extra virgin olive oil instead of my friend's life coating my hands, I got a thick bandage around the injury, and held as much pressure as I could humanly muster, praying the bleeding stopped, hell, slowed, even.

"Major!"

I jerked. I don't know how long I'd been down there holding in McKay's vital fluids, but judging from the numbness in my hand, it'd been a while. I must've zoned. "Down here!" I shouted.

Robert's face peered over the edge. "Doctor Beckett is still unconscious, I think something hit us -"

"Are you okay?" I barked. I needed him to get help, and fast. We'd needed oxygen right before everything had came crashing down, literally. I was feeling a burning hunger in my chest, and wonder if that had to do with the zoning I'd experience, and maybe why Beckett was still out of it up top.

His face pulled back, and right about the time I was starting to get all freaked again, it came back. "Sorry, Sir. I think Beckett's coming to, but he's really out of it."

"Fine!" I snapped. "Are you okay?" I repeated. Focus, damn it. One thing at a time. We were on a sinking ship, and going down fast.

"I think so!" the airman called uncertainly.

I couldn't see his face, couldn't judge if he really was, or if he was handing out that hero thing I'd worried about earlier. If I could just get up – but I couldn't, because I was all that stood between the grim reaper and McKay.

"Okay, look," I started, as loud as I could, which was growing less and less each time as my lungs grew more and more oxygen starved. God, this world sucks. "You've got to get back to the gate, and call for help."

"Sir?"

For the first time, I heard a note of anxiety from the airman. This hadn't been his first time out the gate, but the other two trips had been straight forward, there and back, and here's a nice cold drink for your trouble, kind of deals. This was the anvil and forge, and Roberts' metal was being tested in the fire.

"You can do it," I hollered encouragingly. "Take an oxygen tank, and be careful!"

I saw a jerk of his head, and he promised, "I'll be back before you can explain to McKay what happened."

And then he was gone. Or at least I figured he was, because his head never popped over the edge again, and it was back to being just me, McKay, and his totally fucked up arm. I tried to shift on my haunches, but it didn't help. Muscles were cramping, and sweat was soaking through my clothes everywhere. Not just in the typical pits and creases, but along the band of my boxers, and the middle of my back, and my thighs.

I had a lot of time to sit and worry. Or maybe it wasn't that long at all. It's funny how time passes in a relatively slow turn when the situation is dire. As it did pass, I had a feeling that dire was an understatement. McKay hadn't even so much as rolled an eyeball under his closed eyelids, and I was beginning to suspect more was wrong than what the eye could see.

"Major Sheppard! Rodney!" a weak shout from above.

Beckett! I don't think I've ever been so thankful for someone in my life, ever, not even when Ford found me on the planet with the tic wraith trying to induce a new type of vampiric relationship.

"Doc! I've got a problem down here!" And my problem was that Beckett was up there, and McKay was down here.

I saw loose dirt break off the edge, and start rolling down. I draped myself over Rodney, like a human umbrella, and wished I was Mary Poppins, and could fly up out of this pit. What good is an umbrella if it can't fly?

When I sensed the small avalanche was finished, I lifted my torso away, and looked up. Beckett was looking down at us, and he had an oxygen mask over his face. That was good. I knew I'd need the doc in as good as shape as possible when the rescue team arrived. For all Rodney's bitching, both of us found it hard to trust any other doc than Beckett.

"Major, do you have any tanks?"

I shook my head, and the resulting thump reminded me that I probably shouldn't have done that. We'd been in the process of getting those tanks out when all hell had broken loose, and I'd tried to see if any had tumbled down with us, a steel jack and jill, to save our broken crown, but if any had, they'd been buried along the way.

"I'm coming down!"

"No!" Geez! "Are you nuts!" I shouted. "That's a twenty foot drop, you'd be killed!"

Holy crap, I think he just jump-started my heart. The thought of Beckett falling, and rolling, and breaking, was almost as bad as staring at a broken McKay. No, Beckett needed to stay put so he could put Humpty Dumpty together again.

He hovered uncertainly, but I guess my panic got through to him, because he didn't make any attempt at a swan dive off the edge of sanity. "What are Rodney's injuries?" he asked instead.

Sheesh. I was still coming out of the cold sweat, and now he wanted me to focus on what was wrong with McKay? Everything, that's what - he was broken, fix him, I felt like saying.

"His arm is a bloody mess," I shouted. "Beyond that, I can't see anything." Beckett would know the unspoken fear. Internal injuries.

"Son," Beckett said it loud enough for me to hear, but there was a firmness, reaching in to my gut, and pouring a strong dose of stout, "I'm going to look for a way to lower an oxygen tank."

I closed my eyes, and with my free hand, swiped tiredly at stinging salty droplets of sweat that burned my eyes. I swallowed, and told myself that's the only reason my eyes were burning, and it was the heat, the lack of air, the fatigue – everything, other than the fact that I felt McKay dying in front of me, and all I could do was sit, and hang on.

How could things go so bad, so fast? One moment I'd been teasing him, accusing him of being a horny dumbass, and the next, I'm holding on to him for dear life- his dear life.

"Major!"

The tank was coming down; at least I hope that's what it was. Beckett had tied the roll of gauze around the valve and was lowering it. It dropped an arm's length away, and I had to reach to wrap my fingers around, but I got it.

"You first!" ordered Beckett. "You've got to stay awake." Unvoiced, for McKay. How could such an arrogant, annoying man inspire such care and loyalty? Because he gave it back, ten-fold, always had. His mouth said one thing, while his actions said something else entirely. I'd known that from the moment he'd slapped that shield on, and faced off with the black cloud entity, and he'd not disappointed me once.

I lifted the mask, and pushed it against my face, holding it in place with a shoulder, while using that same hand to gently turn the flow valve about half way. I didn't want to get dried out anymore than I was, sitting down here being baked alive in this make-do kiln. After gulping greedily, I set it over McKay's mouth and nose, and counted at least ten breaths, and alternated back to me, increasing to twenty breaths each.

"I see someone coming!" excited, Beckett was looking over our pit, and towards the way we'd came. "I think it's – Bates, and is that? Zelenka?"

I didn't care. It could have been Steve the Wraith, at this point, at least that would mean the ordeal was going to be over.

"Hurry," I tried to shout, but my voice cracked, and I knew their timing was impeccable, because my world was graying out, and all I kept saying as I felt my body tipping was "Don't let go, don't let go, don't let -"

TBC