Title: Ceremonial Party Favors (SGA)

Author: Heatherf

Disclaimers: Not mine, no money made etc.

Warnings1: Grammar, English in general, punctuation, spelling etc. English is my first language. You'd never know it, despite the Sisters' and Fathers' best efforts.

Warning2: It's a bike fic. Some of you know what that means. Some of you don't.

Characters: Beckett and Sheppard's team and Biro (at the end)

Summary: It is a bad idea to slip party favors on unsuspecting guests.

Rating: Probably PG maybe G…I really don't know. It's complete, the ending needs some smoothing. It should be all posted by Monday.

Acknowledgements: Mitzi, Meg T. and Jen. They make great changes, have awesome suggestions and are a lot smarter than me. However, sometimes I express stubborn free will and don't change some of the things they suggest. As a result….

Any and all mistakes are mine…unless they're really bad and horrible and affect you like finger nails on a chalk board--- then they belong to Emmit.

Part 1

Sheppard looked over his shoulder, away from the strong glare of the mid afternoon sun, trying to peer into the back of the dimly lit cave.

Sweat beaded his forehead and ran in tiny rivulets between his shoulder blades dampening his black t-shirt under his unzipped jacket. A warm breeze ghosted over his torso, sending some tendrils of air around to his back creating minor disturbances in his shirt. The shirt material clung to his skin pulling on the minute, scarce hairs on his back, eliciting an irritating itch which he couldn't afford to take the time nor effort to scratch.

He needed both hands on the P-90.

"God damn it, McKay, how's he doing?" The irritability exhibited itself in his voice.

Sheppard regretted his tone the moment the sound of impatience reached his own ears. McKay didn't deserve it; but he could handle it.

"How the Hell should I know," McKay bit back with matching ire as he placed his folded coat under Beckett's head.

Sheppard smiled grimly peering quickly back to the brilliant afternoon light searching the forest. Yeah, McKay could handle his tetchiness better than most and dish right back ten-fold. It made the astrophysicist that much more of an asset as well as an ass.

The clear blue sky, the searing heat and gentle breeze seemed almost calm; surreal, especially with the knowledge the Wraith were in the area.

The Wraith strode brazenly about the planet confident in their intellectual and physical superiority of those they culled at will.

The primitive little villagers, clustered together in their mud huts and stick fences, were no match against the Wraith.

The village populations were just on the verge of bursting and bubbling over the 'civilized' boundaries of their little communities. Crops were not meeting demands, fresh water was becoming scarce, and different economical classes were beginning to be etched in their society.

The sudden unexpected appearance of the Wraith was working to swiftly and quickly cull back the numbers to a mere dwindling few. The proud self-assured people of P7X-301 huddled and hid scattered like small rodents within the dark shadows and thick roots of the surrounding forest. Those foolish few that stood and fought, crumbled like rag dolls in the flash of stunner blasts before the uninterrupted, confident march of the Wraith.

Darts ruled the sky, crisscrossing the brilliant blue, unchallenged, culling at will.

The members of the Lantean team made like foxes darting from the chicken coup and fled the central village.

There was no real place to hide, but the Colonel was giving it his best shot.

Sheppard and his team were being hemmed in, cornered without the Wraith fully realizing it.

SGA-1 and Beckett had barely escaped the central village with their lives. They fled on the heels of the scattering villagers, keeping silent while darts whined over head and people screamed. The team ran as a group disappearing into the forest with Teyla at their front leading the way and Sheppard trailing behind.

Rodney and Ronon skirmished with Beckett. The doctor struggled against them, under the effects of 'cleansing ceremony' party favors. Sheppard felt his anger grow. Damn stupid people, didn't they understand the dangers of drugging complete strangers out of their minds could be hazardous for all involved? Not everyone reacts to ceremonial drugs the same way.

Well the poor underfed village sap who thought he could hold Beckett still while the doctor reeled from sudden unexpected hallucinations learned his lesson quick enough. Hell, the chieftain, his elite band of over confident warriors, and the banquet goers all learned a potentially hard lesson about how exceedingly wrong it was to slip drugs into someone's drink, especially without warning them or their friends.

When Beckett felt restraining hands, heard the rhythmic chanting and got an eyeful of large brightly colored feathers, ceremonial wooden face masks and weapons, he---in McKay's words--- freaked.

Carson, in a flash of flight or fight or all of the above, found his flight blocked when he leaped from his sitting position from the pillow padded floor surrounding the banquet table. His knees banged into the underside of the short legged table jostling lead coated 'silverware', lead lined serving platters, and bowls. The harsh jingling noise along with sharp gasps of the party goers added auditory insult to his sensory overload.

The village medicine man stood behind the visiting doctor with a large tooth gapped smile. Wispy white hair fell in lonely strands to boney shoulders and painfully visible collar bones. "This is good. Yes. He will see his demons and be cleansed."

The small villagers that stood lining the large banquet hall remained quiet and unmoving.

"Oh, You have got to be kidding me," McKay muttered dropping his bread onto his napkin covered plate. Nothing good ever came from being invited to the Chieftain's for dinner. Nothing. Toss in an uncultivated native witch doctor and things were sure to go moronic in a flash.

Beckett leaped up and back from the table, before Sheppard or McKay could swing around. Ronon observed the unmanageable look in the medical doctor's shining blue eyes. Dex waited with tired patience for the Colonel's orders. Sheppard held up a stalling hand as he swiveled slowly on his own silk pillow. Teyla immediately grabbed Doctor Beckett's empty glass and ran a finger along its inside feeling the gritty residue of a substance that had been added.

"He has been drugged," she informed the others quietly.

"Figures," McKay mumbled shaking his head at the predictability of things going to Hell in a hand bag whenever they were guests off world.

"Doc?" Sheppard said the name in askance with a tone of calm reassurance.

"Leave him be," the wild haired medicine man whispered, still shadowing Beckett's larger frame, backing up with the Lantean without impeding his movements. "He will see many things."

"Oh, I bet," McKay's exasperated sigh left no doubt how he felt. "Colonel?"

"Carson?" Sheppard spoke a little more sharply this time.

Alarmed blue eyes snapped toward the Colonel. Sheppard noted the pinpoint pupils and silently cursed. Keeping his voice soft and calm he spoke in a placating manner to their CMO as Beckett eyed the room with growing panic. "It's okay Doc. Nothing to worry about." His voice remained singsong smooth. He spoke looking calmly at Beckett but directed his words to the others, "Remind me to slap the skinny little bastard who did this." Sheppard kept his smile sincere and slowly got his legs free of the table. "Come on, Doc, just relax--- Ronon can you get around him from the other side?"

As the big Satedan began to nod, the elite warriors in their large wooden masks with exaggerated macabre features, closed in on the side of the table the Lanteans occupied. Their gleaming overtly large bladed weapons caught the streaming late morning light and reflected it in blinding flashes. The exceedingly large brightly colored feathers danced and wavered across masked faces and blades. The small troop of well defined muscled warriors encircled the cornered visiting doctor and their own version of a healer.

The small skeletal medicine man's smile grew wider, exposing more gum lined gaps than yellow gnarled teeth. His dark brown eyes danced in disturbing merriment. He stepped back in time with Beckett, shadowing the bigger man's increasingly tense movements.

Carson's heart hammered under the primitive directive of Flight or Fight. Muscles flooded with blood, airways dilated and oxygen flowed less turbulently into lungs. His easy flight was blocked by flashing weapons, ghoulish faces, and menacing feathers.

And then chanting started.

The diminutive villages that had stood quietly in the background against the four inside walls started their chant, keeping time with the rhythmic stomping of their feet.

McKay felt his own pulse begin to race with the building noise and increasing tempo. Oh this is so not good. McKay tossed up his hands with outraged annoyance. "Oh, this is just beautiful." He pointed meaningfully at Beckett. "He's going to snap."

"Thanks, Rodney," Sheppard muttered. "I might have missed that."

"Wouldn't surprise me," McKay added.

"Shut up," Sheppard pleaded as he watched the Scot.

Carson's eyes swung left and right with increasing horror.

Sheppard started climbing to his feet ignoring the hurried placating hand movements made by the strange little man behind Carson.

Flight was blocked. Beckett, ever versatile in his thinking, combined the instinctive actions and merged 'flight or fight' into 'fight and flight'.

The witch doctor decided it was time to reach out and rest his hands on his counterpart's shoulders.

It was time for the visions to start.

Carson startled with a yelp. He jerked, twisting to the side, shaking off the gnarled hands that had grabbed his shoulders from behind. He repeatedly swatted at the smaller man like a panicked picnic go-er fighting off a busy wasp.

The littler man wove left and right without moving his feet, his ghoulishly knowing smile sunk into gaunt cheeks while dancing eyes rolled left and right with zealous glee.

With a frustrated growl, Beckett simply knocked the grinning medicine man aside with both hands. The whispy figure was catapulted into the wall amongst poorly clothed chanters. The standing villagers continued their chanting and foot stomping increasing its pace and volume.

Carson skirted the table in the opposite direction as the madly hopping, thin skinned doctor who smiled recklessly at the building chaos. The medicine man's maniacal laughter seemed to trail Beckett like a hostile apparition.

The CMO panicked.

His swirling vision landed on the wavering open doorway. The walls and floor seemed to undulate with the beat of the suffocating, whirling voices.

He scrambled, fighting for balance on a floor that seemed to heave and buckle with every frantic step. He recklessly wove his way toward the streaming day light, shoving bodies aside as if they weighed nothing. He tried to keep his distance from the near emaciated villagers that stood against the wood walls chanting and clomping their feet, and the enraptured, better fed dinner guests.

It was a narrow corridor of bodies that seemed to be looming in on him, grabbing for him, tearing at his skin and chanting names of the dead.

Sheppard swore climbing to his feet dragging Rodney with him. The colonel toyed with the idea of letting Beckett go but feared the Scot might actually make it to the door. Teyla slipped to her feet, freeing her fighting sticks from her bag. Ronon growled with disgust as he dropped the choicest piece of meat back to the wooden table, ignoring the lead lined dinner plate at Beckett's earlier warning.

Rodney shook free of Sheppard's grip and glared at the Colonel for just a second before sweeping his bag up off the ground in an irritable movement, "The next time we get invited to dinner off world---the answer is 'No.' No. No. No…Not 'Maybe' not 'let me think about it'….The answer is No!"

"Sure, Rodney, sure," Sheppard answered keeping an eye on Carson's progress. He watched despondently as the supreme chieftain reached Beckett and grabbed the bigger man by either side of his head.

"Don't do that," Sheppard spoke under his breath with a hint of a tired whine.

"Don't do what?" Rodney asked, shouldering his bag. He followed Sheppard's jut of the chin and sighed, "So many different worlds; so many varieties of stupid."

When the chieftain stood and ensnared the sides of Beckett's face , the CMO's eyes nearly bugged from his face and his jaw dropped. Sheppard thought he could hear the physician's tiny squeak of surprise and fear.

Sheppard cringed when Beckett snapped his head forward with authority.

In a move motivated purely by self defense, Carson rammed his forehead sharply into the Chief's unguarded face, snapping the man's Roman nose like a popsicle stick.

Blood blossomed bilaterally in thick streaming rivers covering the leader's lips and chin in just a matter of seconds.

Rodney squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head, "Oh, that's going to hurt."

Beckett scrambled past the crumpled man and found himself facing the Chieftain's elite guards. They descended upon the Scottish physician like an avalanche of bodies.

For a brief moment Carson disappeared from sight. Sheppard started forward, and then paused.

Beckett struggled up from under the press of bodies, pushing them back, shoving ceremonial warriors aside and striking whenever he managed to free an arm, leg or his head.

Sheppard quirked an eyebrow, he'd make it appoint to take Carson on his team if they should ever manage to scrounge up an American football game; or any contact sport for that matter.

Apparently the honor guards did not think to remove their gaudy wooden masks or garish feathers.

They did have the mindset to put down their weapons before attempting to drag down the doctor who attempted to ram and claw his way over and through their numbers, trying to reach the open door within his view point.

The chanting continued, growing in a deep rumbling crescendo as the ceremonial hall fell into disarray. Assorted bodies flew over the banquet table, scattering food, place settings and seated guests.

"I don't know why you insist on bringing him off world," Rodney remarked, ducking to the left as a dinner plate sailed by his head.

Sheppard shrugged, stepping to the right as a decanter of wine sloshed in his direction. "Entertainment purposes?"

McKay considered the explanation and shrugged not sure if he bought into it.

The two men stepped aside as a feather and masked adorned warrior flew by them backward.

The wild knobby-kneed medicine man whooped his arms up in exaggerated motion, bouncing left and right, tossing his head in circular motions, gyrating his neck, exposing the spinous processes of his thinly covered vertebrae, encouraging the chanters to maintain their rhythmic beat and increase their volume.

Sheppard almost felt the need to go to Beckett's aid, as did Rodney, Ronon and Teyla. The foursome exchanged concerned glances and then stared back at the growing mass of bodies that littered the floor and slid willy nilly across the table.

Ronon purposely stepped across the banquet table, taking the most direct route toward the open door the doctor was clearing a path to. Teyla sighed not at all surprised something like this would occur and followed Ronon. McKay shook his head at Sheppard as if to blame him for the events of the late morning.

Sheppard slowly made his way into the melee delicately placing his feet, trying to avoid, tipped glasses, assorted debris and scattered bodies. He slowly picked his way toward their doctor as Beckett diligently 'cleansed' himself of obstacles.

The Scot, red-faced, and panicked, apparently did not feel any significant pain. He bowled his way through the chieftain's elite force like an unmanned bulldozer plowing through kiosks.

Had the honour guard paid any attention they would have noticed that Beckett was fixated solely on reaching the open door. He simply climbed, shoved and careened his way toward daylight, away from the weapons, the monstrous feathers and the fearsome masks that converged upon him and worked to block his escape to freedom.

The building drum of noise, the crush of voices seemed to scratch and claw their way mercilessly into his soul. His skin felt afire in the oppressive heat of the hall.

Sheppard intended on only following their doctor. It would do them no good to interfere. Beckett, in this state, wouldn't be able to, or be open to, distinguishing friend from foe. He only wanted out. The Colonel couldn't disagree with him.

Besides it might do these villages some good to learn that you shouldn't go drugging well fed strangers, even if they seemed mild mannered. And you shouldn't go drugging people without telling them or their friends. It was an important lesson that needed to be learned.

Beckett was somewhere between tackling a group of warriors to the ground, and climbing over them and the partially decimated table and assorted sitting pillows, when the whine of the first Wraith dart was heard.

The terrified screams of villagers outside brought Rodney to a panicked halt. It drained the blood from Teyla's bronze features. Moving as one, the team rushed the pile of bodies, swinging their gear up over their shoulders. Sheppard and Ronon jumped over suddenly petrified prone guests, skittered through spilled food and firmly latched onto the crazed physician.

They grabbed Beckett by either arm and pulled him sharply from the knot of warriors he had become entangled with just near the door. They hauled him quickly toward the threshold hoping to escape outside without any more interference.

Beckett twisted to and fro managing to free an arm. He took a desperate, solid swing at Ronon hitting the Satedan squarely just below the eye, splitting the skin and drawing blood. The runner immediately snapped an answering return blow, cracking Beckett's head back and forth, weakening his knees.

"Hey, knock it off," Sheppard hissed fighting the Scot's waning sense of balance. Twin rivulets of blood streamed from Beckett's nostrils. He blinked slowly, owl-eyed, fighting to focus.

"He hit me first," Ronon defended as the three stumbled toward the door.

"Now is not the time," Teyla hissed, shouldering her gear and hefting Sheppard's pack. She drew too close to the trio and earned a glancing head butt to the cheek from Atlantis's CMO. Sheppard cringed and tightened his grip on Carson.

The Athosian never broke stride and led them from the building.

McKay skirted widely around them and trotted after Teyla, keeping his eyes toward the menacing sky.

SGA hurried down the gravel path that stretched from the ceremonial building. They wound through the narrow, dirt lanes of the convoluted village. Teyla lead them quickly and confidently through the maze of twisting turns and fetid alleys of an unplanned growing community.

They ran as a knotted group, twirling and turning around panicked people. The four stretched their legs, dragging their fifth, as they sprinted past decrepit, poorly constructed outbuildings that seeped past the boundaries of the village proper and stretched into the surrounding wood.

The Lanteans left the panicked confusion of the tiny streets and fled into the flanking heavy pine forest. With Teyla still leading, she angled them upward, toward the honeycomb of caves in the mountains.

The whine of countless darts crisscrossing low overhead, and the frantic screams of the hysterical populace, followed the small team into the thick forests of the surrounding mountains.

Upon entering the trees, Sheppard switched positions with McKay. The Colonel dropped back to cover their trail, while McKay, with Ronon's help, struggled with Beckett.

During their mad uphill dash, a pair of Wraith materialized from behind a tree bringing their stunners up to fire. Without breaking stride, Ronon merely fired at the life suckers in a swift volley of shots. The Wraith drones were flung backward with limbs twitching and great charred holes smoking their chests.

Beckett managed to knock McKay to the ground in a desperate bid for freedom. Rodney scrambled forward and wrapped his arms around Carson's lower leg, keeping a frantic hold on the CMO's calf.

Ronon turned toward the struggling physician who had started to try and kick his way free in an anxious attempt to escape.

Dex flicked his thumb across the setting on his gun and shot Beckett square in the chest.

Carson staggered backward, briefly engulfed in a red aura of a stun discharge. He tripped into Rodney's shoulder as the astrophysicist was in the process of scrambling free, trying to create distance.

Both would have gone down to the dirt trail had Ronon not simply reached out and grabbed a fistful of the doctor's jacket and pulled him forward. The runner, using the momentum, quickly hauled the semi-conscious man across his shoulders.

Sheppard and Teyla waited impatiently on opposite ends of the small group, searching the forest for the teams of Wraith which were sure to be out there.

Beckett squirmed listlessly for a moment and then settled.

"You couldn't have done that earlier?" McKay griped as he climbed to his feet wiping blood from his nose.

"McKay," Sheppard warned.

"I'm just saying," McKay muttered while falling into line, "that it would have been a lot easier if he did that sooner."

The group continued their desperate escape. They climbed upward into the mountains under the cover of the forest, searching for the caves, hoping the thick stone mountains would protect them from the Darts beaming technology.

Within a few long minutes, legs burning and chests heaving for breath, they skirted around a handful of giant grey boulders and bustled inside the hidden entrance of a deep cave.

Ronon unceremoniously dropped Beckett in the back of the cave. "Stay with him, Little Man," Dex ordered as he shook his shoulders easing the cramped tension in his muscles.

The big runner turned and left the astrophysicist and joined Sheppard and Teyla up front.

Rodney glared at the threesome and then turned his attention back to his crumbled charge. "This is great…just great." With a heavy sigh he gazed around his dark surroundings as he tugged his own scanner from one of his many vest pockets. Figures he was the one left with the dubious charge of keeping the Scot quiet should he come to life at an importune time.

Which was likely; SGA-1's luck tended to run like that off world---after being invited to dinner---Bad.

McKay sighed with a hint of nervous frustration. He gently eased his pack to the ground, treating his laptop with the care it deserved. He kicked Sheppard's pack to the side.

"McKay? How is he?" Sheppard asked again, letting his eyes dance across the few open meters of rocky dirt and into the forest, his back to the scientist.

Rodney cursed as he shifted Beckett's head back onto the folded coat, but his overgrown head kept rolling off it. Damn melon.

Carson's hand slipped from his side and scratched feebly at the dirt. McKay swore under his breath and quickly but gently raised Carson's chilled hand back up across the physician's midsection. McKay left it for a moment, considered the cold skin and wished they had a blanket or something. Oh, who was he kidding? He wished they were back in Atlantis.

"McKay," Sheppard warned drawing out the scientist's name making it known that he wanted something other than sarcasm.

Teyla moved toward the back of the cave.

"He's still mostly out, his hands are freezing, but he's burning up." Rodney took a blanket offered to him by Teyla. The Athosian remained at his side on one knee with her open pack.

"What the hell did they give you, Carson?" McKay asked his insensible friend as he placed the blanket over him.

"I don't know, but we'll be home soon," Sheppard answered, knowing the question wasn't directed toward him. He spoke trying to reassure himself and the others.

"If the Wraith don't find us first and suck us into husks." McKay grumbled.

"Dr. McKay, Rodney," Teyla spoke softly. "He is moving again."