Author's Note: This chapter is fairly gory. Not for the faint of heart! And thank you so much to everyone so far for the lovely reviews!


The sun was setting as Ronon entered the cave, his trussed up prize flung over his shoulder. He dropped the unconscious native onto the hard ground, then stepped over his body towards Sheppard.

The man had somehow loosened his bonds, but was still sitting propped up against the rock, his Beretta aimed at the entrance to the cave. His skin was still deathly pale and his eyes were glittering in fever. His finger tightened imperceptibly on the trigger, and Ronon paused, thankfully noting the bolt was still firmly in the Colonel's shoulder.

"Hey Sheppard," he said, hands raised. "It's me."

Sheppard blinked slowly, scrutinizing Ronon. "Holland?" he whispered hoarsely.

"I'm not Holland," Ronon said, impatiently. "It's me, buddy. Ronon."

Sheppard shook his head, shifting the gun. "You're dead," he rasped.

"And you're delirious," Ronon retorted. He didn't have time to play mind games with the man. "Come on, lower the gun. I got someone who might be able to help."

He looked at the unconscious man at the entrance to the cave, and Sheppard squinted as he followed his gaze.

"You tryin' to coerce me?" Sheppard snapped.

Ronon rolled his eyes. "Sheppard, put the gun down."

"Like hell."

Ronon made to move closer and Sheppard opened fire. Three bullets sprayed the ground at Ronon's feet in rapid succession. Ronon skittered backwards, his hand straying towards his blaster.

"Stay back," Sheppard snarled. "You're not getting anywhere near me or my men."

"What men?" Ronon hissed. "Sheppard, you're delirious. It's me. Ronon. Snap out of it!"

"You're not killing anymore of my people!"

Ronon took a deep breath, knowing how dangerous it was to approach an armed, delirious man. Sheppard looked like death warmed over, though, and the gun's muzzle was beginning to waver.

Stepping back, closer to his unconscious captive, Ronon decided to wait. He checked the native's bonds, making sure there was no way the man could escape, then propped him up against the wall.

"What's wrong with him?" Sheppard finally gestured towards the captive.

Ronon looked at the man's mutilated face. "Not sure. Seems they cut up their faces in some kind of ritual or something. Maybe to prove manhood. Right of passage or something."

Sheppard was tracking his every move, keeping his gun trained on him. The effort was clearly beginning to show, however, and Ronon kept a wary eye on the Colonel as he noted the fine trembling in Sheppard's free hand which was beginning to spread to his arm.

"You ok, Sheppard?" he asked.

The dark, glittering eyes snapped up to glare at him. "Stop talking."

"Fine."

It took a few minutes more before Ronon knew that Sheppard was finally slipping into unconsciousness, and he was there at his side to peel the Beretta gracefully out of his trembling hand and ease him to the floor as his eyes rolled back in his head.

It was time to get to work.


It was sometime during the night that Ronon became aware of something which brought him awake. The fire he had built was still crackling, but across the way he could see Sheppard was conscious. The man took a deep, shuddering breath, gasping in pain as he squeezed his eyes shut.

Ronon threw back his blanket and sat up.

"Sheppard?"

The man struggled for breath again, desperate eyes searching out Ronon's. His right hand was clawing at the blanket beneath him.

Ronon was over the fire and at the Colonel's side in an instant.

"Hey. You ok?"

Sheppard's breath was hitching in his chest, his eyes filled with pain as he gave the tiniest shake of his head. His eyes seemed more clear than before, so Ronon hoped he wasn't dealing with difficult, delirious Sheppard.

"I'm going to check your shoulder," Ronon said. He touched the man's shoulder gently, looking at the bolt and peeling away the sticky cloth around it.

Sheppard flinched and hissed in pain but otherwise didn't try to stop him.

Ronon muttered curses under his breath. Blood was still oozing out of the wound, and the skin around it was turning black, either from the poison or something else.

Quickly checking the wound over his hip, he found that it hadn't begun to seal under the bandages, and the skin looked inflamed with black streaks beginning to shoot across his torso. It was like no wound from a weapon Ronon had ever seen.

"Can't … breathe," Sheppard gasped. "Think … my … left lung … isn't …" He trailed off, but Ronon didn't need him to finish the sentence.

This was bad.

He threw a glance at his captive, still unconscious. He hadn't been able to wake the man after slamming his head against the rock earlier, but he wasn't too concerned. What would be concerning, however, was if he had done some permanent damage. It was time to find out.

He stepped over the fire to his captive's side, shaking the man and slapping his mutilated face.

Whatever these natives found fun to do on their world, it seemed that slashing their faces and cutting off noses, lips, and ears seemed to be a pastime. This man's face was covered in scars that looked self inflicted, and one of his ears and part of his lower lip was missing. Half of his hair was shaved and the other half had dissolved into a matted mess of caked mud. He wore torn bits of cloth and animal skins that barely covered the lower half of his body, but the vest he wore was clearly Satedan. Ronon did not want to think about what had happened for him to obtain it.

The native's head rolled, but Ronon could feel slack muscles beginning to tighten and braced himself as the man began to struggle. Ronon punched him in the jaw and then held his fist in the man's face. The man froze.

"Stop fighting," Ronon hissed. "If you want to live, you're going to help me."

"I'm not helping a foreigner," the man spat, following up the heavily accented sentence with a string of words in a language Ronon did not recognize, but knew the meaning.

Ronon snarled. "You're not helping me. You're helping him." He indicated towards Sheppard and the man's eyes narrowed as he shook his head.

"He's already dead."

Ronon shook the man by his vest.

"You're going to help us. There has to be an antidote or something."

The man laughed. "The poison from our weapons has no antidote. It's our own warrior's fault if they prick a finger on an arrow."

Ronon slammed the man against the rock, holding back just when he realized he was going to kill their only hope.

"If there's no antidote, at least get that thing out of his shoulder," he demanded.

The man's eyes snapped towards the bolt again. "No."

"Fine." Ronon dragged the man across the ground until they were next to Sheppard, then pulled a recovered bolt from his belt and mercilessly slammed it into the man's thigh, stopping just before the spring point. The man screamed as Ronon twisted slowly.

"You know if I pull this out you lose your leg, right?" Ronon hissed.

The man trembled, sweat breaking out on his forehead as he nodded.

"Help him, or I pull it out."

Slowly, the man leaned towards Sheppard.

"And if you kill him, I'll make sure you die the slowest death I can imagine," Ronon threatened.

The man muttered under his breath in that strange language again, and surprisingly, Sheppard shifted, answering him in a weak voice, but never opening his eyes. Ronon didn't recognize the language, but it sounded similar to the native's.

Frozen, the man turned to Ronon. "How does he speak like us?"

Ronon shrugged. It was as much a mystery to him as it was to the native.

"I can't understand him," the man continued, "but the words are familiar." He took a deep breath, his hand pressed to his wounded thigh, then turned back to Sheppard. "We need to turn him on his side."

Ronon helped turn the Colonel onto his right side, and the native looked at him, offering his bound wrists. "I cannot help him with these."

His mouth twisting in a snarl, Ronon released the ropes, warily watching the man's every move. Trusting the enemy was the last thing he wanted to do.

Sheppard's eyes fluttered open, looking for Ronon.

"We have to push it through," the man explained. "I cannot find the lever as it's in too deep."

"He'll die," Ronon responded. "He'll lose too much blood."

"Either he dies from loss of blood, or he dies from the poison," the man said. "Either way, he is dead."

Ronon looked at Sheppard. The man's breath was hitching in his chest, and was accompanied by a new, thick, wet sound that made Ronon realize the desperation of the situation.

"It's ok …" Sheppard whispered. "Just … get it out."

After a moment's hesitation, Ronon nodded. He gripped Sheppard's shoulder and hip, bracing himself, and the native pushed the bolt in a swift, powerful blow.

The cry of pain torn from Sheppard's throat was one that Ronon would never forget. He pressed Sheppard to the ground as the man struggled in agony. The native pulled the exposed tip of the bolt swiftly through Sheppard's shoulder, and then it was done. Ronon snatched the bolt from the native's hand and threw it deeper into the cave.

Sheppard sagged, his body going limp, and Ronon grabbed the medicine bag at his side, fishing for more bandages to wrap the weeping shoulder. The native dragged himself to the side, letting Ronon do the work.

There was so much blood, and Ronon wondered if his decision had been right as the blood soaked the bandages completely through. He settled for tying them as tightly as possible to create pressure, then looked for more clothes he could use in their equipment, tearing off pieces of his shirt and ripping apart one of the bags they had carried with them.

Finally packing in as much as he thought he could on either side of Sheppard's shoulder, Ronon sat back, hands slick with blood.

"You should cauterize it," the native said quietly. "It will not stop bleeding unless you do."

Cursing, Ronon realized the man was right. Stoking the fire, he took several minutes bringing the temperature up as high as he could, then chose one of his knives to lay in the flame for a few minutes.

Unwrapping the shoddy bandages again, Ronon saw that the man was correct, and blood was still flowing freely from Sheppard's shoulder.

Once the knife was glowing hot, Ronon gingerly picked up the blade and quickly pressed it against Sheppard's back.

The smell of burning flesh made the Satedan's stomach turn, and Sheppard's face creased in pain, but the man didn't wake. Pressing more cloths against the cauterized wound, Ronon turned Sheppard to his back, then pressed the blade against the wound on the other side. This time, Sheppard flinched, hands flailing. Ronon batted his hands away, removed the knife, then rebound the shoulder, hoping the cauterized wounds would stem the flow of blood until they could get real help.

Finished, Ronon looked at the native and where the man had shuffled away against the wall of the cave, watching them with glittering eyes. He had made no move to pull out the bolt in his thigh, so Ronon approached, indicating the wound.

"Need help?" he asked gruffly.

The man looked at his thigh, then shook his head. "It is too deep."

For a moment, Ronon felt the shame of miscalculation and knowing that he had spelled a death sentence for the man, but then he remembered that it was these people who had ambushed and tried to kill them.

"I'm sorry," he said. Then a moment later, he looked directly at the man. "Why did you attack us?"

The man looked away. "You are Satedan," he stated.

Surprised, Ronon nodded.

"Your people are here," the man continued. "They came many moons ago. At first they tried to trade with us. We had tentative agreements, some peace was made, and then something happened. They attacked one of our caravans. We don't know why. But we believe in blood for blood, and I believe that you do, too. So we have been at war ever since. They keep to the mountains, and we keep to the desert. We have vowed to kill all of the Satedans in our desert. When we saw you with him, we thought you were trying to join your people, so we attacked."

"He's not Satedan," Ronon motioned towards Sheppard.

"No. But he travels with you, and that makes him Satedan. He is the friend of the enemy, which makes him the enemy."

Ronon realized he could relate to the native. War was close to his heart, and the thrill of battle was never far from his mind. Although he wasn't sure what might have triggered the Satedan conflict with the natives of this planet, he could see some hotheaded commander thinking he knew best and saying or doing the wrong thing. It was hard to keep judgement at bay upon seeing the mutilated faces of these people as well.

He wished that the situation was different. That he and Sheppard were still traveling to the mountains so that they could find his brethren and figure out what had happened between them and these strange people.

He knew he could trust Sheppard to lend a voice of reason and wondered if things were different how meeting these natives might have panned out. But now, Sheppard was lying close to death in a godforsaken cave in the middle of a disastrous flood with his blood filled with poison, and there was nothing Ronon could do to change the situation.

Something he had learned while working with Sheppard was that although the man seemed laid back, he was a master calculator. He usually planned for any turn of events, and even if it appeared he hadn't, he would somehow find a way to get them out of any mess they found themselves in. He had his moments of anger, and Ronon wished he had been there when Kolya and his squad had been nearly demolished by a cold, calculating, revenge-driven man who had taken out over 60 Genii single-handedly.

Despite this event, Ronon knew that every move Sheppard had made was calculated. He never acted without thinking. And this was where he and Ronon were yin and yang. Sheppard cooled Ronon's heels, but Ronon could prod Sheppard to action. And through the years, Ronon owed Sheppard far more than his life. Ronon knew he would follow the man to the ends of the galaxy. And now, he would do anything to save his life.

"How long do the floods last?" he asked.

"They will subside tonight, and the winds will come," the native replied.

"The winds?"

"Very dangerous. No one would survive outside. The wind moves so fast that it can cut a man into pieces. But it dries the desert in hours."

While the native had been speaking, Ronon noted his small movements as he reached for something concealed in his belt. Ronon knew before the man moved what he was trying to do, so when the man lunged towards him with a blade gleaming in his hand, he easily deflected, twisting the man's hand and forcing him to drop the knife.

The man gasped, collapsing to the floor. "Kill me," he pleaded. "I'm a dead man already."

Ronon shook his head. "No."

The man's gaze flickered towards Sheppard, who lay pale and still next to the fire. Ronon saw too late what he wanted to do, and the man leaped over the fire, snatching the forgotten blade Ronon had used to cauterize Sheppard's wounds and aimed for the Colonel's heart. Ronon tackled the man and without thinking, grabbed the bolt in his leg and pulled.

A hideous scream rent his ears as he was showered with blood and bits of bone. The man rolled away, his leg gone as he clutched at the stump that remained, screaming hoarsely. Striding over to him, Ronon kicked the man in the side, rolling him away from the fire and towards the entrance to the cave. A smear of blood covered the floor in his wake.

The native would not stop screaming, and Ronon pulled a blade from his boot and cleanly slit the man's throat, whispering a prayer to the gods for the mercy killing.

Like the man had said, he was dead anyway.