Summary: The adventure continues as the events on Dorav a year ago and Sey in the present day intertwine...

Chapter Six

McKay couldn't help himself. He kept getting lost in time and place. Sometimes he recognized that he was sick in a hut on Sey. Other times, he thought that he might be sick as a dog on Dorav a year ago.

Two days had passed since McKay and Teyla had taken their flight into the Doravan woods. McKay's leg had begun to swell and seep, and McKay had felt himself succumbing to infection. Not thinking clearly, at the cusp of a panic, he had wiped his penknife blade on his shirt and handed it to Teyla.

The wound smelled bad. And it looked bad. And it hurt like the devil.

"Just do it." McKay gritted his teeth and scrubbed a hand at the sweat droplets that threatened to fall into his eyes. "Before I end up losing my leg. Okay? Just...just get it over with."

Teyla swallowed and avoided looking at the ragged edges of the festering injury, as McKay sat shivering before her. The knife was not nearly clean enough. The wound was contaminated by the muck in the sty. The air around them carried unseen particles that had taken to living in the gash, grown in its bountiful moisture, would soon spread to the farthest reaches of his body, if they had not done so already.

"This will do you no good," she said, McKay saw her eyes mirrored in the blade. "It will make things worse."

"No," he replied, slumping tiredly—but cautiously, since his back was burned—as his fever and abject terror shook him once again. "It needs to drain. Right? You lance it, it drains and all the bad stuff goes away."

He didn't blame himself for acting childish. Who wouldn't feel vulnerable, lost on this rotting sponge of a planet, split from the rest of the team, frightened for themselves and their missing friends?

"Rest, Doctor. I will try to find dry wood for a fire."

McKay nodded and leaned back against a sodden tree trunk for support. The rains came, again, so he tucked himself small, even though it bothered his festering leg wound and made his fever-sore hips ache. Teyla rubbed at her own calf, as if she were experiencing sympathy pains for him. McKay didn't find the idea so surprising. A woman capable of seeing through the eyes of a Wraith a million miles away should have no trouble feeling a twinge or two for a sick man sitting not three feet from her.

"Don't go far," he called to her back, the sound of his voice dampened by the mist, which shrouded her as she searched for useable wood.

"I will not," she replied, sounding more motherly than his mother ever had.

OoOoO

The Seyan executioner's poison was a strong one. In his own arduous recovery, McKay slowly rose out of the confused place that held him captive as effectively as Teyla's dungeon. He had bouts of clarity followed by blank-outs that might have been spent out cold or babbling or staring at nothing. Sometimes the driver's wife spoke to him, her shrill voice penetrating his fog. Once he found himself standing outside the driver's stuffy cabin, just like that, and a cousin or brother had brought him back inside and gently laid him on the bed again.

Many days passed like this as McKay fought his way through. Most of the time he sweated and wheezed, and his heart felt as if it were beating its way out of his chest. He needed to sit up but it made him dizzy. He needed to lie down but that made it hard to breathe. Food came back up, water wouldn't stay down. Nothing helped but time and the thick liquid that the driver's wife kept giving to him, repeating a dose when he couldn't keep one inside him.

This healing process took many days. Then the morning came when the physicist opened his eyes and saw where he really was and remembered the yellow liquid and Teyla in her yellow gown. He missed Ronon and the Colonel and asked after his friends. No one had news of anyone other than Teyla, who was still alive and still ruling from her fine castle many, many miles away.

Two weeks passed, then three. He became stronger, but had lost weight and tone, Teyla's assessment notwithstanding.

One night McKay sat up in his bed and looked at the moonlight shining on the coverlet that he had kicked off in his agitated sleep. He thought of Teyla, and the time that she put her small, callused hand on his injured side. Now, she was living in the fortress, surrounded by handmaids and sycophants, believing herself to be king of this horrible, squelching nation with its black-mud fields that yielded mostly rocks.

He needed to find the Colonel and Ronon, maybe go to the field where he'd seen them last. If either of his friends had managed to fetch Teyla and steal her away from the castle, news of this would have reached the unwashed masses, most of who seemed to be related to the driver.

"She's still up there," the driver had told him earlier that day. "She eats candy and lies in her bed a lot. My cousin's cousin's wife is a handmaid there."

McKay's feet touched the cabin's straw-covered floor. All of the driver's family lay sleeping. They wouldn't realize he'd left until morning. The stargate stood at the base of the far mountains. He would find Teyla, remind her somehow of who she was and take her home, back to Atlantis. This is what she would do for him if the tables were turned.

With careful movements, McKay removed the garments with which the driver's wife had dressed him as he lay on the sickbed. Leenee had washed some of the driver's clothing and hung it to dry on a rack near the door. McKay slipped on an overshirt and breeches, which came to just below his knees, some heavy stockings and boots found in a corner.

Leenee had tried feeding him but his stomach had rebelled most of the time. Feeling a little lightheaded still from everything, McKay grabbed a few dry biscuits from a plate on the supper table and a flask of water near the plate. Then he opened the cabin door.

The driver was expecting McKay to take him and his posse of relatives to Atlantis soon. The physicist wasn't going back without his own family, as well, as many of them as he could find. The cabin stood on a flattened-out portion of hillside, farther east of the burial pits than the castle stood to the west, a distance of many miles, but not too far for his purpose. Teyla would go ten times farther for a friend.

McKay had believed Teyla when she'd called him useless. He wasn't suited to shooting people or hitting them with sticks, or blowing up things with conventional explosives. Although he had some skill with the practical application of nuclear and super-nuclear weapons, on the firing range he rarely lucked out and hit the target.

Useless or not, this strange adventure had gone on far too long. The Colonel and Ronon's servitude, Teyla's bewildering rise to aristocracy, McKay's cloudy recollections of his own horrible execution fueled his steps.

Staying off the cart path lest he be seen, McKay traipsed towards the huge ramparts. Roadside mud sucked at his thin boots, slowing his progress. His head spun from time to time, and he wondered whether he ought to have waited a while longer before starting out towards the castle.

The scientist walked through the night. At daybreak he rested, hidden away under shrubs. When dusk came, he rose and started off again. By the smell, McKay could tell when he was nearing the burial pits. Skirting the edge of that place, he continued on, now halfway to Teyla.

"And then what?" he asked himself. He had no idea, even though he was considered by many to be a clever problem solver, and self-reliant when he needed to be.

OoOoO

"You will need three wives," Teyla had said, when they were still in the sopping-wet Doravan forest, still lost and split from the rest of the team. McKay's leg wept serum and had become sticky. He had learned that day that Teyla was a genius: She had managed to build and light a fire and heat water for compresses, which had helped a little in draining the sick detritus out of him.

McKay glanced up from the radio he'd found in the pack given to them when the rebellious guards had first helped them to escape. It was a relatively simple matter to recalibrate the frequency to accept shortwave transmissions. With the ionic interference on this planet, shortwave was the only radio communication possible over any distance. Mercer, hopefully still alive over with Sheppard's team, would eventually come to the same conclusion. In the meantime, McKay struggled to mess with the innards of his radio but found his usually graceful fingers clumsy with his fever.

Appearing not to have heard Teyla's remark, he disinterestedly mouthed "Oh, yeah? Why?" This as he looked about for a tiny stick or some other thing to use as a small tool.

"Because you want someone to be your mistress and cook for you."

He didn't respond, focused on his task.

"Also," Teyla continued. "You need another woman who is fierce and strong who will go into battle with you."

Again, McKay didn't look up.

"You will want someone else to work with you in your lab, someone who will interest you long after her beauty has faded. I don't believe that you will be satisfied with one or another, and there are not enough hours in the day for a single person to be all of the things you would wish."

"Huh," McKay uttered, reaching down to grasp a stiff pine needle, perfect for the task at hand. He sat down and began moving things around inside the radio's guts, adjusting and deftly making subtle but necessary changes.

"I don't need someone to do everything for me, Teyla." He held up the portable. "I'm capable."

Teyla found additional fire wood and brought it to their camp, and filled their canteens in a nearby stream. There was no food source about, so they would go hungry after their rations were gone.

It took McKay another hour to finally replace the radio casing and turn on the unit. It sizzled for a moment and then produced the most beautiful sound of all—Sheppard's voice calling for them across the vast plain that separated the two parts of the team.

"Colonel! Oh, thank God!"

"Thank Mercer, you mean."

McKay smiled at that. "Mercer. Me. God. Not much difference today."

McKay was still feverish and his leg was not at all suited for traveling, so Teyla had to support him on their long walk to meet with Sheppard, Ronon and Mercer at the stargate.

It took almost two days to reach the others, during which McKay and Teyla stopped frequently so that he could rest and drink and take useless Tylenol because it certainly couldn't hurt. Teyla took watch at night. She brought him water and without complaint gave him her shoulder to lean on as they walked.

McKay thought that Teyla deserved a medal for all of this, something big, made of solid gold.

"Maybe you should go on ahead," he suggested, when they were still some distance from the gate. "Catch up with Sheppard, go back to Atlantis and bring a med team to get me.

But Teyla refused. "What if some animal noses out your injury and comes for you?"

He shrugged because he hadn't thought of that and, to be perfectly honest, he really didn't want her to leave him alone, anyway.

They were thin and weary coming through the gate, Ronon now supporting McKay, who collapsed the moment the wormhole expelled him. The next few days were lost to him, a white blur of pain and sickness and people trying to help him along. When he finally came back to himself, he asked to be allowed to return to his quarters and, much to McKay's surprise, Carson had allowed it. On the way there, he considered stopping to see Teyla to thank her. But he was tired and decided to do it later.

The next day, McKay received word that Teyla had been admitted to the infirmary with a very high fever of unknown origin.

TBC...