Understudy

Author: Cheryl W.

Author's Note: Wow! Just amazed getting the so wonderful supportive reviews and seeing the hits on this story. Thank you all for still caring about this story! For those who reviewed (and those I couldn't PM back) just gotta make sure you know that YOU GUYS ARE WONDERFUL!

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Chapter 19: Unshakeable Loyalty

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Having found the bank of computers, Ronon was downloading the intel onto his thumbdrive when the first tremor hit. Ara's worried gaze snapped to his. "Ground tremors! Will the structure hold?"

"Has for thousands of years," Ronon replied but he was dubious himself, hated to a greater degree that John wasn't with him, that they didn't even have coms to keep in contact. But he kept to his work amid the shaking that came soon after the first because, like Sheppard had argued the night before, Atlantis needed the intel. It could make the difference between their survival or extinction.

When the tremors intensified, Ronon had to hang onto the computer counter to keep his feet. It didn't seem like a freak occurrence but was building up to be something truly nasty. Suddenly he didn't feel all that safe where he was, immediately worried about John and heaped increasing malice onto Tyre's head for separating them. Hated when his rational voice argued that, had it been just him and Sheppard on this mission, they most likely would have still split up anyways. Each taking a corridor to speed up this venture when the planet's habitability window was unknown but could be decidedly short.

The next moment the building seemed to literally tilt from one side to the other, savagely ripping Ronon's grip away from the counter he had anchored himself to. He fell down, but only to one knee, balanced himself there. From this new vantage point, he watched a crack start at his eye level and rip up the wall, then the wall splintered open, spilling Wraith building materials all around them. "We need to leave."

"The intel," Ara protested, coming off the ground, rushing back to the section of computers where files were still being downloading for her cause.

"Won't do anyone any good if we don't live to get it out of here," Ronon bluntly pointed out as he went back to his section of the computers. Withdrawing the thumbdrive, he stowed it into the plastic zip lock bag before sliding it into the inner pocket of his suit. "Time to go," he announced as he began the stumbling progress down the corridor among more tremors. Didn't honestly care if Ara was leaving with him or not. All he could focus on was finding John and getting out of them. NOW!

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Tyre came back to awareness in darkness and with something pressing him down upon the shaking ground. Struggling to move, he got his hands under his body and levered himself up onto all fours before scampering backwards. Freed of the celling debris that had pinned him down, body shaking coughing ravaged his first few breaths. He raised his hand, intending to wipe gritty sand from his lips but his hand didn't move that far. Not when it was still chained to Sheppard.

Trye couldn't see the other man, not amid the mini sandstorm swirling in the corridor. "Sheppard?" he called out, voice hoarse and choking on sand, he nearly gagged. Not getting a verbal reply, he tracked the chain to a mountainous pile of downed ceiling debris by the wall.

But he couldn't pick out a human form among the rubble.

Covering the lower part of his face, he crawled forward, gooey parts of the ship squishing under his hands and knees as he reached the place where Sheppard should be. Frantically clawing through the wreckage, he uncovered a pant leg. Yanking on it, he dragged Sheppard backwards out of the suffocating avalanche of Wraith ship composites.

He knew the man was under his hands, but between the swirling sand in the corridor, the debris of the building caught up in that maelstrom and his own sand gritted eyes, Trye couldn't see much. He went to put on his goggles, but they were filled with sand already, leaving him to do a blind man's feel up the other man's torso to Sheppard's chest. Disconcertingly, he didn't feel the chest expanding with breath. He feebly ran his hands higher, seeking out the pulse point in Ronon's friend's neck…but there wasn't any telltale beating under his fingerpads either.

Tyre silently let loose the worse curse words he saved for the worst situations, and this totally qualified. For even if he personally wasn't that attached to Sheppard, he indisputably knew if the other man died on his watch, Ronon would kill him in retribution. That whatever loyalty he and Ronon once shared, it had been transferred to this non Satedan, twenty-fold.

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out an emergency auto injector of adrenaline, jammed it into Sheppard's arm, sending the medication pumping into the man. Almost feared it was too late when Sheppard lay just as still as a corpse for long moments before he finally spurted out a cough and gasped for breath. The stubborn man tried to sit up, regardless that he'd been dead a few seconds earlier. 'Can tell why you and Ronon get along like long lost brothers. You're both stubborn enough to think you can shake off dead's grim hand and keep fighting.' Made him think he'd been a fool to think Kell had killed Ronon.

John felt a hand on his chest, pressing him to stay down, knew instinctively he shouldn't be comforted by the presence at his side when he was so vulnerable. But that didn't mean he had the strength just then to retaliate, had to do something a little more passive. Like get his freaking eyes open. It was more effort than it should be, lifting his eyelids, felt like they were scraping against sandpaper…before he remembered, no paper involved. Sand. Freaking sand. How he loathed the stuff.

But he felt more like he'd been dumped into the sea when the ground under him rolled. It made his stomach heave, knew it probably had to do with the pounding in his head that usually meant concussion more than the simple motion. Went into a brutal coughing fit as he drew in air that was more sand than oxygen, wasn't sure if he was going to cough up a lung or last night's dinner. Or both. Couldn't even offer up a token protest as hands manhandled him, rolled him to his side and pounded on his back as he continued to hack up sand and, in a panic, sought to intake life sustaining oxygen.

"Stay with me Sheppard. You die, I surely die by Ronon's hands."

And the voice…it took longer than it should for John to figure it out: Tyre. Then the other pieces fit into place. The mission, the wraith building, the dead Yarvell, the earthquakes…then the unmitigated void of unconsciousness. Ran Trye's words through his head, 'You die, I surely die by Ronon's hands' and put together an appropriate reply. "Might…might be right…about that," he choked out around more hacking coughs, felt fingers pulling up his kerchief to cover his mouth and nose, a hand resumed patting him on the back, now with more aggression.

"We need to leave," Trye dictated, like that hadn't been the plan all along. Using his key, he unlocked the bomb cuff first from John's wrist then his own. Tossing the cuffs to the ground, he came to a crouch behind John, used his hands to slip under John's armpits and started to lever him onto his feet. Sheppard tried to help but his legs felt rubbery and unable to take his weight, not to mention his elevated position aggravated his lungs, kicking in another round of gagging coughing. Felt himself pressed against the wall as hands gripped his forearms, so yeah, he was upright, but it had little to do with his own strength. Or ability to maintain his balance to ride out the tremors that were relentless.

More of the ceiling's structure was falling and this time part of the walls were joined in, raining gooey Wraith version of asbestos onto John and Trye. Yanking Sheppard off the wall and out of the newest avalanche zone, Tyre growled, "move!" as he half carried Sheppard's weight forward…only for another section of the ceiling to give way in front of them. Blocking their path.

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Ara's superior running ability was the only reason she stayed within a league of Ronon as he ran full out through the corridors, well that and the tremors that unbalanced them both, delaying Ronon's killer pace. As it was, when they came to the juncture where they had parted ways with Tyre and Sheppard, she barely got there in time to snag his arm. She was knocked into the wall, not because of another tremor but because Ronon reacted violently to the delay she was imposing on him in reaching Sheppard.

Still she braved his wrath by dodging into his path, snarled, "Don't be a fool! We survive only by leaving now!" pointing to the way they'd come into the building, another quake punctuating her words.

"I'm not leaving John!" Ronon snarled, shoving her back against the wall, out of his way. Was surprised when Ara put a knife to his throat.

"Fine, you go and die here but I take the intel…all of it," Ara lowly threatened, leaning close, kissing him gently on the lips even as she pressed her knife hard enough to his neck to draw blood. Though her lips left his, they still hoovered over his as she quietly bated, "Choose. Your life and your loyalty to your new cause or go try and save one man who may be dead already."

"He's not dead!" Ronon ferociously growled, would not think that, could not. He arrested Ara's hand crushing it in his when her fingers dove into his interior suit pocket for the thumbdrive. Didn't wince as her knife cut deeper.

"Let. Go," she hissed, trying to remove her hand from Ronon's but it was like trying to move a mountain.

Luckily the ground shook harder than the tremors before and Ronon used the distraction to knock the knife away and block Ara's punch with his forearm. He slammed her face first into the wall, but with the semi soft texture, it barely stunned her. So he roughly spun her around, twisted her hand behind her and swept her feet out from underneath her. As she fell, he followed her down and pressed his knee to her back and still had her hand pinned up her back. Leaning down, he snarled by her ear in disgust, "How can you claim to be loyal to Sateda?! You say you need the intel to reclaim it but reclaim it to what? Lead it just as immorally as our leaders have!?"

"You know nothing of the life we've lived without a home!" Ara thrashed to be free in vain.

"I know!" he snarled, putting greater pressure on her arm and she grunted in pain. "I know being alone and losing…more than you can or want to live without. But…" thought of his John's offer to stay on Atlantis that had saved him…of how losing John almost decimated his soul…and how meeting this John gave him hope and joy again. "…There is hope..for all of us." Pulled out her data drive of the intel she'd downloaded from the building from her pocket and sat it on ground by her head. "This…" he tapped it, "…Is hope. And so are the people who stand with you. Like Tyre has stood with you. We need to fight for people…not a planet, a place. That's what I've learned."

Ara closed her eyes, sighed, "We are all broken, changed…just in ways you aren't."

"You're wrong. I've been…broken but…" Ronon felt choked, especially thinking John was maybe hurt, dying and he wasn't there with him, "but…Sheppard, he made me remember why I first picked up a gun to fight the wraith. As much as I tried to convince myself, it wasn't to save Sateda but to protect the people I loved. And I believe, deep down, you still know how to love, to not let…fear and vengeance wipe out the girl who fell in love with every pretty boy with a bad attitude who crossed her path." Hoping this Ara wasn't so different in temperate to the one he'd grown up with in his universe.

A surprised chuckle escaped Ara. "I did, didn't I," yearning in her voice of who she'd been once, that Ronon thought she could be again. That innocent, that open with her heart. Felt him loosen his grip on her arm and then release it. Then he stood up and she rolled over, met his eyes. "I can go, leave you stranded here," less malice in her threat and more an entreaty that he not make her do that.

Ronon smirked that bad boy smirk of his. "Yeah, Sheppard and I have survived worst." But then his eyes sank to an unfathomable dark depth. "But afterwards…"

"You'll come for me? All your talk against vengeance are just words, aren't they," she challenged, thought Ronon was still Ronon afterall.

"If you put Sheppard in danger…if…if he dies because of you…yes," Ronon menacingly vowed, knew he wouldn't stay his hand from taking her life or anyone else's that caused him to lose Sheppard. To lose his brother all over again. But then he thought of John, of his own John, how they'd handle this. It allowed him to shake off his building rage, to gentle his voice to entreat Ara to choose a different path, like John had allowed him to, "But if you stay, help me save him and Tyre, if we get this intel out of here, we can both support the causes we believe in."

Then another series of tremors shook the building's foundation and Ronon knew that he didn't have any more time to convince her. So he left her there and ran down the corridor where he had seen John last. Wondered if by letting her live, giving her the opportunity to betray them, he hadn't sentenced another John Sheppard to death by his misplaced loyalty. But as he pounded down the corridor, away from Ara, from safety, he knew his loyalty wasn't misplaced…because it wasn't for Ara, it was for John. John wouldn't want Ronon to carry the weight on his soul of killing Ara, would probably curse Ronon out for NOT leaving with her and saving himself. But then again, John knew him well enough to know that was never happening. The Ronon Ara knew might forsake his comrades to seek out vengeance but this Ronon…had John to anchor his soul, knew that some people were worth every drop of his loyalty, a hundred times over.

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TBC

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Have a great day!

Cheryl