Chapter 7

A sigh, a stretch, and Zanta rolled languidly over to face him. She idly ran the tip of one finger over his profile, catching slightly on his lower lip.

"You really are a scientist, aren't you?" she drawled. "I've never felt quite so thoroughly... investigated."

"Yes, well, you know, I'm all about the rigorous application of scientific method!" His hands twitched as if they wanted to flap enthusiastically, but didn't have the energy.

"Rigorous?"

"And vigorous. Vigorously rigorous. Or the other way round." He frowned slightly and turned his head to face her, the rest of his body preferring to stay heavily motionless. "It was good, though? You did like being investigated?"

She smiled a slow, satiated smile.

"Oh, yes!"

Rodney thought about asking for marks out of ten, and additional comments for each of the categories on his mental checklist, but decided her brief accolade was sufficient.

"And the...?" He rubbed a thumb and forefinger together and looked at her questioningly.

"Very slippery. Very tingly."

"Yes, that's the caffeine. Because you can get caffeine shampoo for... well, never mind about that! So, I thought, by natural extension, caffeine lube might... er... stimulate certain, er..."

"It did. So you can tick that box."

Rodney grinned fleetingly at her joke, wondering if she realised that there did exist an actual box to be ticked, in a certain file on his laptop. His thoughts wandered aimlessly, flitting here and there over his varied experiences as an intergalactic explorer, and finding that many of them compared unfavourably with his most recent mission to explore the newly-charted territory laid out in panoramic splendor by his side. He wondered if, over the years, he should have devoted a larger proportion of his time and intellect to such voyages of discovery, but concluded firstly that most of the attractive women he had encountered had been irresistibly drawn, like opposite poles, to John or Ronon rather than himself, secondly, that when an opportunity had arisen, he had usually messed it up through awkwardness, embarrassment and/or general cluelessness, and thirdly, that he and the entire Atlantis expedition at the very least, would certainly be dead by now if he'd devoted even a very few extra percentage points of his time and intellect to lighter pursuits. His second conclusion was interesting though, in that, in Zanta's case, it didn't seem to apply.

"You're a catalyst," he said, aloud.

"I'm a what?"

"A catalyst." He leant up on one elbow and looked down at her. "Normally, I don't get very far with women. I struggle with the early stages, where you're supposed to be able to do small talk and be casually cool; the kind of thing that Sheppard's so good at. But with you, I don't seem to need so much activation energy to get the whole reaction started, and after that I'm exothermic all the way!"

"I'll take your word for it," she said, laughing. "But if it's casually cool you're going for, that hat of yours does the job!"

"Oh." He flopped back down on the bed. "I think I lost it. Yesterday. When I was running for my life. It wasn't a hat-friendly situation."

"That's a shame. You looked good in it."

"Good enough to eat?"

"Apparently so," she smirked.

"I'd better get another, then. Soon."

Zanta's fingers trailed slowly over his chest, her eyes following them, thoughtfully.

"I think I should tell you," she said, hesitantly. "Perhaps I should've told you before."

"Told me what?" He had felt his eyelids growing heavy with drowsiness, but her halting words cleared away the fog.

"Who I was talking to on the speaker. Who I am... allied with."

"Well," he yawned. "I assumed it was Breckna."

"You know? How do you know?" She sat up, and pulled the sheet up to cover herself.

"Like I said, I assumed!" Rodney sat up, suddenly feeling vulnerable, and made a grab for his own sheet, thankful that they each had one, from where they pushed the two beds together in his small room; a tug of war would have been undignified. "The other big cheese, Kevlar, or whatever his name is..."

"Kethron, the Getter chief."

"Yes, him. He's out of the picture, and I don't see any particular presence of the other clans round here, unless you count the miners, and, you know, I think I would have noticed the coal dust!" He looked at her pointedly.

"What are you implying?"

"You know what I'm implying! Breckna told us as much himself, anyway!"

"He what? He told you?"

"He said he was with 'a certain lady' the evening our team was kidnapped. You don't have to cherchez very far to find the most likely femme!"

"I'm surprised you weren't put off!" she said, venomously. "If you believe I'm another man's property! Or is that part of the challenge?"

"Don't be ridiculous! Unless you've granted him exclusive rights?"

"No! Nobody owns me!"

"Don't they? All this is what, then? Payment for services rendered? Because I think Breckna takes a different view!"

"So, either I'm a high-class whore or some kind of slave? Nice assessment, Dr McKay! Very nice!"

"So, what then?" he sneered. "Just good friends?"

"Yes! Yes we are! I treat him well and he looks after me! It's a mutually beneficial arrangement!"

"Says you!"

"Yes, I say it! And it's none of your business anyway!"

"And again, I say, yes it is! As long as everything we do gets reported, it is!" Rodney got up and began scrambling into his clothes; his pants were inside out and he couldn't find his t-shirt.

"What am I supposed to do?" the suppressed pain in her voice stopped him and he turned around and looked at her, still sitting tangled in the sheets. "What are my options here, tell me? To scratch a living, somewhere out there in the dark? To only buy the cheap food and feel my bones start to crumble? To have babies who'll suffer the same fate, and that's if they're not stillborn? Tell me how I should live a better life!"

Rodney sat down on the bed again. He stared at the floorboards and the mat made of scraps of old fabric.

"I didn't mean to judge."

"Yes, you did."

He shrugged acknowledgement. "Yes, I did. I do, all the time." He smiled, ruefully. "Lives often depend on my snap judgements."

"And I'm guessing you're right pretty often."

"Of course!"

"And arrogant?"

"Well, no, I don't think so, because the definition of arrogance is having an exaggerated sense of one's own importance or abilities, and I don't. Exaggerate, that is."

"Dr Save-the-world McKay!"

"Worlds plural. Galaxies, even, wouldn't be too far-fetched."

"Not so hot on human lives and relationships, though?"

"Even I can't be good at everything." They were silent, and Rodney wondered if they should just have skipped the post-coital conversation and quit while they were ahead. "Maybe we can help," he said, finally. "We find our missing team, get the Gate working; maybe we can trade, make life better here."

"I hope so," she said, her voice belying her words.

They were silent once more.

"I should check on Sheppard," said Rodney. "I said I'd take him breakfast."

"It's well past lunchtime."

"Oh."

"Go on, go and tend to your irate Colonel."

oOo

Rodney had not come back and John had no idea where his clothes were. He'd woken feeling not too bad, all things considered, but this fleeting sense of well-being was rapidly followed by ravenous hunger, coupled with the sinking remembrance of Ronon and Teyla's grim errand and the Gate's sabotage. The backward progress of the mission felt all too significant today, after last night's pain and drug-induced feelings of irresponsibility, and John fumed where he lay, unable to make any useful contribution to the search for the missing team or the Gate crystals or even his own pants, dammit!

He held his left arm immobile with the right and swung his legs out of bed, sat and watched the walls swim for a moment and then stood up, staggered across the room and shouldered open the door to Zanta's lounge. He flapped at the wall for a light switch, hissing sharply as he let go of his injured arm. He found the switch. A tasteful boudoir in pale green and pink was revealed and John sneered bad-temperedly at the cushioned opulence. There was a garish robe hanging on the back of the door. He'd put it on, head down to the bar and order some food. And a beer. And punch anyone who laughed at his attire. This highly optimistic, but satisfying plan was derailed by Rodney's arrival.

He bounced through the door, his cheeks reddened from guilt or strenuous activity, or possibly both.

"Oh. Ha! You're up!"

"Yes, I'm up! Up, because I'm starving, but not dressed because I can't find my damn clothes!"

Rodney had the gall to laugh. "Well aren't we Colonel Pouty-face this morning? Get out of bed the wrong side?"

John hastily adjusted his lower lip, even though he was sure his expression had been thunderously frowning disapproval and definitely not 'pouty'. "It's not morning, McKay, it's afternoon! Which is another reason why I'm starving!"

"Alright, alright, keep your pants on!"

"I would if I could find them!"

Rodney bustled through to the bedroom and open a cupboard.

"Voilà! Your pack and all its varied contents!" He began pulling out items and throwing them onto the bed. "Pants, shirt, C4... no, don't need that. There! A complete outfit for the fashionable colonel!"

John, leaning against the door frame regarded him with narrowed eyes. "What've you been up to, McKay?"

"Nothing! Just absorbing the local culture!" Rodney pulled at the hem of his t-shirt, smoothing it down; it was on back-to-front.

"Oh, culture. That's what you're calling it!"

"Okay, I've been with Zanta! So? It's nothing you haven't done I don't know how many times!"

"No, you don't know how many times! And it's not as many as you think."

Rodney held out a hand, fingers spread, and prepared to count. "Well, let's see, shall we? There was that time..."

"Can it, McKay!" John sat down heavily on the bed. "I'm freezing my ass off here, can you give me a hand?" He plucked half-heartedly at his clothes.

"It's not cold in here, Sheppard."

"It is without clothes. And food."

"Yes, my fault, I know!" He picked up John's t-shirt. "Seriously, this room's like an oven. You probably have a fever again. You should go back to bed! It's been less than a day since you were shot!"

"Days are longer here," said John, from inside the t-shirt. "Ow, dammit Rodney, be careful!"

"Just put your head through! They're not that much longer."

"Is that how you put a shirt on? Oh, wait, no, you put yours on back-to-front!"

"What?" Rodney tugged at his collar and squinted down at it. "Oh. How did that happen?" He half pulled it off, turned it around his neck and shoved his arms back in.

"I don't know, maybe you were distracted? How long are the days here? This one seems to be going on forever." John pulled his wounded arm closer to his body and closed his eyes.

"Twenty-eight hours thirty six minutes. Are you stepping into these sometime today, or am I using them as a prop for a dramatic scene?"

"What? Oh, pants. Yeah, sure."

"Whoa, you shouldn't be on your feet!"

"I'm fine."

"Yes, fine as long as there's a convenient scientist to lean against! Sit down!"

John felt himself guided to the head of the bed and manhandled until he was sitting against the headboard, propped up by pillows.

"Better?"

"Yeah." John ignored his spinning head and throbbing arm. "We need to find those Gate crystals."

"And by we, you mean me," replied Rodney, waving one of John's socks. "You're not going anywhere!"

"I hate this!"

"I don't particularly enjoy it. How is it so difficult to put socks on someone else?"

"I should be out there, getting the job done!"

"Well, that's the price you pay for saving scientists from certain death!"

"Yeah, I've been thinking about that."

"What, regretting the life-saving?"

John ignored him. "They were pretty bad shots."

"They got you!"

"No. They had plenty of chances. Coulda taken us both out when we were out in the open, not given us a chance to run."

"Comforting."

"Think about it, McKay! There were two of them, they coulda had us!"

"Yes, I suppose. So?"

"So, either they were just trying to scare us off, or they wanted to implicate someone else."

Rodney crouched on the floor and began tidying up the strewn contents of John's pack.

"Zanta reports to Breckna," he said, abruptly.

"On her direct line. Thought so. How did you find out?"

"She told me."

Before they could discuss this further, Zanta came in, carrying a tray, which she set down on the nightstand. She and Rodney spoke, but John's attention was all on the savoury scent that rose from the tray, and he heard nothing until he had swallowed several welcome mouthfuls from the mug of soup she put into his hand.

"Sheppard?"

"Hm?"

"I said I'm going to go and have a few words with Brant. We need to track down those crystals."

"It's too dangerous!"

"Dennet can go with him," Zanta said.

John took another mouthful of soup, but said nothing.

"You eat my food yet you still don't trust me?"

"I don't trust Breckna."

"Mr Breckna is a man of honour!"

John scowled, aware that honour was a flexible concept to many.

"Look, I'm going, Sheppard, and I'm sure I'll be perfectly safe with my gorilla entourage. Anyway, I lost my hat and I need a new one!" He and Zanta shared a suggestive smirk and John rolled his eyes.

"So, um... I should probably move rooms. Get out of your way."

John enjoyed Rodney's fish-like gaping.

"Oh, that won't be necessary, Colonel!" Zanta insisted.

"I think it might."

"You'll be much more comfortable here!"

"No, I'll move. Can't have you sleeping on the couch, can we?"

oOo

Teyla sat in the dark once more, in the corner of an empty truck, her arms around her drawn-up knees, her head bowed. The truck vibrated around her, its rolling progress slow, drawn ponderously higher by who knew what mechanism, taking her away from the fans and the Venters, and the dead, both known and unknown, those unfamiliar faces that she had prayed over, and the one, engraved on her heart, who was gone too suddenly for any kind of farewell. The train groaned, metal screeching against metal, crying out its mournful song against the dragging weight of coal, and Teyla bit back her own mourning cry. Her eyes stung with grit and salt, and her throat ached with rasping dryness and bitter grief.

At last her hands were sickly grey before her in the flat orange light of the Gate levels. the train halted and shouts and the thunderous noise of tipping coal bombarded her unresponsive ears. She climbed out, ignored curious eyes and questions, and slipped out of the depot and into the half-lit streets, to pass between dark figures, pale faces hidden beneath hats drawn low. She coughed in the muggy air, sweat mingling in her hair with drops of rusty rain, and her breath hitched at a glow of clear blue amid the haze and drifting clouds of steam. John would be there and Rodney, and she would have to tell them. The light beckoned and repelled; comfort for herself and grief for her friends. She allowed the beacon to pull her forward and passed beneath it, down the steps and in through the swinging doors.

oOo

John sat at a table, his back to his foe, an empty bowl before him, and a plate, with two remaining lumps of the rubbery grey stuff that passed for bread. He had come downstairs because he was still hungry and didn't fancy struggling, one-handed with the MRE packets. The food sat heavily inside him, all its energy directed to healing and the urge to sleep. The enemy would have to be faced, however; this simple battle to climb the stairs the challenge that stood between him and horizontal comfort.

Ronon and Teyla would have seen them by now; the bodies of friends or strangers. They'd be on their way back; they'd better be on their way back. All that way down, to the far reaches of the underground world, and John sat here, in a well-lit bar, afraid of falling on his face on a flight of stairs. He glanced up at the entrance and recognised the rounded hats of a couple of Makers, deep in discussion, pale, expressive hands waving. McKay should be back by now. He'd probably got hungry and stopped at a street stall. His sharp eyes and sharper nose would have picked out something oily and crunchy and he would be stuffing his face, grease running down his chin, and not being pursued by hidden sharpshooters, not bleeding out on a rusting metal surface, his life mingling with the constantly seeping groundwater.

John stood, his right hand steadying his left arm in its sling. He waited out a surge of dizziness and, as his fuzzy vision cleared, he saw Teyla, crossing the bar toward him. His lips began a smile, but then faltered. She was alone. Her eyes stood out starkly in her coal-stained face, and pale, vertical trails had been rubbed and smeared across her cheeks. She stood before him and he looked down into her bleak eyes; she was small, where normally her calm self-assurance gained her height at least the equal of his.

"Ronon?"

Her lips pressed tightly together, but she didn't speak. It wasn't real; moments like this never were. His heart beat fast and light, his throat closed, his fingers twitched for a weapon, his legs tensed to run. But there was only this moment, this barely-known fact, this coming grief that was not yet acknowledged as his for his friend. She leant forward and he, reluctantly, did the same, the action of mutual comfort, mutual sorrow, sealing this point in time, marking then and now and the future as separate, as here and then gone, as loved, then lost, alive, then dead.

Her left hand caught his right and they led each other toward the stairs, toward privacy and a small space where he would have to learn the facts, make the hard decisions, carry on and carry on, as the living always did.

oOo

"Then he could be alive?"

"I do not see how."

"But, maybe he got through." John shifted his position against the headboard, and Teyla picked up a discarded pillow from the floor and pushed it behind his shoulder. "Thanks. He coulda got through! C'mon, Teyla, this is Ronon we're talking about - the ultimate survivor!"

Teyla sat down wearily on the other bed, her shoulders sagging, her skin still itchy with dirt. She looked up into the pale, concerned face of her team leader; his eyes pleaded with her to allow Ronon a chance at life. "It's not like you to lose faith!" he said.

"You are right, John," she admitted. "Perhaps it is this place; never seeing the sky or the sun or the stars. And those fans were huge, powerful, as if nothing could stop them. I do not know why I am so disturbed. It is not as if I haven't seen sudden death before, many, many times."

She felt a tentative pat on her shoulder and her lip trembled at John's characteristically awkward attempt at comfort.

"Cut yourself some slack, Teyla. Ronon was, is, team. You know, like family. And you had to go'n sort through a pile of corpses. That'd freak anyone out! Good thing McKay wasn't with you. We'd a had to scrape him off the ceiling!"

A desperate laugh rose in her throat and shook loose a tear that followed the worn tracks down her cheek.

"I wish he had been there. And you. Then Ronon would still be alive."

"Stop! Don't blame yourself for this! Yeah, I could say, 'Not on my watch,' but stuff happens sometimes." John attempted to sit up a little straighter. "Now, tell me about the dead guys. You're sure none of them were ours?"

"It is possible the fourth could have been one of the missing team. I could not tell because the fan blades..."

"Yeah, moving on. So, a woman and two men and one unidentified."

"Yes. The woman was not old; she was well-nourished by the standards of this world, in that her limbs were straight. As were the two men."

"And one of the men was quite old?"

"Yes, but still strong, I think."

"Did they drown?"

"The older man certainly did not. He was killed by a single gunshot to the side of his head. It was partly hidden by later damage, but obvious if one is familiar with such things."

"Close range?"

"It was difficult to tell, but yes, I think so."

John ran his fingers up and down the edge of his sling and sucked in his lower lip, his eyes roaming abstractedly over the bed.

"Do you think the man was executed, John?"

"Sounds like it. Which makes me wonder."

"The Getter chief and his family?"

"They fit the brief, don't they? The chief himself executed, his wife, son and one other."

Teyla shook her head. "This leads us no nearer our missing team. And it does not explain why Ronon was attacked."

"Has to be to stop him seeing the bodies. And I'm betting they would've stopped you both if they could. Whoever killed them musta thought they were safely got rid of in the drains and then heard they'd been washed out."

"This must be a clan war, then. And our team became involved."

"Seems like it." John massaged his forehead, his fingers moving up and down from the bridge of his nose.

"You are tired, John. You should rest."

He huffed a small laugh. "You too. You'd better see if you can get some of that dirt off."

"I will be glad to," she said, standing up and stretching out her stiff muscles; a hot shower would be very welcome. John reached out suddenly and she took his hand.

"Don't lose faith, Teyla. He's out there. He'll come back to us."

He squeezed her hand, then released her. She smiled, sadly, trying to hope.

The door banged open and Rodney flung several damp, misshapen hats onto John's bed.

"He's dead," Rodney snapped, his jaw tight, his chin tilting up to ward off his fear.

"We don't know that..." John began.

"Shot! Bullet through the brain!" He mimed the act with one hand, his face grey, his throat working convulsively.

"Brant," Teyla said, her fingers tightening on the blankets beneath her.

"Yes, of course Brant! Why, who did...?" Rodney froze. "Where's Ronon?"