A/N - Just a little scene that's been rolling around in my head. I'll just leave it here :)

Mind Over Matter

John and Rodney once again found themselves captured and tied up off world. The natives had clearly had some lessons from the planet with the (now escaped) convicts in restraint techniques, tying John and Rodney's hands behind their backs around wooden stakes in the ground.

It was just supposed to be a fly by scan, but as usual, Sheppard had decided to land and say hello. The natives didn't take too kindly to a large flying box landing nearby.

As Rodney wouldn't stop talking after being restrained, instead of gagging him, one of the natives levelled a crossbow at him and fired a bolt which thudded into his midsection. He cried out in pain and then hung his head down, chin against his chest and tightly closed his eyes, each heaving breath making the arrow shaft protruding from him move.

"Hey! What the hell was that for?!" Sheppard shouted, struggling against his restraints. Ignoring the slippery feel of blood on his hands and bruises forming under the straps.

The native adjusted his aim at Rodney and said, "Tell us how the flying machine works or the next bolt will hit him slightly higher. Think about it."

The natives left the shack and closed the door behind them.

"Rodney?" John asked, looking at his friend in concern.

Rodney still had his head down and John wondered if maybe he was unconscious, then there was a faint whimper.

"Rodney, look at me."

Rodney slowly raised his head and turned his eyes to John who nearly recoiled at the level of pain he saw on Rodney's scrunched up face, water was leaking from his red rimmed eyes and his mouth was downturned in a grimace. "Why is it... always arrows?" Rodney gasped through gritted teeth.

"It'll be okay. I'll get us out of here." John looked down at Rodney's injury, there wasn't much blood around the place where the arrow had entered him, easily going through his thin grey t shirt and into his abdomen, but that didn't rule out internal bleeding and goodness knows what organs may have been punctured by it. It looked about level with his navel and was slightly off centre.

Rodney tightly closed his eyes and furrowed his brow, his breaths were still coming fast. "How?"

"I'm working on it." John frowned in concentration as he continued to tug at the restraints.

"M-maybe we should... give them what they want?"

"Even if we did, they can't fly it."

"This really hurts," Rodney said in a small voice. Tears were falling from his eyes onto his chest, staining his shirt black.

"You'll soon be in Beckett's clutches with all the good drugs."

"I don't think I can do this." Instead of the laboured breaths, Rodney stopped breathing.

"McKay!" John shouted in alarm.

Rodney exhaled and drew in a breath. "Breathing makes it hurt more."

"Well don't stop! This pain isn't you. Don't let it consume you." John felt a little give in one of the straps he was working on, or maybe it was his wrist giving out.

"M-mind over matter?"

"Yes, and you've got a big mind as you like to tell everyone. The pain can't control you."

"I have an arrow in m-me, how do you expect me to react?!" Rodney shut his mouth and breathed noisily through his nose for a few seconds.

John finally got his right hand free and drew his arms forward rolling his shoulders a few times to ease the stiffness as he shuffled over to Rodney to untie his friend.

Rodney's eyes widened as he looked at him, "Sheppard... your hands..."

John glanced down and they were as bad as he had imagined, coated in blood with wide bands of purple bruising all round both wrists. "Mind over matter."

Rodney muttered something about military conditioning and pain being weakness, his speech only interrupted by a harsh gasp as John untied him and his arms came free, jostling the arrow in him. Rodney clutched his middle, fingers splayed around the arrow, as John drew his other arm over his shoulders.

"Just a quick shuffle back to the jumper and then we'll be out of here.

Rodney bit back a cry into a groan as John hefted him upright. Rodney's wrists were also red and bruised where he'd pulled at the restraints in his pain. All the colour drained out of Rodney's face and he swayed. "I don't feel so good."

"Just a few more minutes," John assured him as he narrowly opened the door and looked outside. "Coast is clear."

"Leave me," Rodney said quietly. "Go and get the jumper and come back."

"I'm not leaving you here. They'll probably stick another arrow in you."

They slowly walked out of the shack and behind it, taking cover from the surrounding huts. John took most of Rodney's weight as the injured scientist could barely move his legs.

"I can't do this," Rodney said in a sad voice. "I'm n-not strong like you."

"Yes you are. Just a few more steps and we'll be home."

John expertly moved them from the back of one hut to another, avoiding the patrolling locals. At one point Rodney's foot caught on a stone or uneven patch of earth and he had to stuff a fist into his mouth to avoid crying out, adding teeth marks to his many ills.

Luckily for John and Rodney the natives were arrogant enough to think their knot tying skills and the injury they'd given Rodney would make it impossible for their captives to escape so had left the jumper unguarded.

The rear hatch opened in welcome when it sensed the gene carriers. John finally allowed Rodney to sink down to the floor in the rear compartment. John quickly grabbed the medkit and sifted through finding the morphine and jabbed a dose into Rodney swiftly easing much of his pain and allowing him to slip unconscious. John laid Rodney down on his side covering him in a blanket and rolling another one for a pillow.

The flight back to Atlantis was uneventful, the oblivious natives probably hadn't even realised they'd lost their prisoners yet and their flying machine was now invisible.

xxx

John caught up with Rodney in the infirmary the next day, now sans arrow, propped up on a stack of pillows and with a thick bandage wrapped around his midsection. An IV line feeding him painkillers and fluids, and an oxygen tube under the nose completed the picture. Rodney's skin was still a slightly unhealthy pallor, gradually returning to his normal pale appearance, despite his features being pinched in discomfort.

"How you doing?" John asked, pulling up a chair, mindful of the bandages encircling his wrists.

"Still hurts a lot." At John's shocked expression, he quickly added, "Not as much as it did."

"You need Beckett?"

"No." Rodney shifted slightly and winced. He closed his eyes tightly as his lower lip trembled, "Mind over matter and all that." He huffed out a humourless laugh.

Sheppard's eyes widened, "What the hell? Not now, McKay!"

"But you said..."

"That was back on the planet when we didn't have access to any painkillers!" John called Beckett over.

"What's going on here then?" Beckett asked looking between John's angry expression and Rodney's guilty one.

"Rodney's in more pain than he's telling you," John said.

"Traitor."

"Well we can't have that, lad." Beckett adjusted the flow of painkillers into Rodney. "You sustained a nasty injury but you're on the mend now. No need for you to be feeling the effects. You must tell me when it hurts, Rodney, or I can't help you."

Rodney was looking downcast, clutching at the blanket with the hand without the needle in the back.

"What he said," John said.

Rodney's eyelids got heavier and he soon drifted off into pain free sleep. Beckett smiled at him fondly, "He's a sensitive one."

"Sure is," John said, turning back to Rodney to continue his vigil.