John screamed. Even the morphine hadn't managed to dilute the white hot pain of the broken bone being slid back into place. John had somehow hoped that if setting the bone would hurt too much, he'd pass out, but passing out was the impossible dream. Ronon even touching his injured arm hurt and when he moved the fractured limb to set the bone, John felt like the morphine wasn't even in his system.
After an eternity, long after Ronon had splinted his arm with two metal rods that normally made up the frame of a sturdy back pack and long after Ronon had tied his arm back against his body for support, the pain receded and John's other senses returned with some clarity, although still dulled by the morphine.
Teyla offered him a drink of water and after some urging on her part, he accepted even though he really felt nauseous. He balled up his jacket as well as he could with only one arm and leaned back. Tired from the drug and the pain, John was about to fall asleep.
He had dozed off when Teyla tapped on his shoulder. She carried the MRE packet he had opened in the morning. John only briefly looked at it. He had already eaten the dessert and McKay had gotten the coffee ration. There was still the awful tasting fruit drink mix, which John usually gave to Rodney and the main meal - spaghetti with meatballs. Not the worst, which was the chilli in John's opinion, but not as good as the pseudo-cheeseburgers which were the closest you could come to any kind of burger in the Pegasus Galaxy. Finally, John fished out the drink mix. It was cherry flavour, which was just as well with him.
Teyla went to search for a canteen as theirs were already empty. Ronon had emptied one from their extra supply to wash out John's wound, leaving Teyla to go back into the cave to search for another canteen of water.
She came back minutes later with more water. John didn't want to ask how little water they had left; he suspected there wasn't much left. They had all be drinking a lot in the heat of the day on the desert planet and they had only reluctantly refilled their water supply on Kara after seeing the conditions around the village water pump. It was only good that John had decided to be on the safe side after all, just in case. It was not the first time that the worst case scenario had come to pass.
John couldn't shake the ominous feeling that there was something lurking in the darkness. He could feel the danger waiting for them but there was nothing out there. The desert was vast and empty, there was not a single tree, not a single rock that could hide a predator, yet John couldn't shake the vague impression that they were not alone.
He fell asleep late that night and slept fitfully.
oOo
John opened his eyes to an unexpected noise the next morning. The sound of hard rain, amplified within the cave, had driven him from sleep. John slowly got up. Ronon's efforts at first aid were hindering his movements, but for the first time since he had broken his arm, he could move with relatively little pain.
A tall figure was standing at the mouth of the cave. From the height, John could tell that it was Ronon. The Satedan was staring out into the desert, weapon at the side, as if he was expecting trouble. Ronon was always expecting trouble. John joined him and noticed how much cooler it had gotten outside.
"There are no animals here. They should have sensed the rain," Ronon said to no one in particular. Sheppard had observed the lack of any plant or animal life himself, but it hadn't been due to extreme weather conditions.
"I noticed. It doesn't have to mean anything," John ventured. He had a faint inkling that there was significance to Ronon's observation, as Teyla had told him about a similar planet she had visited as a girl. On both planets, there had been writing in the same obscure language. Normally, this wasn't John's department. The expedition had anthropologists, linguists and archaeologists who were just waiting for a nice alien ruin to work on. John just made sure the place was safe for the geeks. He had read enough mission reports from the teams at the SGC to know what could happen off-world.
Ronon didn't comment on John's speculation but continued to stare out into the desert, searching for a threat that wasn't there yet. Confident that if they were about to be attacked, nobody would get past Ronon, John walked back inside the cave and started on preparing breakfast.
They had brought enough food of their own and they had received gifts from the Kara. Alien food was sometimes a challenge but the peach look-alikes had been among the better things John had tasted so far in the Pegasus Galaxy. The worst had been the tava beans. John had never actually tasted them, but their private feud with the local atomic power had gotten started over them.
Their food would last them for at least another week, probably two if they made an effort of it. There was enough water for the day, provided they didn't go on another hike. It was raining and collecting rainwater was a possibility. They wouldn't have to worry about sour rain and heavy metal pollutants in the Pegasus Galaxy, but John didn't like the fact that they were on a dead planet. Hopefully, Rodney's Ancient gadgets would be able to tell them what, if anything, was in the water. For the moment, Rodney was crumpled on his side, sleeping peacefully and John wasn't going to disturb him.
oOo
Rodney looked miserable. His sunburn was starting to peel, leaving his face red with white splotches; his hair was sticking up at odd angles and his wet blue tee-shirt was clinging to him unfavourably.
He wasn't deterred by any of it. "There is nothing, nothing at all. I told you, you are wasting my time. Time I could spend getting us out of here. But you all seem to be happy to stay on this wonderful planet! Well, I'm not. So, excuse me, I'm leaving!" Rodney tossed down the scanner and stalked out of the cave.
Teyla raised an eyebrow. "This is unusual, even for Dr. McKay."
John picked up the discarded scanner. The Ancients had built things to last for the ages. S hissy fit from a mere human scientist could harm an Ancient scanner. John put the scanner back in Rodney's backpack. The scientist would probably be looking for it later.
"Now that we know that the water is clean, we should gather some while it is raining. I don't want to take any water from the lake. We still don't know exactly how the Jumpers work, but I don't want to take the chance that anything leaked in there," John explained.
"We will take care of this," Teyla replied. "You should rest. You will need your strength for the trip."
Ronon and Teyla gathered their gear and walked out into the rain, leaving John behind in the damp cave. It hadn't rained for twelve hours yet, but the air was already hydrated and the water from the atmosphere was starting to seep into his clothes. John had no experience in tropical climate, but he was starting to loathe it.
Opening the packaging with the help of his teeth, John started munching on an apple cinnamon PowerBar. He wasn't a big fan of the sticky, dry, overly sweet ersatz food, but it supplied energy in compact form. John wasn't feeling hungry, but he knew the physical demands of his job too well to skip a meal.
He remembered Beckett's talk about always finishing the whole round of antibiotics and since he had gotten started with them, he took another one of the pills. Eyeing the few Tylenol tablets they had left, John decided that he would do without, at least for the moment, when he had to do nothing more than sit around and wait for Rodney to finish up the repairs on the Jumper. It was just wait and hope for the best.
oOo
Three hours later, John was starting to get nervous. Ronon and Teyla had returned. They had been successful in their mission to gather rainwater.. If they were unhappy about the fact that they were both dripping wet, neither of them complained.
Outside, what had been planes of dirt and dust was turning into a swamp. The water didn't seem to be absorbed by deeper layers of the ground; everything just mixed up on the surface, leaving mud behind.
It was only lucky that they had made their camp in a cave uphill from the lake in a wall of rock. That way, at least their supplies remained dry.
The planet seemed unpleasant any way John looked at it. They had arrived to a desert wasteland in scorching heat. The lake should have been a clue to the climatic changes. Over night, the planet had turned into a rainy swampland. John couldn't wait to get back to Atlantis.
At 1400 hours, Rodney still wasn't back from the Jumper. His radio was lying on top of his backpack. John had expected the scientist to return for lunch. Rodney was a dedicated workaholic, but he had a very healthy sense of self-preservation and never missed a meal.
Rodney had huge concerns about hypoglycaemia, but John wasn't sure how well founded they were. Rodney had ended up in the infirmary once for a short time, after working himself into the ground. It had been after the Wraith had launched their attacked on Atlantis. It had been a tough time, not only for Rodney.
'"I will check on Rodney," John said and got up. His arm still hurt, but not as badly as it had the previous day. Still, he was looking forward for once to seeing Beckett.
"You want me to come with you?" Ronon asked from his corner.
"I'll be fine," John said firmly. He and Ronon had an understanding that John was the one who gave the orders, but sometimes, John still had the impression that Ronon thought John wasn't doing a very good job. This mission was a prime example. John didn't like to go all Mr. US Air Force on his team, and he hadn't respected COs who needed to.
Teyla understood the military concept of following orders and she had excellent diplomatic skills. She was used to giving orders among her own people, but had no problems taking them either.
Rodney was Rodney. John had read McKay's file, so he knew that Rodney had been employed by the Air Force for almost fifteen years, nine of those years with the Stargate program, and it was long enough to know how things worked in the military,. His file was impressive, but John hadn't picked him only because of his file. The best men didn't always have the best files. But Rodney was a genius and he performed just as well under pressure. He had earned his place on the team in the last fourteen months. Duranda had been a disaster and Rodney had been wrong in more ways than one, but there was no going back now.
Rodney had apologized to Elizabeth, John, Radek and pretty much everyone else he had insulted. Caldwell and the Daedalus had set course for Earth, along with the bad news, but they wouldn't be back for another month. If Rodney was worried about fall-out back home, he had never mentioned it.
TBC