It had taken Rodney a good five minutes of panicking to find his cell phone and, with shaking fingers, hit the speed-dial for the SGC. Even as he had reported in the news of Sheppard's abduction, he had found himself struggling to take in what had happened. I mean, living and working on Atlantis, he faced danger every day; working with highly advanced technology, much of which even he barely understood, was fraught with risk and just stepping through the gate to another planet was taking your life into your hands but this.. this was Earth. This was a shopping mall three days before Christmas and in the Earth he knew people didn't just drive up in black vans and randomly snatch people off of the street!
He must have sounded frantic on the phone because instead of the usual procedure of being transferred gradually up the chain of command, he was put straight through to Landry. The General was curt, straight to the point, demanding all the detail that Rodney could remember before assuring him that he would deal with this personally and telling him not to worry, that they'd be in touch as soon as they had any news. Rodney stared at the phone in disbelief, the buzz of the dial tone telling him that Landry had disconnected. Don't worry? What a ridiculous thing to say! How could he not worry? It was only after he had flipped the phone closed and stuffed it into a pocket, looking around him helplessly, at a loss for what he should do next, that he realised that the keys to the rental car were wherever the hell Sheppard was and that he was stranded at the mall with no way to get into the car. He dug out the cell phone a second time and called Jeannie.
She arrived in the family's sensible, ecologically-friendly, five-door Prius, Madison's child seat occupying the back seat. He'd been brusque on the phone, saying nothing of what had happened, only that it was an emergency and he needed her to pick him up at the mall as soon as possible, and her face was sharp with concern as he pulled the passenger door open almost before the car had rolled to a halt.
"Mer, what's wrong? What happened?" She looked past him as he slid into the seat, pulling the door closed behind him. "Where's John?"
"We need to go."
"Meredith?"
He looked up sharply, his frustration ready to spill out of him, angry, impatient words on the tip of his tongue, but look of genuine worry on his sister's face hit him hard and he swallowed thickly around the anger and the fear, telling her shortly, "They took him."
"What?"
"They came – men in a van – and they took the Colonel, Jeannie. Just snatched him off the damn street!" He breathed out heavily, trying to get a grip on his emotions, to focus. "We need to go," he repeated.
"Well, have you..?"
"Yes, yes. I've informed the SGC. They said they'll deal with it and not to worry." He could hear the bitter tone of derision in his own words. "Can we go?"
Jeannie bit her lip, the car still in park, and gestured uncertainly at the hire car still sitting in its parking bay. "Don't you want to…?" He followed her gaze, looking across at the abandoned car.. and the bags of brightly-wrapped gifts spilled across the ground beside it. The presents. Sheppard's presents. Moving heavily, reluctantly, he got out of the car and stooped to gather up the scattered gifts, brushing the flakes of snow from the patterned wrapping as he piled them into his arms. He fumbled with one hand to open the rear door of the car and tipped his burden loosely onto the back seat, slamming the door closed before retaking his seat with a set expression.
"Now can we go?"
John gritted his teeth at the sharp pinch of the needle digging into his arm. Instinct made him want to pull away, to resist this, but the restraints pinning his wrists to the railing and the goon pressing his arm firmly down against the mattress while the doctor, or whatever he was, methodically filled another few vials with blood didn't give him that option. The woman, the goa'uld, he corrected himself, simply stood and watched calmly, a goading smile on her face as she noted the rigid tension in John's body, the way his other arm strained uselessly at the taut leather straps.
Eventually, finally, the lab-coated man pulled the needle from John's arm and stepped back from the bed, taking with him a collection of individual vials, each one filled with John's blood. The muscle, for whatever his official job title might be, that was clearly his function in this team, released his painfully tight grip on John's arm and moved away from the bed, stepping aside as, in response to the goa'uld's commanding gesture, two more lab-coated men wheeled an array of equipment into place beside the bed.
Since the revelation of the nature of his captors, the room had become a hive of activity, Trust personnel acting on the orders of the as yet nameless goa'uld as they took blood samples from John and began moving various machines and equipment into position around the room. John eyed some of the alien-looking devices somewhat warily. Whatever the Trust had planned for him, he was getting distinct feeling he was not going to like it.
"Do not look so concerned, Colonel Sheppard," the goa'uld said smoothly as her lackeys began setting up their equipment around the bed. Some of it John recognised; the pulse ox monitor they clipped onto his finger, the heart monitor, one man fiddling with its bundle of trailing wires whilst his cohort pulled aside John's scrubs top to apply the familiar adhesive pads to his chest. John didn't need the machine to know that his heart-rate had picked up, apprehension pushing adrenalin through his system. Watching closely, the goa'uld assured him, "There is no need for this to be a painful process. Cooperate with us and this will all be over and done with before you know it."
The question, "And then what?" hovered on the tip of John's tongue but he had a sinking feeling he wouldn't much like the answer. "You still haven't told me what it is you want from me," he pointed out instead.
She smiled then, a cold smile that didn't come close to reaching her eyes and that did absolutely nothing to reassure John. "As I said," she told him evenly, "our goal is the acquisition of advanced technology. The work of the SGC and the Atlantis expedition in acquiring and utilising technology left behind by those you refer to as the Ancients is of interest to us." She nodded to one of the men and he uncovered a trolley beside the bed, revealing an assortment of small devices, some of which John recognised, others of which were unfamiliar to him. All of them were clearly Ancient in design.
The goa'uld picked up one of the items, turning it slowly in her hands as she spoke; it remained dark, inert in her grip. "We know that that the ATA gene is required to use or perhaps just initialise much of the Ancient technology. We also know that you, out of all those so far tested, possess the strongest natural gene, with the possible exception of General O'Neill." Again, that humourless smile; John knew from the SGC files he'd read that O'Neill had a long history of getting up the goa'ulds' noses.
She put the device down on the trolley abruptly, the smiles gone now, her face harsh and imperious as she laid out her demands. "Our scientists can synthesize an artificial gene therapy using the blood samples we have taken from you, Colonel Sheppard, but we could have done as much with samples from any natural gene carrier. That is not why you are here." She nodded to the waiting lackeys and they leaned forward over the bed, methodically attaching adhesive pads to his temples and forehead, connecting them to strands of wires that ran back to more machinery – an EKG machine? The design didn't look quite Earth-standard to his practised eye.
She loomed over him now, standing at the head of the hospital bed, her gaze dissecting him as though he were some kind of lab rat, nothing more than an interesting experiment to be observed. She reached out a hand towards his brow and he couldn't prevent the instinctive flinch, wires bouncing as he jerked his head away from her touch. Her lips curled slightly, the sly smile gone as quickly as it appeared, and she dropped her hand to the cold, metal railing. "I am aware that there is a mental component to operating the Ancient technology," she stated coolly. "As a strong natural gene carrier, you have the most powerful, intuitive ability to form this mental connection and to operate the Ancient devices. That is what you will share with us…and what our experiments here are designed to explore."
Rodney had come to realise that he was not good at sitting around doing nothing. His days on Atlantis were always so full, even his time off occupied with personal research projects, various diversionary pastimes, even just spending time with his friends.. he pushed that thought aside ruthlessly. The point was that even though he might complain about the relentless pace of life in the Pegasus galaxy, about the stunning amount of work to be done in the city and the impossibility of getting even half of it done within his lifetime, he enjoyed being busy, he loved having so much to do, so many opportunities at his fingertips, so many exciting new discoveries to make. And even before Atlantis, at Area 51 he had worked on important projects, thrown himself into his research and been utterly absorbed by it. The only time in his life where he had not been utterly consumed and fulfilled by his work was that regrettable period in Siberia where he had been forced to work in sub-standard conditions with out-dated equipment and a team of utter imbeciles and the only form of social entertainment available had consisted of drinking vodka. Even now he couldn't so much as look at the stuff.
But this.. this was the worst kind of torture for a man like him. He could have coped with a few days without work; it was Christmas and there was Jeannie to catch up with, Sheppard to argue with, even the novelty of being back on Earth.. new TV shows to watch for example. He could have lived with that. But not this.. not sitting here fretting and worrying but unable to do a damn thing about the situation, being forced to stand idly by whilst his friend's life was in danger. Dammit, the SGC should have involved him in their investigation! He was their foremost expert on.. well, on just about anything! They needed his input. At the very least they should be keeping him informed of their progress. He'd heard nothing since his original call to Landry and any attempts to reach the General since then had been met with a blanket response that he was "unavailable" and would call him back as soon as possible. Yeah, right. He had a half a mind to head for the airport and get on the next available flight to Colorado and.. yeah. Not that that would do any good. Besides, chances were that wherever they, whoever they were, had taken Sheppard was somewhere around here – and Rodney damn well intended to be there when they found them.
With a growing sense of wonderment, Rodney realised that, no matter what he might tell himself or everyone else, his time on Atlantis had changed him. On Atlantis, he was the one people turned to for answers, for solutions; he was the one expected to pull off a miracle and save the day. The friendships he had made there had changed him. Never before had he had the kind of friends that he would fight for, that he would even consider risking his own life to help. His experiences as part of an off-world team had changed the way he perceived himself; no matter how much he might moan about it, and accuse Sheppard of perpetually getting them into trouble, Rodney had become accustomed to being a part of the action, to dealing with dangerous situations, to being at the heart and soul of any plans put into motion. Stepping aside and simply waiting for someone else to deal with the problem was no longer in Rodney's nature and right now, with Sheppard being held by persons unknown for purposes he could only torture himself by imaging, it was killing him to have to do so.
He had just about worn a furrow in Jeannie's kitchen flooring by the time she lost her patience with him and physically forced him to sit down at the kitchen table, setting before him a steaming mug of some vile concoction involving, not that he was paying much attention to the description, some kind of herbs and flowers that were supposed to calm him down. He eyed it distrustfully and was about to shove back his chair and resume his pacing when Jeannie's words stopped him.
"You really care about him, don't you?"
She sat across from him at the table, her eyes meeting his in that oh so serious gaze that she had sometimes. He swallowed wordlessly and found himself struggling to meet that honest, open regard.
"I mean," she almost laughed, her tone a little bitter, "after four years of not hearing from you, not even a Christmas card or a call on my birthday, you turned up out of the blue and damn if you weren't the same stubborn, arrogant Meredith as you'd ever been, bossing me around and not caring for anyone but yourself.."
Her words tailed off as Rodney looked away uncomfortably, unable to find the words to fight that accusation.
"But you're not the same, are you?"
The question startled him and he looked up to find her watching him, her gaze considering.
"You have changed, Meredith," she told him. "I caught glimpses of it on Atlantis. I saw how you were with your friends there, how they were with you."
She frowned, looking down at the table, at nothing. "In some ways, it made me even more angry at you. For four years you wouldn't even speak to me, your own sister, and yet there you were playing best friends with these people you've known for just a couple of years – people who aren't even from this planet."
"Jeannie.."
"I know you think I was being spiteful telling your friends those stories about you," she rushed the words, talking over him as though afraid that if she didn't say this now, she'd lose her nerve, "and you know what? You're right. I was. At least a little bit."
She raised her eyes to meet his and he couldn't help his lips from quirking just a touch in response as she smiled a little uncertainly, her tone an odd mixture of teasing and apology, "And you did kinda deserve it, even if just a little.
The Meredith I used to know, the brother who didn't speak to me for four years because I disagreed with his opinion of how I should live my life.."
He opened his mouth to object then but she raised a hand, shushing him as she continued, "That Meredith would not be sitting here right now, worrying himself into a frenzy because he can't do something to help a friend. He wouldn't be desperate to put himself in danger to help someone else."
Some of his usual asperity leaked into his voice as he disagreed, "I'm hardly desperate to put myself.."
"Mer."
For some reason the tone of her voice stopped him and he found his words dying on his lips, simply trailing off in the middle of a sentence. Jeannie looked at him for a long moment and he had the oddest feeling that she was considering something, making some kind of choice. Seemingly reaching a decision, she nodded minutely to herself.
"He showed me the video," she said, simply.
For a moment, he didn't understand what she meant, his brow creasing in confusion as he asked, "What? What video?"
And then, even as she opened her mouth to reply, recollection flooded in, taking him back to a time, not that long ago really, when he had honestly thought he was going to die, no more him, no more Meredith Rodney McKay, and he had poured out his soul, such as it was, to a video camera, and he thought back to that night in Atlantis when he had found Sheppard in Jeannie's quarters, a laptop open on the bed, and right then he knew what she was talking about, knew exactly what she was telling him.
"The night before I left Atlantis," she confirmed, her expression telling him she had seen the realisation on his face, "the night that you said that maybe you'd come visit for Christmas.." she smiled sadly.
"John showed me the video message that you recorded for me."
The shrill ring tone of Rodney's cell phone was the only sound in the kitchen.
"Activate the device."
John tried to flex his hand and let the Ancient device drop from his grasp but apparently his new friends had gotten wise to that trick because the muscle, a hulking bear of a man that John had decided to christen Bubba, wrapped his meaty great paw of a hand around John's and squeezed hard, crushing his fingers around the device, preventing him from letting go of it.
The two scientists hovered around the bed, their attention torn between their instruments and their ATA-gene lab rat and, from the tone of their voices, their patience wearing thin.
"Colonel Sheppard. Activate the device!"
"This will be much easier on you if you would just cooperate!"
Gritting his teeth stubbornly, John ignored their complaints in favour of focusing all his concentration on not activating the device. The scientists seemed to think John was simply not trying, just refusing to use his much-vaunted mental connection to activate the device when they ordered him to; what they didn't seem to realise was that John's ATA gene was so strong that he often didn't even need to concentrate to activate Ancient technology. It regularly responded to his mere touch, sometimes even to just his proximity. It had actually caused some entertaining near misses in the labs on Atlantis and had led to McKay at one point reporting him to Weir for deliberately sabotaging one of his research projects by "repeatedly and with malice aforethought" activating a small device which, it was eventually discovered, had the interesting side-effect of scrambling any nearby Earth technology-based computer memory cores into random gibberish. John grabbed onto that memory, to the thought of happier times on Atlantis, and clung to it like a refuge as Bubba squeezed his hand so hard that the even the rounded edges of the device dug sharply into his flesh. He thought about McKay, he thought about Elizabeth, about Atlantis and ferris wheels and anything other than activating the damn device.
"Dammit!"
"Let go of his hand." The scientist's voice was rich with disgust but the painful pressure on his hand finally eased and John uncurled stiff, aching fingers from around the warm, sweaty metal and let it drop heavily to the mattress.
"What is the problem, gentlemen?" The two scientists, as arrogant as they were in their dealings with their captive test subject, quailed a little at the displeased tone of their goa'uld mistress.
"He's not cooperating!" One of them complained sharply. If he was expecting sympathy, he didn't get it. The goa'uld glanced down dismissively at John, he returning her gaze steadily, stubbornly. "Then make him," she ordered, turning on her heel to stalk from the room.
On reflection, John didn't much like the sound of that.
With his arms pinned to the railings along the side of the bed, there wasn't much John could do to resist whatever the Trust had in store for him but, nonetheless, he flinched, trying to jerk his head away from their touch as, after a brief, muttered discussion, one of the scientists leaned over him to press a small, metal object to his temple. For a second or two it simply felt cold against his skin but then sharp pain stabbed into his temple and he felt the damn thing burrow into his flesh. He couldn't hold back a hiss of pain.
"This would not be necessary if you would stop being so difficult," one of the men chided him coldly.
John felt the ridiculous urge to laugh bubbling up inside him. The man made it sound like John was merely being petty by refusing to assist his captors in their freaky experiments – experiments being done on him, against his will. He pulled against the restraints in useless frustration, a growing anger coiling in his stomach in a hard, icy lump. If he could just get his hands free he'd show them difficult.
The scientists conferred over the tray of Ancient technology and yet another device was pressed into his hand, Bubba immediately stepping up to clamp John's fingers tight around the smooth, round object. John closed his eyes and concentrated, blocking out the sights of this unwelcome reality and focusing his thoughts on something, anything else; anything but activating the device in his hand.
"Activate the device, Colonel Sheppard."
He ignored the command and instead imagined himself flying a Black Hawk. He built up the image in his mind, every detail, every control, the feel of the stick in his hands, the switches under his finger tips. He focused all his concentration on not just seeing it in his mind but feeling it, the sway and jolt of the craft as he banked sharply. This room, this pseudo-medical lab in some abandoned warehouse did not exist to him, all that he saw was the blur of sand passing under him, the bright blue of the desert sky above.
There was what felt like an almost physical jolt and his carefully constructed image faltered. He frowned, tensing his body as he tried to hold on to the fantasy. Another jolt, almost painful this time, and his thoughts scrambled, the Black Hawk lost to him, his mind throwing up disconnected images, settling on a random memory of riding a horse when he was ten.
"Think about the device, Colonel."
Ngggh. No. Something else. Argh. This time the jolt was accompanied by a sharp stab of pain in his temples and he sucked in a harsh breath, taken unawares by it. He was losing his focus, unable to concentrate. He remembered Zelenka with his face painted.
"Think about activating the device."
The next jolt made him grit his teeth against the pain, his body tensing, back arching up from the mattress. His thoughts scattered again, a welter of disconnected images and memories. Eating candy floss at the fair. The smell of his mother's hair. Flying the puddle jumper across an open expanse of rippling water..
"Yes! That one!"
Another teeth-grinding jolt and the memory seemed to solidify, the water sparkling in the warm sunlight, the feel of the controls under his fingertips, Rodney's voice chattering in the background. He twisted and strained, the restraints pulling at his arms, and tried to turn the image around, focusing on Rodney's voice, concentrating on the lecture he was giving Teyla about… about something… Another jolt and something like a strangled sob was dragged from him. His hands on the jumper controls, communicating with the machine.. No. Rodney's voice from the seat behind him, the tinkle of Teyla's laughter as Rodney tried to explain the concept of… of online RPGs… another jolt; hot, angry pain rippling through him..
"He's resisting it."
"Turn up the intensity."
"Are you sure? It's already.."
"Turn it up."
The next jolt made his teeth hurt, made his spine twist up from the bed and stole the breath from his lungs. He could feel the jumper controls under his fingers, feeling it responding to his every touch, his every thought..
"No!" He shouted the word at them, his voice raw and desperate, as he tried to push the images from his mind. He struggled physically and mentally, the metal railings rattling as the restraints dug into his wrists, his mind straining to focus on something else, on the voices of his team as they chatted idly whilst he flew the jumper..
Jolt. He screamed this time, the pain pressing hotly around his temples and running along his nerve strands to ripple through his entire body. The jumper skimmed across the water and flying it was a fierce joy. He tried to hang on to Rodney's words, the back and forth of companionable chatter, but the voices behind him were fading and the jumper was pulling at him, asking for input, it wanted to connect to him and he loved to fly it, loved the way it knew was he was thinking..
There was a sudden surge of warmth in his right hand and he felt a cold wave of despair wash over him as a voice cried, triumphantly, "Yes!"
"You have a lead. What does that mean? Have you found him or not?"
"It means we have a lead, Dr McKay." General Landry was as blunt and to the point as ever, his words tight with forced patience as he explained, "We have some contacts in the NID and they've confirmed our suspicions that the Trust is responsible for the Lt. Colonel's abduction."
"Wait a minute. Suspicions? You knew from the start who did this?"
"We suspected," Landry corrected meticulously. "We had an incident not too long ago where a member of the Trust kidnapped Vala and.."
"What?" Rodney interrupted harshly, his tone incredulous. This was unbelievable! "The Trust has been going around kidnapping members of SGC teams and you didn't think to mention this? To warn us?"
"Dr McKay." There was no patience of any kind in Landry's voice now. "It was an isolated incident involving a goa'uld with a grudge against Vala's former symbiont."
"But.."
Landry explained further, simply talking over Rodney's attempted interruption. "It was not felt that this incident was indicative of any larger intent to target SGC personnel. We have, however, been keeping a close eye on the Trust's activities since that time.. which is how we have been able to locate the facility where we suspect Lt Col Sheppard may be being held."
Rodney was back to pacing the kitchen floor, cell phone pressed to his ear, Jeannie watching him from her seat at the table, her face quizzical as she listened to his half of the conversation.
"So what happens now?"
"We send in an extraction team." Landry made it sound simple; just stroll into a Trust stronghold and ask them nicely if we could please have our Lt Colonel back? Rodney couldn't help remembering the last time someone had held Sheppard prisoner and that things that had been done to him whilst in Kolya's clutches..
He swallowed heavily. "I want to go with them." His request came out more belligerently than he had, his voice thick with tightly held emotion.
"Dr McKay.." he could hear the sigh of exasperation in Landry's voice and he rushed to forestall the no that he knew was coming.
"I am a trained, experienced member of a gate team and he is my team leader and…" His eyes strayed to Jeannie, her face serious, and he stumbled over his words, ".. and my friend.
We have no idea what they've been doing to him all this time," he reminded the general pointedly, "and Sheppard might just appreciate having a familiar face amongst all the gung ho marines."
There was a moment of silence, a moment where Rodney's stomach churned and he wasn't sure if it was from hope that Landry would say yes or fear that Landry would say yes.
The General's voice was gruff as he made his decision. "Okay, Dr McKay. Be ready in 10 minutes, the team will pick you up on the way." The dialling tone buzzed in Rodney's ear.
Jeannie's face was a welter of emotions, disbelief that Rodney was doing this, the same fear that was already making him queasy and maybe just the smallest little bit of pride in her brother. "You're really doing this?" she questioned.
Rodney thought about two plus years of friendship. He thought about a soldier who actually had a brain and used it, a man who could beat him at chess – not that he'd ever, on pain of death, admit that to Jeannie – a man who was equally at home doing macho crap like letting Teyla beat him up with fighting sticks and spending half an afternoon debating the relative merits of batman vs Superman, a man who had saved Rodney's life on countless occasions and who he knew without a shadow of a doubt would never, ever abandon his friend.
He thought about a man who took the time to show Rodney's sister a video because he felt that she needed to hear the things Rodney had said on that video, things he had been unable to say to her himself but had desperately wanted to.
"He's my friend," he said.
"He's still fighting it."
Sheppard lay gasping and shuddering on the hospital bed, wishing to god that he didn't feel so absolutely wretched and that his hands weren't pinned to the railings so that he could sit up and wipe that smug smile off of the goa'uld's face…
"What progress have you made?" Her voice was as cold as her smile and the scientists practically fell over themselves to report their limited successes. Sheppard concentrated on trying to slow and control his breathing as the progress report allowed him a welcome respite.
"We've managed to have him activate these two devices and we've recorded some very interesting data on the mental process involved."
The goa'uld regarded the devices with every evidence of disinterest; away from John's magic touch they were once again dark and unresponsive. "We're not sure what the devices actually do as yet.." one of the scientists babbled eagerly.
"Irrelevant," she interrupted sharply. "We can examine the function of these devices at our leisure once we fully understand the control process involved. Your function," she reminded them, "is to obtain accurate data on the mental component of controlling the technology and its relation to the ATA gene."
"Preliminary results are encouraging," one of the men reported stiffly, "but the subject's refusal to cooperate is slowing the process considerably."
The goa'uld turned her cold eyes back to John, her gaze considering. He glared back at her and would have loved to make some smart-ass comment, just to see the annoyance in her eyes, just to get some flicker of a human reaction, but his throat was raw from screaming and he was damned if he would let her see a moment of weakness from him. He licked his lips tiredly and met her gaze stubbornly, defiantly.
"Perhaps a light sedative," a scientist suggested cautiously, "or even an opiate. Something to weaken his resolve a little…"
"Don't be an idiot," she snapped angrily, her eyes flashing and that deep, multi-tonal voice cowing the man. "Giving him drugs that destroy his ability to focus clearly will only compromise the mental process required to activate the technology and will corrupt the results of the tests."
She looked back at John briefly before issuing her orders in no uncertain terms. "Increase the intensity."
John couldn't hold back a shudder at her words, the mere memory of the pain of the last session making his heart race. The aghast look on the scientists' faces did little to reassure him.
"But it's already at…"
"Increase. The. Intensity."
One of the white-coated men looked down at John and, from the look on the man's face, John suspected that the scientist was, for the first time, seeing his test subject as a living, breathing human being rather than just a lab rat. The man's face was pale as he turned back to the goa'uld, his voice shaken as he murmured, "It could kill him…"
Her gaze flicked over John quickly, dismissively. "You have your orders." With a click of heels across the cold, concrete floor, she was gone.
John's breathing began to shorten, his chest heaving as he tried to brace himself for the agony to come, as the scientist, somewhat reluctantly, chose another device at random from the tray and pressed it into his hand. He looked the man straight in the eye, trying to connect, to appeal to some kind of better nature, of humanity in the man, and gritted his teeth as he focused his thoughts on something safe, something random. White coats, white sheets, washing hung out on the line in his parent's yard, billowing in the wind.
The man's face was guilt-stricken, haggard, and for a brief moment John hoped he might have gotten through to him.
"Please," the scientist whispered. "Just don't fight it."
John closed his eyes in disgust and thought about the white snows of Antarctica, spread out before him as far as the eye could see.
The first jolt spasmed through his body in a wave of pain that contracted his muscles, pulling his shoulders from the bed, making his heels scrabble frantically against the mattress.
John screamed.
Rodney's heart was pounding in his chest as he flattened himself against a wall, gun in hand, waiting for the signal that would send armed men pouring into what looked for all intents and purposes like a derelict warehouse. He only hoped that the intel from Landry's informant was right and that this was the place; he could remember only too well the dismay of storming a building only to find it empty and his friend still missing, still in the hands of the enemy. His borrowed tac vest felt bulky and uncomfortable over his civilian clothing and the 9mm in his hands was a slightly different design to the one he carried on Atlantis. Nothing about this felt right.
The signal was given and a puff of smoke indicated that the door lock had been blown and then he was moving, running along with the others, acting on instinct and adrenalin as they burst through the door and spread out into a large open storage space, immediately taking cover behind piles of cargo crates and stacks of unlabelled barrels.
For a brief moment all was still and silent, the only noise that of booted feet trying to move stealthily through a large warehouse, and his heart began to sink. Then chaos erupted all around him as they encountered resistance and guns began firing from every direction, zat guns spitting, bullets echoing in the large room. He huddled behind a packing crate, his pulse racing loudly in his ears as the team of marines slowly advanced through the room, gradually clearing all opposition. For all his bravado, Rodney was not a military man, not trained they way these men were and his brief was simple and clear – do not get involved in the sweep of the building, do not engage the enemy unless absolutely necessary; just find Sheppard.
A black-dressed marine gestured to him sharply and he ducked out from behind his crate, scuttling forward awkwardly to crouch beside the man. With a concise, silent hand gesture, the marine indicated a nearby door set into the solid breezeblock wall of the storage area. Even as Rodney watched, a team of marines kicked the door open and swarmed into the corridors beyond, weapons at the ready. The marine flicked his hand briskly forward and Rodney didn't need telling twice, lurching to his feet to sprint across the open space, flinging himself through the doorway in the wake of the marine team.
Everything was confusion and noise, the sizzle of zats, the sharp retort of gunfire, the cries of "Clear!" as the marines progressively checked each room lining the warren of corridors. And then, over the hubbub of noise, Rodney heard it, a sound he had hoped never to have to bear witness to again; a man's hoarse scream, the sound of Sheppard in agony. The marines heard it too and the team leader reacted quickly, directing two men down a branching corridor in the direction the cry had come from. Rodney raced after them without a moment's hesitation.
He was brimming over with nervous tension and frustration by the time they reached a door at the end of the corridor. The marines had entered and search a further three rooms along the way, each time leaving him hovering impatiently in the hallway. He was about ready to kick the final door in himself if the marines didn't get to it pretty darn soon. The door gave easily under a well-placed boot and the marines entered the room in a practised movement, fanning out to cover the area comprehensively with their weapons, their voices booming as they shouted aggressively, "Freeze! Do not MOVE!"
The sight that met Rodney's eyes as he followed in the soldiers' wake made his breath catch in his throat and a hot rush of anger flood through him. He raised his gun without thinking, aiming it straight at the nearest occupant of the room and demanding, "Shut it down! NOW!"
Sheppard's body was arched into a bow on the hospital bed, every muscle tensed, a mass of wires and pads attaching him to an array of machinery and equipment and thick restraints pinning his wrists to the railings of the bed. Even as Rodney looked on helplessly, Sheppard jerked and twitched in agony, his eyes rolling back in his head, his throat working convulsively as he struggled to breathe. The two men in lab coats stood amidst the banks of machinery were frozen in place, their hands hovering over the controls of their torturous equipment, their wide-eyes gazes fixed firmly on the threatening marines.
Pointing his gun at the ceiling over their heads, Rodney pulled the trigger and the retort was loud in the small room. The men flinched as plaster dust rained down on them and their fearful attention switched to Rodney. "Shut it down!" he yelled. Startled out of their shock, the two men hurried to comply, grabbing at the controls of an alien-looking device and powering it down. Like a puppet whose strings had been cut, the rigid tension drained from Sheppard's body and he collapsed limply onto the bed. Shoving the 9mm back into his borrowed leg holster, McKay hurried forward, trusting the marines to secure Dr Mengele and his friend.
The relief was overwhelming as he leant over his friend to find that Sheppard was still breathing, his breaths harsh and rapid, his body shivering minutely. Sweat plastered Sheppard's unruly hair to his forehead and his eyes were glassy under half-closed eyelids. He was dressed in plain white scrubs, the material rumpled and bunched from Sheppard's agonised thrashing. The monitors around the bed beeped and chattered, showing readouts of his heart rate, pulse, oxygen levels and more. Rodney could read enough of them to know that the Colonel was probably feeling incredibly crappy right now. But at least he was alive.
"Sheppard! Hey, Sheppard!" He snapped his fingers in front of his friend's face and got a sluggish reaction, the eyelids lifting for a moment before drooping wearily again. Sheppard's head rolled loosely on the pillow.
"Come on, Sheppard. We're getting out of here." Rodney reached for the restraints at Sheppard's wrists and fumbled with the thick leather straps, tugging impatiently until finally they came free and Sheppard's arms dropped heavily to the mattress. The skin around his wrists was red and angry, abraded by his struggles to escape the restraints, and Rodney had a brief, homicidal urge to get his gun back out and try a little target practice on the two so-called scientists who now sat huddled on the floor under marine guard, their hands bound behind them with cable ties.
"Rodney..?" Sheppard's voice was hoarse and ragged, the word cracking in his throat, but his eyes were focused on McKay, his face creased in confusion, and Rodney gave him a tight grin.
"The one and only," he confirmed. "Now gimme a hand cos I'm not carrying you out of here."
Sheppard's mouth twisted into a weak grin and he gave something that sounded suspiciously like a choked laugh.
"I mean it," Rodney complained acidly, masking the tremor of relief in his voice. "I'll put my back out lugging your heavy carcass around." He reached over and started tugging the tangle of adhesive pads and wires from Sheppard's skin, the Colonel raising a shaky arm to bat his hands away, grumbling weakly as a couple of the pads came away with some chest hair attached.
"Fine. Do it yourself, grumpy." Leaving him to disconnect himself from the machinery, the heart monitor whining a shrill flatline alarm as Sheppard tossed the wires aside, Rodney fumbled along the edge of the bed to unlatch the railing and it dropped with a clang, giving Rodney room to grab hold of Sheppard's legs and swing them over the edge of the bed. With a pained grunt, moving slowly and shakily, Sheppard pushed himself up on the mattress and allowed Rodney to take hold of an arm and wrap it across his shoulders, shuffling close to the bed to help bear Sheppard's weight as he slid from the bed. Sheppard's knees buckled immediately and Rodney found himself listing suddenly to one side, struggling to keep the Colonel's dead weight from hitting the floor.
"Hey," he gritted painfully, "help me out a bit here, could ya?"
"M'trying," Sheppard muttered stubbornly, still sagging heavily against him.
Rodney was still fighting to keep them upright when the door slammed back against the wall and a tall, dark-haired woman in a smart suit strode into the room. Even before her eyes glowed unnaturally, Rodney knew this could only be bad news and he was trying to untangle his arm from around Sheppard's waist and reach for his gun when the goa'uld calmly threw the nearest marine against the wall with stunning force, the man dropping to the floor with a bonelessness that spoke of unconsciousness at the least. The second marine managed to get a shot off but it went wide as the woman knocked his arm aside, grabbing hold of the unfortunate soldier and twisting his neck sharply with a calm casualness that was as shocking as the awful crack of breaking bone.
Her face was an expressionless mask, her every motion calm and controlled as she bent swiftly to take the gun from the marine's limp fingers. Panicked, Rodney let go of Sheppard's arm, feeling the Colonel's weight slip away as he crumpled without Rodney's support. He scrabbled the gun from its holster and raised it quickly, seeing his own death foretold in the barrel of the gun pointed towards him. The two guns fired so closely together that the sound merged into one - one loud reverberating retort. After a split second of shock, Rodney realised with stunned amazement that he was still alive and he fired again and again and again, pulling the trigger repeatedly until it clicked dryly on an empty chamber.
He was breathing heavily, his hands shaking, as he lowered the gun and looked, really looked, at what he had done. The goa'uld lay crumpled against the wall, eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling. He'd killed her. It. He'd shot and killed a goa'uld. There was bright red blood flecked on a lips and he felt suddenly sick, bile rising in his throat. He turned quickly, pressing a trembling hand to his mouth, and felt the blood freeze in his veins as he saw Colonel Sheppard splayed out on the floor, unmoving, a red stain spreading slowly across the pristine white cotton of his scrubs.
"Merry Christmas."
John cracked open a bleary eye to find Rodney McKay sitting at his bedside with a smug smile on his face.
"What?" Not the most intelligent response he'd ever come up with but given the bullet-hole in his side and the high-dose painkillers the SGC doctors had got him on, John figured Rodney could darn well cut him some slack.
Atlantis' Chief Scientist was still grinning like a… well, like a kid on Christmas morning. "It's Christmas," he pointed out cheerfully. "You slept through pretty much all of Christmas Eve and now it Christmas."
John closed his eyes wearily, grimacing a little as he tried to stretch out the kinks from hours of laying in bed and the painkillers didn't quite take the edge off of the resulting twinge. "I thought you didn't like Christmas," he mumbled tiredly.
"Not at all!" McKay denied, "I never said I don't like Christmas!"
John rolled his head on the pillow and regarded McKay evenly. "Tell that to the poor clerk in that store. I think you made her cry.."
McKay raised an imperious finger. "Ah. That's Christmas shopping. That's a whole different thing. That I hate. And with good reason."
John couldn't help grinning. This wasn't exactly the Christmas he had envisioned when Weir had, okay, ordered him to take some time off and he really could have done without the hours of painful torture, the massive blood loss and, from what he had been told, over seven hours in surgery to remove the bullet, but when it came down to it, there was a lot to be grateful for; he was still alive and, he was assured, would recover fully from his injuries. Atlantis was waiting for him once he was judged fit to return to active duty and, even if not in quite the way he had anticipated, he was spending his Christmas with his friend.
"So what are you so giddy about anyway?" he teased mildly.
That earned him a familiar condescending look. "I am not giddy, Colonel," McKay informed him acidly.
"Well, coulda fooled me." Slowly feeling a little more awake and alert, John planted his palms on the mattress and tried to push himself into a more upright position. He didn't get far before McKay was on his feet, scolding him that he'd pull his stitches, and searching around to find the controls to raise the head of the bed.
When all the fussing was over McKay planted himself firmly back in the chair beside John's bed. John regarded him evenly.
"Not that I don't appreciate it," he told the physicist, "but you don't have to spend your Christmas Day here with me. Just because I'm stuck in the infirmary, doesn't mean you have to be. I'm sure Jeannie and Caleb.."
"Forget it. I'm staying right here. I've earned this, dammit."
That one left Sheppard with a familiar feeling of confusion, an all too common side-effect of trying to have a conversation with McKay.
"Besides," Rodney continued, "I visited Jeannie yesterday and we did the whole Christmas and presents thing a day early. Madison got so excited about getting gifts a day early that she threw up." McKay's grimace prompted John to make a mental note to ask Jeannie about precisely where – or more accurately on whom – Rodney's niece had thrown up.
John had the sinking sensation that this conversation was getting away from him.
"Rodney? Earned what?"
McKay's smile was positively beatific as he regarded his bed-ridden companion. "Colonel Sheppard, it is Christmas Day and Christmas Day means Christmas dinner.. and, unlike my sister, the SGC doesn't serve tofurkey."
John regarded Rodney with a measure of disbelief. "You're hanging round the infirmary on Christmas Day so you can mooch a free Christmas Dinner?"
"No," Rodney corrected. "I am hanging around the infirmary on Christmas Day to keep you company and to benefit from a tofurkey-free Christmas Dinner which I have thoroughly earned."
Sheppard couldn't help the grin that spread across his face as he regarded Dr Meredith Rodney McKay, anticipating his Christmas Dinner with all the excitement of a child waiting for Santa Claus to come down the chimney.
"Oh, and don't worry if you don't feel well enough for a full Christmas Dinner," McKay added magnanimously. "I'm hungry enough to eat two."
Fin