Chapter 7

The percussion grenade ripped through the door, the explosion deafening. Ronon braced himself against the wall, closing his eyes on instinct as smoke and heat billowed out into the hallway. According to McKay, Sheppard was in that room, and Ronon hoped they weren't too late.

One, two, three, he counted silently to himself. He and Major Lorne moved at the same time, kicking through the door and holding their weapons up. The room was huge, like the rest of the building. They'd run down long, wide hallways and past doorways three times their height. Everything in the place had been tall and huge and even Ronon had felt small.

Alarms blared overhead. Ronon swept the room with his eyes, seeing two aliens down on the ground, unmoving. One alien, its gray fur speckled with wet, black oil was on its hands and knees a few feet away from him, shaking its head, clearly dazed. A fourth alien stood behind a table, a knife red bright and gleaming in its hand. And on the table…

Ronon screamed in rage and lunged at the table, firing his weapon. The alien's eyes widened in fear at his approach. It dropped the knife and stumbled backward, tripping on something behind it and just barely missed getting hit by Ronon's weapon. The blast hit the far wall, black and smoking as it burned through the paint. As soon as the alien hit the ground, it scrambled backward as far away from the table and Ronon as it could get.

Ronon ignored it. The top of the table came up to Ronon's shoulders and he jumped up on top of it. His hands shook in grief and fury as he fumbled to undo the straps. Sheppard lay on the table, his eyes glassy and unblinking as he stared up at the ceiling. Blood covered his upper body and pooled on the table underneath him, pumping from an incision running the length of his chest and stomach.

He was dead. They were too late. They took too long. The thoughts ran through Ronon's mind at a frantic pace, and his hands ripped at the straps. He screamed again as his fingers slipped around one of the bands covered in blood before he thought of cutting through them with a knife.

Sheppard drew in a ragged breath, and blinked twice before going completely still again.

"Holy shit," Lorne breathed as he climbed up onto the table on the opposite side of Ronon.

"He's alive," Ronon said, but Sheppard stared unblinking at the ceiling. A thick beard covered his face, and Ronon could see sunken cheeks and dark circles under his glassy eyes.

Lorne reached out, tentatively feeling for a pulse in Sheppard's neck, and sighed in relief a moment later. He cut through the straps on his side of the table, then started slapping bandages onto the long incision. Ronon moved down to the straps around Sheppard's legs, and grimaced at the sight of the swollen left ankle. Lorne yelled for more bandages and a stretcher.

Ronon moved up near Sheppard's head and carefully gathered his friend's limp body in his arms. He and Lorne lifted Sheppard onto a stretcher, mindful of the myriad of bruises all over his body. Once on the stretcher, they gently lowered him to the ground. By the time Ronon dropped down, someone had thrown a blanket over him and fastened straps around his body to secure him. Sheppard's eyes had slid closed, and Lorne kneeled next to him, feeling for a pulse. He nodded at the others a second later.

"Let's get the hell out of here," he said.

Two of the Marines picked up the stretcher and the group headed out. Lorne led the way, then Sheppard flanked on either side by two Marine units, and Ronon brought up the rear. They ran through the long hallways, shooting sporadically at the strange, tall aliens that occasionally poked their heads out of doors. Ronon kept one eye on the hallway and doors and one on Sheppard, wishing Beckett was there.

They would reach the jumper soon enough, he thought. Ronon swung around as a door opened behind him, but the alien poking its head into the hall jerked back with a cry before Ronon got a shot off, and the blast hit the door.

"Damn it," he grunted. He thought of the alien with the knife, its reddish blond fur quaking in fear as it crawled away. He should have killed it, but concern for Sheppard's survival overrode his instincts. The last time he'd seen it, it had been cowering in the corner, sobbing, and the alien with the gray, mottled fur had been crawling toward it.

Despite the alarms, the building had remained fairly empty. The few aliens they had run into had seemed more shocked than anything, and Ronon wondered if anyone had ever broken into their facility before. He didn't think so. Most of the aliens scrambled to get away from them, not attack them. Only one had put up any resistance.

Ronon remembered the tall alien running at them, swinging a bar, and screaming. Its tight black braids had whipped around its face as it flattened one of the Marines at the front and jammed the bar into the man's side. The Marine had screamed and arched away from the bar, like he was being electrocuted. Ronon had not missed with his weapon that time, and the alien with the electric weapon had gone down quickly. He had stepped over the alien's body, kicking away the bar even though the creature was obviously dead. Black blood, thick and viscous, had pooled underneath it.

Minutes later, the group was outside and running across a spacious courtyard. Sheppard's head bounced a little as they ran.

"Careful," Ronon yelled. The jumper materialized in front of them and Beckett stepped out of the back, waving his arm frantically at them to hurry up. They piled in and the jumper took off almost before the door had completely closed behind them.

The Marines moved out of the way as best as they could, but they were packed into the small space. Nevertheless, Beckett squatted on the ground next to Sheppard, consumed in his work. Ronon caught a glimpse of Sheppard's face through the chaos. His eyes were closed, and he looked dead.

"We're approaching the gate. Two minutes to Atlantis," McKay yelled. His voice was high-pitched but calm as he guided the jumper smoothly over the tall trees and toward the cliffs and the gate.

As soon as the gate activated, Beckett began yelling frantic orders to the infirmary on the other side. Ronon hardly noticed when the jumper disintegrated into the wormhole and reappeared in the gate room. A medical team was already in the jumper bay, and Ronon helped them move Sheppard's stretcher onto the gurney.

And then they were gone. The Marines filed out somewhat in a daze as they came off the adrenaline of the rescue. Lorne cleared his throat a few times before taking control of the group and sending them off to unload their weapons at the armory and head down to the infirmary for post-mission checks. Ronon stood near the door, staring down the hall where Sheppard and the medical team had disappeared.

"He was alive? He was okay?" McKay asked, stepping up next to him. Ronon forced his head to turn to look at the physicist. McKay was wringing his hands and bouncing on the balls of his feet, his whole body coiled in fear and anxiety. Ronon opened his mouth to answer, but his throat was suddenly dry and he found he couldn't make a sound.

"We've got him stable," Beckett said, hours later. "But he's in bad shape."

Ronon nodded, looking in relief at the rest of his team. He and McKay had collapsed into chairs outside of the infirmary as soon as they'd been debriefed and had their own post-mission checks. Teyla had joined them, still looking tired and ragged from worrying about Sheppard and her own injuries sustained two weeks before.

Two weeks. It had taken them two weeks to find Sheppard. Weir had eventually joined them in the long wait, and when she had met Ronon's eyes, he had known that she was thinking the same thing he was. It had taken too long. Teyla had sighed, closing her eyes and resting her head against McKay's shoulder. McKay had looked at her in surprise and near panic at first, but when she'd hugged her casted arm close to her body, he had relaxed and let her be.

Beckett's voice brought all of them to their feet, but he waved them back into their seats and dropped into his own chair in exhaustion. He rubbed at his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose before looking up into the concerned faces of Sheppard's friends.

"Carson…" Weir started.

Beckett sighed. "I'm not sure where to start. His injuries were extensive. I'm shocked, actually, by what they were able to do to him in such a relatively short amount of time, but it could have been a lot worse." He clasped his hands together, and Ronon noticed they were shaking, just a little bit.

"First of all, he's covered in bruises, head to foot," the doctor continued. "Some of them are relatively old—possibly a result of the animal stampede you were all in a few weeks ago. He's obviously been beaten continuously since he was captured. The worst of the bruising is on his chest, back, and stomach, but by some miracle, there aren't any broken bones or internal bleeding. We ran a scan on him and it looks like he had a slight concussion initially, but that take care of itself eventually."

McKay snorted, but the others ignored him. Beckett took another deep breath. "His two most obvious injuries are the left ankle and the incision on his chest and stomach. I thought for sure the ankle was broken, but as it turns out, it's just severely sprained."

"And the cut on his chest?" Weir prodded when the doctor paused.

"It was deep, and he lost a lot of blood, but we've got him stitched up now and we're pumping some of that lost blood back into him as we speak."

"They were dissecting him," Ronon stated. The others turned to him in shock. Beckett's face had gone white, and for a second, Ronon thought the doctor was going to pass out, but then his cheeks flushed red with anger.

"Aye, I suspected as much," he finally said, his voice low and threatening. "I was really hoping that wasn't the case, though."

The others nodded, and Ronon flashed on the lab again. When he closed his eyes, he could still see the alien standing over Sheppard's body, the knife in its hand dripping with blood.

"He's going to be okay, though, right?" McKay finally asked.

Beckett was shaking his head before the physicist had finished talked. "He's half-starved and dehydrated, and his stomach and esophagus are raw and inflamed from repeated vomiting. We just got the lab results back as well, and a number of unknown substances were found in his blood. And that's just his physical state. I can't even begin to guess what his mental state will be."

Sheppard was thin, almost skeletal. Ronon had seen that right away. He slammed a hand into the wall in frustration and yelled, causing a passing scientist to jump and disappear quickly around the corner.

Tests, drugs, beatings, starvation. It was obvious what kind of treatment Sheppard had received over the last two weeks. He thought of the alien with the electroshock weapon and wondered if Sheppard had been subjected to it as well. He remembered the blaze of anger and malice in the black-haired alien's eyes as it jammed the end of the bar into the Marine, and Ronon knew it had done the same thing to Sheppard.

"There's one other thing that's got me a little nervous." Beckett's voice broke through Ronon's thoughts. "His blood work shows some type of compound related to that sting ray venom he was injected with a few months ago."

"Those freaky aliens had a sting ray too?" McKay asked, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise.

"No, I don't think so. We're still running some tests, so what we know is only preliminary. It looks like something they injected John with interacted with the remaining 'radioactive' compound from the sting ray, creating a new but similar substance in his blood."

"What's it doing to him?" Weir asked.

Beckett frowned, making his face look years older. "Most of substance is in his right leg, near the site in his calf where he was bitten by the sting ray. We tested his reflexes, and as of right now, his right leg is completely unresponsive."

"What does that mean?" Ronon asked. McKay, who had been fidgeting next to him, went still.

Beckett shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know yet. Whatever this substance is, it appears to be interfering with the nerves in his leg. And don't ask me if it's causing permanent damage, because I don't know," he said as he turned to McKay cutting off the question on the tip of the scientist's tongue. McKay snapped his jaw shut.

"The substance itself is slowly metabolizing on its own, and we're giving him some medication to help that along, but it will take some time before we know anything for sure," Beckett finished.

"Can we see him?" Teyla asked.

"Just for a moment, but then you'll all have to leave. We need to keep the area around his bed clear for now."

They nodded and filed silently into the infirmary. They'd been here before—Ronon knew what to expect—but the sight of his friend under all the medical equipment still freaked him out in a way he would never admit to anyone.

Sheppard lay on the bed, his head tilted to one side and his mouth slightly open. He was ashen and covered in a film of sweat. His thick beard had been shaved off, revealing black and yellow bruises that covered the side of his face, and dark, almost black, smudges under his eyes that made him look haunted even in sleep. He was thin and frail, and a small white tube taped to his face threaded into one of his nostrils.

As the others moved around the bed, Ronon hung back. He saw the lab again, saw the tall alien with the mask holding the bloody knife. Saw Sheppard strapped to the table—pale and bruised and covered in blood, his chest a gaping wound. He grit his teeth until his jaw ached.

Teyla reached out with her uninjured hand and brushed his forehead with her fingers. "He is warm," she whispered.

"He's running a bit of a fever," Beckett answered.

Sheppard's arms were covered in IVs, running much needed liquid and blood and medication and who knew what else into his body. He was covered in a light sheet, but Ronon could see a mass of bandages over his chest and a few spots of blood seeping through. His left shoulder was bruised almost black, and his left ankle was propped up and covered in ice packs. He was utterly still.

Weir gripped Sheppard's hand and rubbed his knuckles until she glanced down and saw the faded discoloration of old bruises under her thumb. Teyla kept reaching her hand forward to touch his face, but would jerk away after only a few seconds. McKay, abnormally subdued, rocked back and forth on his feet. Ronon felt the urge to scream and slam his fists into the wall, but instead jammed his hands under his armpits, as if that would contain his rage.

"Alright, you've seen him. Out with you now," Beckett whispered, and he waved the group out of the infirmary.

John wasn't sure exactly when he woke up, but he was suddenly aware that he wasn't dreaming. He heard soft muted sounds around him, but exhaustion pulled on every part of his body, and he couldn't bring himself to open his eyes and look around. He lay there immobile, wanting everyone around him to believe he was still unconscious but not sure why this was so important.

He tried to remember what happened, but the only thing he could think of was that he needed to move, to escape. His entire body ached—his chest throbbed and burned more than anywhere else. He took a deep breath and felt something pulling on his nose.

A tube. He had another damn tube shoved down his face. He remembered suddenly the clear mask over his nose and the tubing leading away from it and connected to a tank. He could almost feel the straps across his body and the scalpel digging through skin until it grated against bone. Blood. Scalpel. Chest. The pain in his chest flared at the memory.

He felt a hand on his forehead, fingers running softly—soothingly—through his hair. Jane. She'd been about to cut him open, dissect him while he was still awake. He moaned softly as his stomach twisted and churned, and another hand gripped his own.

"John?"

The voice was soft and tentative. Jane? His heart was pounding in his chest. He had to escape—he had to get out. They were going to kill him.

"I'll get the doc."

That voice was low. John almost recognized it, but then he flashed on Pavlov and the low guttural grunting sounds he had made before jamming the electric prod into his stomach. He felt a hand on his head, then another on his shoulder, and he twisted to get away from Jane's touch. The tube in his nose pulled slightly and he groaned.

No more, John thought. No more tubes. I can't do this anymore. He thought of Jane carrying him around like a child, of Pavlov and the old pen tapper holding him like an animal.

"Colonel? Can you hear me?"

Not real not real escape escape escape. John's mind screamed at him, but all he could do was squirm weakly. Hands on his face held his head still, and John waited for them to pry his mouth open and shove another tube down his throat.

"John, lad? Come on. I know you're awake."

John's heart was racing, and as he flailed weakly beneath the hands holding him down, every ache and pain in his body reawakened. Nausea churned in his stomach, and he panted, not wanting to throw up again.

"Open your eyes, John," the voice above his head commanded.

"John, we are home. In Atlantis. You will be alright," another voice said.

He had heard that before. Someone had said that to him a long time ago. He remembered the gate room, remembered Rodney yelling at Marines, remembered Ronon holding him up. He remembered Teyla lifting his head and whispering those same words. Teyla. His chest ached and he whimpered.

"What's wrong with him?"

"He's been through a lot, Rodney. Give him a moment."

"Well, excuse me, Carson."

Rodney. Carson. Teyla. Atlantis? Hands were on his face and arms, petting him again. He opened his eyes slowly.

"There you are, lad." Someone with blue eyes and short brown hair was leaning over him, his hands on either side of John's face. John followed those hands as he reached into the pocket of a white lab coat and pulled out a thin penlight. "Hold still for me," Carson said.

The penlight flashed into one eye, then another, and John whimpered. His throat was dry and sore. Carson moved back, releasing John's head. John turned his head away from him, expecting to see Jane standing next to him, and he blinked in surprise when it was Teyla's face that came into focus. She stood on the other side of the bed, holding his hand in both of hers. Rodney and Ronon stood together near his feet and peered at him with open concern.

His team. Carson. Home. He was home. He took in a deep shuddering breath. Home. Was he home? He was dying, or had been. He'd been absolutely sure of that. He saw Jane standing over him, her eyes sad behind the mask on her face, the knife in her hand. Blood.

"I'm just going to check your wound," Carson said, and John felt hands tugging at the gown and blankets covering his chest. Clothes—he had clothes again. He squeezed his eyes closed then opened them again, waiting for Atlantis to disappear around him. Waiting to wake up in his cage with the bowls of water and inedible food and the litter box. Waiting for Pavlov to show up with his cattle prod and tranquilizer gun.

Jane stood over him, the scalpel in her hands dripping blood. John moaned at the sharp, burning pain in his chest.

"John?"

He was starting to tremble. He could feel it in all of his muscles, and the harder he tried to stop the trembling, the worse it got.

"John, are you alright, lad? Are you in pain?"

Pain. He was in pain. He shook harder and heard an alarm going off on one of the monitors near his bed. He looked up and saw a clear IV bag with more tubing snaking down to his arm. And then the IV bag wasn't clear—it was brown and thick and sliding down his throat. He gagged, then swallowed, willing himself not to throw up.

"What's wrong with him?"

"Just a second, Rodney," Carson snapped, and then John's vision was filled by Carson's face, tired and drawn and etched in concern. "John, relax. You're home and safe. Do you understand?"

John heard the words but couldn't focus long enough on Carson's voice to muster a response. A movement out of the corner of his eye startled him, and he thrashed weakly, waiting for the pain from the electric prod to explode throughout his body.

A hand on his head. Fingers running through his hair. He looked over at Jane, but it wasn't Jane. It was Teyla. Her eyes were wide and bright—afraid. John shook harder. Carson pulled out a syringe and John closed his eyes tightly.

Something cold ran up the veins in his arms and the shaking in his body slowed. His arms and head grew heavy, and he had to force his eyes to open again. His team and Carson stood around him.

"Just relax, John," Carson was saying. "You're going to be fine. You just need some rest."

"We'll be here, John, when you wake up," Teyla whispered, her head close to his own.

"Yeah, not going anywhere," Rodney answered.

"Get better, Sheppard," Ronon said, the first thing he'd said the whole time.

John nodded, but the nod turned into his head sagging into the pillow as Carson's drugs took effect. John's eyes slid closed, and the sounds around him grew dim. He felt a hand on his head, petting his hair. Jane.

TBC…

A/N: I have to admit, the last scene in this chapter was one of my favorites to write, and it was actually the first clear image I had when I started brainstorming ideas for this story. Thanks for reading! A couple more chapters to go...most of the rest of this came about in the second draft, after some major editing, although I always knew exactly how I wanted to end it. Hope it works out. Enjoy!!