Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate Atlantis or its characters…
Author's note: And now some more randomness…
A silhouette darkened my door. It was petite, slender, in a word, feminine. Definitely not Ronon the Rock or Rodney "The Baby" McKay. There was a gentle rap on the door, to match the gentle curves of the figure silhouetted in black against the frosted glass before me.
"Come in," I said, putting up the pretense that I didn't give a damn whether or not the mystery woman revealed herself.
The door opened with a creak, and I could smell the sweet scent of lavender before I even got a glimpse of the dame. It tickled my nose and reminded me of all the nights I'd spent alone without the comfort only a pretty girl can provide.
And she was pretty, more than that, classy. She was 'Class' in a form-fitting red dress that hugged her waist and hips as they seductively swayed in her approach, her firm breasts bouncing slightly. I pretended not to notice, focusing upon the newspaper I had previously been perusing for juicy stories and names I might recognize.
I found myself reading the same line over and over again. Apparently Nick Schenetti had gotten into trouble with the missus again. I just couldn't figure out who had gotten the better of whom this time around, entirely unable to make it to the next sentence, as the attractive broad gracefully moved to perch on the edge of my desk, crossing her legs and leaning in so close I could practically taste that lavender perfume.
"Mr. Sheppard, I heard you could help me," she drawled. That voice finally coaxed me out of my determination to feign disinterest. It communicated a need, a helplessness that would've fooled a lesser detective, but I take my work seriously. I've been blinded by a pretty face before…but not this time. There was something to the tilt of her voice, something that undermined its apparent urgency.
Meeting her gaze, I was startled. I was expecting a beauty but not those eyes. They were large, and green, not unlike so many jewels dames would sell their husbands just to stare at through a shop window. And they pinned me to my chair.
"What can I do for you Mrs…" I prompted once I was able to get over those piercing eyes.
"Miss Elizabeth Weir," she corrected my assumption with a particularly attractive twinkle in her eyes. "It's about my brother-in-law, detective."
"Yeah, what about him?" I ask, the sarcasm allowing me to distance myself from the gorgeous dame. A few minutes unattended and my mouth and body would've agreed to anything she requested of me. Thank god for my pessimistic, skeptical brain. It's what's kept me alive so far, and with a little luck, a little farther. "Not treating your sister right?"
"No, it's not that all, Mr. Sheppard," she replied, she held a cigarette to her lips, plucked from a silver case that formally resided in the depths of her small clutch. I did what I was expected to do. I found a match and lit it for her. She leaned in to light it with a long, slow drag. She was practically in my lap, but even if I liked it, I wasn't about to let it show.
"He's gone missing," she said after releasing more smoke than one would think capable of filling her petite body.
"And you want me to find him," I concluded for her. I couldn't be in my line of work without catching onto at least the blatantly obvious. "Who do ya think's responsible?"
"Oh…I dunno," she replied calmly after another long drag on the cigarette. Funny how she wouldn't look me in the eye. Dames…they could be hysterical over the tiniest things, like leaving the milk out. But then a family member goes missing and their make-up's not even out of place. "My sister would probably no better. But she was too broken up to say when I asked her."
"Right, miss," I agreed without agreeing. "I'll need to talk to her. And a name would do an awful lot to make my job easier."
She raised an eyebrow at me for the sarcasm. But it wasn't a punishment. It felt more like an invitation. To what, I wasn't sure…
"Zelenka," she conceded, aggressively grinding the cigarette out in the crystal ashtray on my desk-a gift, from my secretary, Teyla. Good at what she did, but for some reason her taste was always a bit off-like she had a hard time fitting in with the rest of society.
"There another name to accompany that?" I probed further when she seemed reluctant. For someone hiring a detective to locate a person, she didn't seem that desperate to divulge the information that would help find him.
"Radek," she relented to my inquiry after briefly meeting my gaze with her those flashy green eyes. They revealed too much. That's why she didn't like me seeing them. They held all the emotion her body language lacked. "Radek Zelenka."
With that, she stood up and headed for the door without so much as a 'thank you.' But then she hesitated. And for some reason, my hardened heart skipped a beat.
"Let me know when you find him," she added in a voice that said she could care less. The door shut behind her, rattling the pictures on my wall-also selected by Teyla, a strange variety of landscapes from around the world.
I didn't have to think about it long to know that Miss Elizabeth Weir was hiding something from me. But when did clients ever tell you the whole truth, anyway? That's why they came to private eyes, instead of going to the police…they all had secrets.
…
John groaned as the fog that had settled in his head was burned off by a hot pain in his side. And it made the prospect of regaining conscious not all that appealing. However, being conscious held greater possibilities for escaping the horrible situation that was currently making his life quite unpleasant.
Blinking, the dim light even seemed oppressive to his optic nerves, which were aching in sympathy along with the rest of him for his torn and mended flesh. From what he could tell, he was alone in the little cave-cell.
"Rodney?" he probed the empty space as loudly as his strained voice was capable. All resources had been focused on repairing the gash running along his torso. Functions such as talking, or sitting up apparently had been deemed unnecessary.
It was a toss up as to what was a worse sign, the fact that Rodney was apparently absent from their center of incarceration, or that he felt like he had been run over by a rather large truck. Both made the near future look rather grim and the possibility of a future beyond that unlikely.
He rolled over onto his stomach and gasped as his stomach muscles spasmed, pulling at the heavy stitching closing the six-inch long gash. It took several moments before he was ready to try the next stage in the long ordeal that was getting back onto his feet. He pushed himself up onto his knees and rested for a moment, his heavy breathing bringing something strange to his attention. There was a bizarre tight feeling on his stomach, hot and slightly itchy. He was finally able to detect the sensation, having gotten used to the persistent painful ache of injured flesh.
Lifting up his shirt, he found a bizarre sort of bandage mysteriously fused to his flesh over what had been a chasm carved into his skin and muscle. He didn't have long to contemplate the strangely advanced yet simultaneously primitive looking medical dressing before a shadow was cast across the sandy floor of the cell. John looked up to find its source.
Two guards. And in between them was sandwiched one very unhappy looking MacKay. But at least he resembled a decent sort of sandwich meat, whereas John usually came back looking like shaved rare roast beef, bleeding and in ragged pieces.
The door was opened with its grating squeal, like it too was tortured in the hands of the brutish ogres. McKay stumbled in like he had received a significant shove, which Sheppard did not doubt the man had indeed gotten. And he wasn't sure why, but he snickered as the indignant man turned to stare down the pair that combined were about three or four times the scientist's size. Rodney was afraid of everything. That was until he was insulted or incensed enough, and then he'd berate a nuclear bomb if it had given offense.
Fortunately, the guards simple departed, secure in the knowledge that the smaller man could do nothing, not even if he wasn't on the wrong side of something resembling wrought iron.
"What the hell are you staring at, you lazy…?!" McKay snapped at him as he turned his aggression upon a more stationary source. "I've been working my ass off and trying to figure out a way out of this godforsaken hellhole while you've just been lying around. So don't give me any of your guff!"
"McKay!" he shouted, but the man continued on his pointless tirade. It was difficult for John to feel offended or hurt by the string of insults and profanities, for he knew it was the acerbic scientist's way in stressful situations. So when the man took a break for respiration, John utilized the opportunity to quietly change the subject. He no more wanted to dwell on the agonizing futility of their situation than he wanted to listen to his so-called-friend's bitching and moaning.
"I've been having strange dreams," he announced, leaning against a refreshingly cool rock wall. Mckay gave him a completely astounded look, the wind falling out of his sails. His mouth hung open as his brain failed to catch up to the change in the topic of conversation.
"I feel like my subconscious is trying to tell me something," John continued on in a calm and reserved manner that only seemed to infuriate his cellmate.
"Is now really the best time for dream analysis, Freud?!" McKay snapped back, having finally processed the conversational shift. John simply shrugged nonchalantly, making the mercurial scientist huff in disgust over his blasé acceptance of the situation.
"I think that Elizabeth is keeping something from me," John continued to ignore his comrade's indignant reaction to what seemed like completely random and irrelevant revelations.
"What?!"
"In my dreams, she is keeping secrets from me," John explained. It was really starting to bother him. What had he picked up on, some subtle conspiracy? Did they not get along as well as he had thought? Did she still not trust him for some reason? "I think there's a reason for them."
"Yeah," Rodney conceded whilst rolling his eyes. "Blood loss!"
"Pull it together, Sheppard!" The edgy scientist was really beginning to panic, his inner pessimist was filling an auditorium and the lecture would resound around his head, ringing of the truth. With the colonel losing his mind, as well as being physically incapacitated, that slim sliver of hope that said they could in fact survive this was waning fast.
How could he fix this?
A/N: More Shep Abuse ahead…and some for Rodney, too. Will they ever get it together and escape? Or are they beyond help? Maybe the others will rescue them?
