As soon as Sheppard and his team left, Carson sagged against the flimsy wall. He vaguely wondered exactly what these people were thinking to imprison them in such poorly constructed huts. They must not have been considered "dangerous" if they'd been kept in a place such as this.

Reya moved to his side, her face pale in the moonlight. "You should rest, Carson."

"Aye," he admitted as he looked at her. "How are ye feelin'?"

"Do not worry about me." She glanced away uncomfortably. "You were the one who was flogged."

"Aye, an' I will heal." He stopped her from leading him to the bed. "Reya, ye must take care of yourself right now."

She snorted. "In a prison hut?"

"Aye," he insisted. "Listen, Colonel Sheppard and his team will find Jotham. When they do, they'll return for us. I can hold out for a few days, longer if need be. But I'm worried about ye, lass. What happens if they find Jotham but you're not well enough ta leave?"

That made an impression. She blinked at his blunt question, something Carson regretted momentarily, and glanced away from him. "I am cold. But I know you are as well."

He nodded. The chill was to be expected, as was the weakness in her voice and the way her face blanched as he helped her sit on the low cot. His back pulled painfully against barely-scabbed wounds, but he hadn't lost the amount of blood that she had. He gently laid her down, brushing her tangled hair away from her face when she frowned up at him. "Rest, love. Ye'll be reunited with Jotham soon."

She caught his wrist. "Thank you, Carson."

He smiled, reminded of his sister at that moment. "You're welcome." He spread Ronon's warm coat over her and pulled it gently around her shoulders. She'd curled into a ball, a testament to her true physical condition and tugged the coat a little closer. Her age struck Carson, and he shook his head. She was so young to have to go through a trial such as this, and Ronon's coat made her look even smaller.

With Reya snuggled warmly into the cot, Carson carried the thin blanket to the wall of the hut and eased himself down onto the floor. He couldn't hide the grimace of pain or the deep sigh of relief when he finally made it down, but he did manage to contain the sudden hiss that wanted to escape. As he covered his shoulders with the blanket, he breathed a silent prayer of thanks that it was approaching winter. They'd not have to deal with as many vermin this way. Leaning his head against the thin wall, he allowed his mind to drift.

"What is it like?" Reya's soft question broke the silence. Carson blinked, surprised that he'd managed to doze lightly, and met her eyes. They shined in the weak moonlight and told him that she needed a distraction from the grief and worry that pressed in on her mind.

"You mean Atlantis?"

She shook her head. "No. Your home."

Carson smiled at that. "Scotland. Oh, it's lovely," he said with a deep sigh. "In fact, it looks a lot like your world does. Well, parts of it does. Down near Glasgow an' Edinburgh, 'tis a bit different."

"And does everyone there speak as you do?"

"Ye mean my accent?" He shook his head. "Aye. An' no. Ta be fair, there are a lot of accents in Scotland. People only a few miles from one another can speak totally different dialects. An' there's even a whole 'nother language, called Gaelic, or Scottish Gaelic."

"Do you speak this language?"

"Aye, a bit."

"Say something."

Carson thought for a moment of all the proverbs his mother enjoyed quoting and picked one that best suited their situation. "Innsidh na geòidh as t-fhoghar e. It means, 'All will be revealed in due course.'"

She smiled. "You miss your home."

"Aye, I do." Carson let out a deep breath. "But I have no doubt that I'll see it again."

Reya got the message, that Carson trusted Sheppard to return for them. She opened her mouth to speak again, but noise outside their hut drew their attention. Carson frowned, seeing torchlight approach. Reya moved quickly, shoving the coat she'd been using for warmth under the blanket and gathering up the pile of power bars Sheppard had left. Carson pushed to his feet, unable to suppress the groan this time, and put a hand on the wall of the hut to steady himself. Once steady, he handed the blanket to Reya, seeing how she shivered. He'd only just finished giving it to her when the lock on their hut was disturbed.

The door flung open, and Dougal strode inside. The torch he carried lit the hut brightly, and Carson blinked against the brightness. When it cleared, he realized a second man had crowded into the tiny space. With red hair that came to his shoulders and a closely trimmed beard, it could only be Cashel.

Ignoring Carson, Dougal glared at Reya. "Where is he?"

Reya blinked. "I do not know."

"Do not lie to me!" Dougal's voice rose, and Cashel smiled cruelly behind him. "I know you are aware of his whereabouts. You were married, after all."

Reya pushed to her feet and let her blanket drop to the bed. "We are married, and I do not know." The steel in her voice surprised Carson and told him that she had a bit of her father in her.

Dougal must have realized it, as well. He moved forward with his hand raised as if to strike her. Instead, he met with Carson, who stepped between the two. Barely able to conceal the pain in his back, Carson lowered his chin and glared at the man. His jaw clenched, and he knew from what his mother told him that he could look rather fierce when angered. He allowed that famous Scottish temper to rise, knowing it would protect him.

Dougal's hand, opened as if to slap his daughter, closed into a fist. Quicker than Carson anticipated, he landed a strong right hook directly on Carson's jaw. Carson went down, hearing laughter and Reya's squeaky cry. Her voice still hadn't recovered from her father's initial attack. Carson felt her hands on his shoulder as he turned, already groaning as pressure on his back combined with the headache now roaring behind his eyes and in his jaw. Cashel stood behind Dougal, giggling at the show.

Not allowing Reya's concern to sway him, Carson sat up and glared at Dougal. "Ye'll not get away wi' this. My people will come for me."

"Your people have already come and left, Dr. Beckett." Dougal's voice cut through the air sharply. "They've chosen to leave you to our justice."

"I don't believe you." Carson dragged himself to his feet, unwillingly accepting Reya's help simply to keep up appearances. The last thing he wanted was to collapse back onto the floor because of a wave of dizziness. "Colonel Sheppard doesn't leave people behind. He will return."

Cashel chose that moment to jump into the conversation. "Believe it all you wish, Dr. Beckett. It will not change the truth." He turned to Reya. "As for Jotham, believe me when I tell you that you will not see him again. I will make certain he is never found once I am finished."

Reya's hands began to tremble as they held on to Carson's arm.

Dougal glanced between the two. "Rest assured that we will find him. And, if we do not locate him by morning, we will be back to learn his location." His voice dropped, and he held Carson's gaze as he finished by saying, "No matter how we must extract it from you."

The two men left them alone, and Carson couldn't stop the groan that escaped as his knees buckled. Reya tried to catch him, but she did little more than break his fall. "Carson!"

He nodded as he scooted back against the wall of the hut. "I'll be fine, love." Looking up into her frightened eyes, he put as much confidence into his voice as possible. "Colonel Sheppard will find him," he whispered softly so that no one still listening could possibly overhear. Holding her gaze, he took her hand. "Trust me. He will."

Reya blinked and then nodded before returning to the cot. Carson let her go, no longer caring about the agony in his back. He didn't have the strength to move, anyway. Breaking the silence again, he let out a deep breath. "Reya, dear, do me a favor."

"Anything."

"I hit my head on the way down." He closed his eyes. "I think I have a wee concussion, an' it's makin' me sleepy. Wake me every two or three hours, please."

She moved slightly, rustling around under the cot. "I will try."

"Thank ye."

Just as he started drifting, she shifted again. "I hope men in your country are not like they are here."

Though the situation was dire, he couldn't help but smile dryly. "I promise you they're not."

Nothing more was said, and Carson drifted to sleep.

oOo

Sheppard stormed up to the gate to find Baker and his team already milling around. The lieutenant met his eyes, coming to parade rest in spite of his split lip and cut cheek. "Colonel, please accept my apologies for not. . . ."

"Save it, Baker," Sheppard interrupted. "You couldn't have stopped Beckett any more than I could have."

As McKay started dialing, Baker blinked. "Yes, Sir," he said, surprised.

Sheppard strode toward the event horizon of the wormhole. "Just be ready to head back out as soon as we collect some supplies." He felt the familiar cool rush of wormhole travel and emerged on Atlantis, blinking in the bright afternoon sunshine. Elizabeth rushed down the stairs, taking in the battered team that followed Sheppard. John waved a hand. "Long story short, Beckett took the punishment for a girl who did nothing wrong. He's refusing to leave until she does, and she's refusing to leave until we find her husband."

Elizabeth blinked and floundered for a second. "Okay. What do you need?"

"A Jumper." Sheppard paused. "Has Lorne returned yet?"

"No. He dialed in just a few moments ago to say that they'd been asked to attend a banquet honoring the trade agreement he managed to negotiate." She eyed him. "If you need him, I can recall his team."

"No, we don't have enough time." Sheppard met her eyes. "I need a doctor to meet us at the Jumper bay. Beckett's in bad shape, though he didn't want us to see it. And the girl he's imprisoned with is just as bad."

Elizabeth touched her radio and ordered Dr. Amanda Cole to the Jumper bay. Sheppard nodded his thanks and headed that direction. Once there, he waited impatiently until Cole appeared, feeling as if an hour had passed rather than the fifteen minutes it took her to pack an emergency kit and get geared up. She settled in the rear compartment of the Jumper to take a quick look at Baker and his team while Sheppard powered up the small craft. As they passed through the wormhole back to Dougal's world, she murmured softly to the team behind her.

In all honesty, Sheppard expected to find Jotham with relative ease. The Jumper's life signs detectors should locate single individuals hiding out in caves. Unless, of course, those caves had some sort of mineral that shielded them from scans. Deciding to keep that thought to himself rather than jinx the entire mission, he continued fuming as he flew in a wide circle above the village.

Beckett had no right to do what he'd done. In all the time they'd been on Atlantis, they'd only received ill rewards for trying to help, and Beckett usually took the brunt of it. Just look at Hoff. The good doctor was tenderhearted, yes, but that left him open to all kinds of attacks. Just seeing him strap on a side-arm after the entire incident with Ford and Ronon had stung. That Beckett felt the need to wear a weapon told of the change in his personality. A year ago, he would have hesitated to even pick the thing up. Instead, he'd gone to shooting Ellia when she'd attacked McKay. Men like Sheppard and Ronon were supposed to have that level of calm, not doctors like Beckett.

Even as he thought these things, Sheppard knew that Beckett had acted totally in character. The doctor worked to save lives, and he would have intervened if he felt that Reya wouldn't survive a flogging. He likely believed that he could take the continued punishment better than she, and he'd probably considered Sheppard's commitment to leave no man behind. And, in truth, Reya had looked horrible when they'd seen her an hour or so ago. Sheppard remembered her as pretty but shy, showing only hints of the personality that lay under her calm demeanor. Tonight, she'd been almost white, and her weakness had showed in how breathless she sounded and the slowness of her movements. Something bigger than just a beating had happened to her, and Beckett knew what it was. He was protecting Reya as if she were his younger sister, and Sheppard tried to figure out what he'd missed.

"There." McKay's voice interrupted his thoughts. They'd been flying in a spiral pattern, starting with the village and fanning out. Now, McKay pulled up the HUD and pointed at a single blip on the screen. "That has to be him."

"You're sure?"

"Yes. Look at all the dots closing in around him."

"Cashel and Dougal." Sheppard turned the Jumper in that direction.

McKay nodded. "That would be my guess."

"Okay. We head for him, get him out of there and back on Atlantis." Sheppard glanced over the members of his team, including Baker and Cole in the glance. "Right now, Beckett and Reya are safe. They can hold out for a few more hours while we get Jotham out of here. But we're going to have to be quick. Baker, you and your team stay here, with the doc. I want the Jumper covered in case one of them finds it. Besides, we may need the back up."

Baker and his team nodded their understanding and tightened their grips on their weapons even though they weren't happy about it. Sheppard landed the Jumper near the cave where they suspected Jotham was hiding and jumped out of his chair. Ronon followed him, and he felt Teyla fall into step. Turning on the flashlight attached to his P90, he moved into the darkness.

The cave was damp and smelled horrible. Water dripped from somewhere in the rear, and Sheppard blinked into the inky darkness. Even the light from his P90 couldn't penetrate some of the shadows. Ronon shifted uneasily, and that made Sheppard's skin crawl. Someone was in here, stalking them. And, because of the darkness, he couldn't see him.

"John!" Teyla's shout brought his head around, and he saw the movement in time to duck. A long, thick branch whistled over his head and would have knocked him to the ground if he hadn't moved quick enough. Ronon's blaster whined, but Sheppard didn't get out of the way. He rushed the form he now saw, pushing the man into the wall of the cave. His attacker's satisfying "umph" was lost on him.

Jotham—if this was, indeed, Jotham—was a bit larger than Sheppard expected. After looking at Reya, he'd anticipated finding a boy not much older than she was. Instead, this man had the size of a blacksmith, along with the resulting strength. His dirty blond hair fell over his ears in stringy waves, a testament to his own fight for survival. And he was just as battered as Reya and Carson. "Who are you?"

Sheppard stepped back from him when he felt the fight go out of the guy. "Who are you?"

"My name is Jotham." The man's blue eyes scanned the group. "You are not from the village?"

"No." Sheppard grabbed his arm. "But people from the village will be here soon if we don't get out of here."

"I cannot leave!" Jotham pulled his arm from Sheppard's grip. "My wife has been unjustly imprisoned, and I must find a way to free her."

Sheppard opened his mouth to reply, but Teyla interrupted. "Your wife is safe. She is with a member of our expedition and will be reunited with you shortly. Now, we must move before the villagers arrive."

McKay, who had been keeping an eye on the hand-held life-signs detector, shook his head. "Too late."

Thinking quickly, Sheppard waved to the rest of his team, and they extinguished their flashlights. The resulting darkness blinded all of them, but the brightness of the moon soon made an impression. Ronon moved to the cave's entrance and peered out. Sheppard joined him.

Men with torches already moved along the openings of the various caves in this area. Though Sheppard had left the Jumper cloaked—along with Cole and Baker inside—they had no way of getting there without drawing undue attention. He heard Dougal shout out orders to his men to "spare no life," and he ground his teeth together to silence a growl. He turned to the group. "Ideas?"

~TBC