Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis and its characters belong to their respective owners.
When Antal climbed up the slope to the cliff side, the crevasse was so black and so fathomless, his heart clenched in fear that John had wandered off. He raised Tosia's lamp, and squinting, he finally made out a solid shadow that when he stepped closer, materialized into John's huddled form.
Antal rushed inside the rock enclave and crouched beside the older man, placing the lamp beside them. John had curled up on his side in a tight, shivering ball. His face was tucked down, turned into the deep hood of his cloak, and only a few strands of dark hair were visible.
"John?" Antal whispered, not wishing to frighten the other man, his breath misting like tendrils of fog in the freezing air. When John didn't react, Antal grasped his shoulder and lightly shook him. John gasped and startled badly. He shoved instinctively at the young man, and Antal toppled onto his backside with a squawk. Moving with the astonishing speed that always caught Antal by surprise, John scrabbled away from him, to the opposite corner. Antal couldn't make out John's expression through the deep shadows obscuring his face – only a flash of teeth and the whites of his eyes – but Antal could tell that John was scared.
"John, it is all right," Antal told him, slowly raising the lamp again. He shined it on his own face. "Look! It is me! Antal!"
John blinked at him, bleary-eyed with cold and the remnants of sleep. Squinting against the blue-tinged light, he surprised Antal by cautiously shuffling closer to him. The young man grinned and patted John on the shoulder. He was shivering so hard that he was almost vibrating. Antal could even hear John's teeth rattling together, and a pang of sympathy for the other man rushed through him.
"I am sorry we took so long to come get you, John, but Tosia said that we had to wait until it was all dark outside," Antal explained. "We even had to go out to the barn first and sneak through the back door. Tosia says it's important that this is a secret and no one sees us. But we must go now, all right, John?"
John watched him carefully, not moving, his posture still hunched and tensed.
"Come, John, we must go to the ruins." Antal took hold of John's left arm and lightly pulled it. John winced and yanked free. Shaking his head from side to side in negation, he wrapped both arms tight around his chest, rocking slightly. "John, we cannot stay here," Antal said, hoping he wouldn't have to force the other man to come along with him. "It is too cold, and Tosia is waiting for us."
John shook his head with greater vehemence and pressed his back hard against the rough stone wall. "S…s-stay," he whispered around chattering teeth, "w-w-wait."
"Oh!" Understanding dawned on Antal. "No, no – it is all right to leave now! Tosia says you must come with me, because she wants you to come with us to the ruins." Antal turned and pointed down the slope to the snow covered ground. "Tosia's right down there waiting for us. See her?" John's gaze followed Antal's hand, but Antal couldn't tell if the other man was able to see very far in the bleak darkness. "Tosia says that she's too old and too cranky to go climbing around on all these rocks all day, but you must come now so we can go with her to the ruins. You remember the ruins, don't you?"
Antal watched John for any sign of response. Save for the twin ruddy patches on his cheeks and the starkly contrasting bruise darkening his eye, John's skin was milky white with cold. Then he met Antal's gaze, and his lips moved soundlessly a few times. "'L-lan…tiss," he managed after a moment, in a soft, but firm voice.
Antal blinked, unsure what John meant by that, but decided it was best to agree with him. "Would you like to go there?" he asked carefully. "I'll take you there, if you want?"
John continued to stare into Antal's dark eyes, then nodded once – a short jerk of his head. Antal reached out his hand, but didn't attempt to touch John again and just waited. John's gaze shifted to the young man's strong, proffered hand and stayed there for a seemingly interminable amount of time. Just as Antal was about to give up and pull his hand back, John cautiously took it and allowed Antal to help him to his feet. He pulled away after that, but followed close behind Antal as he clambered down the short, icy slope.
At the bottom, Tosia stood shivering in her heavy layers of cloak, shawl and woolen blanket draped over her shoulders. She smiled at John when he stepped beside her and touched his cold, bruised cheek. "I told you I would come back for you, didn't I, Gaereth?"
Tromping through the deep snow to Tosia's other side Antal frowned at her. "Tosia, that's John."
The old woman scowled in confusion then shook her head, irritated with herself for the lapse. "Of course it is John," she sputtered. "A mere slip of the tongue, Antal. Let us go now before my old bones turn into brittle icicles."
The walk to the ruins was one of the longest Tosia could recall in her ample lifetime. With each step, it became more and more difficult to lift her feet high enough to clear the deep snow. With each step, daggers of pain shot through her hips, and the only good thing about that was that the agony overrode the constant burning in her side.
Her feet tangled in the heavy snow, and she fell suddenly, losing her grip on John's arm and landing right in front of him. He had to pull up short in a side step so that he wouldn't trip over her. Rolling onto her back, Tosia marveled at how soft the snow was. Like a blanket. If it weren't so cold, she'd want to curl up in it and sleep forever.
Antal, who had been walking a few steps ahead, turned when he realized that John and the old woman had fallen behind. "Tosia!" he exclaimed, rushing back and dropping to his knees beside her.
John stood hovering over them, blinking, snowflakes catching in his eyelashes. Tosia squinted up at him and thought of Gaereth's snow-filled eyes. How she longed to see him again... Antal babbled something at her but she couldn't focus on his words. The ground tilted all of a sudden, and it took a moment for her to realize that Antal held her cradled in his arms, as easily as if she were a small child. She heard him say something about going home.
"No!" Tosia protested, shaking her head, giving herself a mental shake. She had to stop this nonsense. She still had much to do, aching hips, wandering mind and infuriating old age be damned. "Antal, put me down," she ordered. "We are not going home. We are going to the ruins. We are almost there." She pushed against Antal's chest when he didn't loosen his grip. "Antal! Let go!" He reluctantly released her, and with his help, she slid back to her feet.
"But Tosia, you mustn't…" Antal said, his face stricken.
"We are going to the ruins, Antal," she gasped. She looked at John who stood shivering uncontrollably, watching them both with a bewildered expression. Snow dusted his dark hair, and his lashes were still flecked with white. Tosia reached up and carefully brushed the flakes away. He blinked, scrunched his eyes shut a moment, but held still. Tosia smiled at him. "I made you a promise, didn't I, John?"
Once they reached the ruins, it didn't take long for them to unbury the window. Antal was more than willing to do the work while Tosia sat lightly dozing on the cold ground, leaning up against John, his bundled-up frame sheltering her from some of the wind.
When the window was uncovered, Antal cleared away the edges only to find the hard, impenetrable metal that Tosia knew would be there. She pondered the dilemma of how to get inside her lab without bringing the remaining precarious structuring down upon them. Moving closer to peer at the thick safety glass, she noticed it was badly cracked along the lower edge, by the ground.
Then she remembered the gun. She hadn't disposed of it after all, only hidden it in a crate in the barn. When she and Antal had slunk out there like thieves in the night, she hadn't at the time known why she'd decided to take the gun with her. Pulling the primitive weapon from within the folds of her cloak, she wondered if she could figure out its mechanics. She, of course, had seen similar weapons put to use many, many times before, but to fire one herself? That was another story.
Positioning the muzzle of the gun close to the deepest crack, she cautioned Antal to move John and himself back. She took a deep breath and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. She tried again with the same result. Cursing under her breath, she wondered if the weapon were not fully charged, or if it perhaps was defective.
John surprised her by stepping up behind her and closing his hand around hers and the gun. Fumbling, his heavily bandaged fingers making the motion awkward, he adjusted something on the side of the gun, a little button as far as Tosia could make out. Then he slid the top of the gun back and released it with a loud click, making her jump. He kept one hand around the weapon, holding it steady. He pressed the tip of his bandaged index finger of his other hand against the one Tosia still held on the trigger. Tosia sucked in a breath, held still and prayed that her implicit trust in John were merited. He aimed at the fissure and lightly squeezed her finger.
The resulting boom and kickback caught Tosia so by surprise that she stumbled back against him. Then she let out a breathless whoop when she saw the fist-sized hole that had blossomed in the fissure. Antal stared at both of them in wide-eyed astonishment, his hands clamped over his ears, as though imitating John's actions of the weeks past. John stood tensed, his gaze focused, every inch the soldier again.
Tosia squeezed the trigger one more time, firing again and again, John holding her arm steady, his body bracing her against the impact. The safety glass crackled and splintered around them, then a large piece fell away, disappearing inside.
Tucking the gun back in her cloak, Tosia took hold of the pole she'd used to mark the place and banged it on the remaining crackled glass. Antal, realizing what she was doing, jumped down beside her and began kicking at it. Glass creaked and groaned like ice breaking over a lake. More glass fell away inside the lab, and there was finally a hole large enough to slip through.
Antal crouched down, cupped his hands beside his eyes and peered inside. "What is this place, Tosia?" His voice was quiet, almost reverential. "Why didn't you tell me this was here?"
"John was the one who found it," she answered truthfully.
Antal turned to look at John, then at his hands, at once realizing the manner in which he had injured himself. "He shouldn't have done that by himself. I could have helped him dig," Antal said almost remorsefully.
Tosia smiled at her grandson. "Yes, you could have. I am sure if John were able to, he would have asked you for your help." Tosia shivered and clutched her cloak tighter around her neck, nearly swaying on her feet with fatigue.
"Why did we come here, Tosia?" Antal asked, scowling at her in confusion and concern. "Why don't we go home and come back tomorrow, when it's not so cold and when you are feeling better?"
"I wish we could," Tosia said, blinking tiredly, "but John cannot come home with us, Antal." She pointed at the hole in the glass. "He will be safer here, inside, where it is warmer."
"But why—"
"Antal, please. Enough questions, now," Tosia said, waving her hand. She painfully got to her own knees, peered through the glass and pondered how best for them to climb into the room without injuring themselves. There was a great deal of debris – fallen shelves, smashed bottles and vials so old they had almost reverted to their original sand, decayed, moldering books, and what she recognized as her flattened desk.
It was maybe a six-foot drop from the hole they had created. Not far, but far enough for her to easily break her legs if she weren't careful. And wouldn't that be a bitter irony, Tosia thought, almost chuckling at the thought. To come all this way only to shatter herself like those broken vials on the floor of her own laboratory?
"Tosia, how are we going to get down?" Antal asked softly, for fear of further irritating her and unknowingly voicing her own question.
As though in reply, John lightly pushed past Antal, crouched down to grasp the outside edges of the thick glass, swung his legs forward, and before Tosia could shout for him to be careful, he jumped in. Like a cat, he twisted and dropped to the one empty spot on the floor, easily landing on his feet.
Tosia stared down at him a moment, stunned, then muttered under her breath, "To be that young and agile again..."
Antal grinned down at John and positioned himself in the same manner. He slid his feet into the hole, looking down uncertainly.
"Careful, Antal," Tosia cautioned.
The young man nodded, sucked in a deep breath and then pushed himself off the glass ledge. Unlike John, he landed hard and crashed into the toppled bookshelf, bringing down mummified books on top of him in a shower of dust and loose pages.
Tosia darted her head inside, her heart pounding. "Antal! Are you all right?"
He slowly sat up and called out a shaky 'yes.' He absently rubbed the back of his head and stared around the cluttered room in amazement. To his right, fragments of boulders and dirt spilled in around the partially collapsed ceiling and outer walls. He smelled ash, wet soil and decay. There was a very faint humming, droning sound all around him, so low, he hadn't at first noticed it, seemingly coming from everywhere and nowhere all at the same time.
A broken piece of curved stone with strange symbols encircling its surface lay half-buried in the muck. A few shattered glyphs, like the ones he had found on the surface lay near his hand. Long, metallic columns had toppled into the piles of dirt and rock, their sheared-off ends jutting out like broken bones. Antal looked up at the one thick column that remained intact, and though he didn't realize it, that column was the only thing keeping the remainder of the ceiling from toppling down upon them.
John, he noticed, was leaning over some sort of carved counter, running his hands over it. With each pass of his bandaged hand, the intact portions of the room came to life. Tiny lights blinked on, and the humming grew louder, groaning like a sleeping beast accidentally wakened.
"Antal!"
Antal nodded absently and clambered to his feet, still staring in wonder, turning in a slow circle. The place was like a magical world he had stumbled upon. A world he would have imagined in his dreams, had he known something like this even existed.
"Antal – stop gawping and help me down!" Tosia shouted, pounding a fist against the glass in frustration. She shook her head in bemusement when Antal smacked himself in the forehead and rushed over to where she waited.
Looking around, he found a wide metal stool that was miraculously intact, set in down just beneath Tosia's dangling legs and clambered onto it. Tosia slid in a few feet and Antal reached up, grasped her around her waist and carefully helped her down.
Tosia didn't allow herself to look at everything too closely just yet. Instead, she focused on her grandson and set her jaw. "Now, you must go home, Antal, and tell your mother that John and I are all right. But you must not tell anyone, not even Lasca about this place, do you understand?"
"But Tosia..."
"Do as I say, Antal!" Tosia said sharply. She was so tired she felt as though she were floating.
"But how are you going to get home? You said that John must stay here, but you must come home with me. You cannot walk through all that snow by yourself."
"You are right, I cannot walk all that way. In fact, I am far too tired to walk another step," she said truthfully, "so I will stay here with John. We will both be just fine until morning. See, it is much warmer in here," she reassured him.
And it was warmer. The air was cool, but tolerable, and the lab well insulated. Tosia herself had seen to that. Yes, they would be all right until morning. And then she would have to figure out what to do next.
"Then I will stay, too," Antal stated, jutting his jaw.
"Antal, I promised your mother we would be home soon. You must go back now or she will go out looking for us," Tosia ordered, and gave her grandson a none too gentle shove, turning him in the direction of the dark hole. She could see snowflakes swirling just outside. "Go now. No more arguments."
Antal sighed with resignation, gave the room one last awed appraisal, then nodded. He climbed back onto the stool, wobbling slightly and pulled himself out. Tosia was about to let out a breath of relief when Antal stuck his head back in.
"Tosia?"
"What is it, Antal?" Tosia said, barely containing her impatience.
"I will come for you at first light, all right?"
"All right – now go!" Tosia waved her hand in a shooing gesture. "And go back the same way we came! Do not let anyone see you, remember?"
"I remember," Antal said in an irritated, sing-songy voice, and disappeared into the night.
Tosia turned away from the window and jumped when a bright light winked on, then off. She turned to John, but he wasn't touching or pressing anything. Instead, he was gazing up the far wall, at the light that was embedded inside. Tosia marveled that it still even worked after all these years. It blinked on again, bright, almost too bright, then slowly faded, illuminating the small room in a soft glow.
Tosia stared at John. There was no way he could be controlling the lights. Only those born in the great city could do that. No, she decided, the lights must simply be malfunctioning.
With the room illuminated in the muted light, Tosia was clearly able to see what was left of her lab, and old memories rose to the surface. Watching the first villagers through the monitors, observing their actions, studying the changing climate of their artificially created society and landscape. Laughing with her colleagues over trivial matters when they grew bored of their test subjects. Packing up and returning back home through the gate, leaving their subjects to their miserable existences while she and her fellow scientists shared warm, plentiful meals and slept in soft, comfortable beds.
Her gaze drifted to what was left of the gate – the one they had placed down here to easily come and go, and for the eventual possibility that the society they'd created would one day become advanced enough to travel and trade with other civilizations. All that remained of the gate was a three-foot curve of broken stone, and the sight brought a rush of grief for her old, long ago life.
John wandered the room, running his fingers along the one solid wall, shuffling his feet through the debris on the floor. He went to the far back corner, and Tosia saw, crusted with dirt and scattered bits of debris, that the circular, cargo transporter still stood. They had still been testing its capabilities and hadn't used it much, and it was seemingly, amazingly intact. Her heart leapt with an odd surge of hope. She followed John, her heart racing, skipping a beat or two with excitement, with inexplicable fear… and this could not be…
Tosia laid her hand flat on the outside panel and waited, but nothing happen. She shouldn't have been disappointed, but she was. She let her hand drop.
Watching her with his head tilted speculatively, John stared at the same panel. Almost casually, he passed his own hand over it. The doors shuddered, then slid open with a faint grinding noise. The tracks of lights inside lit up, one by one.
Tosia gasped and stood staring in wonderment. Was it even possible...? she thought, her heart racing even faster. No, the city sleeps, she reminded herself. There is no one left to waken it… But oh... to see it again. Just one more time...
John turned to look at her, and his face lit up with a startlingly radiant smile. Then he stepped inside.
"John, no!"
Without thinking, Tosia, moving faster than she thought her old bones would allow, hurled herself in after him. John caught her, holding her up and a loud humming noise filled her head, thrummed in her bones. John laughed with sudden childlike, joyous delight.
Something tugged at her and though she could still feel John's arms supporting her, she was suddenly weightless, floating, drifting, pulling...
And then the world went silent and white.
---tbc---