Another planet, another eerily familiar environment. John almost shuddered at the by-now-expected feeling of discomfort he experienced each time a new world felt too...normal. He was an entire galaxy away from Earth, millions of light years, even, from Atlantis that was, lately, beginning to feel more like home than anywhere on Earth ever had. It just wasn't right that this place should be here. A little piece of Earth, so far from Earth, was simply laughable.
At least that damn planet with the psychotic super-wraith had offered some variety, he thought, trying to shake off the unease. Week-long days and nights, glow bugs... That planet had the guts to act Alien!
Rodney wandered around in little circles, pointing his hand scanner this way and that as John refocused his attention on the offending surroundings. The Stargate sat in a wide meadow surrounded by, guess what, richly forested hillsides, making him feel like a little dollop of meat in a bowl of vegetation. The wide, hard-packed road that led away from the Stargate towards a tunnel through the forest vegetation offered sharp, brown contrast to the overwhelming green. It also indicated habitation, as he'd never yet met a road that had ground itself into existence.
"Teyla?" His quiet question brought her closer. "You recognize this place yet? Any of your people been here before?"
"No, I do not think so," she replied after another moment of consideration. "The symbols were not familiar, and I do not recognize this unusual type of flower." She knelt to prod, with gentle fingers, a delicate purple blossom that folded up at her touch only to pop open again a moment after her hand was removed.
"Uh." John grunted, feeling a little bit better. He had little interest in flowers, but the odd blooms went a little way towards making this place feel a little more unique. "Let's go find out what we can, then. Elizabeth still wants a beta site. Maybe these folks will be the friendly type that don't mind campers on their doorstep now and again."
He looked at the path before him, surprised at the reluctance he felt in moving forward. Deciding that he just needed to push through whatever was disturbing him, he took point and with a sloppy wave, gestured his team to follow. To his surprise, Rodney was closest on his heels, for once so engrossed in his readings he remained remarkably silent. After about 10 steps, the silence became unnerving and John swiveled in his tracks. "What!" he blurted out, waving his arms as he continued their ground chewing pace.
McKay jerked his head up, startled, then looked around as if unsure of whom Sheppard was speaking to. "What, 'what'?"
"What whatever has got you so interested in a damn meadow!"
McKay rolled his eyes, "Is there any reason I shouldn't be interested in it?"
"You hate field work!"
"Now that's not true!" Rodney was immediately defensive, and the very faint tone of hurt in his voice nudged Sheppard's conscience. "I tend to enjoy most of our missions away from Atlantis. Those that don't involve certain death or certain boredom that is. The Pegasus galaxy has benefited greatly from my presence." He sniffed importantly, and tried to return to his readings. At Sheppard's long, piercing stare, however, Rodney's mouth twitched and he added in a rush, "Ok, I'll admit I'm not usually very fond of field work in actual fields."
"So?" Sheppard found himself uncharacteristically annoyed by the banter he usually enjoyed.
"So...what?"
John tried another tactic, forcing down the urge to slap McKay up the back of his head. "So...Are you reading anything? Any power-flux-capacitor signatures or swarms of flying monkeys heading our way?"
"No. Nothing unusual at all. Nothing remotely interesting. Not...a bit...odd." Rodney's voice trailed off as he got lost in the readings again as they continued walking towards the tree line. Another swell of unease flooded John's chest.
"What, Rodney?" John's voice was no longer annoyed, but softly anxious and coaxing.
McKay shrugged. "It just seems familiar here. I keep having the odd feeling that I've scanned this place before."
John stopped walking. "Are you sure there's nothing here?" He looked at the forest just ahead. The path leading into the trees seemed dim and gloomy from the warm bright sunshine of the meadow.
"Nothing," McKay replied confidently, if a bit reluctantly. "The village we picked up on the UAV flyby is still too far away for this device to detect yet."
John stood squinting down the path for several long moments. Teyla and Ronon gathered close, curious at the pause, but waiting patiently for whatever he might decide. John was not by nature a superstitious man, but he had also learned to trust his own gut feelings on matters of safety.
"All right. Keep your eyes open people." He shouldered his P-90 into a crisp, ready position and began to stalk along the path again. Ronon and Teyla exchanged a puzzled look, but also readied their weapons and followed.
The wary group was a few yards from the edge of the forest's borders when John just barely hesitated again. In the fraction of a second he slowed his already cautious pace, he lowered his weapon an inch or two to turn his head towards McKay, planning to ask for one more scan before they walked under the shadows.
The bullet slammed into his chest, the force of the impact throwing him backwards and off his feet.
Oh, crap, he thought. I hate it when I'm right about this stuff.
His shoulders slammed into the dusty, hard-packed earth and the back of his head snapped down after, sending sparks of light into his vision and whiting out the mostly green landscape around him. The fall knocked the wind out of him, and in that moment of unnatural silence, he could hear shouting and gunfire around him. Teyla and Ronon laying down cover fire, he thought with some satisfaction. McKay's voice surfaced above the noise.
"The shooter's in the trees! The bullet came from a higher trajectory. Shoot up! Shoot up!"
Ok, not the most accurate command language, but McKay's certainly getting a lot better at this type of thing. At last, his stunned breathing reflex reset and John took a welcome, gasping breath. The moment of relief was quickly replaced by sheer agony as his damaged chest and lungs protested the very motion of breathing itself. The hard-won inhale fought its way out of John's throat in a growling howl of pain. The next breath seared even more deeply into his mind, and his vision greyed out for a moment.
"McKay, stay with Sheppard." John felt the tremors of a heavy set of feet pounding away towards the forest. And, although her footsteps were as light as rain itself, John sensed that Teyla was also in pursuit of the enemy that had just ruined his whole day. A shadow fell across his eyelids, and John squeezed his eyes shut even tighter and tried to roll his face into the cool grass. He realized his hands were clutched to his chest and that he was pressing against himself in a useless attempt to ease the agony of merely breathing. For some reason the hands felt slippery and warm.
"Hold still, Colonel. I'm just going to, um, bandage you up here." Rodney's voice was shaky and high-pitched, but the hands that John felt on his shoulder were firm, reassuring.
McKay pushed John onto his back, then suddenly gasped a startled, "Oh...no." Even through his tightly closed eyes, John could almost see Rodney flinch as he caught his first full sight of the extent of the damage. "Well, now. About that bandage." Rodney's voice rose another step or two. John thrashed his head, feeling his lungs fill with blood and his breaths grow shallower. He felt McKay pry his hands away from his chest, and felt the pressure of his friend's hands against the source of the penetrating agony. John moaned, then coughed violently, wrenching out of Mckay's grasp, and curled into a ball on his side. A sharp metallic taste curled his lips into a grimace.
At least the last time the damn bullet had the courtesy to pretty much kill me instantly. John finally realized his own thought, then added Huh? Where the hell did that come from? Before he could think any more, he became aware of Rodney insistently yapping at his shoulder, his words tumbling out so rapidly that Sheppard dully began to wonder when the man would take a breath.
"Sheppard! Listen, I know you think you outrank me and all that military chain of command crap. And I'm certainly the last person you'd ever take any advice from. But I do know a few things about medicine from my experience in dealing with my own many personal medical issues, so I happen to think it would really help if you could stop writhing around and let me deal with that wound! I'm pretty sure even Carson would agree that the amount of blood you are losing is not...healthy." At that, McKay's voice cracked and John felt him wipe away a trickle of warmth from the corner of his mouth with a tenderness that contrasted sharply with the forced bite of his words.
But John made no effort to roll over again or allow Rodney to address the wound any further. He could feel his air becoming shallower with each ragged breath. His heart raced with a weakening flutter as it vainly tried to re-pressurize his damaged vascular system, instead only pumping out the vital fluid all the more quickly. John Sheppard knew he was bleeding out, and he knew how little time he had left. With the realization came a kind of uneasy accpetance. He felt lightheaded and dizzy, but with a massive effort, John forced open his eyes and rolled his head enough to catch Rodney's face.
"McKay..." he croaked, the sound barely a ragged whisper. Involuntarily, McKay turned at the sound and his eyes locked on John's, reacting with shocked hurt to the wounded man's silent confession.
"Sheppard, please don't..." The words were quietly pleading. John saw fear, sorrow, and a deeply buried compassion in the often arrogant scientist's eyes.
Don't really want to. Damn sniper insisted, though. We're... we're good, right?
Rodney's eyes widened in surprise and swelling grief as he recognized his own words returning to him. Yeah! Of course. We're good.
The dizzyness grew even more disorienting, and John's vision began to swim. With a rising fear John suddenly experienced a flash of insight, and reached blindly to grab at McKay's arm, leaving bloody streaks on the man's jacket sleeve and yet, fiercely maintaining his gaze. McKay! This is wrong. Something is wrong.
You're dying! Of course that's wrong! That's the atomic bomb of wrong, the holocaust of wrong. This whole damn thing is very very wrong!
No. More than that. You felt it too... Been here, done this before. Don't...want...to do...it...again. McKay's eyes narrowed in careful consideration and John could read the crackling flow of intellect as his brilliant friend took hold of John's half-formed idea and began to process it.
Somewhat satisfied and no longer able to fight the pain, John closed his eyes and trembled, waiting for the rest of his life to drain away. A choking, drowning sensation seized him soon after and he gasped and spluttered for air that would not come. He felt his shoulders being lifted gently, a strong arm supporting his head, and the sensation of drowning eased a little. Somehow he knew that Teyla and Ronon had returned. A gentle pressure in his ears began to expand into a pillow of suffocating blackness. Feebly squeezing the hand that held his, one last time, he sank slowly into the numbness and knew no more.