And now, the conclusion of our story...
John Sheppard stepped out of the shimmering Stargate, took a single, deliberate step further and planted his hands on his hips. With a deep shuddering breath he scanned the horizon, squinting in the bright clear sunshine, and then turned his head slightly at the splut of sound behind him. Rodney McKay emerged, muttering as usual, and moved to stand off to Sheppard's right. Their two shadows stretched out long before them, and John twisted to look back over his shoulder at the glowing orange orb that peeked out just above the rim of the still shimmering 'gate. The ground at John's feet was dewey and cool, despite the growing warmth of the air, and the pale blue sky had a crystal freshness about it.
God, I hate this place, he thought, fighting the urge to laugh manically and shoot himself in the head. Instead, he fiddled in his pocket, drawing out his sunglasses as Ronon and Teyla soon stepped up next to him, taking their own careful survey of the perimeter. Still outwardly calm, John brought the shades to his eyes and froze as the sunlight streaming over his shoulder reflected on the bent and twisted frame, the cracked lenses. His hands shook violently for a moment, then he shakily put the glasses back in his pocket.
McKay was wandering around in little circles, waving his hand scanner around. "You sure we've never been here before? Seems really familiar somehow…"
"Is that right." John's voice was soft and strangled.
Ronon was shifting restlessly at John's left shoulder, either remembering or just picking up on the tension John knew he must be radiating like toxic waste. "McKay's right. I recognize the tree line and the way the path enters the forest."
"You don't say." John hung his head for a long moment, kicking a shoe into the damp grass and crushing a delicate purple flower into unrecognizable pulp -- gathering his courage. He was well aware of Teyla's concerned gaze upon him. He didn't look at her for a long time, but when he finally stilled his feet and met her gaze, his face was cold and firm with determination. The sound of her crying out as she fell by the DHD was something he remembered all too well. He would not allow that to happen again.
"Well then." John took a single step forward, clutching at his weapon for security. "We should get the hell out of here. McKay," he interrupted the voluble scientist's protest even before it started, "shut it. I'll dial the 'gate. You all…wait here." He felt deceitful as he left the warm circle of puzzled friends, but he was almost certain that they would not be harmed if they stayed away from the DHD. He just hoped they wouldn't try to dial out themselves until he'd had a chance to finish his part of the job. If he was successful, then they could leave in…well, perhaps not peace. But they could leave.
He licked his lips nervously as he hurried towards the DHD. He didn't expect to make it that far. A few more steps flowed under his feet and he broke out in a cold sweat. Angrily, he tried to control the panic that was compelling him to run away as far as he could go. Then he swallowed the worry that anger would only keep him from his task. A few more steps passed.
The first bullet slammed into his thigh, dropping him to one knee with a surprised grunt, twisting him slightly to the left. The second bullet, hard on the heels of the first, ripped through the soft flesh of his side and kept going, deep into his belly.
So this is a bit different, John thought distractedly as he doubled over and dropped to plant his face in the grass. He'd been expecting another chest wound. Some small part of his mind was pleased that he hadn't tried to rush the DHD as a group again. There were clearly two snipers in the forest today.
The shock-induced detachment was quickly overwhelmed by utter torture as his friends reached his fallen body. Teyla was hastily pushing him over with concerned shouts and panicky queries. John let escape a screaming howl of pain at the movement and was suddenly terrified that it was too much -- there was too much pain to do it. He needed to be calm, to concentrate, but the belly wound was more excruciating than anything he'd yet endured. Who the hell knew THAT could ever happen, he thought desperately, trying to control himself.
A sudden thought brought a surge of resolve. "Ronon!" he gasped.
The Satedan was just shifting his snarl of rage towards the forest line.
"Stay here. Need you here." His words were barely a growl.
"Sheppard, I can…"
John could see the desperation on his friend's face, the need to be DOING something that was so comfortingly familiar. He didn't have the strength to explain. "That's…an… order." Ronon would have his chance.
Gritting his teeth, John lifted his head. Ronon had moved to stand in a protective tower between the group on the ground and the forest, but he was there. John flopped his head down and groaned again, a long exhale of released anguish. Through squinted eyes, he watched his friends hovering over him, efficient in their care, their worry and fear clearly showing in their expressive faces, but not allowing it to hamper their work. Their completely useless, hopeless work. He knew they couldn't save him. He didn't want them to…
Teyla was digging in her first-aid pocket, but with a surprised look, came up empty and exclaimed to Rodney who was on the other side, awkwardly pressing John's shoulder into the ground against his current tendency to try to roll over back onto his face. "I have no field compresses, my pocket is empty."
Rodney quickly flipped up his own pocket's flap. "Mine too."
Already scrabbling at John's own vest, Teyla pulled out one of the tightly folded, absorbent pads. She was slapping it into the gaping hole in his side even as she snapped the command, "Give me all of your compresses, Ronon."
Two also-neatly folded bandages dropped lightly onto John's chest. Rodney snatched for one and began clumsily wrapping it around John's bloody thigh.
John began to shiver with shock, and he felt McKay's hands on his shoulders again. This is taking too damn long! He snarled in the privacy of his terrified mind. It's taking too long to die. It hurts too damn much, and it's taking too damn long. He growled a deep, low sound of frustration, burying his face in his hands. His teeth began to chatter, too.
"Sheppard?" Rodney's voice was equally low, unusually concerned. John cracked his eyes open and dropped his arms. Their eyes met and held for a long, uncomfortable moment.
Then John closed his eyes.
"McKay. Whatever happens to me, get to the 'gate when the time comes," he whispered.
Rodney couldn't shake the feeling that something was terribly, horribly wrong. He'd seen Sheppard injured before. Hell, he'd even seen Sheppard die before…and where had that thought come from? But something, now, was wrong with the way the man lay on the ground, avoiding their eyes.
As he clumsily tied Ronon's field compress around Sheppard's bloody leg, he shot quick glances at the Air Force Colonel's face. The man was shivering with shock. He buried his face in his hands and grunted in frustration. Not in pain, although Rodney could tell there was incredible pain, but…frustration. He's not fighting! He expected this, he's just waiting it out? Thought McKay, suddenly frightened by what could cause Sheppard, of all people, to give up.
"Sheppard?" Rodney's voice was low, unusually concerned. Teyla was still frantically distracted, trying to control the more serious abdominal wound. John cracked his eyes open and dropped his hands away from his face. Their eyes met and held for a long, uncomfortable moment.
Sheppard's mind was blank, unreadable. Only a strange, quiet plea for Rodney to stay with him – for a little while – whirled in the cold depths.
Then John closed his eyes.
"McKay. Whatever happens to me, get to the 'gate when the time comes," he whispered.
"Sure, sure. Of course." McKay felt desperate to say anything that Sheppard wanted to hear. He couldn't bear the suffering acceptance he was seeing from the man he expected to go out screaming and kicking, or at the very least with a sarcastic remark. Actually, he'd never expected the man to go out at all.
Sheppard started mumbling to himself soon after. His body still shivered with the effects of shock, but John's face seemed contorted in concentration. Rodney leaned close to throw more of his weight against John's shoulders during a particularly violent shudder. He caught some of the mumbled words… and froze with a concentration of his own. His mind flashed recognition and then exploded with memories, the impact of the visions almost palpable.
He suddenly knew exactly what Sheppard was trying to do. Holy cow, Sheppard really is insane, he thought. It was a solution more drastic than McKay had ever seen the man attempt. Thinking for a moment more, he began fumbling again in his first-aid pocket, ultimately coming up empty.
"Teyla! My morphine is gone. Give me yours." At the very least, he could maybe help the insane man out a little, Rodney had decided.
Teyla was nearing tears as she was reaching the end of her abilities to help John. She shook her head as if she'd already considered the option, then drew herself together, making a command decision. "John doesn't like it. He won't take it. We need to get him out of here, we need to dial the 'gate."
"John needs it if he's really going to try what I think he's going to try. And we won't make it out of here alive, either, if he fails."
A spring-loaded ampoule dropped lightly from above onto John's chest for Rodney to snatch up and jam into the man's uninjured thigh. "McKay?" Ronon growled.
"He's trying to ascend! He's going to try to ascend. I think the being that's been keeping us here, that's been torturing Sheppard over and over, is an Ancient. Sheppard's going to try to fight it on it's own turf." McKay leaned over John's face again to watch the narcotic's effect take place. "Trust me, Sheppard, it's hard enough to do without pain…" Rodney whispered.
Teyla and Ronon simply stared, frozen in disbelief. Finally, Teyla shook her head aggressively and also leaned over to John. Her voice sounded sharp and pleading. "John, no. Don't do this. We'll get you home." She turned to Ronon and stood ungracefully to her feet. "I'll dial the 'gate, you carry John." And she took a step towards the DHD.
Rodney shouted a warning, just as a blast of wind slammed into their faces. Grass, flowers and trees whipped wildly about in the gale, and they all squinted, shielding their eyes from the small bits of debris flying about. Teyla tried to take another step and was all but blasted backwards several feet. Ronon stood leaning into the wind, his neck muscles standing out in strings with the effort of trying to move forward even a single inch. He too stumbled backwards, panting.
"It's no use! You'll never make it to the DHD" Rodney had to scream over the howling air to be heard.
"It's up to Sheppard!" he added, patting the man awkwardly. John lay as if dead, but McKay still saw the strain of concentration on his face. Teyla's shoulders sagged, and she dropped to her knees in defeat, taking John's other hand. The wind lessened a bit, but continued to swirl around them – a reminder and a warning.
"We are here for you, John," Teyla murmured, barely audible over the noise.
"Yeah. You can do this. Hey, I almost did it once. Can't be that hard, now. Can it?"
Ronon knelt by John's head, "Sheppard. You're crazy. Go kick some ass."
This is taking too damn long! It's taking too long to die. It hurts too damn much, and it's taking to damn long.
John tried to relax, tried to concentrate, but even as the world around him faded, his mind and body continued to scream at him. It hurts too…much. He'd counted on a quick kill shot. The damn sniper had been pretty efficient all those other times. He shuddered violently at the memories of feeling his life fading away, and almost envied the sensation. It's taking too damn long.
A new, sharp but short, sting in one of his legs puzzled him briefly until John realized his body wasn't hollering quite as loudly, and that he was feeling warm and drowsy. "Trust me, Sheppard…" He drifted in the warmth for a while, trying to relax, without trying too hard and defeating the purpose.
John had no real idea of how to do what he wanted to do. And the fact that he really didn't want to do it would probably end up being a real problem, he admitted. But he sank further into the warmth, and his body fell further away from him. Can't hurt if I'm not in it, he thought reasonably, and moved away a bit more. It didn't feel like dying at all. Dying was fading into nothingness, or at least passing through a barrier of nothingness -- he'd yet to see the other side.
But this, this felt like growing into everythingness. It was, well, fascinating! John took another curious step away from his body.
He cast his mind around this new everythingness and found that a new sense of body was forming, too. His hands for example: they were molecules and atoms of air and he waved them around experimentally, watching some trees at the edge of the meadow bend and twist in response with eyes that were no longer eyes, but receptors for every kind of energy and data he wished to see. He could see light itself, winking between particles and waves as it moved through time-space. Oh, McKay would totally love this! He thought, meaning to follow it for a while.
A sharp tug held him back, and he felt a web of remaining fine threads of his life still connecting him to his body that still lay dying in a sunny morning meadow. Uncertain, he turned back to examine the threads. Some were red with blood and pain and he shied away from them, stretching them to near breaking. But there were others – one connected to a soft hand holding his, another to a firm and comforting touch on his arm, a third to a rumbling familiar voice – that held him.
John hesitated in the betweenness, struggling to remember something he was certain was important…
Siren circled the confused man slowly at a wary distance. How had he come to be here?
Never had she known a mortal who knew what ascension was, much less attempted it. She'd felt new life enter her plane, but she'd never known any of those very rare successful beings as mortals. A shudder of disgust ran through her – her kind never tolerated ascension in their own galaxies.
She was wary, and perhaps a bit frightened, so she continued to circle while the man discovered himself.
Sheppard's body relaxed further under Rodney's watchful gaze, and with sudden concern, he felt at John's neck for a pulse. It was either non-existent, or so slow as to be undetectable. Slapping his forehead in self-rebuke, he yanked out his palm scanner, poking at the display to ask it to detect life signs.
"Is it working?" Ronon asked, direct as usual. Teyla seemed to have decided that meditating with John was appropriate, and she sat with her head quietly bowed, John's hand in her lap.
"Yeah, I'm picking up all four of us on the LSD. Sheppard's dot seems…faint…somehow, but it's still there."
"I mean… is it working." Frustrated, Ronon waved his hand over Sheppard's perfectly motionless form.
"I don't know. He's still here, I mean physically still here. No glowy disappearing act yet. I…just don't know." He ran his hand through his hair. "Try the DHD again."
Ronon narrowed his eyes at McKay, then shrugged. He got no further than standing before a vicious gust toppled him down into the grass again. Looking like he'd planned to sit in exactly that spot anyway, Ronon pulled his knees up and wrapped his arms around them. He ruffled Sheppard's hair affectionately. "Not yet, Sheppard. Keep trying."
John was still hesitating, confused, when he became aware of the other presence. Wary himself, he turned, searching for the other.
Siren slowly moved closer, and John became aware of her name as she revealed herself to him. Suddenly amused, he chuckled at her image of herself as a beautiful woman, luring men to her trap. "Who does that make me? Odysseus?" He sensed her annoyed confusion. "He was the one that got away," John informed her.
Siren grinned a sultry smile. "You wish to leave? When you have come so far to join me?"
John shuddered. "I'm not here to join you. I'm here to stop you."
Siren laughed, the sound beautifully horrible. "Try."
Still chuckling, she twirled up a waterspout out of her ocean, a thousand miles high and sent it tearing across the sea towards a remote coastal village of fishermen. John gasped and reached to shield the small, delicate homes with his own hands, but the threads that still held him to life twanged, jerking him short with a painful bite. The water gouged a great bay out of the coast that had once been smooth.
Tangled in the threads, John glared at Siren, panting with a growing hatred.
"Perhaps you wish to loosen your bonds?" she purred.
"No!!!"
In the meadow, the wind suddenly whipped into a howling frenzy. McKay and Teyla threw themselves over Sheppard's body, protecting it from the hail of sharp sticks and even rocks that were pelting all of them with stinging blows.
"We've got to find shelter!" Rodney screamed, starting to panic at the assault.
"Where?!!" Ronon was at a loss. The forest was too far, there were no other structures but the Stargate for yards around them.
"Let's move to the Stargate. If we lean against the ring, we will be protected from at least one side." Teyla's calm assessment encouraged McKay and he nodded.
Struggling against the wind, they bent to lift Sheppard's limp form, carrying his weight between them. Step by staggering step they were able to make slight progress. The storm continued to prevent them from getting closer to the DHD, but it seemed not to really care if they moved elsewhere. The buffeting gusts were hindrance enough.
Heads bent against the wind and eyes almost shut to keep out the blowing grit, the struggling group didn't notice the large, devastatingly heavy boulder that dug itself out of the ground nearby and flung itself over their heads.
"No!!" Yelled John, and he lunged for the boulder, batting away the enormous projectile with his own gust of weaker and less controlled winds. Several threads twanged…and snapped with sharp stings as he stretched.
"Idiot!" Shrieked Siren as the boulder wobbled clumsily in John's hands towards the DHD. She slapped the rock away, inches before it crushed the valuable device, sending it instead deep into the forest with a crumbling crash. "Do you not realize the punishment for interfering with a portal?" For a moment she raged with righteous fury, her winds that still pummeled the planet as intense, but no longer focused or controlled.
John cringed as she railed, but watched closely as the group in the meadow suddenly bolted, uninhibited, to the Stargate and pressed their backs against its solid bulk. How odd it was to see himself carried along like so much deadweight. He allowed a small smile in relief – they couldn't have chosen a better spot to shelter, for he could sense Siren's genuine fear in challenging the Stargate itself.
A sudden idea took hold. "I guess I am new here," he answered her with mocking deference. "You mean I shouldn't do… this?" With clumsy quickness, he sent his mind to the DHD and began to punch keys, hope soaring as they lit at the touch of his invisible fingers. Maybe she'd be too afraid of hurting the device to throw anything its way and stop him.
"You are new here," Siren whispered, deadly soft. She lashed out directly at John instead, the spears and knives of her mind raking across his fresh and unfinished consciousness with searing slashes.
John screamed, and the echo of his pain vibrated along the threads to his body on the ground…
Ronon and Teyla dropped Sheppard's body in a heap beneath the Stargate, then split smoothly again into the roles they habitually filled. Teyla hastily rechecked Sheppard's sopping and now-nearly useless bandages. Ronon stood protectively through the ring, watching for more flying dangers and leaning constantly into the wind that continued to prevent movement towards the DHD. He alone had finally noticed the flying boulder and its erratic disappearance. Had it not veered suddenly away, he'd been prepared to try to blast its bulk into smaller, and hopefully less dangerous, pieces.
McKay sat with his back against the ring itself, poking at his scanner. "This storm is no coincidence, something is going on up there and I'm betting Sheppard is right in the middle of it."
"We got a break we shouldn't have," Ronon growled in agreement, thinking of the boulder.
Just as he finished the thought, the chevrons on the Stargate came to life of their own accord. First one, then another of the glowing coordinates locked into place, cheerful lights chasing around the otherwise dark metal. The team all turned towards the 'gate, startled, then Rodney let out a cheer.
"Yes! It's definitely Sheppard! Sheesh, how is he doing that and still hanging around in his body too? Ronon, get over here and…"
Sheppard's utterly still and seemingly lifeless body suddenly seized into rigid shudders, his back and thighs quivering as they arched off the ground. Teyla and McKay leaped to prevent the tremors from damaging the body further. Teyla crooned a ragged litany of reassurances.
The seizure and tremors ceased as abruptly as they started, returning him to lifeless flaccidity once again. McKay sat back cautiously, panting from the exertion and terror of the alarming episode. Teyla remained leaning heavily over John, also breathing rapidly and desperately caressing his shoulder. When she finally lifted her head, she met McKay's eyes.
"I guess, maybe, he wasn't supposed to do that." Rodney hypothesized uncomfortably, waving his hand over his head at the now quiet Stargate.