Hi! Sorry for the delay! Had to add a bunch in here and my day was really busy. I apologize if there are any mistakes I glazed over. Hope you like it!
They reached the armory and as Ronon was looking for the right ammunition, Emma found a uniform and boots to rapidly change into.
"Ok," he began, "This is a P9—" he stopped midsentence as he caught a glimpse of Emma's bare torso. She was changing directly in front of him and had yet to put a shirt on when he turned around. A long horizontal scar spanning her lower stomach that he had either never seen or never really noticed caught his eye in the bright light. "D–do you want me to look away?" he asked, pulling his eyes to her face.
"I don't care," she replied dryly.
He turned his back to her again, searching the shelves for grenades and more cartridges. She threw her dress and shoes in a corner and opened her clutch to find her inhaler. She took a deep breath of it in and put it in her pocket, tossing the clutch onto the pile, too.
Ronon handed her a gun and several cartridges. "Safety's still on," he told her as they moved out.
"Do we have a plan yet?" she asked.
"I'm working on it. Just stay with me," he instructed, taking her hand again.
"Ronon, where are we going?" she hissed.
"Control room," he responded shortly.
"Why?" she asked.
"The Wraith'll wanna get their hands on our ZPM and the hyperdrive research done by the Ancients," he explained in a raspy voice, looking around the corner, his body shielding Emma's. He took a few steps forward, carefully testing to see if their path was clear.
"'The Wraith's biggest downfall is their lack of superior power sources that are necessary for hyperspace travel,'" she whispered to herself, echoing something McKay had said a week and a half earlier. "Ronon look out!" she screamed as two unseen Wraith emerged from niches in the wall. Before she could think anymore about it, she had put a bullet straight through the forehead of one of them while Ronon aimed his blaster at the other.
He stood over the Wraith that Emma had shot, staring down at the circular wound directly between its eyes. "Damn," he grunted, looking behind in her direction. "Thanks."
She tucked her hair behind her ear. "No problem," she breathed. "I still don't get why we're going to the control room," she continued as they picked up their brisk pace again.
"There are already plenty of guards stationed by the ZPM. You and I alone can't take on however many Wraith there might be in the whole city, so we need to get a message out to the Daedalus to tell them to beam down more reinforcements or something," he clarified.
"The Daedalus is in orbit around the planet," she reminded him, "Isn't it a safe bet to say that they already know about the Wraith?" she challenged.
"If they already knew, we'd know," he answered definitively.
Emma cocked her head to the side in agreement. "Good point," she sighed. "Control room," she repeated. "Wait, won't they expect this? Won't it be heavily guarded?" she asked him.
"Chance we'll have to take," he grumbled. "You can handle 'em," he said, smirking down at her.
They entered the control room. It was eerily quiet, and although it was their only option, something didn't feel right. They met no other resistance on their way and there wasn't a Wraith to be found in the control room.
"This is a trap," she muttered softly to herself, looking around the room.
"What?" Ronon said absentmindedly, not taking his eyes away from the control panel.
"Ronon, are you sure you shouldn't watch the door and I'll send the message?" she suggested.
"You're right," he whispered.
But just as the words had left his mouth, Emma was grabbed from behind by a Wraith. She screamed.
"Let her go!" Ronon yelled, gun pointed at the Wraith who in turn pulled out its own weapon.
"Ronon, send it!" she yelled back to him.
Without hesitation, he reached for the control panel, but the Wraith shot him once in the chest. With a second blast from the Wraith stunner, Ronon went down, temporarily losing motor control but still retaining consciousness. Powerless and immobile, he watched the Wraith force Emma on her back onto one of the consoles, but she fought back. She hit him in the face with her elbow, then kicked him away, temporarily incapacitating him. She tried to make her way to the P-90 she had dropped, but was grabbed again by the Wraith. He slammed her against the wall, one forearm over her neck so she couldn't move and couldn't breathe. He ripped part of her shirt and plunged his hand onto her chest. She screamed in agony.
Ronon wanted to yell, to run to her and stop it, to save her, but he was paralyzed. He could feel a slight tingling in his fingers, but nothing else. He then noticed that nothing was happening to Emma. It appeared, for whatever reason, that she was resistant to the feeding process.
The Wraith yanked its hand away from her chest, its face wrought with fury and confusion, and brought it to her throat. At first she struggled hard against him, but he was quickly strangling the life out of her and any scream she tried to emit was stifled. Her body began to go limp and her attempts to break free of the Wraith's grip faded. Her eyelids drooped as she slowly lost consciousness.
The tingling had spread past Ronon's extremities; he had gained control of part of his arm. He set his gun to stun, then, with next to no accuracy, aimed. He hit the Wraith, but he also caught Emma in the crossfire. She fell to the floor with a loud thud, completely unconscious. He had to wait longer before he could fully move again; how long, he didn't know, but the short moments felt like drawn out hours as he stared at Emma's sleeping face and limp, crumpled form. As soon as he could, he jumped to his feet, killed the Wraith immediately, punched in the code to send out the message, then ran to Emma. He put a hand on her face and felt a faint pulse in her neck. Stationary tears dotted her cheeks. "Emma, please," he spoke quietly, kissing her forehead. He looked down at the feeding wounds and saw that they were bleeding profusely. He pulled his vest off of his body, then unbuttoned his crisp white shirt and used it as a compress, pressing it hard against her wounds. With ease, he picked her up to rush her to the infirmary as he carried her in his arms. He turned on his earpiece. "Medical emergency, Emma Rogers has been fed upon," he said as steadily as possible, "I'm coming to the infirmary."
A shape stepped around the corner and into the control room. Ronon pointed his gun at the intruder.
"Whoa! Don't shoot!" McKay said quickly, holding his hands out in surrender.
"McKay," Ronon growled, letting his blaster fall limp in his hand under Emma's knees. "What're you doing here?" he asked.
"I came to send a message to the Daedalus. Let them know – "
"Already done," Ronon stated, brushing past him, desperate to get Emma help.
"Wh-what happened to her?" he asked, pointing at her.
"She was fed on," he answered brusquely, "Look, reinforcements should be coming any time now. I have to get her help," he said, gesturing down to the young woman in his grasp. "Guard this room," he demanded, sliding Emma's P-90 over to McKay with his foot.
McKay opened his mouth to speak.
"Do it," Ronon snarled.
"I was just going to say that Jen is in the infirmary right now," he said softly.
Ronon grunted in comprehension and ran as fast as he could with Emma's unconscious body outstretched in his arms, begging her to hold on.
"What happened?" Dr. Keller asked anxiously as he ran into the infirmary with Emma in his arms, glancing at the bloodstained dress shirt crumpled over her chest. Keller, like everyone else who had been interrupted but had managed to escape undetected by the Wraith, was still wearing her cocktail dress with her white lab coat buttoned over it.
"There was a Wraith," he explained as he gently laid her onto a bed, "It came behind her, stunned me, and started feeding on her, but it didn't work. It got mad and tried to choke her. I stunned both of them then killed the Wraith," he hastily explained. "It was stupid," he groaned, rubbing his forehead, "She was barely alive to begin with. I shouldn't have shot," he shook his head.
Dr. Keller nodded. She touched her fingers to Emma's wrist. "No pulse," she narrated, "CPR!" she instructed.
"What?" Ronon asked in disbelief, "She—her heart was still beating just before we left." Panic washed over him.
The initial attempts at reviving her proved unsuccessful. "Defib!" Dr. Keller called, throwing Ronon's now red and white shirt aside. A nurse brought her the automatic defibrillator. Dr. Keller cut the rest of Emma's ripped shirt off of her, rapidly applied the gel pads and pressed the paddles to them. "Clear!" Peaks shot onto the life signs monitor. Ronon sank into a chair, letting out a sigh of relief. Dr. Keller pulled out a penlight and checked Emma's pupils. "She's still unconscious," she stated quietly.
"What? Can you fix it?" he asked, sitting up straight.
"No," Dr. Keller replied with resignation, "We just have to hope she wakes up on her own…eventually. I need someone to hook up an IV and bandage Dr. Rogers' chest!" she ordered.
"Eventually, what do you mean eventually?" he questioned angrily. "Like a coma?"
"A state of unconsciousness is not considered a coma until the person has been out for six or more hours," she explained firmly. "Look…Ronon, can you stand guard at the door? The city is still under siege and it's only a matter of time before the Wraith find their way here," she asked desperately, her voice softening somewhat.
"Jen – " he began.
"And please…don't go running off," she interrupted, "There are plenty of capable military out there. We need you here," she requested, looking up into his eyes.
He stared down into her pale face and nodded. He took one last look at Emma, then strode over to the infirmary door, gun at the ready.
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