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Wing Men

Chapter 2 – Pinned

With a groan Rodney rolled over onto his side and then pushed himself up onto his knees and then to his feet, the injured appendage tucked protectively against his chest. Finally able to survey his surroundings, he took a look around to see what was available to him. He was on the lower level of the lab, there were a few dusty control panels scattered about the room at random intervals. It looked like there might at one time have been a functioning stairwell back to the upper level but a beam from the ceiling had rusted through at one end and fallen, cleaving the support structure of the stairs into two pieces, one resting on the floor, the part still attached to the upper deck hanging six feet in the air.

"Ok Mckay, so the only way out of here has been blocked," Rodney said to the empty room. Ok, so maybe when he was younger the whole thinking out loud bit had gotten him in trouble with some teachers when he accidently murmured that just because they couldn't follow his logic didn't make him wrong, it made them slow…God, the pain was getting his thoughts off in random directions. "Ok, focus McKay. How are we going to get out from down here and then fix this stupid arm of yours?"

He rubbed the sweat away that had begun to bead on his forehead. Throbbing shoulder pain didn't exactly contribute to putting him in his best problem-solving mindset. He spun in an awkward circle eying anything that could help him out of here. He had thirty minutes, after that, Sheppard would be after him again and he wouldn't buy some stupid excuse a second time. No, the same stubborn refusal to rest until he had his people back where he could keep an eye on them was good in most circumstances, like when his big mouth got him into sticky hostage situations with the natives. But it really sucked when the man dragged him away from his work at four in the morning for some enforced sleep, or now. "Alright, enough reminiscing, let's focus," he said to himself again, swiping a quick glance at his watch, "Glorious McKay, twenty-seven minutes to get out of here and fix your arm and then get back to the control room."

His head continued to swivel around as he examined anything that might be useful in this situation until his eyes locked onto a chair that was resting overturned by one of the panels. Whoever had been in here last had certainly failed to leave it in orderly condition. He crossed the room, dragging the chair over and setting it upright just below the suspended stairs. He bent over, squinting as he examined the chair for any signs of rust or disrepair. Not that he found any, the Ancients did have a knack for building technology that lasted for thousands of years and their furniture wasn't any different. But still, last thing he needed was another fall onto that shoulder, yeah, that would help him get back to the city faster. Didn't hurt to be careful.

Having decided that the chair would hold his weight, he climbed up on it, holding his arm out to stabilize himself on the bottom of the stairs dangling in the air. The chair gave him enough height that he could climb up onto them with little difficulty. He gave a silent prayer for small miracles; he didn't think he could have hauled all his weight up with one arm if he was still too low. He quickly climbed the stairs to the level he had started at, his footsteps echoing on the metal stairs as they vibrated with his footfalls.

Having hatched a plan to try to get his shoulder fixed he grabbed his laptop off the console he had been working at and carried it over to the door. After a few seconds with playing with the latches on the control panel he finally got it popped open and let the metal cover drop to the floor, exposing the wires he needed to access to get this to work. He had picked up his pace a bit, Rodney had assumed that the initial numbness had been a byproduct of the shock the shoulder had sustained, but he still couldn't feel anything lower than the elbow in that arm, this was not something he had remembered experiencing last time he had suffered a shoulder dislocation and it was making him nervous.

He split his attention between prodding different crystals and clumsily typing one handed on his computer, his hand a little shaky as he went. His shoulder muscles kept twitching and he had to screw his jaw tight to keep from letting out a choked cry, he needed to get this taken care of now. He eventually coaxed the doors into cooperating, commanding them to retract and stay open until he entered the key sequence to reverse the process.

Ok, time to grow a pair as Sheppard was always telling him. It was this or a trip to see Beckett and take an extended vacation until he could pry himself from the good doctor's finicky grasp.

He stopped midway through the door and gently pressed himself up against the side of the doorframe away from where the door was retracted. He positioned his shoulder so that it was lined up with the track of the door on the floor and closed his eyes, taking a few deep breaths before he cut off again, another twitch starting in that arm and pain rippled down his spine. Before he could talk himself out of this he entered the key sequence and quickly braced himself on the doorframe and screwing his eyes shut. He heard the hiss of the door reactivating before something hard, steel, and unforgiving slammed into his shoulder like a freight train. Something in his shoulder shifted as the air left his lungs, any rational thought abandoned his mind, and the only thing left was pain, cold, and piercing. His legs went weak beneath him but he remained suspended like a butterfly that someone had pinned by its wings into place.

A few muted whimpers emanated into the room and he clawed at the steel door, begging it to open. Oh god, get it open! He tried to push off against the doorframe to loosen the vice grip on his shoulder but the door didn't budge. Stupid! The pain was making him stupid. These doors were made to withstand the onslaught of heavy gunfire or thousands of pounds of pressure from a flood. Of course he wasn't going to get it open this way. He looked down to where his laptop had clattered to the floor. No way could he reach it with his hands. All he needed was the enter key, fuck it. He raised a foot and put it down on the keyboard harshly. There was another hiss and the door quickly retreated into its hidden recess, leaving the scientist free to crumple to the ground next to his discarded computer.

He laid there for a few minutes not doing anything but trying to regain his composure. He felt a trail of moisture down his face. God, tears? Sheppard would have a field day with this if he were here. Not that they weren't unwarranted. The whole right side of his body ached and the shoulder burned. He looked down at his hand, his fingers weakly twitching as he commanded them to move. The numbness was a little better and he had some movement in the arm, it was better than it had been, whatever residual damage that had been caused should heal up as long as he took it easy on that arm for a week or two maybe. He reached across his body with his good hand to run his fingertips over the shoulder blade. It didn't feel deformed anymore; the door must have done the job. He could already feel bruises forming and swelling moving in all around the joint in protest. It could've been worse, he thought, it could've been a surgery.

He begrudgingly climbed to his feet and went to snatch up his computer…Or what was left of it. There was a boot-shaped dent on the keyboard and several of the keys had been driven downward and stayed there. It looked like about a third of the alphabet was currently incapacitated…Whatever. It was a loaner anyways. One of the junkers that served as a loaner to teams going out into the city. There seemed to be a very high mortality rate for any technology that was taken out on those explorations. Explosions, water damage, one had even been chucked against the wall by one of his more hot-headed underlings in frustration. One more computer to scrap for parts, worth the sacrifice to avoid Beckett for this, so very worth it, he thought as he remembered the six weeks of hell he'd suffered the last time this had happened.

Just then his radio chirped, "McKay, you're thirty minutes are up. I want to know where you are."

He sighed and scrubbed at his face and glanced at his watch. "It's been twenty-six minutes Sheppard. You're four minutes early for your worrying fit. I'm almost to the transporter."

"You're done with whatever you were working on and physically moving back toward the control room?"

"I don't have time to stop by for a social call right now; I have data to input into our servers to back it up. I found some interesting stuff in this lab we found last week. But yes, I am three minutes from the transporter," he finished, he was lucky the lab had been positioned so close to the transporter. He could be there very quickly.

"Fine, go to your lab. But I'm having Zelenka call me if you don't show up. You should never have been out in the city on your own to begin with."

McKay shook his head as he scooped up the remains of the computer, "Thank you mother. Are we done?"

"Fine, fine. Don't blame me when you get stuck somewhere or lost and don't have someone to bail you out. It's not like you've accidently gotten stuck in an Ancient bathroom before."

"That was once! And I was exploring looking for any useful technology!"

"Of course, nothing compares to the Ancient version of a toilet. Such a marvel," Sheppard jived at him, a hint of subdued laughter in his voice.

"Enough. Goodbye Sheppard!" Rodney severed the connection and exited the lab, he just wanted to show his face in the lab so Zelenka could report to Sheppard and then he wanted to go take several aspirin, and snag a hot shower and twelve hours to hopefully sleep off the worse of this pain.

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