AN: Sorry about the day-long delay. This last chapter was a little trickier. Also, I just wanted to let you guys know I'll be gone from Thursday to Sunday (me and my soon-to-be hubby are taken a little vacation! :) but I'll try to update the moment I am back!
Credit: My WONDERFUL beta (I don't know if she wants her name revealed yet or not, we'll soon see) deserves full credit for that last paragraph. I ended the story too abruptly and she kindly lent a terrific suggestion.
Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate: Atlantis or the characters. I'm just playing with them for my own personal enjoyment. :)
John Sheppard had a tough time keeping his footing as the soldiers shoved him down the corridors towards their destination. The several times he stumbled, he was met with a hard kick to the ribs, and yanked back up again.
It seemed to be hours before they finally stopped in front of two large double doors. Once they opened, he was pushed in and they closed behind him.
Cautiously, he looked around the large room, waiting for some sort of ambush or another type of torture that was most likely planned for him.
"Jagrin?" he called out, his head turning to each direction, searching for what he knew was coming.
"Hardly, colonel," a familiar voice spoke from behind him.
Sheppard quickly twisted around to see where the source of the voice came from. When he saw who was addressing him, the colonel's eyebrows furrowed together. "What happened?"
Carson Beckett shrugged. "Lieutenant Thompson sent me to go back to the gate to get help from Atlantis, but they had the gate guarded. Before I had time to hide in the woods, I was dragged back to this bloody hell hole. Apparently, I'm their acting medic until I'm no longer needed."
"We were kind of hoping you'd made it back." Sheppard's spirits drooped in an instant, as did his shoulders.
Dr. Beckett frowned. "I'm so sorry, lad. I honestly didn't know you were alive until a few minutes ago when that bloody fair-haired menace - what's his name?"
"Jagrin," John spat the name out.
"Aye, Jagrin," Carson went on, "anyway, he told me that it'd be my ongoing job to patch you back up from 'incidents', as he referred to them, and return you back to them."
"You refused, right?" Sheppard demanded, stepping closer to the clearly upset doctor, who wrinkled his brow in confusion.
"Of course not, colonel," he replied, appalled, "why would I do such a thing? I want to help you and I'd rather not have some bloody Genii doctor operating on you."
Before the colonel could rip the doctor a new one for cooperating with the enemy, Beckett rushed towards his face and tilted it to the side. "Did he do this to you?" he asked, touching John's bruised eye gently.
"Ouch," he hissed in pain, "yeah, he did. But that's not the worst part."
Dr. Beckett released him, and Sheppard turned his stabbed shoulder towards him, revealing the deep wound.
"Oh, bloody hell." Carson muttered and grabbed a hold of the colonel's shoulder gently. "This looks like a stab wound. He stabbed you?"
"Seems so," John replied and then asked in a more serious tone, "What can you do about it?" '
"They've allowed me to keep my medical kit," the doctor informed him, looking over his shoulder and then back to him, "along with their own set of medicines. But I'm better off with only my kit than adding their rubbish to the mix. But to take care of this, I'll need a lot more than just bandages and Tylenol."
"Well, it will have to do, doc," Sheppard grunted. "Besides, we'll be out of this mess soon enough, and you can patch it up back at the infirmary."
Beckett led him across the room to a solitary bed that he hadn't spotted when he stepped in. Once he sat down, John asked, "You tried to escape yet?"
Carson hesitated to answer, reached under the bed, and pulled out the medical kit. After he had opened it and grabbed the materials he needed, he responded to the question in a low voice. "There are two doors on either side. Both have a couple guards on each. So, no, I didn't try."
Wincing as Dr. Beckett cleaned the wound, Sheppard tried to distract himself with more conversation. "How…" he grunted, "well do you know the layout of the place?"
The doctor shook his head. "Not that well. I'm afraid. I was blindfolded. This was the only room I got to see."
Sheppard sighed. "They – he – wants to make extra sure that we don't get out, doesn't he?"
Beckett didn't reply. He finished bandaging the injury. "There," he said with a sigh. "That should do until we get back to Atlantis. Till then, try not to put too much strain on it."
The colonel gave the Carson a look. "I may not have much choice but thanks for the tip, doc."
"I have Tylenol," Carson replied, "but no water to swallow it with."
Sheppard grabbed the pills that Carson had pulled out, and pushed them into his mouth and swallowed them quickly. The mention of water made his throat burn. Their canisters had been taken from them and it had been awhile since his last drink. "It's fine,Carson. Thanks again."
Dr. Beckett nodded. "Besides the black eye, are there any other injuries I should know about?"
John moved his jaw, checking to see if it had been dislocated in that blow. He was satisfied to find that Jagrin had merely split his lip and the jaw was perfectly fine. "No. For now, anyway." Sheppard hesitated, then whispered. "I'm sure I'll be seeing you again soon."
The look on the doctor's face gave away his disgust at Sheppard's treatment, but he said nothing.
As soon as the colonel had eased off the bed, the doors to the outside of the room slid open, and Jagrin's irritatingly confident form strode in. "Feeling better, colonel?" the Genii asked slyly with a twitch of his mouth.
"Yeah, I'm doing great," John nodded and narrowed his eyes. The sarcasm being tossed back and forth was getting a little old but it seemed to be the only language Jagrin spoke. "
Jagrin chuckled. "Glad to hear it. Shall we go back to your cell now? I have a surprise waiting for you."
xXx
"No hope, no hope, no hope…"
Thompson's cries could be heard throughout the night in their small little cell. Sheppard would have become overly agitated and ordered her to stop, but she wasn't doing it willingly.
Jagrin's "surprise" for the colonel had been to arrive back at their cell to find the lieutenant had been injected with some sort of drug that seemed to slip her back to a child-like state. When he had been shoved back inside, she was leaning up against the wall, her arms wrapped around her legs tightly and shivering in fear. She wouldn't speak for the first couple minutes or so. But soon after, she began muttering incoherently and then crying.
It hurt him to see her like this. And Jagrin knew it. This pain he felt was the only reason that she was still alive. They used his charge over her as an advantage to make him suffer.
Sheppard cursed as he sat up, giving up on sleep. He should have known a little thing like death would never stop Kolya. No matter what he did, that tenacious bastard would show up wherever he was to torture him, and remind him of the nightmares the Genii commander had created in John's normally shielded and aloof mind.
Kolya was like no other. Wraith didn't scare John, surprisingly, but for some reason, a man twenty years his senior scared the living shit out of him, and he couldn't figure out why. Perhaps it was his ability to rise up from any given circumstance to torture him. In any circumstance he didn't enjoy Kolya, and he wasn't any more pleasant after death.
"No hope, no hope, no hope…"
The Colonel tightened his fists in order to control his temper before crawling back over to the slumped figure.
She was curled into a tight fetal position with her back against the wall. As he got closer, he could see that she was sweating so profusely, that her hair was plastered to her face. She wasn't just insane, she was frightened.
He rested a comforting hand on her back and rubbed it softly. He whispered soothing words but nothing seemed to deter her desire to utter those same words over and over again.
"No hope, no hope, no hope…"
To be honest, they were starting to get to him. He had always made it a point to not believe in no-win scenarios. There was always a way for escape. He and his team had faced the direst of situations and had always found a way out in one piece…more or less. And he didn't suspect that this one should be any different.
However, it was hard to keep a positive attitude when the incessant moaning next to him constantly reminded him of no hope. Not to mention the fact that they were soon to reach five hours without any sign of Atlantis.
"John."
Colonel Sheppard looked down to see that Thompson was staring at him, glazy-eyed and frightened. The whisper had come from her. He was surprised that she had called him by his first name, even in her condition. She had always called him by his rank and never any different. Something was definitely wrong.
"I'm here," he replied quickly, firming his grip on her shoulder to reassure her she was not alone.
"I can't…" she started, her head rolling back. "They're…they're going to kill me. I can see it…the…bodies…Wraith ships."
"Shh," he patted her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. Her sentences still weren't making any sense.
Her eyes began to roll back in her head, and John felt a sense of panic. He pulled her upright, leaning her against the wall beside him. "Thompson," he spoke loudly, looking into her drowsy eyes, "Victoria stay with me."
She looked to him glassy-eyed. "I'm here," she whispered, almost sounding coherent, "but I'm so…so weak. John, I'm cold."
He sighed in frustration. She needed to have her head clear if there was any chance for escape. But her condition just seemed to be deteriorating.
Still, he wrapped his arms around her, and buried his face to her neck, breathing his hot breath on her cold skin in an attempt to keep that pulse going. He had a feeling she was going to slip away if they didn't get help soon.
"No hope…" she whispered faintly, and he pulled back to see that her eyes had closed completely.
Panic swept through him, and he pulled his fingers up to her neck to check for a pulse. It was still there, thumping slowly but too slowly for his liking. What worried him more, however, was the fact that he couldn't hear a single breath emerge from her mouth or her nose. Placing his hand over her chest, he was relieved to feel the rise and fall of her chest. Letting out a huge sigh, he laid her back down and began pacing furiously. She was still with him, but the frustration was building up inside him. He clenched his fists into tight balls as he tried to control his anger. Soon, however, he realized that such a thing wouldn't be possible and he needed to release his anger on something. Without thinking, he turned and slammed his fist into the cold stone wall behind him.
"Dammit!" he cried as he examined his bleeding knuckles. He chuckled darkly as he realized that Kolya was, as usual, even able to make him torture himself. "Damn you Kolya!" he shouted through the cold air. "You just couldn't leave me the hell alone, could you?!"
Exhausted, he collapsed on his knees and held his head in his hands. He pulled at his hair as he realized that the chances of saving both their lives were drastically decreasing by the second.