John nodded to Ronon as they slowly eased Rodney in position to continue towards the shuttle. John knew the damage to Rodney's leg would make this one painful trip on his best friend, no matter how much care they took. Yet, he needed medical help and this was the only way.

The world above Rodney shifted as they trekked along and it was making him feel ill. He squeezed his eyes shut tight and chewed on his bottom lip willing the nauseous feeling to leave. His whole body trembled; the pain came in wave after wave keeping in time with Ronon and Sheppard's footfalls. Rodney felt his arms go so tense with his nails digging into the wood of his stretcher; he thought surely someone would have to pry his hands off.

Sheppard's heart tugged with each whimper Rodney would make. He tried to put it out his mind as best he could so his concentration was put on keeping his walk as smooth as possible.

"Teyla, how much further do you think?" asked Sheppard.

Teyla halted to turn back to her team. "We are actually almost there…we have made good time. I'd say about 10 more minutes and we'll be near the landing area."

"Good," Sheppard commented as his eyes looked upon his friend.

When Sheppard looked back up he noticed Ronon flinch and then he stopped suddenly causing Sheppard to run the stretcher right into the back of Ronon's legs. This elicited a scream like no other from Rodney as his poor leg made contact as well. Rodney's head flew up and thrashed back down.

"Ronon, what the hell?" Sheppard wanted to ask what was wrong but Ronon quickly bent down putting the stretcher on the ground, completely throwing Sheppard and Rodney off.

Caught in the throws of pain coming from Rodney, Sheppard completely missed Ronon utter the word 'snake' as he did his best to soothe his friend. All he noticed was Ronon pull his blaster and shoot.

"What the…?" Sheppard stood up and went over to Ronon.

"Sorry, this snake came from nowhere and was about to strike. Is Rodney ok?"

While Ronon was telling him this he took a few step over to what was left of the snake. It was certainly a nasty looking creature. It had to be at least 5 feet long with color patterns never seen before on any snake from earth. A deep purple that was almost black underbelly with a green and black diamond pattern on top with hints of red around its eyes. There also seemed to be some kind of short stubby legs on the rear or the creature.

"This has to be that snake like animal that Zelenka mentioned," Sheppard kicked it to be sure it was dead. It didn't move so he turned back to Ronon.

Sheppard jumped as he turned, for Ronon had taken another shot at the snake. He screwed his eyes back from the snake to Ronon.

"Wha?" Ronon asked nonchalantly, "just making sure."

"You finished?" Sheppard asked.

Ronon shot once more…"yeah."

During all this Teyla had come back to be with Rodney. She was checking his leg splint as well as the bandage on his leg.

Rodney had seemed to fog over after his rough landing. His breath was shaky as he bobbed his head up and down a couple inches off the stretcher. It was not until Teyla tightened a fresh bandage around his thigh that he came out of his pained stupor. His teeth clamped down and his hand flews to his face, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes.

"Rodney? Rodney? Hey, I'm done." Teyla pried his hands away from his face and began to massage them a bit to calm him down. While she tried to get him to focus on her, she felt both Ronon and John move near her.

"Hey buddy, sorry about that," Sheppard looked up to Ronon.

"Yeah, sorry McKay." Ronon was truly sorry. He knew his friend certainly did need that rough treatment.

"S-s-seriously, ya promis'd-d…n-no d-dropp'ng" Rodney stuttered and tried to blink his eyes clear of tears.

Sheppard smiled a sad smile. "I know Rodney, we're sorry. Hey, but we are almost there ok."

They quickly got back to their travels and found themselves looking at the shuttle thankfully much sooner than intended.

Sheppard and Ronon placed Rodney about 20 feet away from the sideways jumper and fixed a fire to break the early morning chill while keeping Rodney warm.

As they waited for Lorne to bring Dr. Keller…they tried to get some food and water into Rodney, yet he was so tired that they weren't very successful.

Teyla stayed near Rodney, but Sheppard and Ronon both thought they could right the jumper to its correct position.

"This isn't working," Sheppard said as he dropped his arms by his side, "Its just too heavy."

Sheppard, admitting defeat came to rejoin Rodney and Teyla. Ronon, however kept huffing and puffing to no avail.

As John sat down he noticed Teyla wiping the cold sweat from Rodney's brow.

"They should be here any moment now," he said as he looking at his watch.

And with that he quickly heard the squeal in his earpiece followed by Major Lorne's voice. "Colonel Sheppard, we see you and will be there in two."

"Copy that," as he looked up to see Jumper 3 flying in a descent pattern towards them, "It's good to see you."

He looked down to Rodney and noticed his eyes looking up at him. John gave him a pat on the shoulder and smiled with a corner of his mouth.

Help was finally here…

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TBC