Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis - and all the characters and settings related to the show - do not belong to me, obviously. That credit goes to MGM, Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper. The plot of this little story, however, does.
A/N – Hello again, my wonderful readers! Thank you for your continued support – your reviews continue to be delightful and reassuring, and I hope you keep them coming! Just a slight warning for you all: this chapter gets really angsty, particularly from John's point of view. Hopefully you won't mind that since you've stuck with the story so far, but if it's something that you think might bother you, you should probably stop reading now. Although having said that, I hope you don't. For those of you that love angst (including me!), enjoy!
~ Alone ~
Part Nine
"Okay, so just run that by us one more time," Lorne requested, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Rodney rolled his eyes. "Sheppard is on one of these three planets."
Rodney pointed to the three planets he'd outlined on his tablet, frowning at the lack of excitement on the faces of his friends. He sighed, then glanced around the conference table in disappointment. He'd spent the last week working his way through the entire database to narrow it down to only three planets, was it honestly too much to ask for a simple 'Well done, Rodney'…?
"Yeah, I got that," Lorne replied with an eye-roll of his own. "But how do you know that? There must be hundreds of possibilities out there..."
"Thousands actually," Rodney retorted. "Not that anyone's counting."
"So how did you narrow it down?" Beckett asked.
"Yes, how did you come to that rather miraculous conclusion, Dr McKay?" Woolsey asked.
"The crash," he said, looking around the conference table as if everyone should've known where he was going with that statement. They didn't. Rodney sighed again.
"McKay…" growled Ronon, clearly getting impatient. He looked ready to go into battle to fight all manner of demons at a moment's notice, although that was nothing new. In fact, 'battle-ready' had been the Satedan's default setting from the moment they'd woken up in the Infirmary without Sheppard.
"Fine," said Rodney, running a hand over his face. "Fact one: we left PX6-662 in a jumper and both the jumper and the gate were working fine. Fact two: we came through the wormhole okay, but as soon as we made it to the planet where we eventually dumped Sheppard, the jumper stopped working. And I don't mean that it stopped working at optimal levels, I mean it died as soon as we entered the atmosphere."
"So something on the planet killed the jumper," Ronon interrupted. "So what?"
"No," Rodney replied. "The planet killed the jumper."
"Rodney…" Jennifer warned when Rodney looked at them smugly.
He held up his hands in mock-surrender. "The gate was working fine, and from what I could tell when I working on the DHD, that was working fine as well. Or it should have been. There was no external damage at all; literally nothing to indicate why it wasn't working. It just wasn't. Same thing with the jumper. We weren't hit by anything, and the jumper was working fine before the planet. Ergo, something about the planet was causing Ancient technology to stop working."
"And you only thought of this now?" Lorne asked. "That seems obvious now you've said it."
"Yes, well, I didn't remember everything before," Rodney replied, annoyance crossing his face. "Only bits of pieces."
"So hypnotism was a good idea after all," Jennifer put forward, grinning slightly at Rodney's obvious discomfort.
"The important thing is, I remembered how I fixed the problem," Rodney replied. "Which means, I remembered what caused the problem in the first place." He crossed his arms. "The planet's electromagnetic field."
"And how exactly does this help us find the Colonel?" Beckett asked.
"C'mon, isn't it obvious?" Rodney replied, already going into full lecture mode. If Sheppard had been there, he would have told the scientist to cool it, but he wasn't, so he didn't. "The Ancients made a lot of mistakes, but even they wouldn't be stupid enough to put a gate on a planet that blocked ancient technology. So it must've worked at one point."
"I see. So you checked the Ancient database…" Woolsey began, clearly catching on.
"For any mentions of planets where gate travel was suddenly barred because of technical difficulties on the planet itself," Rodney finished with a nod. "Yes, I did."
"And there were three?"
Rodney scowled. "Yes. All three accounts seem almost identical, which makes me think that it's a similar problem affecting all three planets."
At that point, Lorne asked the question everyone was thinking.
"So how do we know which planet the Colonel is on?"
"That's the thing," Rodney said, running a hand through his hair. "We don't."
With practiced efficiency, John continued to gut the small, dead animal in front of him, careful not to waste any part of the rabbit-like creature. He was hungry – starving – but he didn't rush the task. There was no point. The sooner he ate, the sooner the hunger would return again.
It was a cycle he couldn't break out of.
Life on the harsh planet was sparse, so hunting was difficult. His supplies had run out a couple of weeks ago – despite his stringent rationing- and when the hunting was particularly unsuccessful, which happened more often than not, those days he went without food completely, although he always tried to make sure Jett had something to eat.
Please don't leave…
John sighed, and focused back on his task, the darkness of the land already folding in around him. His small fire flickered in front of him, offering a small amount of light and heat, but it would die soon, and John knew he would have to cook his food before it did. He'd collected wood, twigs and leaves for the fire earlier, but they'd been damp from the rain, and hadn't had chance to dry out properly yet. So once the fire died, that was that. He would go another day without eating, or he would eat the meat raw. He wasn't sure if he cared which one it would be.
In fact, five weeks had passed now since he'd been abandoned, and it was starting to get to the point where John wasn't sure he cared about anything anymore.
Jett nuzzled against his leg, his large blue eyes watching John's actions with mild interest, and John reluctantly altered his statement.
Okay, so he cared about the dog – the 100lb wild puppy - but he wasn't sure he cared about anything else. Not Atlantis, not his own health, not even his life…
What was the point?
Please don't leave me alone…
God, he felt as if he was on a precipice, one false move away from falling off into the abyss.
John placed his knife onto the ramp floor and bent forward to place half of the meat on a skewer that he would keep just out of reach of the flames. The rest of the meat – raw and bloody – he passed over to Jett, who took one sniff before he set about devouring it.
John sighed again and set about cooking his own food with only mild interest.
Despite numerous explorations of the nearby lands over the last week or so, John still hadn't found anything to stir any hope in his weary chest. It seemed to him that the entire planet was bleak, unforgiving and wet. Almost always wet. In fact, the rain never seemed to stop, and John felt as if it was beating him down, wearing him down until he finally dissolved into nothing. It was dry for the moment, but John still didn't feel any relief. No matter how much time he spent in the almost constant deluges, he never felt clean.
John rubbed at his face while his meat cooked. His facial hair had definitely developed from the stubble he usually favoured into a full blown beard, and his hair, normally spiky and out of control, had grown to the point where it now fell limp over his forehead instead. Add to that the general grime he was covered in, as well as the terrible state of his clothes, and he doubted anyone from Atlantis would recognise him now, even if they were staring him in the face.
Which, he thought bitterly, they wouldn't be, because apparently no one has any plans to come back at all…
"Dammit," John cursed, thumping the ground in frustration.
Jett lifted his head, ears pricked as if he was trying to sense danger. John took a shallow breath and released it slowly. It didn't matter, he told himself. None of it mattered anymore.
"Sorry, pal," he mumbled hoarsely, stroking Jett's neck. The beast gave John a long, searching look before returning to his own food, obviously seeing enough in John's face to put him at ease. John wished he could say the same.
Instead, John couldn't shake the feeling of being completely uneasy; of feeling…betrayed, unwanted.
Lost.
It wasn't just that he'd been abandoned on this godforsaken rock either; it was that he'd been abandoned on this godforsaken rock by his friends. His family.
Or were they? He'd thought so, right up until four weeks ago, but now he wasn't sure…
We don't leave our people behind.
Except they had…
John turned over his meat, but was knocked out of his miserable thoughts when a hacking cough bubbled up in his chest. He tried to suppress it, but it was no use. With a tightness in his chest that he knew wasn't good, John coughed relentlessly for at least a couple of minutes – careful to keep the meat from falling into the fire or onto the ground. Jett stayed by his side, but didn't bark or growl. He'd seen his new master like this before, and he'd no doubt see it again.
When the fit was finally over - quite a few minutes after it had started - John was left feeling shaky and even more miserable than he had felt before.
"Damn," he muttered, rubbing his chest.
He could already feel himself becoming weaker by the day. It had started as a tickle at the back of his throat and a slight tightness in his chest. He'd brushed it off at first, more out of denial than any lack of concern. Well, that and he didn't really had the luxury of being concerned about it anyway. It wasn't like he could go to the local doctor and get it checked out. He was the local doctor.
And not a particularly good one judging by the piss-poor job he'd done on Jett's stitches.
John sighed and rubbed at his chest. Jett was doing better now, almost as good as new; John was the one who was struggling now. He supposed it wasn't all that surprising given the conditions he was living in. He'd already lost more weight than he could afford, and given all the cuts and scrapes he'd received during his time on the planet, it was probably only a matter of time before one of them got infected, or before he picked up some alien bug. It might even be the stuff he was eating, John thought, pulling his cooked meat away from the fire. Still, he took a bite.
No matter what had caused the illness, it sucked, John thought as he chewed slowly and without tasting. There was no denying it now; he was sick, and becoming sicker. He just wasn't sure he cared enough to fight it.
"I'm sorry, buddy," John muttered quietly to Jett. "I don't…I'm not the type to give up normally, but…I can't do it anymore. I just…I can't. I'm sorry…"
John hung his head and closed his eyes. The thing was – despite his whirring thoughts - he didn't feel sad, or angry, or even depressed.
He felt…empty.
After a lifetime of fighting, he simply had nothing left to give. He was alive by default, but he wasn't living anymore. If he hadn't found Jett, he probably would have ended it himself weeks ago, but he wasn't sure even the dog was enough to keep him going now.
John eyed the knife by his side, but didn't pick it up. Instead he finished his meagre meal, and stood, kicking up some dirt from the floor until the fire extinguished. It wasn't fully dark yet, but it would be soon, and John wanted to be inside the jumper by then.
He stretched his back, then turned to face the dog, who hadn't moved an inch. John dropped his own gaze, shame bubbling up in his stomach in the face of his own weakness. What was the point? What the hell was the point in any of it…?
"I'm sorry," he repeated, finally lifting his head. Jett looked forlorn, though it wasn't clear how many of John's words he understand, if any at all. John had a feeling the beast could just sense that something wasn't right, even if he couldn't comprehend exactly what it was.
"You should go, Jett," he told the dog, his hoarse voice cracking slightly. John gestured off into the growing darkness. "You should go back to your own kind. Leave me here to die in peace."
Was he dying? John thought absently. Probably. Did he care?
Probably not. He would've liked to die in battle – being the big hero and ultimately saving the day – but he supposed this was fitting in a way.
The truth was, John had never really felt as if he belonged anywhere until Atlantis. As a kid, he'd felt out of place amongst the rich, the privileged, the type of people who'd had their whole lives mapped out for them and who'd known that they'd never have to worry about a thing. When he'd left to join the Air Force – going against every single one of his dad's wishes at the time without so much as a backwards glance – John had believed that he would finally find his place in life.
How wrong he had been.
If anything, he'd felt even more out of place in the army than he had in his dad's world. He would never regret joining up, especially because it given him the chance to travel the world and more importantly fly pretty much any type of plane or helicopter he'd wanted, but the trouble he'd found, the people who had told him he'd never make it…that had soured the whole experience. The only reason he'd stayed in the Air Force was because wasn't sure he was capable of doing anything else.
In the end, he was glad that it had, if only because it had led him to Atlantis.
Even then, it had taken him a while to feel like he belonged in the expedition to the Ancient city. Colonel Sumner hadn't exactly welcomed him with open arms, and if the man hadn't died - if John hadn't killed him - John knew that he probably wouldn't have found his place on Atlantis at all. He would have been pushed to one side, ostracised for simply being a different type of soldier than the forces usually preferred.
But Sumner had died, and John had been placed in command as the highest ranking officer, and ultimately he had found his place. Home.
And now it was gone.
John sighed heavily, running a hand through his limp hair. He'd spent so much of his life alone, always trying to fit in but never quite managing it. He supposed it was fitting that he was going to die alone as well.
If he could just get Jett to leave him behind…
Please don't leave me…
"Go, you stupid mutt," John muttered, no heat in his words, only desperation. "Please. Just go. Leave me. I want…please, just leave."
But Jett wouldn't go. The dog simply sat on the edge of the jumper, eyes fixed on John as if he could see into his soul. John didn't know why the beast wouldn't leave him, but in that moment he felt nothing but relief flood through him, made all the more sharp by the absence of emotion that had preceded it.
Please don't leave me...
Jett wouldn't leave him, even if he was dying. He wasn't alone.
That was something at least.
"I just wish…I wish I could tell you more," Rodney ground out, almost slamming his tablet onto the conference table. "But the fact is, I just don't know enough."
"You have done a wonderful job in narrowing it down to these three choices, Rodney," Teyla soothed, correctly guessing that he was beating himself up for not doing more. "You have brought us much closer to finding John."
"But not close enough," Rodney ground out in frustration. He looked around the table. "There is literally nothing that separates these three planets; nothing of scientific note anyway."
"So how do we find out which one the Colonel's on?" Lorne asked, immediately going into Military Commander-mode. "There must be something. C'mon, McKay, ideas…"
The major looked exhausted, desperate. Rodney could sympathise with that…
"I don't know," Rodney replied with a sigh. "He could be on any of them, or if I'm wrong, he could be somewhere else altogether."
"Do you think you're wrong, Dr McKay?" Woolsey asked, eyebrows raised.
"No," he answered immediately, and tinge of his arrogance seeping through. It was quickly replaced by self-doubt, a somewhat foreign emotion to him. "But…what if I am?"
"Let's work on the assumption that you're not," Jennifer began, and Rodney shot her a grateful look. "Can't we just visit all three?"
"Yeah, you said the gates still work?" Ronon added.
"Actually," Rodney replied. "I'm pretty sure they don't. I've already had the tech's dial all three addresses. None of the wormholes connected."
"At all?"
"I thought the gates could accept incoming wormholes?" Beckett noted.
"Well, we know that Sheppard's planet did," Rodney agreed. "But then I attached a bomb to the DHD that probably blew up the gate as well."
"And the other two?"
"We know very little about them. Could be that something completely different is wrong with those planets, something that affected the gate as well," Rodney replied. "The Ancients didn't put much detail in the database entries. All I know is that these three gates can't accept incoming wormholes."
"So we still don't know where Sheppard is, or how find out," Ronon replied gruffly.
"We are much closer than we were this morning," Teyla told him, shooting Ronon a warning look.
"Can't we just fly to them?" Beckett asked.
"It would take at least a week to get to the first one alone, and that's if the Daedalus arrives here in the next day at the latest." Rodney paused to do a quick calculation. "If you want to visit all three, by my estimations, it would take about three months."
"That's too long," Ronon grunted, echoing the thoughts of everyone at the table.
"Then we need to determine which planet Colonel Sheppard is on so that we don't waste any more time," Woolsey said. "So does anyone have any ideas?"
Rodney didn't know if it was deliberate or accidental, but Woolsey's gaze fell onto him again.
"Oh, of course!" Rodney began, not even bothering to hide his annoyance. "Look to me, as always! I might be a genius, but I can't solve everything. I've told you everything I know, and if you bothered to listen to me for one second, you'd – "
"Rodney," Teyla interrupted, raising her hand as she cut him off mid-rant. "What of these…hounds of hell that the Priest mentioned?"
"What?" Rodney asked, completely taken aback by the random question. "Teyla, I don't think he was being literal…"
"But what if he was?" Jennifer asked, nodding. "It's not like we have anything else to go on. It's been four weeks since you left the Colonel there…"
The rest was left unsaid, but it was clear on everyone's faces that they all knew the stakes. All their efforts may already be too late, but the sooner they found the Colonel, the better.
"Teyla has a point," Beckett added. "Rodney, you said that there was 'nothing of scientific note' that separated the three planets. But what about folklore? What about legends?"
"I don't know," Rodney replied, frowning. "I wasn't exactly looking for that sort of thing."
Beckett, to his credit, didn't mock Rodney for even admitting that much, despite how out of character such an admittance was.
Instead, the doctor pulled the tablet towards himself. "Well then, let's find out."
A/N – So, what did you think of this chapter? I realise that John is in a really dark place at the moment - and has been for pretty much the entire story so far - but I don't think don't think it's unrealistic given the circumstances. Hopefully you agree? If you have a minute or two to spare, I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts on the matter! We're nearing the end of this tale now, but there's plenty more hurt/comfort and angst to come, don't worry (if, like me, you like that sort of thing). For now though, and until the next instalment, thanks for reading!