Star Man (Part two)
Chapter 3 – Pain
A/N This chapter is short ... just covering one particular part of the story. It is down as a personal favourite of mine.
SGA SGA SGA
All that John had perceived pain to be before, was nothing on what he was feeling right now.
The pain that had a grip on him might very well be fatal – that he understood. That he battled with.
It had eventually left his mouth wide open; locked in a silent scream. It caused skin to split and expose blood so that it freely ran down from his lip, nose, and ears and over spill from the pooled blood in his mouth where his tongue and cheeks had been bitten when the moving of Atlantis had begun – this was pain in a new incarnation.
Pain.
Raw.
Pain.
Screaming. Screaming. Screaming for it to stop.
His voice stopped…broken… previously unknown sensations made him shiver.
Cold. Cold. Mouth now shocked into stillness … frozen in time.
He was deprived of energy. Darkness called him. Lured him to think he would be safe there. That it would be okay to make his way alone and not dare care for any that he left behind.
Thoughts of love, longing and laughter kept him grounded.
His body he let go of… a long time now…just the mind left.
Harness your mind, John. Stay there. Yes, keep all your knowledge and strength there. That's where its needed. That's where pain could be battled.
Further time passed. … a touch.
Was that a touch? Was some-one holding onto him as much as he was trying to hold on to reality?
Todd?
No. He was out of reach. It could not be him.
But he was being given a lifeline…some-one out there, away from his pain filled life, was alive …and well…and relying on him…counting on him. He had taken them to safety...it had to be the case.
Then he had to squeeze imagined eyes shut to block out a sudden massive injection of torment.
And where was his spirit? Dammit!
Indelible, stubborn…come on, John! Fight it.
Blackness.
SGA SGA SGA
In the cordoned off area he's kept for himself in his mind, he sees Teyla walk towards him; arms widespread, nearing him with an expression he has not misread. It is love. He is loved. He loves by return.
John moans slightly but he does not know why. This loving feeling that came over him suddenly melts away like ice in the sun.
Irretrievable.
John then counters his moan with an all-out cry of defiance. Pain is there to be conquered.
Lips that had stayed apart and frozen for a time, now allowed the broken voice to cry out its misery for all to hear once more.
Then he felt an intrusion in his being; but not hurtful...help perhaps. Just what he needed to get through the ordeal in blackness.
Atlantis.
She had started off slowly a time back, he now understood. Perhaps she had taken the worst on his behalf …ha, how could there have been more!?
Fingers that feel like gentle electric stimuli dances over his body until his crying voice is stilled again, because there had been more to come...and he had had help.
Atlantis.
He knew her. He accepted her help, although his memory diminished of it every time he felt it aid him.
He held on to the feeling of the great city wanting free as well as he.
They had a connection.
She allowed him to use her powers; to seek what he had not found before. A door had been opened and information was sent spiralling towards his mind so that he would know how to fly her and survive.
Race for it.
Get there first before you lose it.
John knew all these things. Knew that time had only been a few minutes; not even an hour.
But.
Such a big word for three letters.
But, was life or death for many. All on his shoulders.
Scream.
Too much, too much.
"I can't handle it!" He screamed, verbally.
Somewhere in reality a voice shouted back, "Yes, you can!"
John heard it and clawed his way back with his mind gradually making sense of the schematics flooding his system from Atlantis herself. His breathing quickened and he knew his head rolled left, then right until somebody held his head still. His fingers had embedded themselves in the soft pads of the chair and he wondered if he had even broken them as his grip had been so fierce and unrelenting.
Less now.
He was coming down. Something had changed.
Something had…
Scream again.
Reality meant pain. It didn't allow him to leave its clutches that easily. Not when he was still flying high and taking the great city with him. Pain was the price to pay for her breaking free and going home.
John was paying that price.
There was no more time to wait and see if he had returned unscathed.
John opened his eyes.
He was almost too tired to feel relief at blurrily seeing the extremely worried faces of Ronon, Carson and Teyla vying for his attention.
He faltered too long and soon lost the ability to speak, feel, or even see.
Something had flared up in him and shook his nerves so much that his senses were jumbled and out of reach to make any sense to himself, and the control he needed for his limbs, eyes and ears to function.
"John?" was a word, or was it a question he heard in various tones and degrees.
He was being shaken.
Somebody said, "No, leave him!"
He moaned, yet found his voice this time to be just outside him, but still unable to share, or to articulate what he wanted: needed.
SGA SGA SGA
Something hard was pressed into his face.
Oxygen.
The sweet tasting and life giving gas was twenty percent of Earths atmosphere.
John inwardly smiled. His mind was returning to facts he knew. Things were making sense…weren't they?
So why was it so dammed hard to open his eyes properly; speak in a tone that could be understood to everyone. He knew they watched him and waited for signs that he was not brain-dead.
Oh…was he? Is that why he could not seem to function?
A second later there was a loud hiss of escaping gas. The mask was lifted off him and he mourned its loss. But then.
Pure, delicious and beautifully cold water was dabbed onto his dry, cracked lips. They responded with needy haste, and his missing voice mimed for more.
Momentarily satisfied , all he wanted to do was wake-up from whatever was going on with his body.
He had never felt so exhausted.
He stared forward with unseeing eyes, he shouted out something incoherent to all around him. There was no way he should have survived the moving of the great city. The power required had been more than he knew he could give.
He needed Rodney. Yes, Rodney would know. "Ro..d..ny…?"
They did not understand him …dammit! Rodney did not appear. Where was he?
All John wanted to do was run to where nothing was required of him, and the lingering stabbing pain was gone, so he forced himself to concentrate on the now to reach his goal.
Sometimes something pulled at him and he had to readjust – something. Ah, yes … direction and distance, velocity, power…more and more power. Was that Rodney asking that of him? If he was there and asking he would not disappoint him.
So he couldn't just run away from the things he had been born with the ability to do.
He forced himself to sit up straight… lean into the once again offered mask…accept the wet cloth that wiped his face and marvelled at how it made him feel…alive.
And yet still his eyes remained dull and unseeing. Shadows flitted backwards and forwards. Who touched him, he never knew, but they were always there and he was glad of it.
Occasionally John blinked, that's when a sudden bright light made his eyes startle enough to open wider and somebody patted his knee. They wanted him to know they were happy with him. He wanted them to know he understood. He tried to cover the hands that touched him on knees, face and arms, but his own arms stubbornly refused to move.
He groaned in pain and disappointment.
So they moved them for him.
Pain came again in its ugly form.
It made him scream and apologies were flung in the air like the sound of bullets hitting stone. He ducked but had nowhere to hide.
John screwed his eyes shut against the misery.
Until fingers like soft butterflies dared to touch gently at first and then lingered like the softest leather that fitted his face like a glove.
His mind told him to smile at that, so he did. He felt the leather stretch with his expanding skin and stuck his lip out to taste the air outside. Blessed coldness then fell in huge drops on his tongue so he sucked it in. It craved more until his throat demanded some as well and began to come alive.
"Small amounts, John." And he knew it was Carson.
He responded. "C'son. Wat…?" Had they heard him?
The words were hardly clear; jagged in fact. Only slightly hydrated from the cool water he had begged for just a minute ago.
When a hard plastic cup was pressed against his willing lips, he knew he had been understood. He downed the small amount the doctor would allow him and tried not to choke or spoil his generosity.
Next, a calming hand became apparent on his left shoulder; one on his right arm. He was becoming more and more aware.
Unfortunately, his old friend – the usual pain he had previously been familiar with, thwarted his total attempts at awakening fully. He toyed with the idea of blasting it into space now that he knew they were there, but it was beyond his abilities.
So he had no choice but to put up with the sudden excruciating pain in his fingers as they were touched, and…what? Bandaged? Had he broken them?
He knew he had pain in his joints; particularly his hips and knees. His back was too numb to comment on, but it was a pain that made him feel alive. All he had to do now was go with the flow as he felt warm hands poke and prod him all over. That was familiar pain. Pain he could handle.
Exhaustion then became more of an enemy, and he struggled to remain alert to all that was happening around him.
A cool hand stroked his forehead.
Teyla.
"It's over." He heard her whisper...or shout...as his hearing had not yet fully returned.
He must have blacked out then as the next time he woke he was lying flat and being transferred from a gurney and back onto his not long departed bed in the Infirmary.
"Mm...ugh..mm..."
"You must not fight us, John. Please, be calm. All is well. You did it! We are free and on our way home. Our friends in the command centre have taken over. You have no need to push yourself anymore."
John heard her words through thick fog, but they were there for him to hear: golden and glorious.
He could relax...if it were not for the pain.
Then a sharp scratch, and he felt a needle being inserted into the crook of his elbow, and this time he did not balk at being drugged. This time he welcomed it.
"Tried to ..."
"Sleep, John. Please. Just close your eyes, I will be here by your side. I am so very proud of you..."
"We ...are so proud of you!" Rodney added.
John then felt a body lean over him and whisper a word in his ear he struggled to comprehend, until he realised it was a word in Satedan that Ronon had told him once before about his group leader that had saved many in the war against the Wraith. He had been a hero to Ronon and he had just bestowed on him the same honour.
John fought the tears falling down his cheeks.
It was a harder thing to do than what he had just been through, so he gave up on that fight and let them come; only to feel them being gently wiped away with the same soft leather of earlier.
Blackness.
A welcome one this time.
SGA SGA SGA
To be continued...
A/N Whew glad that's over. I was truly shattered writing that, ha! I hope you are enjoying the story?