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Chapter 20: Unified Goals

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By Ronon's estimation, he could neutralize the entire community in ten minutes, maybe twelve if there were some outlier soldiers. It was almost insulting and yet impressive that they had breached Atlantis with so few military personnel and outmatched Lorne's team when they followed. It said a lot for their military commander, who Ronon had observed with mixed findings.

It was obvious Kannar had the loyalty and trust of the soldiers under him, and yet, there had been an undercurrent of that same feelingsbetween he and McKay. A mutual trust. And Rodney's trust was hard to earn, some days Ronon felt like he was still earning it. Add to that, John seemed to trust Kannar to keep his word that a peace could be forged between them. But Ronon knew that John liked to offer underserved trust to people. 'I should know, I was one of them.' The memories almost brought a smile to his face but that wouldn't do to show right then, not when he was projecting his fierce Sataden face.

He tuned back into his surroundings, and the line of people waiting to see Carson. Some obviously sick and some "sick" like McKay got when he was nervous, or felt neglected..or it was Tuesday. Carson treated them all with respect, administrating their "cure" with a reassuring smile and a peppy, "There you go. You'll be right as rain soon." Well, he'd modified that because his first few customers didn't think they wanted to be right as rain. So his speech switched to 'right as the sun' and that went over better.

Of course, Carson's actions were viewed with skepticism by the community's doctor scowling over Carson's shoulder. He'd tried to put his hand in Carson's medical bag to spy on Atlantis's medical supplies but Ronon had quickly nipped that in the bud by towering over the man, arms crossed and giving out his deadeye stare. The doctor tripped in his haste to back away from the bag.

Thankfully the line of patients was dwindling and Ronon felt his impatience surged. They had one of their own sick, really honest to goodness sick and they were placating people who weren't even ill, and even the ill ones weren't going to die. But that led to a deeper well of worry for John that he hadn't wanted to admit.

The soldier in him knew John could die. Everyone died. But the civilian in him wanted to believe John was too stubborn to die, too wily to conform to even death's manipulations. Torn between hope and despair, he desperately wanted to get to John, to sway the odds for the man, to save him like he'd save him so many times. In all fairness, Ronon also knew Carson had the aching need too, maybe even greater because, unlike Ronon, he might have the means to save John's life.

As for taking on the soldiers in the community and setting up his own marshal rule, Ronon put that notion away for now. There were so many factors other than who had the most guns and the soldier-to-Atlantean ration. Knew that even if he didn't exactly know what those factors were, John did. And he had back an alliance play instead of an invasion one. And John Sheppard, even as sick as he was, was someone Ronon trusted in every situation to do what was best for Atlantis. Certainly never the best for himself with his crazy self-sacrifice streak, as evidenced by his serum taking stunt. But if an alliance was what John thought Atlantis needed from these people who lived without electricity and held ten-thousand-year-old grudges, then an alliance was what Ronon would strive to bring about. As long as it didn't interfere with his main objective to protect the people who he cared about most.

Alliances were formed and were broken, lives taken, lives saved, civilizations built up and broken down. He'd seen the rotation on the planets he'd been to on his stint as a runner. The only constants were people, that there were all kinds. Some people showed kindness, some let their fear govern them, some used their strengths to sadistically rule others, and some very rare few would take a foolish risk and trust a stranger that had kidnapped them and may or may not kill them. Alliances were all good and fine, but Ronon put his faith in people who had earned it, who were closer to him than any friend on Satedaen had ever been.

The choice was so clear now, when just that morning it hadn't been. Felt foolish that he'd defied John to track down some strangers just because they were from his home planet. Tricking himself that they could mean more to him than John, or even McKay. It had been blindly nostalgic. Sateda was his past. John, Atlantis was his present, were his family. His father had raised him to be loyal to family first. And he'd thought he was adhering to that advice by trying to ally with people of his planet, but he'd been betraying the family he already had.

He owed John an apology, and he didn't doubt the man would accept it, because John was a big soft-hearted idiot. An idiot that Ronon vowed to not lose, even if he had to take down every soldier in this community and hold them all hostage while Carson got John well again.

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It was a longer trek to the shield than Rodeny remembered, could feel the sweat running down his back. So gross! He should have made one of Kannar's neanderthal soldiers carry the generator. But he'd been in his 'mine, all mine' stage and stubbornly refused. 'Pride. Fall. Any of that ever going to sink in, Rodney,' he jeered silently to himself, even as he knew he'd been right when he told John that he wasn't turning humble any time soon. Was why John needed to stick around to be his buffer.

He didn't like how much worse John had seemed to him now. Course maybe it was because he'd not seen him for a few hours, feared he wouldn't ever get back to him when he reentered Atlantis. Now he was seeing him in his true condition. Rodney decided he liked it much better when it was through a filtered subjective. Even if the gate tearing John apart wasn't a thing, John was now too ill to be walking out of this town on his own two feet.

Chiding himself for letting himself dwell on his fears instead of the solution, Rodney marched forward, finally saw the guard by the supposedly defunct ZPM base. His eyes going to the landscape around the base, the ground underfoot and trying hard to ignore the trailing entourage of Kannar, three soldiers, Sakar and that odious Olpwen, he approached the base and sat down the generator.

Speaking to Kannar because he was the only one worthy of an explanation, Rodney said, "I need to recalibrate the shield's setting to replace the power source. It might take some time. Unlike the ZPM, the generator is not weatherproof, so you need to build a structure to protect it."

"You claim this "generator" of yours is so powerful, yet it can not withstand some rain?!" Olpwen scoffed.

Rodney turned to his antagonist. "I'm assuming you didn't build your little wooden huts and buildings by pounding nails with your hands. You used tools, made of metal. Hammers, saws, useful …even powerful tools, and yet if you leave them out in the rain, they rust, dull, become pieces of junk instead of tools. Don't judge a tool's usefulness by its vulnerability. Like you judged John Sheppard's usefulness," he spat, hated this man and all of them for underestimating John's testimony in their little mock trial as soon as he showed he wasn't impervious to illness.

Kannar stepped in to diffuse the brewing storm. "We will ensure the generator is protected," he soberly vowed to McKay, knew what level of gift this power source was to his people. One they kind of didn't deserve but John Sheppard had convinced McKay they should get all the same. Sheppard, the guy they let lay in agony without medical treatment or any show of kindness. Kannar felt ashamed all over again for how long he'd let John suffer, even if he'd done it only until he found a way to help him and his own people. He was no saint, had his own plans, was using John's illness as leverage, even over his own people, yes, but for their good. He wasn't sure if that made him ready to take over his father's leadership of their people, or wholly unworthy to ever wear that mantle.

Watching McKay kneel down beside the power source base, Kannar turned to his soldiers, ordered them to stand guard from a distance. Turned to his father and obstinately ignoring Olpwen, he imparted, "This might take some time. I will have someone come for you when he's made progress."

Sakar refused his son's dismissal, but gently, "We'll wait here, watch his actions, hopefully learn how to use the power source for ourselves."

Not happy with his father's decision but accepting it, Kannar eyed up Olpwen. Course he wasn't going anywhere either. Resigned to the audience, he came to a crouch beside McKay. "If I can assist in any way…"

McKay was in his analytical zone where people talking to him, heck, even if bombs were dropping nearby would only be static to him. So he startled when a hand came to rest on his forearm, snapping him back to the world outside his thought process. He was almost surprised it wasn't John beside him. "What?" he snapped.

"Do you need my help in any way? Lifting things, moving the base?" Kannar lowered his voice for the next offer, "Providing a distraction when you're about to do something my father won't approve of?"

Rodney's eyes held Kannar's, his words reminding him just how much Kannar was risking, that he was deceiving his own father! Not to save John, Rodney knew that. It was about the alliance, about his people's survival, about not making Atlantis snuff them out in retribution if John didn't…if he couldn't…Rodney's lips thinned, hating Kannar in that moment, because it should be John beside him, not offering help but goading him to go faster, demanding that he give him a timeframe of when he'd be done, gripping about him stalling so he'd make his task seem more miraculous and he'd come off as a genius.

He missed John, desperately, in that moment. Had to look back at the generator before he got emotional. But when he shot a sideways look to Kannar, the man's expression was one of sympathy, told him he hadn't concealed a thing from the man. "It will take me a good hour to get this set up. After that, I might need your…offer…"

Kannar nodded, gave Rodney's arm a reassuring squeeze and stood up, notified the onlookers of the time frame. Instead of turning around and seeking somewhere to sit down for the wait, Sakar came forward, knelt in the mud beside Rodney, earning him a much surprised look from the scientist.

"My ancestors weren't engineers, they were politicians," Sakar sheepishly admitted, "but they knew that the best way to lead was to be knowledgeable in as many things as they could be that effected the survival of our people. What you're offering us, it is our greatest chance for survival. So I want to know everything I can about it. How to keep it functioning. How to fix it when it isn't. All this knowledge I will pass down to Kannar when I die. Well, as long as my mind isn't corrupted by disease. High fevers distort the process."

Rodney's eyes went wide. He thought the ancestorial memories were passed down through DNA to their children, that they were born with that knowledge. Now to learn it was passed on through death…it put a different feeling in Rodney's gut. These people survived, helped their next generation by dying. It made that act not a loss but a victory. Living in the hopes of gathering as much knowledge as they could so when they died, they could share all they knew. It made him understand why they might not have seen John's odds of dying as something to spare him from.

"We don't pass knowledge on that way," Rodney found himself explaining. "We have to impart our knowledge by telling people what we've learned, teaching our skills to others, like you want me to show you about this generator. If we die, we take all that with us. It's gone, forever," Rodney's voice choked at the thought of John being gone forever, of never having him pester him to do something faster, to never again race go carts with him in the Atlantis hallways, to never share his company for the comfort and contentment it brings. Turning sad eyes on Sakar, he stressed, "All that person's memories, all their knowledge, all the good they could have done yet is just….gone. What remains is the impact they had on our world, good or bad, and the memories of them which are held by the ones that loved them. We have one lifetime to be remembered, that's it."

New understanding showed in Sakar eyes. "That is why you are fighting so hard for John Sheppard's survival, why you hate us for not offering him aid. And it's why you came back, offered us this generator. To save a life precious to you from being taken away forever."

"Not just taken away from me, but all of Atlantis. He has saved our people with his…his ludicrous ideas, has never backed down from a fight, doesn't know how to put his own life above the lives of anyone else. He's a good man and I don't want him to die. Because he is like a brother to me. Tell me you don't want to keep your son safe, regardless of the knowledge he could pass on at his death? That you rather have him here with you than his military expertise preserved?" Rodney posed, knew if the man replied in the negative that there would never be a true alliance between them, that someone so…coldhearted wasn't to be trusted to ever put human lives above the knowledge and safety of their people.

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Carson had never come to terms with the whole 'sacrificing a few lives for the greater good'. It wouldn't necessarily be a sticking point if he'd been a country doctor, where those types of choices didn't ever have to be made. But he'd jumped both feet into the Stargate Program, thinking it was with full clarity of what might be asked of him. It had been a naïve outlook, especially since he'd stepped through the Stargate into Atlantis, into an active war zone.

War turned everything a murky gray. Which lives to save, what lives had to be sacrificed, how far to go to survive, what choices you could live with at the end of the day. His conscience was decidedly not clean, though he'd tried to be moralistic, to do the right thing, to see the cost of decisions made. But there were…unexpected fallouts. Losses he hadn't been prepared to face, rules he'd not thought he would ever break.

He wasn't the same person he had been before coming to Atlantis. It was little consolation that no one really was. And it wasn't just about this being another universe. It was this fight to simply survive, that he'd never had to contemplate before. Wasn't some global warming debate about future consequences, country skirmishes about long disputes, or even about money or power. Was a threat that was always hanging over them and was for their very existence. The Wrath weren't willing to compromise on their needs, would quench their thirst with the universe's population. That left everyone at Atlantis adjusting to that edge of the sword lifestyle.

So yes, he knew too intimately the sacrifices that had already been made for them to have survived so far in this universe. But he had never wanted to play an active part in those sacrifices. It was one thing to sort out the injured into critical and stable, another entirely different mindset to cast aside the wounded that were too far gone to save. But right now, he felt like he'd made that distinction, was off treating these barely ill persons while John Sheppard languished in agony, for all he knew continued to have seizures with his health deteriorating, maybe past the point of mitigating the damage.

As he administered the medication to the last person in the line, he hastened to stow away his supplies and was going to demand to be taken to Sheppard when a boy stood at the doorway. Carson nearly sighed. Putting down his gathered medical bag, he waved the boy forward, would give one more treatment. But the boy didn't come forward, stood back …seemingly afraid. "It won't hurt and you'll feel better," Carson reassured.

"I'm not sick," the boy insisted almost fearfully, eyeing up the injector in Carson's hands. But then he stiffened and pulled on his bravery and met Carson's gaze boldly. "My aunt needs the treatment and your general needs you to heal him, really bad."

Carson had to process the title of General before he realized the child considered John their General, which was close enough of a descriptor for him. "Can you take me to them?"

The boy nodded, gave a look to the soldiers hovering in the corner and must have received permission to lead them away for the boy was the one now waving Carson and Ronon forward. With a look to Ronon, Carson walked forward, could feel Ronon's comforting…and intimating presence at his back. Then they were outside the building, following the boy's lead down the village's main thoroughfare as the villagers warily watched their progress. It was only a a two minute walk to a building set apart from the rest…and guarded by two soldiers at the door.

Ronon bypassed Carson then. Approached the soldiers, stepped up to them toe to toe, daring them to try and stop Carson from entering. But the soldiers apparently had their orders to let them pass so, leaving Ronon to open the door and enter the building first. It took Ronon's eyes a moment to adjust to the darker interior but when they did, he was nearly incensed by the lack of anything considered accommodations for anyone ill. No bed, no heat, one feeble candle flickering on a table, and a dirt floor.

He had to drop his search to floor level to find John and fear had his limbs freezing up on him. The man lay on the dirt floor, motionless, as pale as a corpse and if not for the slight motion indicated breath, Ronon would have believed they were too late in coming. Before he could break from his stupor, Carson was purposefully rushing to his patient.

Kneeling down beside John, Carson took in his friend's sallow complexion, felt the too slow heartbreak with his fingers on clammy skin. Sheppard's condition seemed as if he had suffered a month of debilitating illness, not just a mere day of it. It had taken those long moments and touch before John's eyes fluttered opened and Carson nearly blanched at how dull they were with pain, that they lacked that Sheppard sparkle.

Before Carson could offer him hope, the Colonel grabbed his sleeve and pulled on the fabric. Knowing what the man wanted, Carson bent down close, his ear by Sheppard's mouth to hear his soft words. "I'm giving you an order. Maybe my last one so I hope you obey it. You don't want to tarnish my record here at the end, right?" his trademark smirk feeble but struggling to convey that same charm John used when he wanted to get his way and couldn't use force.

But by Carson's own experience and Sheppard's fellow teammates', when Colonel Sheppard came up with an order, especially if he thought it might be his last one, they always were the last thing any sane person would agree to. That only the strictest adherence to the principles of rank and the fiercest of loyalty would engender someone to obey. So Carson stiffened, might have recoiled back if John's fingers weren't still coiled into his sleeve.

"If things start to go bad here, tell the others you cured me and take me through the stargate, Carson," John commanded, eyes piercing Carson's with all the power he had left to wield. Saw Carson blanche at the command and knew it was his own fault the doctor was considering defying him.

He'd forced everyone in Atlantis to live and die by his decree to never leave a man behind. And now that statute was royally biting him on the butt. Sure, Rodney had left him, by gunpoint yeah, but he'd come back to him as soon as he could. And Carson and Ronon, they were as stubborn as Rodney, wouldn't leave without him. It was all his doing, this belief that you should risk everything, even if it were just for the cause to save one life.

Now he needed them to discard that teaching and leave him. But he knew in his heart that they never would. That was honorable and nice even, however, John didn't fully trust that Kannar's control over his people wouldn't slip, that this shaky window of peace wouldn't end in bullets and pitchforks. In no way did he want his friends dying in some maybe futile effort to save him. That left him with one option: He had to go through the stargate, regardless if it killed him..or decimated the rest of his cognitive functions.

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TBC

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Yikes! I know not a nice scene to end on for Christmas but that's where our story pauses.

Love to all my wonderful commenters who make my world a better place to write fanfiction. And since I couldn't reply I want to thank them here:

Sheppardlover 928: Thanks for caring enough to catch up with to the story and give your insights!

Shepfan: You can't know how rewarding it is that I got their dialogue down enough that you can practically hear them saying the lines! That's always my goal as I write, end up asking myself ..can I hear Sheppard saying this…doing this?

Guess reviewer: Really loved your smiley face to show me your reading & enjoying the story!

Thanks also to everyone reading this story silently at home. I do that so much of the time too!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Cheryl W.