Thank you for all your continuing support! I've temporarily put writing my book on hold so I can get this story written quicker :D

Chapter 4

They were lost. More lost than they'd ever been, and John Sheppard didn't give a damn. Rodney pulled him onward, trying to steer him in one direction while John pushed in another. They made little headway, slamming into trees and tripping over fallen branches as they wrestled for the lead while looking like a pair of drunken, one-legged racers.

John was now fighting for command after giving it up so easy before. He could tell it was annoying Rodney and truth be told, he didn't quite understand why he felt the need to take control back. He hadn't cared where he was going or why, but now he needed to head east. Something told him that was the direction they should go in and Rodney fought him every step of the way.

His chest burned, the wounds a hot mess beneath his shirt and vest. There was a tingling throughout his torso that came and went, tickling his insides maddeningly. Whatever caused the sensation grew steadily worse, almost as if his veins were somehow vibrating wildly beneath the skin. His head was a fuzz-filled cavern with little in it except the need to head east. He couldn't care less about the pain, tingling, or that they hadn't heard from Ronon and Teyla for so long. When he tried to think about what happened, John found himself caring even less.

Occasionally, violent images flashed through his mind, of blood gushing from his chest and running behind his shirt, of searing pain that stopped his breath, of an alien touch on his mind much too familiar for his liking. But, John felt nothing. The memories meant naught to him, so disconnected from his own mind that he disregarded the throbbing from his wounds as soon as he acknowledged it.

He didn't mind when Rodney forced him to sit down in order to tend to his wounds. Didn't care when Rodney cursed aloud and grimaced at the sight of them. John merely shrugged, leaned against a tree and closed his eyes. It seemed there was nothing that could faze him right now. Nothing at all.

"I can't stop the bleeding. I'm pretty sure… sure I can… is that... bone…?" and John almost laughed when he heard Rodney pass out on the grass beside him. It was so like McKay to see something grisly and close down.

Bone? What did that even mean? It wasn't as if his rib cage was showing, was it?

John suffered an unusual moment of sheer panic, unusual since it was his first real thought in so long as if he'd forgotten how to think. There was an unsettling squirming sensation within his thigh which made his stomach heave and as he leaned over to vomit, a sudden calmness descended over him. The nausea passed and when John sat up again. Rodney's words were gone. Just as the memories from before were gone. The horrors that should have him screaming in abject terror, were lost once more.

He leaned back against the tree, closed his eyes and sighed contentedly. A few moments passed, and he heard Rodney stir from his fainting episode. There was a sniff and strangled cough that sounded as if the man was about to be sick. But Rodney held it together long enough to have another look as John's chest.

"Dear God," he muttered and John heard some shuffling then something cold and wet dabbed at his wounds. "This is worse than before. I can… see bone, John. This isn't good." Another shuffling noise then Rodney's voice. "Teyla, Ronon, come in. This is an emergency. If you can't break cover or… or… or are hiding or something, at least click the com so I know you can hear me!"

There was a short silence followed by three clicking noises. Then came the sound of a soft yet urgent female voice.

"Rodney, this is Teyla. I got separated from Ronon. I am trying to make my way back to you. What is happening?"

"Teyla!" Rodney cried, relieved to hear her voice. "Thank God! John's in a really bad way. He wasn't blasted with energy, they hit him with these black things and they stuck to him and… and they were alive, Teyla. I removed them and John's now acting weird—"

"Speak for yourself," John slurred.

"—and I don't know why. I can't get him to do anything. It's like he's given up! And his chest?! It's covered in—"

"Calm down, Rodney," Teyla interrupted, thankfully halting the hysterical monologue. "Tell me where you are?" she asked.

"I'm trying to head north towards the village but Sheppard keeps dragging me east. I've no idea where we are now." Rodney's voice finished in a high-pitched worried whine.

"Okay, stay calm. I'll work my way back to the landing site and try to follow your path."

"Okay," Rodney replied in a soft, childlike voice.

Something about that tone upset John, which started a chain reaction inside his mind.

"I heard Ronon click in," Teyla continued. "We will need to find and help him if he cannot return on his own. Rodney, I will be with you soon," she promised.

In the silence that followed the transmission, John thought about how Rodney had spoken.

McKay was a man not as easily fazed as he was once. A man who once battled through mutism while riding a wheelchair and he still got his point across while working tirelessly and as vigorously as any able-bodied person. Someone who had battled through and overcome those disabilities to rejoin the team, better and stronger than ever. A man as intelligent and articulate as John himself and a man who was braver than ever for all he had suffered. Rodney had saved John's life countless times without hesitation. So, John idly wondered, what could possibly have driven McKay back into his old ways so thoroughly that he sounded like the Rodney John first met years before?

With that question, John realised his confusion had lifted. Rodney's voice had unwound his strangled consciousness, and John only now understood it had been somehow dampened for some time. He gasped, his eyes snapping open, and he looked at the man beside him.

"You alright?" Rodney asked.

But John couldn't reply as more memories flowed through his mind as well as an awareness of pain, of violation and of something clinging desperately to his mind in a bid to… control him?

No. Placate him

Just as he thought he could think straight, vivid images of black beastly beings worming into his body came to mind. He felt the pain in his chest, excruciating and radiating throughout his entire body. He saw the ambush in quick-time, fast forwarding through his mind until he fell back onto the ground beside the Jumper in agony. Blood spurting from his chest as slime coated oddities ate their way inside him. He remembered lying there, wishing to scream, trying to cry, begging silently for relief as a violent shock froze his body and mind and—

—an eerie calm fell on him, soothed his frazzled nerves and hushed his frantically firing neurons. John relaxed back onto the tree with a sigh and shrugged.

"I'm fine," he replied softly to Rodney's question. "We just need to head east."

"Why?" Rodney asked. "What the hell is so important about that direction?"

"Water…"

"Oh? And what? You want to go for a swim, is that it? Sorry to point this out, but with holes like those you'll sink!"

"No, Rodney, I want to survive."

"And the water can, what? Patch up those wounds of yours?"

"It can cleanse the wounds, Rodney. And I can drink it and take my damned thirst away."

Rodney looked abashed and away from John. "Why didn't I think of that?" he muttered then activated his com. "Teyla, change of plans. We're heading east. To Lake Parnak."

"Okay, I will meet you there soon," she responded.

Three clicks sounded immediately after.

"At least Ronon knows where we're going. Hopefully, he can join us at the river, too," Rodney said as he pulled John to his feet. "Does this mean you will stop pulling me in all over the place?"

John just nodded; eyes already locked in the direction of Lake Parnak. They were close to it, so close he could almost taste the freedom. Such a notion didn't confuse him as everything told him it was freedom that awaited him at the river. Freedom for him and his… kin.

They trudged onwards towards the river, Rodney continually asking him if he was okay like some damned parrot from Earth.

Are you okay? Are you okay? Are you okay?

John could almost hear a squawk between the words. He smiled, imagining Rodney's head on a parrot's body, chomping on crackers and spitting them out as he screeched, "Want a cracker?!"

Want a cracker? Want a cracker? Want a cracker? Want a…

"… rest?" Rodney asked after an indeterminate measure of time.

John shook his head but his body ached to lay down for just a moment. His chest was no longer the only thing burning. It felt as if his blood was super-heated, flowing around his body faster than ever. His heart wasn't beating any faster, in fact, it felt a lot slower than normal, so how could his blood move any faster? His face flushed and forehead drenched with sweat. The heat within radiated out and even Rodney commented on it, mentioning things like infection and high-temperature, fever and infirmary.

In John's right thigh, something moved.

He felt it again, like there was something beneath the skin, turning and moving slowly within him. John pulled Rodney to a stop and gazed down at his leg curiously. With shaking hands, he unbuttoned his trousers. He heard Rodney yelp and noted him turn away.

"If you needed to go, you should have said! You can't just whip it out in front of another man without warning, for crying out loud!"

But John had no intention of relieving himself. He lowered his trousers to the top of his thighs and saw a circular wound which was sealed with a hardened, green plug. His eyes caught movement to the side of the wound, something beneath the skin was indeed moving around his thigh.

"Rodney?"

"What? Do you need help? Please don't ask me for help!"

"Rodney, please!"

The panic in his voice brought the scientist to his side and Rodney reluctantly looked down to John's bared leg. The man covered his mouth with his hand, retching behind his fingers until the stomach convulsion passed.

"What… what the hell is that?!"

"I…"

The thing moved swiftly from his thigh and up into his back. A frisson of energy darted up John's spine, froze his body functions and halted his mind. John Sheppard forgot the weird thing that moved within him and the wound he'd seen moments before. He no longer cared why Rodney looked so ill or shocked. John calmly pulled up his trousers and buttoned them closed as Rodney retched again.

"It's nothing. I think it must have happened when we fell before."

Rodney shook his head violently. "No, no, this is something else, John. You know this is!"

John shrugged. "It's just an injury, from when we fell."

Rodney grabbed his shoulders and shook him. "For God's sake, John, wake up! What the hell is wrong with you?! Why are you being like this?!"

A violent burst of energy spread through him and created an electrical discharge which made Rodney convulse before throwing him forcibly away. For a moment Rodney McKay was airborne, flying backward until he connected with a tree and fell limp to lie within its roots.

John Sheppard smiled and shrugged.

Then he looked east and started walking.

To be continued... feed meh cookies!