So, John has established communication with Primus, but what good will it do him?! We will see...

Chapter 12

John lay deathly ill and motionless on a bed of straw in the centre of a small barn. He looked cadaverous, so much so that Rodney might have believed he was looking at a corpse if he wasn't watching the rise and fall of John's shallow breathing. He willed each breath and worriedly waited for the next as the village leader continued to deny them help.

"He can't be here," Sama repeated for what felt like the hundredth time.

"We have nowhere else to go," Teyla replied calmly, though Rodney saw the tension in her jawline. "Our ship has gone and the creatures who attacked us are still in the woods."

"It doesn't matter, Fen Emagan. He can't be here."

Ronon shifted on his makeshift seat atop a bale of hay as another villager strapped his broken arm across his chest. "If you don't want him here, then you know what's wrong with him," he growled.

Sama nodded, his eyes widening as he whispered, "trivialities."

Rodney barked a derisory laugh. "Trivialities?" he shouted, moving his hands in a wide-sweeping action over John's unconscious form. "Does any of this look trivial to you, Sama?! I mean, what part of him dying is so trivial?!"

Sama's eyes narrowed as he looked to Rodney, hand tightening on his wooden cane. "The creatures within him, we call them trivialities."

"Oh, okay, that makes sense," Rodney flared. "What do you call the Wraith? Huh? Fluffy, cuddle bunnies?!"

"Rodney," Teyla admonished gently and placed her hand on his to impart some comfort.

He wrenched his hand away and shouted, "no, this is wrong, Teyla. This is so wrong. We came here last year, answered their call for help when that plague swept through the village and into the city. We saved them, but now that we need their help, they refuse us?!" he spat furiously.

"It's not that we refuse, Fer McKay, it's that we are unable to help him."

"Oh just stop with the honorifics if you are going to insult— wait, what?" Rodney's tirade faded and he swallowed painfully as he processed the words.

"We cannot help Fer Sheppard because we do not have the means to do so. Trivialities infected a third of our village and we could not save even one who fell to them."

Rodney filled with dread and looked to John. "Are you saying nothing can be done for him? Like, at all?"

Sama looked away and lowered his head.

"No," Rodney replied, shaking his head violently. "No, he's not dying. Someone here must be able to help him, we just need to find the right someone."

"Trivialities are not native to our planet," Sama said quietly. "The danu brought them here when their ship crashed two moons ago, therefore we know too little about them to help in this instance, Fer McKay."

"Danu?" Teyla inquired.

Sama sighed wearily and scratched at his temple. He stepped back and sat heavily on a hay bale, both hands gripping his walking cane. "The creatures who attacked you, we call them the danu. When their ship crashed we tried to help them. Only they attacked us and many of our people fell under their fire and claws. The danu disappeared into the woods and we came back to the village to bury our dead and tend the injured. But, we watched as the injured were consumed from within, and others wandered away to burst upon the banks of our great lake. Our warriors managed to capture a dying danu and took it to Central City for interrogation."

Rodney winced. He'd seen the machine at Central City and knew how it extracted information from the minds of whatever was strapped to it. He'd been shown an example of this the first time he toured the city, and he'd seen what became of the wraith who was forced to provide him with the demonstration as knowledge was ripped from its mind.

"The danu provided useful information," Sama continued, "and we discovered much about them. They are at war with a neighbouring planet against creatures far greater and superior to them. The danu discovered the trivialities on their moon whilst in search of food. The tiny beast's ability to rapidly consume as well as their electrical properties gave the danu the idea of making them into weapons to conquer the behemoths they fought. This particular ship of danu was apparently on a return run from their planet to take the last of the trivialities to the front lines. We cannot confirm this as we have not dared to enter the fallen ship. Because not even the danu could offer a cure for the trivialities."

"It was you who destroyed the lake," Rodney whispered aghast.

"Yes, in an attempt to destroy the trivialities. We knew some had made it there and flourished. We took no chances, so destroyed the very thing they live in."

"You said attempt," Teyla said, "are you saying it didn't work?"

Sama shook his head. "The wandering wounded simply headed for other waters, and we can not poison all of our water or we ourselves will perish."

Rodney didn't know what to say or where to look. His friend was dying and this time, there wasn't a thing he could do to stop it. Maybe he could have accepted the inevitability had John been shot by normal bullets. Maybe he could understand his dying if he'd been blown up, struck by a Jumper, killed in a Jumper crash or even fed upon by a wraith— all of which John had survived in the past. But to die as he did now, and because of such small, insignificant creatures, just seemed wrong. John Sheppard couldn't die from this. He just couldn't. And yet he was dying, right before Rodney's eyes, consumed by beings small enough to flow through his veins. He could even see them as he watched John. They were big enough now as to make his blood vessels bulge oddly. And what if they managed to get the trivialities out of him? How could he possibly survive the starvation he'd been subjected to while his tissues and blood were fed upon?

Rodney took a step back, then another, and another and soon he was outside, moving across the clearing with no real destination in mind. He just had to get out of that barn. That they'd even thought to sequester John to such a place was an outrage. This village, this clean and bustling village of wealth and grandeur, and they'd placed John Sheppard in a barn where calves were birthed and oxen slept. There wasn't one thing about this entire situation that was right and it ate at Rodney, made him so angry he could… murder a denu.

This was all their fault. The trivialities were simply products of the denu war, therefore, the beasts that set upon them were the reason for John's impending death. Rodney marched towards the woods, intent on finding a denu and making it pay for all its kind had done. But he faltered just before the treeline, eyes scouring the darkness within and realised there was no way he'd ever be able to take down such a creature. Ronon killed three and had almost lost his life while doing so. It had taken Caronaa warriors, men and women within biomechanical suits, to bring back even a dying one. So, what made Rodney think he could do it? His anger deflated as quickly as it had arisen and Rodney saw his bravado for what it was.

The second stage of grief.

He'd already passed the first stage, denying John was dying. He'd been telling himself this was just another close call that John would pull through and get back to normal. But Sama's words told him otherwise so he'd taken the leap into the next stage with his anger at the situation. Rodney knew that bargaining came next, but he had nothing to bargain with and believed in no God with whom to make a deal. He dropped and sat on the ground, pulling his legs up against his chest and wrapped his arms around them. He buried his head within the hollow created by his knees and arms and sniffed sadly.
What was he going to do without John? What would he be without John?

Sheppard had played a huge part in moulding the man Rodney was today and he just couldn't see himself continuing to function as he did without the man's constant friendship. People might argue and say the team had moulded him and to an extent that was true. But what would keep them together when John died?

Rodney really had no one except the team. And once John died, the chances of them staying together were zero. It would be disbanded and assimilated into other teams and Rodney had no doubt that there wasn't a commander who would have him. Teyla and Ronon would undoubtedly be given command of their own team and this would leave Rodney back in the science labs, doing ordinary stuff with other scientists who didn't really like him. With the exception of his sister, John was the only family Rodney really had, so he would have no one when he returned to Atlantis. It was a depressing thought.

He thought maybe he was being rather selfish sitting there thinking only about himself and his future as John lay dying. He should be by John's side, comforting him since he couldn't help him. But Rodney didn't want to watch his best friend and honorary brother, die. It would kill him to witness John's death. But if this was the final thing he could do for the man who made him who he was, then Rodney decided he should be there when it happened.

He got back to his feet and returned to the barn, never realising he'd sped through the other stages of grief in order to reach this decision. Once inside, the others simply nodded and smiled tightly, as if they had endured the same internal battle and understood only too well what he was going through. Rodney approached and knelt by John's improvised bed of hay, imagining the man's condition had worsened during his brief absence.

Then John's eyes slowly opened and tried to focus on the people around him. They frantically searched until they found Rodney and when they finally did, John smiled. It was a weak smile, but it gave Rodney the impression that Sheppard was not ready to give up the ghost just yet. He spoke, haltingly and weakly, his voice barely a whisper.

"You have to save them," he breathed, his eyes slowly closing. "I know you can. Do it for me."

To be continued...