And so another chapter! I've enjoyed reading your comments now that I can access them! FF was playing up a bit for me. Your comments make me so happy and keep me writing :D Anyway, we haven't heard from Primus and John for a while... Enjoy!

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Chapter 37

Primus darted through the dark tunnels of the birthing valleys, searching for a place for John Sheppard. It sought a place of warmth, not easy to come by so deep underwater. So far, finding anywhere that might provide refuge for Sheppard was proving difficult. The human had made good progress within the birthing valley, but that healing meant nothing if he perished while stranded in a tiny, freezing air pocket.

Primus searched everywhere, though it worried that what it sought would be inaccessible to the human. As it travelled, the tiny creature logged the position of air pockets along the way, resting places for Sheppard should Primus find a viable place. By Primus's estimation, it already seemed a much too difficult journey for Sheppard, and it had yet to find anywhere even remotely suitable.

Hundreds of years of Goh knowledge resided in its tiny mind, but its panic didn't help it access any relevant information. Primus panicked over the human's death, what its kin might do once the death was confirmed, and the return of the Groten ships to their waters, prompted by the presence of the human's craft. It needed better options, so Primus headed back towards the great cavern.

For some time now, the unified connection of all Goh had broken down. The remaining Eldus were too immature and too few to maintain the connection, so the Goh had no access to their vast knowledge banks. Primus had been very young when it was harvested. It remembered the comfort of the unified Goh and yearned for it. The Primus beings still living in the Ignothia waters continued their function to disseminate knowledge and teach the new generations, but the breakdown hindered their vocation. This meant that Primus had to seek the help of the Eldus for the information it required.

The great cavern, with luminous rocks dotted with thousands of holes, was the main gathering area for shoals of Goh. The holes in the rocks led to dwellings, nurseries, other caverns, and underwater systems that went on for miles. The Eldus dwelling was located within the rock formation in the center of the great cavern, placed perfectly to net all Goh into the collective. Primus, painfully aware that time was running out for Sheppard, churned the water with its tiny flippers and sped into the Eldus dwelling without the expected reverence.

Four young Eldus floated in the comfortable grotto. They were the largest of Goh, their skins a deep and iridescent indigo that shimmered in the light emanating from the surrounding rock. They regarded Primus as it stopped before them, silently and patiently waiting for it to speak.

"Great Ones, I come with haste to request information to save the human, John Sheppard."

"Greetings, Primus." Their voices filled its mind, all four speaking as one. "We know of the human and what it has done for us. What do you want to know?"

"The human needs warmth and air. If he stays where he is at present, I fear his life will come to an end. I fear what might happen if he dies."

The Eldus did not speak for some time, and Primus worried that they held no answer.

"You fear retribution should his life be extinguished?"

"Yes, Great Ones."

"No, Primus, you are mistaken. You regard this human as your friend," the Eldus said quietly. "You fear it… his, leaving. You have become irrational through worry for this human. You do not fear retribution from his kin; you fear his loss will hurt you."

"Yes, Great Ones," Primus admitted, accepting their words as the truth it knew them to be.

Sheppard had become more than just a human who helped the Goh. In the hours when Primus resided within him, thinking it would die, Sheppard had become a friend. They had been connected in thought for many hours before the return to Ignothia, and while Sheppard had ultimately suffered because of the Goh, they communicated as equals. They both learned from each other about their lives, dreams, and hopes, and discussed the vast differences and experiences between them as species from strange, different planets. Primus had experienced much savagery at the hands of other species, the Groten being the most savage of all. Primus had cultivated a deep hatred of anything not Goh because of this, as had many that suffered in the Groten tanks. But John Sheppard had proved that not all species were the same, not all were out to harm them. In their darkest hours, when both had resigned to their possible deaths, the two beings had forged a partnership that Primus treasured: a unique relationship with a being from another world. The thought of John dying was one that Primus could not bear.

"When minds become one, the bond is great and mourned once lost. Sadly, we Eldus know this more than most. Even though your connection is with a human, it doesn't diminish how you feel about possibly losing him."

Primus sank to the bottom of the grotto, coming to a rest on its sandy bed. "You speak truth, Great Ones. He may not be Goh, but he treated us with kindness and astonishing compassion even as we damaged him. He made sure that my kin were delivered home, and then he announced that his kin would try and liberate our imprisoned kinfolk. He gave us hope, he gave me friendship. And now he dies in our cold waters, and I am unable to help."

The four Eldus floated down to converge around Primus, each sending waves of warmth and loving support to its tiny thoughts.

"Dear Primus, do not despair. We are Eldus, after all. We have the knowledge that you seek."

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John was past caring as he floated in the icy water. His core body temperature was plummeting to dangerous levels, and he was sure that after everything he had gone through, his time was finally up. His entire body felt numb, with only enough energy to tremble slightly in the water. He stared up at the light coming in through the holes in the rock above him, wishing they carried rays of warmth that might heat his freezing body. He had no clue how long he'd floated there. Primus had beaten a message into the water that John hadn't understood. But this wasn't Primus's fault; it was because John couldn't focus long enough to decipher the message. And so Primus took off into the depths and left him there, alone.

After a while, John's mind drifted. Hazy memories surfaced that his mind projected onto the rocky walls of his watery prison. He saw loved ones and friends, smiling down on him, passing his eyes in a stream of fantasy created by his tired mind. He watched the memories play out with a soft smile on his lips, unaware that his head was beneath the water and his body slowly submerged. The memories gave way to an image of Kerria, her long hair floating around her head in an ethereal underwater dance as she smiled and reached for him. She called his name, softly at first, then more urgently as her smile disappeared. Her face contorted, and she screamed his name, making John open his eyes to the fact he was drowning.

He struggled weakly to rise above the water, his waterlogged clothes finally dragging him down now that his strength had left him. His arms uselessly flailed as his legs kicked feebly beneath him. He slowly sank while his lungs burned and yearned for the cold air above. He panicked as his movements weakened, struggling to get his limbs to coordinate. His body convulsed as he fought against the involuntary urge to breathe. Then he felt things bump into his back. John grasped at his throat, making suppressed choking noises as he sped through the water, the Goh pushing his weight upwards at speed.

When he breached the waterline, John heaved in a deep breath. He weakly splashed about as he coughed and spluttered, surprised to have survived the event. The Goh didn't leave him again, staying with him and buoying him in the water as he stretched out to float on his back. He breathed raggedly, aware that it was unlikely he would survive a third drowning episode. This awareness brought with it fatalistic thoughts that clouded his mind and the depressing fact that he was unlikely to survive for much longer.

What was the use in fighting anyway? His body was ruined. He was trapped in an underwater system with no way to escape, and where would he go if he could? He was on a different planet. He wouldn't know where to go, what to eat, or what to do. He had no means of communication with his team and had no idea how long it would be until they returned. He couldn't even wait safely for their return as every part of his current situation worked against him. At some point, the water, the cold, the unending hunger or the combination of all three would kill him. John just couldn't see a way out of this. Even when Primus eventually returned and began beating a message on the water, John felt no hope. He ignored the tiny splashes, refusing to decode the message of probable platitudes.

The tiny creature hauled itself from the water to rest on his chest before John acknowledged it. He watched as it crawled its way closer to his face, a trickle of fear in his mind as he saw its teeth-ringed mouth open and close repeatedly. It took a moment for him to understand that Primus was suffocating and not trying to eat him, as he so foolishly thought. He wondered why it would put itself in such a position until he accepted that his stubbornness and reluctance to acknowledge it led Primus to take such action. He gently took hold of the little creature with numb fingers and set it back in the water. He apologised and waited for it to communicate, hoping his dwindling concentration would hold long enough to understand what Primus wanted to say.

There is a cave with air and warmth.

It is near an underwater crevasse from which heat radiates.

"Like… like a hydrothermal vent?" John asked.

I am unsure what that is, Sheppard.

It is situated on the boundaries of the birthing valleys.

Should we get you there, you may be able to recuperate in the healing waters with no fear of drowning or freezing.

"Should you get me there? Sounds like that might be problematic. Why didn't you take me there to begin with?"

I did not know of its existence at the time of your arrival.

It is a part of the birthing valleys that is too dangerous to swim, even for Goh.

Getting you there will require some rest stops for you to breathe.

There are not many places for this to happen.

"So I might drown on the way?"

We hope not.

"How feasible is it? I mean, would I be better just staying here?"

This new place will give you a better chance of survival, Sheppard.

You will not survive here for much longer.

"Yeah, no shit," John whispered mostly to himself.

Even though his recent train of thought was morose at best, John still possessed the will to survive. He wouldn't give up unless there were no alternatives, and Primus had just given him another option to save himself. It wasn't going to be easy, and it was possible he wouldn't make it to this new cave alive, but he was going to try. Once the plan was explained, John readied himself for what could be his final journey. Primus had planned it to the tiniest details, one of which John didn't like too much. It involved a large shoal of mature Goh, bulky, strong specimens with long, powerful flippers. The plan was for the adult Goh to anchor themselves to John so that there was no way he could be lost in the riptide of the birthing valleys and drown, which sounded fine until John realised what that meant. Primus explained that to navigate together in one moving and stable mass safely, he would have to endure many tiny teeth buried in his skin. John's mind recoiled at the idea. These weren't the tiny Goh that had taken him through the birthing valleys by pushing and nudging him with what John thought of as their noses. These were fully mature adults, with big mouthfuls of needle-like teeth.

I'm afraid the waters in the part of the valleys we must take you are more ferocious than the waters you were in before.

"Can't they just bite into my clothes?!"

There is a possibility that your clothes could dislodge, and you would be swept away.

You would drown, Sheppard, and there would be nothing we could do to help you.

John mulled this over; bite or drown, bite or drown? It wasn't much of a choice.

"These waters better heal up any hickeys you make," he drawled sourly.

What are hickeys?

"Never mind. So, are we gonna do this?"

At first, John didn't feel the biting of the adult Goh, his body too numb with cold. But as they pulled him into the fast moving current, he started to feel the pull of their teeth in his skin very quickly. One bite wouldn't be too bad as they were small creatures. But he'd counted at least forty of these things, now all biting into nearly every part of his body. He felt their teeth pulling at every turn and more keenly when the water threatened to pull him into a whirlpool or throw him into a rocky outcropping. John found that holding his breath while enduring this proved difficult. Every time the teeth tugged him, he wanted to take a sharp intake of breath, and every time, he had to grind his teeth so that he didn't.

John soon understood why the Goh insisted their teeth were his only way through this part of the birthing valleys. The waters were violent and fraught with dangers. More than once, he collided with rock when the pull of the water almost proved too much even for forty-plus large Goh. Had they not been tethered to him physically, John knew he would have either drowned or died smashed against a rock within moments of entering the lethal torrent. And it turned out that his clothes would have been a terrible idea to hook their teeth into as he had already lost his shirt and was in danger of his trousers being ripped from his legs.

When John surfaced in the first rest area, he heaved in rapid, noisy breaths. He hoped the next rest stop wouldn't be as far as this one. He'd almost not made it, had been within seconds of breathing the icy water deep into his lungs. He looked around this new area as he breathed laboriously. It was similar to the last place he'd been, in that the rock above was dotted with holes where air came in. Curiously, he could see no light through these, and the rock didn't glow as brightly as it did in other areas. Still, he could make out the little Goh floating around him, waiting for him to rest enough for the next part of the journey.

He could also see his arms and the tiny punctures within rings of raised, red patches on his skin. He counted seven on his right arm before he gave up and dropped it back into the water. He would be covered in the patches of bites, he knew, but it sure did beat drowning. There had been a terrifying moment when the Goh had failed to stop him from impacting a wall. He slammed into it, forcing what little breath remained in his lungs out through his gritted teeth. He couldn't blame the Goh for the incident; he'd felt the strength of the current and was surprised they hadn't been torn from his body to leave him in a watery grave. Fortunately, this had happened just seconds before reaching this place, and he hadn't suffered too long. Unfortunately, he had to risk it all over again getting to the next pocket of air.

John calmed his breathing as best he could, then breathed in and out in a rapid, controlled way to oxygenate his blood. When he felt ready to make the next attempt, he lay back in the water and allowed the Goh to reattach. He felt the sting of their bites this time, each one seemingly a little deeper than before. They wasted no time, for as soon as John took a final heaving breath, they pulled him under the water and back out into the breakneck speeding surge.

At the fourth resting stop, Primus informed John it was the last and that the next time he broke water, it would be in his final destination. It was a relief to know this part of his ordeal was almost at an end. One final push and maybe he could relax, heal, and live long enough to see Atlantis again. He might have imagined it, but John was convinced that the water felt warmer. Even the air didn't seem so chilled when he inhaled and started the breathing exercises for his final dive. When he slipped back into the depths, he felt the water was calmer in this region.

The Goh didn't bite quite so hard, though they still held him in control. The depths began to brighten, and the rocks once again became luminous. There was also a more diffuse light ahead that got brighter as they travelled. The calmer waters were still difficult to navigate, but John felt the ride more comfortable, almost relaxing, compared to the previous. And for a few brief moments, he enjoyed being pulled along the underwater passageway.

Then, the Goh suddenly bit harder and viciously dragged him to the right. Ahead, the light disappeared and was engulfed by an ominous moving shadow. John could feel the Goh's flippers accelerate as the vibrations surrounding his skin increased. Another sickening twist and John cried out, precious breath lost in a burst of bubbles and muffled cries as tiny teeth tore at his flesh in a bid to swiftly change direction. It appeared that the shadow lunged at them, and John saw that the shadow was a dark sentient creature that dwarfed even himself. With his lungs empty, he struggled not to breathe in as the chase continued. Once again he felt the horrifying urge to open his mouth and suck in air that didn't exist as the attacking creature lunged again. This time, John felt the water around his head violently displaced as massive jaws snapped shut inches from his face. Terrified squealing noises choked in his throat, and he was sure he would either be eaten alive or drowned in the next few seconds.

Something painfully impacted the side of his head. It felt like a brutal slap from the hand of a giant, and his head snapped backward, colliding solidly with rock, causing an explosion in his head. The last John saw was terrifying darkness as he unwillingly heaved in an almighty breath. Agony erupted in his chest as water rushed into his lungs, and John felt the unnerving feeling of sinking to the depths, seconds before he lost consciousness.

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