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trinityofoneContinued from Part II
They had no real plans anymore, but neither one of them gave even a thought to giving up. They caught wind of a rumor that there was a small band of Satedans who had survived the cull, and they spent the better part of a year chasing them down. There were mornings where Rodney woke up so sore it hurt to sit in the saddle, much less ride, but he still spent all day thinking of the nights.
They were back on Manaria when it happened. They’d stopped into a tavern where Sheppard, as usual, was working over the bartender, looking for information. Rodney had wandered toward the back, where a woman was dancing on a low platform. It was the middle of the day: she had an audience of one, which was apparently enough to make Rodney seem incredibly desirable. She stepped off her stage and continued her routine with Rodney as the centerpiece. A year ago, he would have been flustered and uncomfortable, shrinking into himself whenever she bent over to display her ample cleavage. Now, though, he was only amused, and when Sheppard turned and caught sight of them, his eyes narrowing in anger, Rodney threw back his head and laughed.
The girl flounced away, offended. Rodney slid from his chair and walked across the tavern, sidling up to Sheppard. Standing close enough that their shoulders brushed, Rodney ignored him completely. He spoke to the bartender. “How much for a room?”
Sheppard caught him halfway up the stairs. He grabbed Rodney’s arms and pinned them against the wall. “Where’d you get that money from?”
Rodney made a show of struggling, wiggling against Sheppard so that their thighs scraped and their cocks brushed. “Lifted it from you. Just like you taught me.”
Sheppard squeezed his wrists tighter, slammed their joined hands against the wall. He was grinning. He leaned in and roughly took Rodney’s mouth, spreading Rodney’s legs with a sharp jab of his knee.
At the foot of the stairs, someone coughed.
They turned, and Sheppard loosened his hold, though he didn’t let go. A huge man, tall as a tree, was leaning up against the wall at the bottom of the stairwell. He had a dark beard and dreads, and his impressive arms were folded over his massive chest. He looked amused.
“What?” Sheppard barked at him.
“Sorry,” the man said. “I’ll come back when you’re finished with your whore.”
“Hey!” The man was chuckling like he’d meant it as a joke, but Rodney looked at Sheppard, slowly loosening and lowering his hands, his face sunburned and lined and hair gone grey at the temples. He looked down at himself, rumbled clothes over a body firm from riding but still lanky enough to be a boy’s. They’d been out of the world for a while. Rodney flushed, realizing for the first time what they must look to those on the inside, on the outside of the two of them.
“What do you want?” Sheppard growled.
“Hear you’ve been looking for a man called Kolya.” The man raised an eyebrow, confident and smug.
“Well, you heard wrong,” Rodney snapped. “We’ve never even heard of him.”
“Shut up.” Sheppard. It took Rodney a second to realize that he was talking to him.
“What do you know?” Sheppard asked the man.
“Lots of things,” the man said. “For a price.”
“Of course,” said Sheppard.
In an entirely different tone, Rodney echoed, “Of course.”
The man was called Ronon. He was Satedan, though from the way his eyes flashed when they mentioned the other group of supposed survivors, he wasn’t one of them, hadn’t even heard of their existence. In his gruff way, he was friendlier to them after that.
Actually, he’d been pretty friendly to Sheppard from the start. Ronon explained (once Sheppard had slipped him some coin) that he’d recently done some trading with a group of Genii, a group led by a man introduced to outsiders as Scar, but known among his people as Kolya. There’d been a Lantean girl in his hut. “In his hut,” Sheppard had repeated.
“Yes.” Then Ronon and Sheppard had gone back to swapping monosyllabic war stories.
Rodney rode a little ways behind them, pinching his mount a bit too sharply with his knees. He felt out of the loop again—and the worst part was the reminder that the feeling wasn’t new. When had he been in the loop? At best he’d been caught up in Sheppard’s gravitational field, but he was still the orbiting body, the lesser. In another life he could have been something, somebody. But he’d never been meant to live in this world—nor even to survive it.
Ahead of him, Ronon raised an arm and pointed: on the horizon was a thin column of grey smoke, twisting into the sky. “We’re close.”
“Close,” Rodney said. Once again, he felt that weird surge of anticipation and disbelief. This could be it. Today could be the day he lifted Teyla up into his arms and brought her home again.
Sheppard turned in the saddle and gave him a look. It was not lengthy; it was not even all that significant. But it was an acknowledgement. Of what they’d been through together, maybe. Rodney wasn’t going to read in anything more.
The Genii camp was on top of a small hill, around two-thirds of which curled a slow-moving but far from shallow river. It was a perfect site from a defensive standpoint; Scar or Kolya or whatever he was called—he knew what he was doing. Rodney had to give him that.
Ronon lifted his hand as they approached, nodding to a pair of Genii armsmen. “Let me do the talking,” he said, under his breath.
“Yes, thank goodness we have your stunning verbal skill on our side,” Rodney muttered. Sheppard reached out and smacked his thigh. Rodney wanted the touch to linger, but it didn’t.
It was perfectly clear which tent was Scar’s. It was set apart from the rest, and was bigger, though not ostentatiously so. There were two more armsmen standing by the entrance. Ronon spoke a couple words to them, in almost absent-sounding Genii; Rodney was pleased but not surprised by how much he was now able to understand.
One of the armsmen ducked inside. Rodney’s chest felt tight. Then the tent flap parted and a large man stepped into the light. He was bare-chested, arms marked with the familiar stripes and another pair drawn down from his clavicle, disappearing into his trousers. He had dark hair and a stern, unforgiving face, marked on the left side by a sharp line. He stared at them both: unafraid, silently judging.
Rodney realized that he’d hardly spared a thought to what he’d do in this moment. To what either of them would do; Sheppard was standing behind him, perfectly silent. Rodney half expected him to lunge at the Genii chief any moment, but he didn’t move. “Scar,” he said eventually, conversationally. “Well, I can see where you got your name.”
Kolya’s lips slanted up. “And are you called Persistence? And him—” Rodney flinched but didn’t quite jerk back when he saw he was being gestured at. “—He Who Follows?”
“I’ll have you know—” Rodney started, but he bit down hard on his tongue before he started an argument with Teyla’s kidnapper over who between Rodney and Sheppard led, and who followed after.
Kolya was smirking at them, though. Rodney felt Sheppard tense, but his words were easy. “You speak pretty good Lantean for a Genii.” A pause. “Someone teach you?”
It was a leading question, but Kolya failed to rise to the bait. He turned to Ronon. “Ah-we pabbo-tie-bo ee-kee-tay?”
Ronon shrugged. “Pabbo-tie-bo kim te-moo-er.”
“That’s right,” Sheppard said. “We want to trade. Only not out here.” He waved a dismissive hand around the Genii camp. “I don’t stand talking in the wind.”
Kolya fixed them both with a contemptuous smile. Then without another word, he went back inside the muted darkness of the tent. Rodney sucked in a deep breath and moved to follow. Sheppard’s arm shot out and blocked his way. “Stay out here.”
Rodney shoved him off with a force that surprised even him. “Not likely!”
Inside it was lighter than he had expected, and not at all smoky, though there was a fire burning in a center pit, what little smoke there was drifting up through a perfectly-positioned hole in the ceiling. As Rodney stepped inside, Kolya barked an order at two shawl-draped women who had been tending to the flames. The hurried past Rodney and outside, their heads bent.
At the far end of the tent, four other women were sitting in a small cluster, their faces averted. Rodney looked at them anxiously, but Kolya passed in front of him, muscle and bulk and large, violent hands. “Ih-card!” he ordered. Rodney sat.
Sheppard sat beside him, and Ronon with him. Ronon leaned over and whispered. “His sons are all dead, so his wives sit on the honor side of the tent.”
“His wives?” Rodney squeaked.
“Shut up,” said Sheppard.
That morning Sheppard had come up behind him while Ronon was off taking a leak. He’d wrapped his arms around Rodney’s waist as Rodney stood in front of the small square of glass that was their shaving mirror. Are you trying to make me slice open my jugular? Rodney had said, and Sheppard had chuckled, low in his throat, and kissed the side of Rodney’s neck.
He’d come away with a dollop of shaving cream on the side of his nose. Rodney had met Ronon’s amused smile with a grin, and not said anything.
Sheppard’s face was clean now. He had his head held up high so that Rodney could see the tendons in his neck, the coiled, controlled rage. Kolya met the expression with a calm smirk. “My children,” he said—simple stating of fact, devoid of emotion. “My sons, killed by Terrans and shunned by Lanteans. For each son, I take something. Sometimes many things...”
His head turned slightly to the side. “Mayah-kay zee-eh!”
Rodney followed his gaze in time to see one of the women at the other end of the tent flinch. “Mayah-kay zee-eh!” Kolya said again, louder. Slowly, the woman threw back her shawl and stood up.
Rodney found he was looking down at his hands. He could sense the girl moving, see the vague, shadowing motions of her skirts. Then something dropped down into his line of sight. It was a lance, sharp and pointed at the lower end. It had things hanging from it, ratty bundles of...something in many different colors. Rodney sucked in a breath as realization dawned: they were bundles of hair. They were scalps.
His gaze snapped up to the girl’s face. Teyla stared back at him, calm and impervious. She blinked once, then turned with balletic grace, lifting the lance and its hanging horrors away.
Rodney would have cried out but the words froze on his tongue. Sheppard reached over and squeezed his thigh.
“I’ve seen scalps before,” Sheppard said. He sounded almost bored, and Rodney shuddered under the pressure of his fingers.
Kolya smiled a cool, self-deprecating smile. He drew something out of his pocket. “This before?” he asked. The object he held up spun, shimmery gold in the firelight.
It was Kate’s locket. Rodney remembered Aiden face before he’d charged wildly to his death; Rodney felt a little of that, now, too.
Sheppard’s teeth were set tight, but he still managed a grin. He rose slowly to his feet, drawing Rodney with him with a firm hand on his arm. He addressed Ronon. “I came here to trade, not admire his collection.” He turned his back on Kolya. “Tell him we’re going to pitch camp across the river... Maybe we can trade tomorrow.”
Sheppard was tugging Rodney in front of him, but Rodney chanced a glance back and saw that Kolya’s expression had darkened. “Ee-sap!” he hissed.
“Puetze,” Ronon insisted. Tomorrow.
They were almost outside when Rodney felt a hand on his arm, tight and painful just above his wrist. He turned and stared up into Kolya’s face, his heart pounding. But Kolya wasn’t looking at him. His eyes sought out Sheppard, locked there.
“You speak pretty good Genii,” he said. “For a Terran.” He let go of Rodney with a shove.
Rodney’s gaze whipped to Sheppard. “What did he mean by—” But Ronon cut him off. “Quiet,” he said. “We need to leave.”
They made it safely to the other side of the river. Once there, Ronon jumped easily off his horse. He turned to Sheppard. “You should go. He knows who you are; there’s no point in staying.”
Sheppard shook his head. “We’re not running.”
There was a deep bitterness, but also something akin to pity in Ronon’s expression. “Sometimes you have to run.”
He reached into the pocket of his duster, pulled out a leather purse. “Here,” he said, tossing it to Sheppard. “I don’t want blood money.” Without another word he remounted and rode away.
Sheppard gave Rodney a long look, then dropped down to the ground. “We’re making camp.”
Rodney nodded and started unbuckling his gear from the saddle. “Scar’s going to kill us,” he said.
Sheppard acknowledged this statement with a shrug. “He’s going to try.”
Rodney’s laugh was just shy of hysterical. “Oh, well so long as we’re both clear...”
Abruptly, he sobered. “Teyla’s alive," he said. "She’s really alive. We found her.”
He looked to Sheppard, eyes wide and almost wondrous, waiting for some sort of acknowledgement of this incredible thing that they’d done. Sheppard just grunted.
Annoying; but Rodney had other things to worry about. His mind was already racing. “I just know I can think of a plan to rescue her!” he said, and his brain was building a way to make explosives out of what they had with them when Sheppard moved abruptly, his head snapping up on his neck. “What?” Rodney said, and turned.
Teyla was standing at the top of the ridge. Rodney felt his lips move, heard himself say her name on an exhaled breath. She ran down the hill toward them and stopped on the far side of the river.
“Teyla,” Rodney said. She was older now, a young woman, but it was still so clearly her, his sister, his beautiful little sister. “Teyla!”
She held up her hand, silencing him, forbidding him to come any closer. “Unnt-meah!” she said. Rodney knew too well what that meant. Go away!
Rodney moved closer anyway—would have no matter what she said, his brain divorced from his body. There was a small bridge to his right, thin wood planks that could be hastily withdrawn. He started towards it.
“Teyla?” he said, as gently as he could and awkward in his gentleness. “Don’t you remember me? I’m Rodney.”
She pointed toward the far horizon, looking anxious. “Unnt-meah!”
“Don’t be stupid, we’re not going. We’re not going without you, Teyla. Sheppard!” he called over his shoulder. “Get the horses, I’ll try to keep her talking...”
To Rodney’s surprise, Sheppard was much closer to him—to them both—than he’d thought. “How?” he said. “She’s forgotten her own language.”
Rodney glared at him. He turned back to his sister, desperate. “Teyla, you’re coming with us, with me and,” he tripped over the word, “Uncle John. Do you hear me?”
Teyla’s hands dropped. Her eyes narrowed. “No,” she said. “Not now...not ever.”
She spoke Lantean. Rodney breathed a sigh of relief, manfully refraining from rubbing Sheppard’s face in how wrong he was. “I don’t care what they’ve done to you,” he reassured her. “Or what happened, you’re still my—”
“They have done nothing,” Teyla interrupted, a sharp cutting motion of her hand. “They are my people.”
“Your people?” Sheppard erupted at his side, a streak of barely-contained violence. “They murdered your family!”
Teyla’s mouth was set. “Ee-sap! The Wraith killed my family. The Terrans killed my family. This galaxy...”
“That’s not what happened!” Rodney said angrily. “They’ve been lying to you, Teyla. Aren’t you smart enough to see it?”
She didn’t answer him. “Teyla,” he begged, “think back. I’m Rodney, Rodney your brother. Remember how I used to read you stories? I was teaching you Ancient, remember?” His hands fell to his sides. “Ego amo te.”
Sheppard had turned away. But Teyla suddenly stepped closer. She lifted her hand but didn’t, didn’t quite touch him.
“I remember,” she said. “I remember from always. At first I prayed to the Ancestors, begged that you would come and get me, take me home. But you never came.”
Rodney’s throat was dry. “I’ve come now.”
But Teyla only shook her head. “These are my people. Unnt-meah,” she said, stepping back again. “Go. Go, please!”
“Stand aside, McKay.”
Rodney turned. Sheppard was advancing quickly, his hand moving for his pistol. “John!” Rodney shouted, even though he still couldn’t believe that Sheppard was really about to— “John, no!”
Without thinking he moved between Sheppard and Teyla, stepping right in front of the barrel of Sheppard’s gun. There was the crack of a shot, and then Sheppard tumbled back. Blood blossomed across his shoulder.
Rodney calculated the angle of the shot and realized what was happening. He fumbled for his own gun and spun around, firing at the Genii at the top of the hill. He reached for Sheppard, but he was already moving, dragging himself despite his injury behind the cover of the horses. Crouching behind Memento, Rodney paused a moment, took a breath. When he spun and aimed, the trajectory already in his mind, the shot went true. One of the armsmen tumbled down the ridge and into the river.
But there were more coming, and men on horseback. “Teyla!” Rodney shouted, watching her race up the hill toward the approaching Genii. “Teyla, wait!”
“Forget her!” John gritted his teeth and pulled himself up onto his horse. “Move! Now!”
Rodney stared at the scarlet stain and Sheppard’s limply hanging arm. He heard shouts and gunfire. Another breath and he was scrambling up onto his horse. “Where are we going?” he shouted. “Do you have a plan?”
“How’s this?” Sheppard was swaying on his mount, barely holding on. “Ride!”
“Typical!” Rodney snapped. But he pulled as close to Sheppard as he could and laid a hand on Memento’s rump, guiding her.
The Genii followed behind them. If Rodney turned, he knew he would see Kolya’s scowling face at their head.
They were tiring, especially Sheppard, when Rodney caught sight of a little outcropping of rock. “Here!” he said, and urged the horses toward it. They swung around past a pair of boulders and practically fell off their horses. They were outside the narrow entrance to a cave. Bullets whined and ricocheted off the rock face. Sheppard turned and started firing. “Stop it!” Rodney said, grabbing his uninjured arm. He shoved Sheppard into the dark narrow space, getting off a few last shots himself.
Pressed close beside him in the dark, “Why don’t you just wrap us up and tie a bow on us?” Sheppard hissed. His breath was warm and shaky on Rodney’s neck.
“Shut up and keep moving,” Rodney said.
After not too long a time (but long enough to make Rodney start getting nervous) the cave widened out. The chamber was still only a couple meters across, but Rodney still sucked air greedily into his lungs. Even better, he could see a little light filtering in from a bit further along.
“That should be the exit,” he said. “Think we’re safe to stay and rest up for a spell?”
“How should I know?” Sheppard snapped. He was holding his injured arm and his face looked tight and pained. “It’s your cave.”
“Here,” Rodney said, stepping forward. “Let me help you with that—”
“I got it!” Sheppard turned away from him. After an awkward minute or so, he succeeded in ripping off a strip of his shirt with his teeth.
“So,” he said, once his arm was tied. “How’d you know this place was here?”
Rodney grinned. “Remember that book of Ancient stories I used to have? There was a mention of a place like this. I recognized it from the shape of the rocks outside.”
“Huh.” Sheppard grunted, adjusting his make-shift bandage. “I’d’ve been more impressed if it were just dumb luck.”
“I’ll leave the dumb luck to you, thanks.” Rodney sat down, his back against the cool wall. There was a trickle of water trailing down the rock, not too far away. He thought about getting up, filling his canteen, but he didn’t, yet.
“I don’t get you,” he said.
Sheppard shrugged. Rodney could see the pale, long line of his neck. “What’s there to get?”
Rodney took a breath. There were too many questions; he didn’t even know where to start.
The water dripped. Rodney exhaled. “If you think it’s safe,” he said, “we should get some rest.”
“Sure.” Sheppard slid down the wall and arranged his legs. “If they’re waiting on the other side to kill us, it doesn’t really matter if it’s now or tomorrow morning, does it?”
His eyes fluttered closed. Rodney was tempted to get up and move next to him, to cushion his wounded arm whether Sheppard wanted him to or not. Instead he closed his eyes, and didn’t budge.
It may have been the poor light, but Sheppard looked even paler come morning. Rodney stared pointedly at the bandage. “I have to get in there and cut the poison out.”
He was already opening his knife. “No!” Sheppard barked. He lowered his voice. “Not yet. Here.” He handed Rodney a piece of paper. “Just in case.”
Rodney glared at him, but curiosity overruled. He unfolded the page. After a few seconds he began to read aloud, anger coloring his voice.
“‘I, John Sheppard, being of sound mind and without any blood kin, do hereby bequeath all my property of any kind to Rodney McKay...’” His eyes snapped up. “I don’t want your damn property, and ‘of sound mind’? You've got to be joking!”
Sheppard didn’t say anything.
“Teyla!” Rodney spat. “Remember her? Teyla’s your blood kin...”
He didn’t move or blink. “Not anymore.”
The paper crumbled in Rodney’s hands. “You can keep your damn will!” he shouted, throwing it at Sheppard. “Do you think I’ve forgotten how you were all set to shoot Teyla, to kill her yourself? Have you lost your mind? Just what kind of man are you, anyway?”
Sheppard pushed himself away from the wall, snarling. “You saw where she was sitting in that hut! She’s his now, nothing but a dirty—”
Rodney felt the motion from outside his body, his fist reeling around and connecting with Sheppard’s face. Pain rocketed up his arm. He shook it off. “Shut your dirty mouth!” he said. “You, you—”
Sheppard spat out a gob of blood. “I’m a what?” he demanded, unbending at the waist. “You go ahead and tell me what I am!”
“Nothing,” Rodney said. “You’re not a Lantean war hero or a criminal or even a Genii-hunter or Wraith-killer. And Scar may claim you’re really a Terran, but I don’t care even if that used to be true, because you’re nothing anymore! I look at you,” he said, turning away and refusing to do just that. “And I don’t see anything but hate.”
His breath was coming harshly as he stood staring down at his hands. “I wonder what that makes me. That I...”
He turned sharply, pushing forward toward the small patch of light. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here before you up and die on me.”
Sheppard snorted and stumbled forward. “That’ll be the day.”
There were no Genii lying in wait for them outside. There was, however, Sheppard’s horse, munching morosely on a pathetic patch of scrub grass. An almost giddy burble of laughter escaped Sheppard’s lips. Rodney turned to stare at him, but Sheppard was already walking stiffly over to the horse. She looked up and blinked at him; Sheppard patted her neck. “Good girl, Memento.” Rodney could tell that he was leaning on her, but he didn’t comment on it.
Instead he said, “Where’s my horse?”
Sheppard gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Guess she figured she was lucky to be rid of you. You do have a tendency to lose ‘em or get ‘em killed.”
“Shut up,” Rodney said, but his tone was almost gentle compared to where it had been at just a few minutes ago. He shoved Sheppard out of the way and swung up onto Memento’s back. “Looks like we’re going to have to share.”
They were a good hundred klicks from anywhere; there was no way Sheppard could make him walk, just out of spite. “Fine,” Sheppard said, sounding petulant and oddly young. “But she’s my mare; I’m riding in front.”
Rodney smirked and took hold of Memento’s reins. “With that arm? I don’t think so.”
Sheppard grumbled, and he stared at Rodney with dark, deadly eyes, but in the end he had no choice but to accept the hand up Rodney offered and get on behind him. Rodney slid Sheppard’s good arm tight around his waist. On another day if they’d done this, he might have waited for a soft brush of lips on the back of his neck. But Sheppard’s touch remained rigid and impersonal. They rode off, Sheppard a warm, hard weight against Rodney’s back.
It was night time and the Zelenka place was lit up like a beacon, shining light and music and the sounds of people talking and laughing, visible and audible from a good klick out. “What’s going on?” Rodney wondered aloud.
Sheppard lifted his head from where he was leaning against Rodney’s shoulder. “Looks like a party,” he slurred.
“Yes, thanks for clearing that up,” Rodney said. Then he said, “John? John?” because Sheppard’s grip had loosened, he was sliding from the saddle.
Rodney gasped and reached for him, clung, hauled him around and practically into his own lap. He urged Memento on, and as soon as he felt they were close enough, he began to yell.
Rodney had a good, loud voice. As he drew near the house, the music died off and people began to spill outside. Rodney caught sight of Radek, almost unrecognizable with his hair slicked back. “Radek!” he shouted. “Send for a doctor!” But Radek just stood there, gaping at him.
They stuttered to a halt beside the porch, and Rodney would have fallen, would have spilled him and John both, except suddenly there were strong hands on his shoulders and back, and someone was carrying John, lowering him gently to the ground.
“There, son, we’ve got him,” someone said—Captain Caldwell, Rodney realized with a start. “Now are you injured, too? Is that blood his or yours?”
“Doctor!” Rodney panted. “I tried, but he needs—”
“Aye, let me see,” someone else said. “Yes, quickly now. Laura, help me carry him inside.”
Laura. Rodney turned, looking for her... And there she was. She was wearing a white dress, bright and ethereal-looking against all the blackness. She looked like one of the Ancestors, come to save them...and with that thought, Rodney crumpled to the ground. The last few days came rushing back, and he coughed and puked the meager contents of his stomach into the sand.
Radek helped him to his feet. “Come inside,” he said, “I will get you something to drink.” He shook his head. “You have an incredible sense of timing, I am sure you know.”
Rodney looked around for Sheppard, but they must have already taken him inside. “But I made it, didn’t I?” Sheppard had to be all right. He had to be.
Radek gave him a queer look. He led Rodney over to the fire and sat him down. “Once,” he said, fetching the coffee pot, "nothing would have given me more joy. Now,” gaze lingering as he passed over the cup, “I am not so sure.”
“What?” said Rodney. “He was wrong about Teyla but that doesn’t mean—oh!”
Laura had come into the room. Her white dress was streaked with Sheppard’s blood, but that wasn’t what had made Rodney start. He felt like an idiot.
“Well, I guess the wedding’s off,” Laura said, sardonically. When Radek made a noise of protest, Laura rolled her eyes and collapsed into the other chair with an unladylike flop. “For now, papa. Carson can’t very well marry me if he’s operating on Mister Sheppard, can he? After that,” she eyed Rodney intently, “we’ll see.”
“I, ah.” Radek shifted nervously. “I should check on the other guests...”
He left, the sound of his shoes fading slowly away.
“Hello, Rodney,” Laura said.
Rodney, who so often had an overabundance, found himself struggling for words. “I, I...wrote you a letter.”
Laura stared down at the blood on her dress and sighed. “One letter in five years...! I read it ‘til the paper dried up and the ink faded away.” She rolled her eyes. “The parts I could understand, anyway.”
Rodney perked up a little, remembering. “You mean the part in Ancient? That was a poem that I fou...” He caught the look on her face and trailed off.
“I don’t read Ancient, Rodney!” Laura sounded exasperated. “You might’ve written something meaningful...might’ve asked me to wait for you. Or. Or said that you loved me?”
“I—” I still... I never... Rodney trailed off. He didn’t know what to say.
Laura was looking at him, staring. Her hand, soft and white, reached out and brushed his knee. Rodney remembered her as a little girl, beating him—beating everyone, all the boys—on her little racing pony. He remembered her as a woman, teasing and friendly and soft and warm. Safe, as anything was out here. She was home.
He leaned forward and kissed her, tilting her head back, opening her mouth. He ran a finger roughly under the line of her chin, holding her like she was his to do with as he wished, like they had all the time in the world.
She sat back, sloe-eyed and gasping. Her cheeks were flushed as she stared up at him. “You’ve changed.”
He sat back. “I know.”
He waited a few seconds, then said, “We found Teyla.”
Laura sucked in a breath. “Was she...?”
He shook his head. “She’s still alive. We ran into some trouble. Lost her again.” He took a deep breath. “I’m planning to ride out again, soon as J—soon as my horse is rested.”
Laura frowned and stood up. “What about Mister Sheppard?”
“I don’t want him looking for Teyla anymore.” Her mouth opened in shock. “No, listen to me! You have to help me keep him here. Maybe get your new—your doctor there to give him something.” Laura was looking at him like he’d been spending too much time hanging around Eldon. “Please.” He touched her arm, then quickly dropped it. Looking at the floor, “Just ‘til I find her. Just ‘til I bring Teyla home again.”
“And how many more years is that going to take?” Laura asked.
Rodney stared across the room, at Radek’s small library—the biggest Rodney had ever seen with his own two eyes. He turned away. “However long it does.”
The beds were full up, what with all the wedding guests, and now Sheppard unconscious, lying sweaty and tense across Radek’s own bed. Rodney went to check on him, stopping in the doorway and looking in. The doctor, Laura’s husband-to-be, was sitting at Sheppard’s bedside. He’d taken his suit jacket off and draped it over the back of his chair, but he was still wearing his starched formal shirt. Leaning over, he gently wiped Sheppard’s forehead with a damp cloth. “Thank you,” Rodney heard himself say.
“Ach, it’s no trouble.” The man looked up and smiled at him. “You’re Rodney, aren’t you? Laura’s told me so much about you.”
Rodney was glad he didn’t go further into that. “Sorry,” he said, gesturing vaguely. “About the...” you know, kissing the bride thing “...wedding.”
“A doctor’s duty comes first,” the man said, primly. “And never fear—your uncle’s going to be just fine.”
“He’s not my uncle.”
The man frowned. “What?”
Rodney took a breath, his fingers clenched tight to the door frame. “Never mind.” He went and slept in the barn.
Captain Caldwell was waiting for him in the parlor when he got up. Rodney gave him a bored nod and poured himself a cup of coffee. When he sat down at the table, he realized that Caldwell was carefully tracking his movements. Rodney let out a sigh. “What?”
Caldwell gave him a steady look. “Son, there are a few things you and I need to discuss.”
Rodney rolled his eyes. “Wanna skip the familial talk? You and I both know that the only one around here willing to take me in and raise me as a son was Aunt Elizabeth. She’s dead, and I’ve spent the last five years of my life hunting down her killers. I aim to keep hunting, too.” He gave Caldwell a cold look. “Anything else you’d like to discuss?”
Caldwell leaned back against the table, folding his arms. The line of his mouth looked grim. “I was going to say that I didn’t think you had anything to do with this, that it was all Sheppard, but maybe I was wrong.”
“Do with what?”
“The murder of trader called Cowen.”
Caldwell was watching him hard, clearly waiting to see how he would react. Rodney snorted. “The man was a Genii spy!”
Caldwell raised an eyebrow. “Got any proof?”
Rodney pushed his cup away. “It was almost four years ago. What do you think?”
“I think I’m gonna have to ask you and Sheppard to come with me to the nearest outpost. Once Sheppard’s able, of course.”
“You’re gonna let that doctor fix him up just so he’ll be fit to attend a necktie party? I don’t think so.” Rodney stood. “We’re not going.”
Caldwell’s eyes narrowed and he stood as well. He was taller than Rodney; older, too. Rodney would no longer instantly jump to say stronger.
And he sure as hell wasn’t smarter.
“Now, son,” Caldwell said. “You do realize I’m asking as a Ranger.”
Rodney’s fingers twitched. “And do you realize that I’m saying no as a heavily armed man who’s faced down more than his share of this kind of crap?” Rodney had a pistol and a knife in his boot, which was a far cry from heavily armed in his mind, but he nonetheless held Caldwell’s gaze. “Now don’t worry,” he said, “Sheppard and I are going to stay out of your hair. Well,” he caught Caldwell’s frown, “if you had any, we would. But we’re not planning on sticking around. We’re going after Teyla again as soon as he’s well. We’ve seen her—we’ve sat in Chief Scar’s blasted tent. And we’re going to go back and face him again.” He shrugged. “If you’re lucky, he’ll kill us both and save your men the trip.”
Caldwell’s mouth was twisted into a funny shape; Rodney couldn’t tell if he was angry or amused or even awed. But all he did was shake his head. “Sheppard’s done a number on you.”
Rodney sighed. “Right, right—because I’m just a stupid half-breed, a dumb calf waiting to be led. Are we done here?”
Caldwell opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, there was the familiar rumble of a ship overhead. Caldwell’s shoulders stiffened. “Relax,” Rodney said. “It’s not Wraith.” Caldwell stared at him. “What? You don’t recognize the engine of a Terran ship?”
They walked out into the yard. Laura and Radek were already outside, watching the ship—a small, one-man craft—land beside their patchy field of corn. Laura had her hands on her hips. “The nerve! Fetching up all that dust, right next to our crop—”
The canopy slid away. “Howdy, folks!” said the man inside, swinging onto the ground. “I’m Lieutenant Cameron Mitchell of the TAF and I’m...” He paused, looking around. “Boy, you have a real nice place here. I gotta commend you fellas.” He bowed to Laura. “And the lady too, of course. This is my first time on Athos and—”
“Lieutenant,” Caldwell barked. “Get to the point, please. You’re disturbing these people’s breakfast.”
The Lieutenant went a little misty-eyed at the mention of breakfast, but he managed to return to the vicinity of his objective. “I’m looking for Captain Caldwell and,” he gave the man himself a once-over, taking in the stiff posture and stern demeanor, “I’d be guessing you’re him.” He smiled brightly. “Am I right?”
Caldwell’s answering smile was a lot tighter. “Unfortunately.”
“Sir,” Mitchell said, saluting, “I have some information regarding a group of Genii hostiles believed to be camped not far from here...”
“What?” Rodney elbowed Caldwell aside and stepped forward. “Have you seen them? Is there a girl with them, a Lantean—well, you might not know she’s Lantean, but is there—”
“Is their chief a man called Scar?”
As one body, they turned. Sheppard was standing in the doorway, leaning on it while trying not to look like he was leaning, or else like he was only doing so because he was that relaxed. The doctor was standing behind him, eyeing him anxiously. “Mister Sheppard, if you don’t rest that arm and let me tend to it, you will almost certainly lose mobility if not—”
“Shut up,” Sheppard told him. He walked out into the yard.
Drawing up next to them, his gaze flickered to Rodney for half a second, but its focus was Lieutenant Mitchell. “Scar,” he repeated. “Need me to explain to you how he got that name?”
Mitchell shook his head. “No, from what we’ve heard the leader of the band did match that description...”
“All right.” Sheppard inclined his head toward Rodney. “Come on, McKay.”
“Wait! Sir...” Mitchell added, tentatively. “We got a whole fleet coming your way. I just came to let you know what all the fuss was going to be about, if’n there is any. Athos is under the protection of the Terran army,” he reminded them, grinning eagerly, like a boy who’d learned his lessons well.
“Yeah,” said Sheppard, “I’ll bet it is.”
“So you don’t need to do anything,” Mitchell pressed. “We’ve got it all taken care of.”
Sheppard looked at Rodney. “McKay and I have a few things to take care of first.”
“Yes, we do,” said Rodney, and if Sheppard caught the shift in meaning, he gave no indication of it. They strode off together, toward the barn. Rodney hoped Caldwell wouldn’t mind him borrowing his horse.
If it had been up to Rodney, they would have just kept riding in the direction Lieutenant Mitchell indicated, but after a while Sheppard called for a halt. He was obviously aggrieved at having to do it. For once Rodney was tactful and didn’t say anything; he passed Sheppard his canteen and started rubbing down Caldwell’s horse.
Rodney’s hand circled and his mind moved with it. He’d gotten Sheppard away from arrest and a possible hanging, and away from a run-in with a whole fleet of Terrans, which might’ve been even worse. Now, though, he had to figure out a way to keep him away from Teyla...and not get them all killed.
They’d have been lucky to have him on Atlantis. Rodney had a feeling they were never going to get him, now, but they’d have been damn lucky.
He took a deep breath. “Sheppard,” he said, “how do you reckon we should go about this?”
Sheppard was leaning against Memento’s side, talking slow, careful breaths and the occasional swig of water. He glanced over at Rodney. “You coming up with ‘strategy’ now? Were you talking to Caldwell?”
“I was just thinking,” Rodney said. “Maybe you ought to try it sometime.”
“Very clever.” Sheppard let out a puff of air that couldn’t quite manage the transformation into a snort. “What else are you being clever about?”
“Nothing,” Rodney said. “Just—if we charge right in there, they’ll kill her, right? Not to mention there’s a good chance we’ll get ourselves killed.”
Sheppard wiped his mouth. “There’s always a chance of that.”
“This may be our last shot,” Rodney pressed. “We have to make it count...”
“How concerned are you with dying?” Sheppard shot him another infuriatingly ambiguous look.
Rodney stared. “How concerned are you with living?”
He shrugged. “Enough.”
Rodney swallowed. Sometimes, he thought, the smartest move was to lay all your cards on the table. To be blunt.
“And with Teyla living?”
Sheppard didn’t say anything. It was answer enough.
Rodney wanted to shout. He wanted to rail and scream and pound at Sheppard’s beautiful, miserable body. But this was it; they were at the end of the line. It was time to try a different tack, something radically new.
He asked nicely.
“Please. John, please. Let me fetch Teyla home. Let me bring her home, John. I’ll make it so you don’t have to see either of us again, if it offends you so much. But let me bring her home.”
Sheppard’s eyes darkened. “Bring what home? The leavings of Genii armsmen, sold again and again to the highest bidder? With savage brats of her own, most like?”
Rodney had never had a very firm handle on nice, and he quickly lost what grip he had. “Stop it!” He sucked in a breath. “You’re honestly going to tell me that we’ve been searching all this time, and for what? To kill her? Five years, Sheppard, and you’re just going to shoot her dead?”
“Yes!” Sheppard practically bellowed. “And I tell you, it’s what Elizabeth would have wanted!
“And you know it,” Sheppard added, much lower. Staring Rodney down.
It was like so many other moments. Rodney wanted to reach forward and take Sheppard’s face in his hands. He wanted to kiss the tension out of his mouth. He wanted to bash his head in with his fists.
He stayed exactly where he was. “She’s alive,” he said, as evenly as he could. “And she’s going to stay that way. You’ll have to kill me first.”
They stared at each other, less than a meter apart and as far away as they’d ever been. Then slowly—so slow, though Rodney could still see the wince—Sheppard pulled himself up onto his horse. He stared back down, looking utterly surprised that there was even a hint of confusion on Rodney’s face.
“What are you waiting for? Let’s go.”
“But—”
Sheppard’s smile was completely humorless. “I think we understand each other. Or do you want it in writing?”
Rodney felt his jaw click shut and his teeth begin to grind. But he did the only thing he could: he got on his mount.
He let Sheppard lead. There was, he realized, really no way of knowing: Sheppard might decide to get it over with, and shoot him in the back.
They came in sight of the camp just after dark. Rodney thought, Excellent! Under the cover of darkness we can— but Sheppard was already shaking his head. “No good,” he said. “They’re on full guard at night. You remember what happened to Aiden; we’d never get ten feet. No,” he inclined his head and led them back behind a small copse of trees, “we go in at dawn. First light, the camp’s in maximum confusion, and we don’t have to worry about the Terrans attacking ‘til full brightness.” His lips turned up into a bitter smirk. “They like their displays of power to be seen.”
“So we wait?” Rodney licked his lips.
Sheppard nodded. “We wait.”
He got out his canteen and a pair of foodbars. Tossing one to Rodney, he hunkered down. Casually, “And don’t think I don’t know that you’re planning on sneaking in there soon as I fall asleep.”
“I wasn’t,” Rodney lied.
Sheppard laughed. “Go ahead. It’s your funeral.”
Rodney glowered at him. “Well, I’m a dead man anyway, aren’t I?”
“It doesn’t have to be this way.”
The words took Rodney completely by surprise. Even more the tone: not bitter or sardonic, Sheppard sounded...almost wistful. Rodney looked up, but Sheppard was sitting in the exact same position he had been in before, gnawing on the corner of his foodbar. “What?”
Sheppard shook his head. “Nothing.”
Rodney swallowed. “John—”
“Forget it. It’s done.” He took out his gun and opened it up, checking it over. “Now, this minute, tomorrow morning when this is all over—this is finished. You and me are finished. You’re going back to Radek’s and to his daughter and to his books. You hear me? That’s the way it’s going to be.”
“I thought you were going to shoot me,” Rodney said.
Sheppard stopped unloading cartridges and glanced up at him. The light was dim, but Rodney could still see the look Sheppard was giving him, like he thought him an utter fool.
“I might,” Sheppard said. He gestured absently with the gun. “In the leg.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” said Rodney, sarcastically. Then, perfectly serious: “What about Teyla?”
Sheppard slid the bullets back in, one by one by one. “We’ve discussed this already. I don’t see the point in discussing it any more.”
“I won’t let you—” Rodney pressed. But he stopped himself. “John,” he said, crawling closer. “John, please...” He slid a hand down Sheppard’s arm, over his firm bicep and the smoother, more vulnerable skin on the inside of his wrist. He closed his hand over Sheppard’s hand, holding the gun, and slowly drew the fingers back, drew the weapon away, lowered it down. “I don’t want it to end,” he said, sliding into Sheppard’s lap. “I want to stay with you. I want us to stay together. We can go somewhere, all—”
“All three of us?” Sheppard asked, too knowingly.
Rodney avoided the question as easily as Sheppard had so many others, pulling him in for a kiss.
Rodney wasn’t sure how far he was going to let this go. He wasn’t sure how much was genuine want anymore, and how much a plan, a ploy, a distraction. How much had been desperation: night after night of no one else, just an endless series of alien skies and hostile planets. But kissing Sheppard, tasting the dust and the spice of the journey in his mouth, Rodney realized that he didn’t care. He wanted this, just to have it, to have had it. There wasn’t room in this world for regrets.
Sheppard seemed unusually pliant tonight. He was usually the aggressor, the initiator, pinning Rodney to the wall, to a blanket or a bed, and using his body desperately, like every touch was penance and absolution both. But now his touches were shaky and soft. He let Rodney lay the blanket out and spread him down on it, and he even let Rodney crawl on top. Let Rodney peel his clothes away, pull him free of his trousers and hold him in his hand. Rodney leaned down and licked the head of his cock, keeping his eyes raised so that he could watch Sheppard watch; that had always been one of Sheppard’s greatest pleasures, propping himself up on an elbow and watching Rodney go down on him, Rodney wrapping wide, wet lips around the head of Sheppard’s cock and sucking until they became red and swollen, all the while rubbing himself desperately against the mattress or the side of Sheppard’s leg. But Sheppard wasn’t looking at him now. He was staring off to the side, his eyes pinched tight. From the look of him, there was no absolution any longer.
“Hey,” Rodney said, letting him go with great reluctance and crawling up his body. “Do you...do you not want...?”
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay,” Rodney said, very nearly containing his sigh. “It’s really the more logical response, under the circumstances.” He started to get up.
Sheppard caught his arm, iron tight grip. “I’m sorry,” he said, like he was begging Rodney to hear him. To understand. Sheppard stared up at him, searching his face. Every word he squeezed out looked painful to him.
“I never meant—”
“Oh no,” Rodney said, suddenly getting it. “Not you, too! Look,” he said, lowering himself back down at Sheppard’s side, curling himself around his back. “I want to be here.” He kissed Sheppard’s neck, skirting carefully around his bad arm. “We want the same thing,” and he added, reluctantly, “most of the time. Point is, I never followed you anywhere I wasn’t willing to be led.”
“In another life,” Sheppard whispered.
“In another life,” Rodney said, easing their shirts away, first Sheppard’s and then his own. “Elizabeth would still be alive. And Kate and Chuck and Nick, and Aiden, and even Sora, too. And Teyla would grow up strong and free, and we’d all live together somewhere, somewhere...”
“Atlantis,” John said.
“Yes,” said Rodney. He kissed the highest point of Sheppard’s spine. “And I’d be a great thinker, who did nothing all day but study the vast wonders of the universe. And you...” He looked up for inspiration; found it. “You’d fly through the stars,” he said, “rescuing people.” He smiled to himself. He liked the sound of that.
But Sheppard just sighed, a long, drawn-out breath. “That’ll be the day...”
Rodney rested his head against Sheppard’s shoulder. “No, don’t say that. You’re an idiot, don’t say that.” He swept a hand over Sheppard’s chest. “Let me, let me...”
He reached around and took Sheppard’s dick in his hand, stroking steady but gentle, rocking his hips against Sheppard’s ass as he moved. After a moment, Sheppard relaxed into the touch; another moment, he surprised Rodney by moving again, opening his legs a little and pushing back against Rodney’s erection. Rodney’s trousers were still on, but he had to grab at Sheppard’s hips, steady himself. “John?”
“Do it,” Sheppard ground out. “Come on.”
Rodney knew better than to argue. He undid his pants and jerked them down. He spat on his fingers as he remembered Sheppard doing, time and again, then carefully parted Sheppard’s cheeks.
He could feel hair and puckered skin. He circled the hole a few times, afraid to do anything more, but then Sheppard grunted and pushed back, and Rodney slipped inside, past the tight ring of muscle. It felt incredible: hot and tight and surprisingly smooth. He moved his finger, experimentally; Sheppard squirmed and then bucked, letting out a pleased little laugh. “Another, another,” he said, and after more spit and more stretching, Rodney had two fingers inside, was holding Sheppard’s hips as Sheppard rocked himself back, fucking himself on Rodney’s fingers, making eager, intent noises as his cock leaked onto his chest.
Rodney stole what little liquid there was and used it with more spit to slick himself up as best he could. “Enough already,” Sheppard said, “you’re going to make your throat dry up. Do it. I’m ready.”
“I’m going to fuck you,” Rodney said: pleased, astonished. He licked a stripe across Sheppard’s shoulder blade, then bit down, grinning as he arched. Then he pulled his fingers out and positioned the tip of his cock against Sheppard’s opening. With a gasp, he pushed home, remembering the first time and how it had felt for him, like his whole world was opening up, like he was being cleaved in two so that something new could emerge, pulled out from between the halves like a chick from the shell.
Rodney didn’t know if Sheppard felt anything like that now. He uttered an obscene group of sounds that might have been Rodney’s name, and moved his bad arm, the one he wasn’t leaning on, so that he could touch his cock. Rodney batted his hand away, murmuring, “Idiot,” and stroked along Sheppard’s length in time to his thrusts. Sheppard was all around him, an all-encompassing warmth and tightness and pleasure, and Rodney wanted nothing more than to burrow even deeper, to mold against Sheppard’s body, stroking his back and his sides and his chest, kissing his neck, never letting go.
With effort, he kept his thrusts slow and even right up until the end; when he finally lost control and began jerking his hips desperately, Sheppard let out a low moan and came, fucking into Rodney’s fist. Rodney didn’t even wipe himself clean; he just grabbed at Sheppard’s hip and at his shoulder and finished with a few sharp jerks. Slipping out, he kissed again at Sheppard’s shoulders and at his spine; turning him over, he kissed his mouth, cradling the back of his neck, holding him and blinking down at him as he fell asleep.
As soon as Sheppard was out, Rodney tugged the blanket over him and got back into his own clothes, just like they’d both known he was going to do. And just like they’d both known he was going to do, Rodney found his gun, and with one last look at Sheppard’s sleeping form, crept off into the night.
In his head, Rodney had worked out a dozen different scenarios, plans and subterfuge, brilliant manoeuvers in which he disguised himself as a Genii armsmen or a shawl-draped woman, or created an enormous distraction, setting off explosives and sneaking in in the confusion. But in the end the simplest approach was all that was left to him: he snuck in on his belly and on his hands and knees, ducking between tents and hiding in shadows, heart racing in his chest whenever anyone drew near. If he got caught he was going to scream like an angry Wraith, give Sheppard time to get far away. And maybe Teyla, too.
He was crouched beside a small structure that from the smell he took to be an outhouse. He could see Kolya’s tent, but the material was too thick, or the fire inside too low, and he couldn’t distinguish any shadows. He was working up the courage to just go inside and take the situation as he found it (slit Kolya’s throat in the dark, watch him silently bleed out before he gathered Teyla into his arms) when he felt a sudden pressure against his jugular, something pulling him sharply up and back, and a hand closed over his mouth.
A voice whispered in his ear, steady and low. “Why are you here?”
The worst of the pressure and the pain eased up as Teyla spun him around to face her. She was still small—slim and no higher than his shoulder—but the hand on his arm, gripping him, held incredible strength. She held a lance like it was part of her, and the look in her eyes was one of almost impossible calm. Rodney shivered: she was his little sister, and she had never looked more alien.
She was his little sister.
“I told you,” he said, a rough whisper. “I’m here to take you home. I’m not leaving until I do.”
Her gaze dropped. When she looked up at him again, his breath caught: there was real emotion in her eyes once more, too deep a pain for one so young. “What home?” she asked. “Rodney...what is there left to us now?”
He wanted to tell her, Athos will always be your home. Or, We’ll find a place, I know we will. Or even, I am your home. Please.
He said, “I don’t know. But we have to try—”
Her mouth opened but she didn’t make a sound. Rodney saw the faint movement of a shadow, then whiteness, stunning and bright, shocking. He fell to the ground, only just realizing that he’d been cuffed across the head. His vision swam, but he could see enough: Kolya stood above him, wielding a wicked-looking knife. Rodney remembered the lance that Teyla had shown them in Kolya’s tent and knew exactly what that knife was for.
Teyla hadn’t moved, but she was staring up at Kolya with wide, dark eyes. He said something to her in Genii and she replied; their words no longer made sense to him. He wondered if she was going to watch him do it.
All this in the space of a second, before sound returned, and movement: Teyla like a whirlwind above him, and Kolya stumbling, tumbling back. He hit the ground as Rodney scrambled to his feet, stunned. Teyla, who Rodney had carried around on his back, stood over the Genii war chief with the point of her lance pressed tight to his throat. He stared up at her, stoic in the face of her betrayal, and Rodney saw Teyla waver. She might save Rodney from death, but could she really send Kolya to his? Rodney had to be sure.
He reached for his gun.
The shots that rang out weren’t his. He looked up in time to see Sheppard come striding toward them, his coat flapping out behind him like the wings of a great bird. His first shot had gone wide, done nothing more than make Teyla leap back, but all the rest hit home: round after round, the entire clip, until the man on the ground wasn’t even recognizable anymore. And Sheppard was already reloading.
“Are you crazy?” Rodney hissed. “You’re going to wake the whole camp!”
“That’s the idea!” Sheppard shouted back. “The Terrans have come early—let’s see these bastard Genii give them a run for their money!”
Rodney sucked in a breath. “It’s going to be a massacre,” he said, realizing it, finally voicing it.
“Whether we’re here or not,” Sheppard said. “I vote not.”
Then he turned on Teyla.
He raised his pistol. Teyla was still holding her lance, bloodied at the blunt end but not at the tip. She did not advance on him, or even move into a defensive stance. But she didn’t back down.
“John…” Rodney breathed,
Sheppard’s face was set. His eyes were angry and dark, but Rodney could look past the shadows, see the sadness there, and beneath it, still some semblance of hope. His injured arm shook from holding the gun, and then he lowered it, and he didn’t shake anymore.
Behind them, the first Terran bombs fell, blasting the night sky into brightness, rocking the earth.
Sheppard offered his hand to Teyla, and she threw down her lance and took it. “Run,” Sheppard said, and they did, to the sound of screams pained and torturous and triumphant: bombs dropping and fires burning and one of the great ships crashing down.
They ran and did not look back. They reached the horses and Sheppard passed Teyla over to Rodney before swinging up onto Memento. They paused for a second, brother and sister, before climbing up onto their mount. Teyla wrapped her arms tightly around Rodney's waist and buried her face in his neck.
They rode until the world was quiet and dark, and they were safe again.
Out here the sky seemed infinite, stretching endlessly in every direction. When Rodney woke up, he lay for a few moments just staring. So blue: like the ocean, barely remembered. Gazing out the window of a high tower, holding tight to Aunt Elizabeth’s hand…
Rodney rolled over. He could see Teyla where she slept beside him. Her braids had come undone completely, spilling her hair out around her like a fan. In her sleep, she looked peaceful.
Rodney couldn’t hear the steady rise and fall of Sheppard’s breathing, so he knew that Sheppard was no longer next to him. He sat up and looked around: there, off in the distance, somewhere between their camp and the infinite horizon. Sheppard was facing away, and as Rodney watched he walked forward, stripping off his clothes before seemingly sinking into the earth.
Rodney experienced a moment of irrational alarm before muffling the laugh that threatened to emerge with the back of his hand. Quietly, he slid out from under his blanket and walked away from the camp. Closer, his perspective changed: he could see the water rippling around Sheppard’s shoulders and back, glistening silver in the sunlight. It looked entirely unreal, like a mirage.
That didn’t make him any less willing to plunge in, however. Hurriedly, Rodney pulled off his dirt-encrusted boots and his dusty clothes. They tumbled into a musty pile of rusty red and brown. Rodney could still feel them, lingering on his skin, but the sun on his back was warm, and the water, when he reached out and touched it with his toe, cool and crystal-clear.
Sheppard didn’t say anything as Rodney slipped into the stream. He watched with curious, faintly appraising eyes, the corner of his mouth quirking up, just shy of a smile.
Rodney splashed him. Sheppard laughed and splashed back, huge arcing waves of water, crashing over Rodney’s head. Rodney retaliated, snaking an arm around Sheppard’s waist and grappling with him, wet hands on wet bodies, tangling and teasing and washing clean.
After a while they just floated, staring up at the sky, blue reflecting onto blue.
“Are you familiar with the Terran concept of baptism?” Sheppard asked, after a while.
“No,” Rodney said. There were still so many things he had left to learn.
Sheppard blinked, dark eyelashes on sunburnt cheeks. When he looked up, his eyes were clear.
“Maybe I’ll tell you about it sometime.”
“Yeah,” said Rodney, happily, hopefully. “That’ll be the day.”
NOTES:
1. A heavy, heavy debt is of course owed to the film The Searchers—director John Ford, who made the west glorious and gave us one of the most iconic opening and closing shots; writer Frank S. Nugent, who wrote dialogue equally iconic (some of which I borrowed—the really good stuff, probably *g*); and John Wayne, who gives an absolutely incredible performance. The film just came out in a beautiful new special edition DVD—at the very least, you should all rent it!
2. Title from The Smiths. Additional musical inspiration from Mirah ("Cold Cold Water") and U2 & Johnny Cash ("The Wanderer"). Also, David Newman's Serenity score, and the Firefly 'verse in general. Space westerns are so awesome—why aren't there more of them?
3. If I have the time and the inclination, I think I'm gonna want to do some meta on the process of writing this, folding these two universes into each other. It was interesting—to me, anyway. Poke me if you think it'd be interesting to you.
They had no real plans anymore, but neither one of them gave even a thought to giving up. They caught wind of a rumor that there was a small band of Satedans who had survived the cull, and they spent the better part of a year chasing them down. There were mornings where Rodney woke up so sore it hurt to sit in the saddle, much less ride, but he still spent all day thinking of the nights.
They were back on Manaria when it happened. They’d stopped into a tavern where Sheppard, as usual, was working over the bartender, looking for information. Rodney had wandered toward the back, where a woman was dancing on a low platform. It was the middle of the day: she had an audience of one, which was apparently enough to make Rodney seem incredibly desirable. She stepped off her stage and continued her routine with Rodney as the centerpiece. A year ago, he would have been flustered and uncomfortable, shrinking into himself whenever she bent over to display her ample cleavage. Now, though, he was only amused, and when Sheppard turned and caught sight of them, his eyes narrowing in anger, Rodney threw back his head and laughed.
The girl flounced away, offended. Rodney slid from his chair and walked across the tavern, sidling up to Sheppard. Standing close enough that their shoulders brushed, Rodney ignored him completely. He spoke to the bartender. “How much for a room?”
Sheppard caught him halfway up the stairs. He grabbed Rodney’s arms and pinned them against the wall. “Where’d you get that money from?”
Rodney made a show of struggling, wiggling against Sheppard so that their thighs scraped and their cocks brushed. “Lifted it from you. Just like you taught me.”
Sheppard squeezed his wrists tighter, slammed their joined hands against the wall. He was grinning. He leaned in and roughly took Rodney’s mouth, spreading Rodney’s legs with a sharp jab of his knee.
At the foot of the stairs, someone coughed.
They turned, and Sheppard loosened his hold, though he didn’t let go. A huge man, tall as a tree, was leaning up against the wall at the bottom of the stairwell. He had a dark beard and dreads, and his impressive arms were folded over his massive chest. He looked amused.
“What?” Sheppard barked at him.
“Sorry,” the man said. “I’ll come back when you’re finished with your whore.”
“Hey!” The man was chuckling like he’d meant it as a joke, but Rodney looked at Sheppard, slowly loosening and lowering his hands, his face sunburned and lined and hair gone grey at the temples. He looked down at himself, rumbled clothes over a body firm from riding but still lanky enough to be a boy’s. They’d been out of the world for a while. Rodney flushed, realizing for the first time what they must look to those on the inside, on the outside of the two of them.
“What do you want?” Sheppard growled.
“Hear you’ve been looking for a man called Kolya.” The man raised an eyebrow, confident and smug.
“Well, you heard wrong,” Rodney snapped. “We’ve never even heard of him.”
“Shut up.” Sheppard. It took Rodney a second to realize that he was talking to him.
“What do you know?” Sheppard asked the man.
“Lots of things,” the man said. “For a price.”
“Of course,” said Sheppard.
In an entirely different tone, Rodney echoed, “Of course.”
The man was called Ronon. He was Satedan, though from the way his eyes flashed when they mentioned the other group of supposed survivors, he wasn’t one of them, hadn’t even heard of their existence. In his gruff way, he was friendlier to them after that.
Actually, he’d been pretty friendly to Sheppard from the start. Ronon explained (once Sheppard had slipped him some coin) that he’d recently done some trading with a group of Genii, a group led by a man introduced to outsiders as Scar, but known among his people as Kolya. There’d been a Lantean girl in his hut. “In his hut,” Sheppard had repeated.
“Yes.” Then Ronon and Sheppard had gone back to swapping monosyllabic war stories.
Rodney rode a little ways behind them, pinching his mount a bit too sharply with his knees. He felt out of the loop again—and the worst part was the reminder that the feeling wasn’t new. When had he been in the loop? At best he’d been caught up in Sheppard’s gravitational field, but he was still the orbiting body, the lesser. In another life he could have been something, somebody. But he’d never been meant to live in this world—nor even to survive it.
Ahead of him, Ronon raised an arm and pointed: on the horizon was a thin column of grey smoke, twisting into the sky. “We’re close.”
“Close,” Rodney said. Once again, he felt that weird surge of anticipation and disbelief. This could be it. Today could be the day he lifted Teyla up into his arms and brought her home again.
Sheppard turned in the saddle and gave him a look. It was not lengthy; it was not even all that significant. But it was an acknowledgement. Of what they’d been through together, maybe. Rodney wasn’t going to read in anything more.
The Genii camp was on top of a small hill, around two-thirds of which curled a slow-moving but far from shallow river. It was a perfect site from a defensive standpoint; Scar or Kolya or whatever he was called—he knew what he was doing. Rodney had to give him that.
Ronon lifted his hand as they approached, nodding to a pair of Genii armsmen. “Let me do the talking,” he said, under his breath.
“Yes, thank goodness we have your stunning verbal skill on our side,” Rodney muttered. Sheppard reached out and smacked his thigh. Rodney wanted the touch to linger, but it didn’t.
It was perfectly clear which tent was Scar’s. It was set apart from the rest, and was bigger, though not ostentatiously so. There were two more armsmen standing by the entrance. Ronon spoke a couple words to them, in almost absent-sounding Genii; Rodney was pleased but not surprised by how much he was now able to understand.
One of the armsmen ducked inside. Rodney’s chest felt tight. Then the tent flap parted and a large man stepped into the light. He was bare-chested, arms marked with the familiar stripes and another pair drawn down from his clavicle, disappearing into his trousers. He had dark hair and a stern, unforgiving face, marked on the left side by a sharp line. He stared at them both: unafraid, silently judging.
Rodney realized that he’d hardly spared a thought to what he’d do in this moment. To what either of them would do; Sheppard was standing behind him, perfectly silent. Rodney half expected him to lunge at the Genii chief any moment, but he didn’t move. “Scar,” he said eventually, conversationally. “Well, I can see where you got your name.”
Kolya’s lips slanted up. “And are you called Persistence? And him—” Rodney flinched but didn’t quite jerk back when he saw he was being gestured at. “—He Who Follows?”
“I’ll have you know—” Rodney started, but he bit down hard on his tongue before he started an argument with Teyla’s kidnapper over who between Rodney and Sheppard led, and who followed after.
Kolya was smirking at them, though. Rodney felt Sheppard tense, but his words were easy. “You speak pretty good Lantean for a Genii.” A pause. “Someone teach you?”
It was a leading question, but Kolya failed to rise to the bait. He turned to Ronon. “Ah-we pabbo-tie-bo ee-kee-tay?”
Ronon shrugged. “Pabbo-tie-bo kim te-moo-er.”
“That’s right,” Sheppard said. “We want to trade. Only not out here.” He waved a dismissive hand around the Genii camp. “I don’t stand talking in the wind.”
Kolya fixed them both with a contemptuous smile. Then without another word, he went back inside the muted darkness of the tent. Rodney sucked in a deep breath and moved to follow. Sheppard’s arm shot out and blocked his way. “Stay out here.”
Rodney shoved him off with a force that surprised even him. “Not likely!”
Inside it was lighter than he had expected, and not at all smoky, though there was a fire burning in a center pit, what little smoke there was drifting up through a perfectly-positioned hole in the ceiling. As Rodney stepped inside, Kolya barked an order at two shawl-draped women who had been tending to the flames. The hurried past Rodney and outside, their heads bent.
At the far end of the tent, four other women were sitting in a small cluster, their faces averted. Rodney looked at them anxiously, but Kolya passed in front of him, muscle and bulk and large, violent hands. “Ih-card!” he ordered. Rodney sat.
Sheppard sat beside him, and Ronon with him. Ronon leaned over and whispered. “His sons are all dead, so his wives sit on the honor side of the tent.”
“His wives?” Rodney squeaked.
“Shut up,” said Sheppard.
That morning Sheppard had come up behind him while Ronon was off taking a leak. He’d wrapped his arms around Rodney’s waist as Rodney stood in front of the small square of glass that was their shaving mirror. Are you trying to make me slice open my jugular? Rodney had said, and Sheppard had chuckled, low in his throat, and kissed the side of Rodney’s neck.
He’d come away with a dollop of shaving cream on the side of his nose. Rodney had met Ronon’s amused smile with a grin, and not said anything.
Sheppard’s face was clean now. He had his head held up high so that Rodney could see the tendons in his neck, the coiled, controlled rage. Kolya met the expression with a calm smirk. “My children,” he said—simple stating of fact, devoid of emotion. “My sons, killed by Terrans and shunned by Lanteans. For each son, I take something. Sometimes many things...”
His head turned slightly to the side. “Mayah-kay zee-eh!”
Rodney followed his gaze in time to see one of the women at the other end of the tent flinch. “Mayah-kay zee-eh!” Kolya said again, louder. Slowly, the woman threw back her shawl and stood up.
Rodney found he was looking down at his hands. He could sense the girl moving, see the vague, shadowing motions of her skirts. Then something dropped down into his line of sight. It was a lance, sharp and pointed at the lower end. It had things hanging from it, ratty bundles of...something in many different colors. Rodney sucked in a breath as realization dawned: they were bundles of hair. They were scalps.
His gaze snapped up to the girl’s face. Teyla stared back at him, calm and impervious. She blinked once, then turned with balletic grace, lifting the lance and its hanging horrors away.
Rodney would have cried out but the words froze on his tongue. Sheppard reached over and squeezed his thigh.
“I’ve seen scalps before,” Sheppard said. He sounded almost bored, and Rodney shuddered under the pressure of his fingers.
Kolya smiled a cool, self-deprecating smile. He drew something out of his pocket. “This before?” he asked. The object he held up spun, shimmery gold in the firelight.
It was Kate’s locket. Rodney remembered Aiden face before he’d charged wildly to his death; Rodney felt a little of that, now, too.
Sheppard’s teeth were set tight, but he still managed a grin. He rose slowly to his feet, drawing Rodney with him with a firm hand on his arm. He addressed Ronon. “I came here to trade, not admire his collection.” He turned his back on Kolya. “Tell him we’re going to pitch camp across the river... Maybe we can trade tomorrow.”
Sheppard was tugging Rodney in front of him, but Rodney chanced a glance back and saw that Kolya’s expression had darkened. “Ee-sap!” he hissed.
“Puetze,” Ronon insisted. Tomorrow.
They were almost outside when Rodney felt a hand on his arm, tight and painful just above his wrist. He turned and stared up into Kolya’s face, his heart pounding. But Kolya wasn’t looking at him. His eyes sought out Sheppard, locked there.
“You speak pretty good Genii,” he said. “For a Terran.” He let go of Rodney with a shove.
Rodney’s gaze whipped to Sheppard. “What did he mean by—” But Ronon cut him off. “Quiet,” he said. “We need to leave.”
They made it safely to the other side of the river. Once there, Ronon jumped easily off his horse. He turned to Sheppard. “You should go. He knows who you are; there’s no point in staying.”
Sheppard shook his head. “We’re not running.”
There was a deep bitterness, but also something akin to pity in Ronon’s expression. “Sometimes you have to run.”
He reached into the pocket of his duster, pulled out a leather purse. “Here,” he said, tossing it to Sheppard. “I don’t want blood money.” Without another word he remounted and rode away.
Sheppard gave Rodney a long look, then dropped down to the ground. “We’re making camp.”
Rodney nodded and started unbuckling his gear from the saddle. “Scar’s going to kill us,” he said.
Sheppard acknowledged this statement with a shrug. “He’s going to try.”
Rodney’s laugh was just shy of hysterical. “Oh, well so long as we’re both clear...”
Abruptly, he sobered. “Teyla’s alive," he said. "She’s really alive. We found her.”
He looked to Sheppard, eyes wide and almost wondrous, waiting for some sort of acknowledgement of this incredible thing that they’d done. Sheppard just grunted.
Annoying; but Rodney had other things to worry about. His mind was already racing. “I just know I can think of a plan to rescue her!” he said, and his brain was building a way to make explosives out of what they had with them when Sheppard moved abruptly, his head snapping up on his neck. “What?” Rodney said, and turned.
Teyla was standing at the top of the ridge. Rodney felt his lips move, heard himself say her name on an exhaled breath. She ran down the hill toward them and stopped on the far side of the river.
“Teyla,” Rodney said. She was older now, a young woman, but it was still so clearly her, his sister, his beautiful little sister. “Teyla!”
She held up her hand, silencing him, forbidding him to come any closer. “Unnt-meah!” she said. Rodney knew too well what that meant. Go away!
Rodney moved closer anyway—would have no matter what she said, his brain divorced from his body. There was a small bridge to his right, thin wood planks that could be hastily withdrawn. He started towards it.
“Teyla?” he said, as gently as he could and awkward in his gentleness. “Don’t you remember me? I’m Rodney.”
She pointed toward the far horizon, looking anxious. “Unnt-meah!”
“Don’t be stupid, we’re not going. We’re not going without you, Teyla. Sheppard!” he called over his shoulder. “Get the horses, I’ll try to keep her talking...”
To Rodney’s surprise, Sheppard was much closer to him—to them both—than he’d thought. “How?” he said. “She’s forgotten her own language.”
Rodney glared at him. He turned back to his sister, desperate. “Teyla, you’re coming with us, with me and,” he tripped over the word, “Uncle John. Do you hear me?”
Teyla’s hands dropped. Her eyes narrowed. “No,” she said. “Not now...not ever.”
She spoke Lantean. Rodney breathed a sigh of relief, manfully refraining from rubbing Sheppard’s face in how wrong he was. “I don’t care what they’ve done to you,” he reassured her. “Or what happened, you’re still my—”
“They have done nothing,” Teyla interrupted, a sharp cutting motion of her hand. “They are my people.”
“Your people?” Sheppard erupted at his side, a streak of barely-contained violence. “They murdered your family!”
Teyla’s mouth was set. “Ee-sap! The Wraith killed my family. The Terrans killed my family. This galaxy...”
“That’s not what happened!” Rodney said angrily. “They’ve been lying to you, Teyla. Aren’t you smart enough to see it?”
She didn’t answer him. “Teyla,” he begged, “think back. I’m Rodney, Rodney your brother. Remember how I used to read you stories? I was teaching you Ancient, remember?” His hands fell to his sides. “Ego amo te.”
Sheppard had turned away. But Teyla suddenly stepped closer. She lifted her hand but didn’t, didn’t quite touch him.
“I remember,” she said. “I remember from always. At first I prayed to the Ancestors, begged that you would come and get me, take me home. But you never came.”
Rodney’s throat was dry. “I’ve come now.”
But Teyla only shook her head. “These are my people. Unnt-meah,” she said, stepping back again. “Go. Go, please!”
“Stand aside, McKay.”
Rodney turned. Sheppard was advancing quickly, his hand moving for his pistol. “John!” Rodney shouted, even though he still couldn’t believe that Sheppard was really about to— “John, no!”
Without thinking he moved between Sheppard and Teyla, stepping right in front of the barrel of Sheppard’s gun. There was the crack of a shot, and then Sheppard tumbled back. Blood blossomed across his shoulder.
Rodney calculated the angle of the shot and realized what was happening. He fumbled for his own gun and spun around, firing at the Genii at the top of the hill. He reached for Sheppard, but he was already moving, dragging himself despite his injury behind the cover of the horses. Crouching behind Memento, Rodney paused a moment, took a breath. When he spun and aimed, the trajectory already in his mind, the shot went true. One of the armsmen tumbled down the ridge and into the river.
But there were more coming, and men on horseback. “Teyla!” Rodney shouted, watching her race up the hill toward the approaching Genii. “Teyla, wait!”
“Forget her!” John gritted his teeth and pulled himself up onto his horse. “Move! Now!”
Rodney stared at the scarlet stain and Sheppard’s limply hanging arm. He heard shouts and gunfire. Another breath and he was scrambling up onto his horse. “Where are we going?” he shouted. “Do you have a plan?”
“How’s this?” Sheppard was swaying on his mount, barely holding on. “Ride!”
“Typical!” Rodney snapped. But he pulled as close to Sheppard as he could and laid a hand on Memento’s rump, guiding her.
The Genii followed behind them. If Rodney turned, he knew he would see Kolya’s scowling face at their head.
They were tiring, especially Sheppard, when Rodney caught sight of a little outcropping of rock. “Here!” he said, and urged the horses toward it. They swung around past a pair of boulders and practically fell off their horses. They were outside the narrow entrance to a cave. Bullets whined and ricocheted off the rock face. Sheppard turned and started firing. “Stop it!” Rodney said, grabbing his uninjured arm. He shoved Sheppard into the dark narrow space, getting off a few last shots himself.
Pressed close beside him in the dark, “Why don’t you just wrap us up and tie a bow on us?” Sheppard hissed. His breath was warm and shaky on Rodney’s neck.
“Shut up and keep moving,” Rodney said.
After not too long a time (but long enough to make Rodney start getting nervous) the cave widened out. The chamber was still only a couple meters across, but Rodney still sucked air greedily into his lungs. Even better, he could see a little light filtering in from a bit further along.
“That should be the exit,” he said. “Think we’re safe to stay and rest up for a spell?”
“How should I know?” Sheppard snapped. He was holding his injured arm and his face looked tight and pained. “It’s your cave.”
“Here,” Rodney said, stepping forward. “Let me help you with that—”
“I got it!” Sheppard turned away from him. After an awkward minute or so, he succeeded in ripping off a strip of his shirt with his teeth.
“So,” he said, once his arm was tied. “How’d you know this place was here?”
Rodney grinned. “Remember that book of Ancient stories I used to have? There was a mention of a place like this. I recognized it from the shape of the rocks outside.”
“Huh.” Sheppard grunted, adjusting his make-shift bandage. “I’d’ve been more impressed if it were just dumb luck.”
“I’ll leave the dumb luck to you, thanks.” Rodney sat down, his back against the cool wall. There was a trickle of water trailing down the rock, not too far away. He thought about getting up, filling his canteen, but he didn’t, yet.
“I don’t get you,” he said.
Sheppard shrugged. Rodney could see the pale, long line of his neck. “What’s there to get?”
Rodney took a breath. There were too many questions; he didn’t even know where to start.
The water dripped. Rodney exhaled. “If you think it’s safe,” he said, “we should get some rest.”
“Sure.” Sheppard slid down the wall and arranged his legs. “If they’re waiting on the other side to kill us, it doesn’t really matter if it’s now or tomorrow morning, does it?”
His eyes fluttered closed. Rodney was tempted to get up and move next to him, to cushion his wounded arm whether Sheppard wanted him to or not. Instead he closed his eyes, and didn’t budge.
It may have been the poor light, but Sheppard looked even paler come morning. Rodney stared pointedly at the bandage. “I have to get in there and cut the poison out.”
He was already opening his knife. “No!” Sheppard barked. He lowered his voice. “Not yet. Here.” He handed Rodney a piece of paper. “Just in case.”
Rodney glared at him, but curiosity overruled. He unfolded the page. After a few seconds he began to read aloud, anger coloring his voice.
“‘I, John Sheppard, being of sound mind and without any blood kin, do hereby bequeath all my property of any kind to Rodney McKay...’” His eyes snapped up. “I don’t want your damn property, and ‘of sound mind’? You've got to be joking!”
Sheppard didn’t say anything.
“Teyla!” Rodney spat. “Remember her? Teyla’s your blood kin...”
He didn’t move or blink. “Not anymore.”
The paper crumbled in Rodney’s hands. “You can keep your damn will!” he shouted, throwing it at Sheppard. “Do you think I’ve forgotten how you were all set to shoot Teyla, to kill her yourself? Have you lost your mind? Just what kind of man are you, anyway?”
Sheppard pushed himself away from the wall, snarling. “You saw where she was sitting in that hut! She’s his now, nothing but a dirty—”
Rodney felt the motion from outside his body, his fist reeling around and connecting with Sheppard’s face. Pain rocketed up his arm. He shook it off. “Shut your dirty mouth!” he said. “You, you—”
Sheppard spat out a gob of blood. “I’m a what?” he demanded, unbending at the waist. “You go ahead and tell me what I am!”
“Nothing,” Rodney said. “You’re not a Lantean war hero or a criminal or even a Genii-hunter or Wraith-killer. And Scar may claim you’re really a Terran, but I don’t care even if that used to be true, because you’re nothing anymore! I look at you,” he said, turning away and refusing to do just that. “And I don’t see anything but hate.”
His breath was coming harshly as he stood staring down at his hands. “I wonder what that makes me. That I...”
He turned sharply, pushing forward toward the small patch of light. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here before you up and die on me.”
Sheppard snorted and stumbled forward. “That’ll be the day.”
There were no Genii lying in wait for them outside. There was, however, Sheppard’s horse, munching morosely on a pathetic patch of scrub grass. An almost giddy burble of laughter escaped Sheppard’s lips. Rodney turned to stare at him, but Sheppard was already walking stiffly over to the horse. She looked up and blinked at him; Sheppard patted her neck. “Good girl, Memento.” Rodney could tell that he was leaning on her, but he didn’t comment on it.
Instead he said, “Where’s my horse?”
Sheppard gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Guess she figured she was lucky to be rid of you. You do have a tendency to lose ‘em or get ‘em killed.”
“Shut up,” Rodney said, but his tone was almost gentle compared to where it had been at just a few minutes ago. He shoved Sheppard out of the way and swung up onto Memento’s back. “Looks like we’re going to have to share.”
They were a good hundred klicks from anywhere; there was no way Sheppard could make him walk, just out of spite. “Fine,” Sheppard said, sounding petulant and oddly young. “But she’s my mare; I’m riding in front.”
Rodney smirked and took hold of Memento’s reins. “With that arm? I don’t think so.”
Sheppard grumbled, and he stared at Rodney with dark, deadly eyes, but in the end he had no choice but to accept the hand up Rodney offered and get on behind him. Rodney slid Sheppard’s good arm tight around his waist. On another day if they’d done this, he might have waited for a soft brush of lips on the back of his neck. But Sheppard’s touch remained rigid and impersonal. They rode off, Sheppard a warm, hard weight against Rodney’s back.
It was night time and the Zelenka place was lit up like a beacon, shining light and music and the sounds of people talking and laughing, visible and audible from a good klick out. “What’s going on?” Rodney wondered aloud.
Sheppard lifted his head from where he was leaning against Rodney’s shoulder. “Looks like a party,” he slurred.
“Yes, thanks for clearing that up,” Rodney said. Then he said, “John? John?” because Sheppard’s grip had loosened, he was sliding from the saddle.
Rodney gasped and reached for him, clung, hauled him around and practically into his own lap. He urged Memento on, and as soon as he felt they were close enough, he began to yell.
Rodney had a good, loud voice. As he drew near the house, the music died off and people began to spill outside. Rodney caught sight of Radek, almost unrecognizable with his hair slicked back. “Radek!” he shouted. “Send for a doctor!” But Radek just stood there, gaping at him.
They stuttered to a halt beside the porch, and Rodney would have fallen, would have spilled him and John both, except suddenly there were strong hands on his shoulders and back, and someone was carrying John, lowering him gently to the ground.
“There, son, we’ve got him,” someone said—Captain Caldwell, Rodney realized with a start. “Now are you injured, too? Is that blood his or yours?”
“Doctor!” Rodney panted. “I tried, but he needs—”
“Aye, let me see,” someone else said. “Yes, quickly now. Laura, help me carry him inside.”
Laura. Rodney turned, looking for her... And there she was. She was wearing a white dress, bright and ethereal-looking against all the blackness. She looked like one of the Ancestors, come to save them...and with that thought, Rodney crumpled to the ground. The last few days came rushing back, and he coughed and puked the meager contents of his stomach into the sand.
Radek helped him to his feet. “Come inside,” he said, “I will get you something to drink.” He shook his head. “You have an incredible sense of timing, I am sure you know.”
Rodney looked around for Sheppard, but they must have already taken him inside. “But I made it, didn’t I?” Sheppard had to be all right. He had to be.
Radek gave him a queer look. He led Rodney over to the fire and sat him down. “Once,” he said, fetching the coffee pot, "nothing would have given me more joy. Now,” gaze lingering as he passed over the cup, “I am not so sure.”
“What?” said Rodney. “He was wrong about Teyla but that doesn’t mean—oh!”
Laura had come into the room. Her white dress was streaked with Sheppard’s blood, but that wasn’t what had made Rodney start. He felt like an idiot.
“Well, I guess the wedding’s off,” Laura said, sardonically. When Radek made a noise of protest, Laura rolled her eyes and collapsed into the other chair with an unladylike flop. “For now, papa. Carson can’t very well marry me if he’s operating on Mister Sheppard, can he? After that,” she eyed Rodney intently, “we’ll see.”
“I, ah.” Radek shifted nervously. “I should check on the other guests...”
He left, the sound of his shoes fading slowly away.
“Hello, Rodney,” Laura said.
Rodney, who so often had an overabundance, found himself struggling for words. “I, I...wrote you a letter.”
Laura stared down at the blood on her dress and sighed. “One letter in five years...! I read it ‘til the paper dried up and the ink faded away.” She rolled her eyes. “The parts I could understand, anyway.”
Rodney perked up a little, remembering. “You mean the part in Ancient? That was a poem that I fou...” He caught the look on her face and trailed off.
“I don’t read Ancient, Rodney!” Laura sounded exasperated. “You might’ve written something meaningful...might’ve asked me to wait for you. Or. Or said that you loved me?”
“I—” I still... I never... Rodney trailed off. He didn’t know what to say.
Laura was looking at him, staring. Her hand, soft and white, reached out and brushed his knee. Rodney remembered her as a little girl, beating him—beating everyone, all the boys—on her little racing pony. He remembered her as a woman, teasing and friendly and soft and warm. Safe, as anything was out here. She was home.
He leaned forward and kissed her, tilting her head back, opening her mouth. He ran a finger roughly under the line of her chin, holding her like she was his to do with as he wished, like they had all the time in the world.
She sat back, sloe-eyed and gasping. Her cheeks were flushed as she stared up at him. “You’ve changed.”
He sat back. “I know.”
He waited a few seconds, then said, “We found Teyla.”
Laura sucked in a breath. “Was she...?”
He shook his head. “She’s still alive. We ran into some trouble. Lost her again.” He took a deep breath. “I’m planning to ride out again, soon as J—soon as my horse is rested.”
Laura frowned and stood up. “What about Mister Sheppard?”
“I don’t want him looking for Teyla anymore.” Her mouth opened in shock. “No, listen to me! You have to help me keep him here. Maybe get your new—your doctor there to give him something.” Laura was looking at him like he’d been spending too much time hanging around Eldon. “Please.” He touched her arm, then quickly dropped it. Looking at the floor, “Just ‘til I find her. Just ‘til I bring Teyla home again.”
“And how many more years is that going to take?” Laura asked.
Rodney stared across the room, at Radek’s small library—the biggest Rodney had ever seen with his own two eyes. He turned away. “However long it does.”
The beds were full up, what with all the wedding guests, and now Sheppard unconscious, lying sweaty and tense across Radek’s own bed. Rodney went to check on him, stopping in the doorway and looking in. The doctor, Laura’s husband-to-be, was sitting at Sheppard’s bedside. He’d taken his suit jacket off and draped it over the back of his chair, but he was still wearing his starched formal shirt. Leaning over, he gently wiped Sheppard’s forehead with a damp cloth. “Thank you,” Rodney heard himself say.
“Ach, it’s no trouble.” The man looked up and smiled at him. “You’re Rodney, aren’t you? Laura’s told me so much about you.”
Rodney was glad he didn’t go further into that. “Sorry,” he said, gesturing vaguely. “About the...” you know, kissing the bride thing “...wedding.”
“A doctor’s duty comes first,” the man said, primly. “And never fear—your uncle’s going to be just fine.”
“He’s not my uncle.”
The man frowned. “What?”
Rodney took a breath, his fingers clenched tight to the door frame. “Never mind.” He went and slept in the barn.
Captain Caldwell was waiting for him in the parlor when he got up. Rodney gave him a bored nod and poured himself a cup of coffee. When he sat down at the table, he realized that Caldwell was carefully tracking his movements. Rodney let out a sigh. “What?”
Caldwell gave him a steady look. “Son, there are a few things you and I need to discuss.”
Rodney rolled his eyes. “Wanna skip the familial talk? You and I both know that the only one around here willing to take me in and raise me as a son was Aunt Elizabeth. She’s dead, and I’ve spent the last five years of my life hunting down her killers. I aim to keep hunting, too.” He gave Caldwell a cold look. “Anything else you’d like to discuss?”
Caldwell leaned back against the table, folding his arms. The line of his mouth looked grim. “I was going to say that I didn’t think you had anything to do with this, that it was all Sheppard, but maybe I was wrong.”
“Do with what?”
“The murder of trader called Cowen.”
Caldwell was watching him hard, clearly waiting to see how he would react. Rodney snorted. “The man was a Genii spy!”
Caldwell raised an eyebrow. “Got any proof?”
Rodney pushed his cup away. “It was almost four years ago. What do you think?”
“I think I’m gonna have to ask you and Sheppard to come with me to the nearest outpost. Once Sheppard’s able, of course.”
“You’re gonna let that doctor fix him up just so he’ll be fit to attend a necktie party? I don’t think so.” Rodney stood. “We’re not going.”
Caldwell’s eyes narrowed and he stood as well. He was taller than Rodney; older, too. Rodney would no longer instantly jump to say stronger.
And he sure as hell wasn’t smarter.
“Now, son,” Caldwell said. “You do realize I’m asking as a Ranger.”
Rodney’s fingers twitched. “And do you realize that I’m saying no as a heavily armed man who’s faced down more than his share of this kind of crap?” Rodney had a pistol and a knife in his boot, which was a far cry from heavily armed in his mind, but he nonetheless held Caldwell’s gaze. “Now don’t worry,” he said, “Sheppard and I are going to stay out of your hair. Well,” he caught Caldwell’s frown, “if you had any, we would. But we’re not planning on sticking around. We’re going after Teyla again as soon as he’s well. We’ve seen her—we’ve sat in Chief Scar’s blasted tent. And we’re going to go back and face him again.” He shrugged. “If you’re lucky, he’ll kill us both and save your men the trip.”
Caldwell’s mouth was twisted into a funny shape; Rodney couldn’t tell if he was angry or amused or even awed. But all he did was shake his head. “Sheppard’s done a number on you.”
Rodney sighed. “Right, right—because I’m just a stupid half-breed, a dumb calf waiting to be led. Are we done here?”
Caldwell opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, there was the familiar rumble of a ship overhead. Caldwell’s shoulders stiffened. “Relax,” Rodney said. “It’s not Wraith.” Caldwell stared at him. “What? You don’t recognize the engine of a Terran ship?”
They walked out into the yard. Laura and Radek were already outside, watching the ship—a small, one-man craft—land beside their patchy field of corn. Laura had her hands on her hips. “The nerve! Fetching up all that dust, right next to our crop—”
The canopy slid away. “Howdy, folks!” said the man inside, swinging onto the ground. “I’m Lieutenant Cameron Mitchell of the TAF and I’m...” He paused, looking around. “Boy, you have a real nice place here. I gotta commend you fellas.” He bowed to Laura. “And the lady too, of course. This is my first time on Athos and—”
“Lieutenant,” Caldwell barked. “Get to the point, please. You’re disturbing these people’s breakfast.”
The Lieutenant went a little misty-eyed at the mention of breakfast, but he managed to return to the vicinity of his objective. “I’m looking for Captain Caldwell and,” he gave the man himself a once-over, taking in the stiff posture and stern demeanor, “I’d be guessing you’re him.” He smiled brightly. “Am I right?”
Caldwell’s answering smile was a lot tighter. “Unfortunately.”
“Sir,” Mitchell said, saluting, “I have some information regarding a group of Genii hostiles believed to be camped not far from here...”
“What?” Rodney elbowed Caldwell aside and stepped forward. “Have you seen them? Is there a girl with them, a Lantean—well, you might not know she’s Lantean, but is there—”
“Is their chief a man called Scar?”
As one body, they turned. Sheppard was standing in the doorway, leaning on it while trying not to look like he was leaning, or else like he was only doing so because he was that relaxed. The doctor was standing behind him, eyeing him anxiously. “Mister Sheppard, if you don’t rest that arm and let me tend to it, you will almost certainly lose mobility if not—”
“Shut up,” Sheppard told him. He walked out into the yard.
Drawing up next to them, his gaze flickered to Rodney for half a second, but its focus was Lieutenant Mitchell. “Scar,” he repeated. “Need me to explain to you how he got that name?”
Mitchell shook his head. “No, from what we’ve heard the leader of the band did match that description...”
“All right.” Sheppard inclined his head toward Rodney. “Come on, McKay.”
“Wait! Sir...” Mitchell added, tentatively. “We got a whole fleet coming your way. I just came to let you know what all the fuss was going to be about, if’n there is any. Athos is under the protection of the Terran army,” he reminded them, grinning eagerly, like a boy who’d learned his lessons well.
“Yeah,” said Sheppard, “I’ll bet it is.”
“So you don’t need to do anything,” Mitchell pressed. “We’ve got it all taken care of.”
Sheppard looked at Rodney. “McKay and I have a few things to take care of first.”
“Yes, we do,” said Rodney, and if Sheppard caught the shift in meaning, he gave no indication of it. They strode off together, toward the barn. Rodney hoped Caldwell wouldn’t mind him borrowing his horse.
If it had been up to Rodney, they would have just kept riding in the direction Lieutenant Mitchell indicated, but after a while Sheppard called for a halt. He was obviously aggrieved at having to do it. For once Rodney was tactful and didn’t say anything; he passed Sheppard his canteen and started rubbing down Caldwell’s horse.
Rodney’s hand circled and his mind moved with it. He’d gotten Sheppard away from arrest and a possible hanging, and away from a run-in with a whole fleet of Terrans, which might’ve been even worse. Now, though, he had to figure out a way to keep him away from Teyla...and not get them all killed.
They’d have been lucky to have him on Atlantis. Rodney had a feeling they were never going to get him, now, but they’d have been damn lucky.
He took a deep breath. “Sheppard,” he said, “how do you reckon we should go about this?”
Sheppard was leaning against Memento’s side, talking slow, careful breaths and the occasional swig of water. He glanced over at Rodney. “You coming up with ‘strategy’ now? Were you talking to Caldwell?”
“I was just thinking,” Rodney said. “Maybe you ought to try it sometime.”
“Very clever.” Sheppard let out a puff of air that couldn’t quite manage the transformation into a snort. “What else are you being clever about?”
“Nothing,” Rodney said. “Just—if we charge right in there, they’ll kill her, right? Not to mention there’s a good chance we’ll get ourselves killed.”
Sheppard wiped his mouth. “There’s always a chance of that.”
“This may be our last shot,” Rodney pressed. “We have to make it count...”
“How concerned are you with dying?” Sheppard shot him another infuriatingly ambiguous look.
Rodney stared. “How concerned are you with living?”
He shrugged. “Enough.”
Rodney swallowed. Sometimes, he thought, the smartest move was to lay all your cards on the table. To be blunt.
“And with Teyla living?”
Sheppard didn’t say anything. It was answer enough.
Rodney wanted to shout. He wanted to rail and scream and pound at Sheppard’s beautiful, miserable body. But this was it; they were at the end of the line. It was time to try a different tack, something radically new.
He asked nicely.
“Please. John, please. Let me fetch Teyla home. Let me bring her home, John. I’ll make it so you don’t have to see either of us again, if it offends you so much. But let me bring her home.”
Sheppard’s eyes darkened. “Bring what home? The leavings of Genii armsmen, sold again and again to the highest bidder? With savage brats of her own, most like?”
Rodney had never had a very firm handle on nice, and he quickly lost what grip he had. “Stop it!” He sucked in a breath. “You’re honestly going to tell me that we’ve been searching all this time, and for what? To kill her? Five years, Sheppard, and you’re just going to shoot her dead?”
“Yes!” Sheppard practically bellowed. “And I tell you, it’s what Elizabeth would have wanted!
“And you know it,” Sheppard added, much lower. Staring Rodney down.
It was like so many other moments. Rodney wanted to reach forward and take Sheppard’s face in his hands. He wanted to kiss the tension out of his mouth. He wanted to bash his head in with his fists.
He stayed exactly where he was. “She’s alive,” he said, as evenly as he could. “And she’s going to stay that way. You’ll have to kill me first.”
They stared at each other, less than a meter apart and as far away as they’d ever been. Then slowly—so slow, though Rodney could still see the wince—Sheppard pulled himself up onto his horse. He stared back down, looking utterly surprised that there was even a hint of confusion on Rodney’s face.
“What are you waiting for? Let’s go.”
“But—”
Sheppard’s smile was completely humorless. “I think we understand each other. Or do you want it in writing?”
Rodney felt his jaw click shut and his teeth begin to grind. But he did the only thing he could: he got on his mount.
He let Sheppard lead. There was, he realized, really no way of knowing: Sheppard might decide to get it over with, and shoot him in the back.
They came in sight of the camp just after dark. Rodney thought, Excellent! Under the cover of darkness we can— but Sheppard was already shaking his head. “No good,” he said. “They’re on full guard at night. You remember what happened to Aiden; we’d never get ten feet. No,” he inclined his head and led them back behind a small copse of trees, “we go in at dawn. First light, the camp’s in maximum confusion, and we don’t have to worry about the Terrans attacking ‘til full brightness.” His lips turned up into a bitter smirk. “They like their displays of power to be seen.”
“So we wait?” Rodney licked his lips.
Sheppard nodded. “We wait.”
He got out his canteen and a pair of foodbars. Tossing one to Rodney, he hunkered down. Casually, “And don’t think I don’t know that you’re planning on sneaking in there soon as I fall asleep.”
“I wasn’t,” Rodney lied.
Sheppard laughed. “Go ahead. It’s your funeral.”
Rodney glowered at him. “Well, I’m a dead man anyway, aren’t I?”
“It doesn’t have to be this way.”
The words took Rodney completely by surprise. Even more the tone: not bitter or sardonic, Sheppard sounded...almost wistful. Rodney looked up, but Sheppard was sitting in the exact same position he had been in before, gnawing on the corner of his foodbar. “What?”
Sheppard shook his head. “Nothing.”
Rodney swallowed. “John—”
“Forget it. It’s done.” He took out his gun and opened it up, checking it over. “Now, this minute, tomorrow morning when this is all over—this is finished. You and me are finished. You’re going back to Radek’s and to his daughter and to his books. You hear me? That’s the way it’s going to be.”
“I thought you were going to shoot me,” Rodney said.
Sheppard stopped unloading cartridges and glanced up at him. The light was dim, but Rodney could still see the look Sheppard was giving him, like he thought him an utter fool.
“I might,” Sheppard said. He gestured absently with the gun. “In the leg.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” said Rodney, sarcastically. Then, perfectly serious: “What about Teyla?”
Sheppard slid the bullets back in, one by one by one. “We’ve discussed this already. I don’t see the point in discussing it any more.”
“I won’t let you—” Rodney pressed. But he stopped himself. “John,” he said, crawling closer. “John, please...” He slid a hand down Sheppard’s arm, over his firm bicep and the smoother, more vulnerable skin on the inside of his wrist. He closed his hand over Sheppard’s hand, holding the gun, and slowly drew the fingers back, drew the weapon away, lowered it down. “I don’t want it to end,” he said, sliding into Sheppard’s lap. “I want to stay with you. I want us to stay together. We can go somewhere, all—”
“All three of us?” Sheppard asked, too knowingly.
Rodney avoided the question as easily as Sheppard had so many others, pulling him in for a kiss.
Rodney wasn’t sure how far he was going to let this go. He wasn’t sure how much was genuine want anymore, and how much a plan, a ploy, a distraction. How much had been desperation: night after night of no one else, just an endless series of alien skies and hostile planets. But kissing Sheppard, tasting the dust and the spice of the journey in his mouth, Rodney realized that he didn’t care. He wanted this, just to have it, to have had it. There wasn’t room in this world for regrets.
Sheppard seemed unusually pliant tonight. He was usually the aggressor, the initiator, pinning Rodney to the wall, to a blanket or a bed, and using his body desperately, like every touch was penance and absolution both. But now his touches were shaky and soft. He let Rodney lay the blanket out and spread him down on it, and he even let Rodney crawl on top. Let Rodney peel his clothes away, pull him free of his trousers and hold him in his hand. Rodney leaned down and licked the head of his cock, keeping his eyes raised so that he could watch Sheppard watch; that had always been one of Sheppard’s greatest pleasures, propping himself up on an elbow and watching Rodney go down on him, Rodney wrapping wide, wet lips around the head of Sheppard’s cock and sucking until they became red and swollen, all the while rubbing himself desperately against the mattress or the side of Sheppard’s leg. But Sheppard wasn’t looking at him now. He was staring off to the side, his eyes pinched tight. From the look of him, there was no absolution any longer.
“Hey,” Rodney said, letting him go with great reluctance and crawling up his body. “Do you...do you not want...?”
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay,” Rodney said, very nearly containing his sigh. “It’s really the more logical response, under the circumstances.” He started to get up.
Sheppard caught his arm, iron tight grip. “I’m sorry,” he said, like he was begging Rodney to hear him. To understand. Sheppard stared up at him, searching his face. Every word he squeezed out looked painful to him.
“I never meant—”
“Oh no,” Rodney said, suddenly getting it. “Not you, too! Look,” he said, lowering himself back down at Sheppard’s side, curling himself around his back. “I want to be here.” He kissed Sheppard’s neck, skirting carefully around his bad arm. “We want the same thing,” and he added, reluctantly, “most of the time. Point is, I never followed you anywhere I wasn’t willing to be led.”
“In another life,” Sheppard whispered.
“In another life,” Rodney said, easing their shirts away, first Sheppard’s and then his own. “Elizabeth would still be alive. And Kate and Chuck and Nick, and Aiden, and even Sora, too. And Teyla would grow up strong and free, and we’d all live together somewhere, somewhere...”
“Atlantis,” John said.
“Yes,” said Rodney. He kissed the highest point of Sheppard’s spine. “And I’d be a great thinker, who did nothing all day but study the vast wonders of the universe. And you...” He looked up for inspiration; found it. “You’d fly through the stars,” he said, “rescuing people.” He smiled to himself. He liked the sound of that.
But Sheppard just sighed, a long, drawn-out breath. “That’ll be the day...”
Rodney rested his head against Sheppard’s shoulder. “No, don’t say that. You’re an idiot, don’t say that.” He swept a hand over Sheppard’s chest. “Let me, let me...”
He reached around and took Sheppard’s dick in his hand, stroking steady but gentle, rocking his hips against Sheppard’s ass as he moved. After a moment, Sheppard relaxed into the touch; another moment, he surprised Rodney by moving again, opening his legs a little and pushing back against Rodney’s erection. Rodney’s trousers were still on, but he had to grab at Sheppard’s hips, steady himself. “John?”
“Do it,” Sheppard ground out. “Come on.”
Rodney knew better than to argue. He undid his pants and jerked them down. He spat on his fingers as he remembered Sheppard doing, time and again, then carefully parted Sheppard’s cheeks.
He could feel hair and puckered skin. He circled the hole a few times, afraid to do anything more, but then Sheppard grunted and pushed back, and Rodney slipped inside, past the tight ring of muscle. It felt incredible: hot and tight and surprisingly smooth. He moved his finger, experimentally; Sheppard squirmed and then bucked, letting out a pleased little laugh. “Another, another,” he said, and after more spit and more stretching, Rodney had two fingers inside, was holding Sheppard’s hips as Sheppard rocked himself back, fucking himself on Rodney’s fingers, making eager, intent noises as his cock leaked onto his chest.
Rodney stole what little liquid there was and used it with more spit to slick himself up as best he could. “Enough already,” Sheppard said, “you’re going to make your throat dry up. Do it. I’m ready.”
“I’m going to fuck you,” Rodney said: pleased, astonished. He licked a stripe across Sheppard’s shoulder blade, then bit down, grinning as he arched. Then he pulled his fingers out and positioned the tip of his cock against Sheppard’s opening. With a gasp, he pushed home, remembering the first time and how it had felt for him, like his whole world was opening up, like he was being cleaved in two so that something new could emerge, pulled out from between the halves like a chick from the shell.
Rodney didn’t know if Sheppard felt anything like that now. He uttered an obscene group of sounds that might have been Rodney’s name, and moved his bad arm, the one he wasn’t leaning on, so that he could touch his cock. Rodney batted his hand away, murmuring, “Idiot,” and stroked along Sheppard’s length in time to his thrusts. Sheppard was all around him, an all-encompassing warmth and tightness and pleasure, and Rodney wanted nothing more than to burrow even deeper, to mold against Sheppard’s body, stroking his back and his sides and his chest, kissing his neck, never letting go.
With effort, he kept his thrusts slow and even right up until the end; when he finally lost control and began jerking his hips desperately, Sheppard let out a low moan and came, fucking into Rodney’s fist. Rodney didn’t even wipe himself clean; he just grabbed at Sheppard’s hip and at his shoulder and finished with a few sharp jerks. Slipping out, he kissed again at Sheppard’s shoulders and at his spine; turning him over, he kissed his mouth, cradling the back of his neck, holding him and blinking down at him as he fell asleep.
As soon as Sheppard was out, Rodney tugged the blanket over him and got back into his own clothes, just like they’d both known he was going to do. And just like they’d both known he was going to do, Rodney found his gun, and with one last look at Sheppard’s sleeping form, crept off into the night.
In his head, Rodney had worked out a dozen different scenarios, plans and subterfuge, brilliant manoeuvers in which he disguised himself as a Genii armsmen or a shawl-draped woman, or created an enormous distraction, setting off explosives and sneaking in in the confusion. But in the end the simplest approach was all that was left to him: he snuck in on his belly and on his hands and knees, ducking between tents and hiding in shadows, heart racing in his chest whenever anyone drew near. If he got caught he was going to scream like an angry Wraith, give Sheppard time to get far away. And maybe Teyla, too.
He was crouched beside a small structure that from the smell he took to be an outhouse. He could see Kolya’s tent, but the material was too thick, or the fire inside too low, and he couldn’t distinguish any shadows. He was working up the courage to just go inside and take the situation as he found it (slit Kolya’s throat in the dark, watch him silently bleed out before he gathered Teyla into his arms) when he felt a sudden pressure against his jugular, something pulling him sharply up and back, and a hand closed over his mouth.
A voice whispered in his ear, steady and low. “Why are you here?”
The worst of the pressure and the pain eased up as Teyla spun him around to face her. She was still small—slim and no higher than his shoulder—but the hand on his arm, gripping him, held incredible strength. She held a lance like it was part of her, and the look in her eyes was one of almost impossible calm. Rodney shivered: she was his little sister, and she had never looked more alien.
She was his little sister.
“I told you,” he said, a rough whisper. “I’m here to take you home. I’m not leaving until I do.”
Her gaze dropped. When she looked up at him again, his breath caught: there was real emotion in her eyes once more, too deep a pain for one so young. “What home?” she asked. “Rodney...what is there left to us now?”
He wanted to tell her, Athos will always be your home. Or, We’ll find a place, I know we will. Or even, I am your home. Please.
He said, “I don’t know. But we have to try—”
Her mouth opened but she didn’t make a sound. Rodney saw the faint movement of a shadow, then whiteness, stunning and bright, shocking. He fell to the ground, only just realizing that he’d been cuffed across the head. His vision swam, but he could see enough: Kolya stood above him, wielding a wicked-looking knife. Rodney remembered the lance that Teyla had shown them in Kolya’s tent and knew exactly what that knife was for.
Teyla hadn’t moved, but she was staring up at Kolya with wide, dark eyes. He said something to her in Genii and she replied; their words no longer made sense to him. He wondered if she was going to watch him do it.
All this in the space of a second, before sound returned, and movement: Teyla like a whirlwind above him, and Kolya stumbling, tumbling back. He hit the ground as Rodney scrambled to his feet, stunned. Teyla, who Rodney had carried around on his back, stood over the Genii war chief with the point of her lance pressed tight to his throat. He stared up at her, stoic in the face of her betrayal, and Rodney saw Teyla waver. She might save Rodney from death, but could she really send Kolya to his? Rodney had to be sure.
He reached for his gun.
The shots that rang out weren’t his. He looked up in time to see Sheppard come striding toward them, his coat flapping out behind him like the wings of a great bird. His first shot had gone wide, done nothing more than make Teyla leap back, but all the rest hit home: round after round, the entire clip, until the man on the ground wasn’t even recognizable anymore. And Sheppard was already reloading.
“Are you crazy?” Rodney hissed. “You’re going to wake the whole camp!”
“That’s the idea!” Sheppard shouted back. “The Terrans have come early—let’s see these bastard Genii give them a run for their money!”
Rodney sucked in a breath. “It’s going to be a massacre,” he said, realizing it, finally voicing it.
“Whether we’re here or not,” Sheppard said. “I vote not.”
Then he turned on Teyla.
He raised his pistol. Teyla was still holding her lance, bloodied at the blunt end but not at the tip. She did not advance on him, or even move into a defensive stance. But she didn’t back down.
“John…” Rodney breathed,
Sheppard’s face was set. His eyes were angry and dark, but Rodney could look past the shadows, see the sadness there, and beneath it, still some semblance of hope. His injured arm shook from holding the gun, and then he lowered it, and he didn’t shake anymore.
Behind them, the first Terran bombs fell, blasting the night sky into brightness, rocking the earth.
Sheppard offered his hand to Teyla, and she threw down her lance and took it. “Run,” Sheppard said, and they did, to the sound of screams pained and torturous and triumphant: bombs dropping and fires burning and one of the great ships crashing down.
They ran and did not look back. They reached the horses and Sheppard passed Teyla over to Rodney before swinging up onto Memento. They paused for a second, brother and sister, before climbing up onto their mount. Teyla wrapped her arms tightly around Rodney's waist and buried her face in his neck.
They rode until the world was quiet and dark, and they were safe again.
Out here the sky seemed infinite, stretching endlessly in every direction. When Rodney woke up, he lay for a few moments just staring. So blue: like the ocean, barely remembered. Gazing out the window of a high tower, holding tight to Aunt Elizabeth’s hand…
Rodney rolled over. He could see Teyla where she slept beside him. Her braids had come undone completely, spilling her hair out around her like a fan. In her sleep, she looked peaceful.
Rodney couldn’t hear the steady rise and fall of Sheppard’s breathing, so he knew that Sheppard was no longer next to him. He sat up and looked around: there, off in the distance, somewhere between their camp and the infinite horizon. Sheppard was facing away, and as Rodney watched he walked forward, stripping off his clothes before seemingly sinking into the earth.
Rodney experienced a moment of irrational alarm before muffling the laugh that threatened to emerge with the back of his hand. Quietly, he slid out from under his blanket and walked away from the camp. Closer, his perspective changed: he could see the water rippling around Sheppard’s shoulders and back, glistening silver in the sunlight. It looked entirely unreal, like a mirage.
That didn’t make him any less willing to plunge in, however. Hurriedly, Rodney pulled off his dirt-encrusted boots and his dusty clothes. They tumbled into a musty pile of rusty red and brown. Rodney could still feel them, lingering on his skin, but the sun on his back was warm, and the water, when he reached out and touched it with his toe, cool and crystal-clear.
Sheppard didn’t say anything as Rodney slipped into the stream. He watched with curious, faintly appraising eyes, the corner of his mouth quirking up, just shy of a smile.
Rodney splashed him. Sheppard laughed and splashed back, huge arcing waves of water, crashing over Rodney’s head. Rodney retaliated, snaking an arm around Sheppard’s waist and grappling with him, wet hands on wet bodies, tangling and teasing and washing clean.
After a while they just floated, staring up at the sky, blue reflecting onto blue.
“Are you familiar with the Terran concept of baptism?” Sheppard asked, after a while.
“No,” Rodney said. There were still so many things he had left to learn.
Sheppard blinked, dark eyelashes on sunburnt cheeks. When he looked up, his eyes were clear.
“Maybe I’ll tell you about it sometime.”
“Yeah,” said Rodney, happily, hopefully. “That’ll be the day.”
NOTES:
1. A heavy, heavy debt is of course owed to the film The Searchers—director John Ford, who made the west glorious and gave us one of the most iconic opening and closing shots; writer Frank S. Nugent, who wrote dialogue equally iconic (some of which I borrowed—the really good stuff, probably *g*); and John Wayne, who gives an absolutely incredible performance. The film just came out in a beautiful new special edition DVD—at the very least, you should all rent it!
2. Title from The Smiths. Additional musical inspiration from Mirah ("Cold Cold Water") and U2 & Johnny Cash ("The Wanderer"). Also, David Newman's Serenity score, and the Firefly 'verse in general. Space westerns are so awesome—why aren't there more of them?
3. If I have the time and the inclination, I think I'm gonna want to do some meta on the process of writing this, folding these two universes into each other. It was interesting—to me, anyway. Poke me if you think it'd be interesting to you.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
*sniff*
Date: 2006-07-07 08:39 pm (UTC)Re: *sniff*
Date: 2006-07-07 08:49 pm (UTC)I ADORE The Searchers, so I'm so pleased I could capture some of that same feel. Have you seen the new edition they released? Such a beautiful transfer! *geeky film-geek sigh*
Re: *sniff*
From:(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-07 08:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-07 08:52 pm (UTC)I'm gonna take a stab at a DVD commentary in the morning, hopefully while it's still fresh in my mind and I still have semi-interesting thing to say.
Thanks so much for reading and for the feedback. =)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-07 09:38 pm (UTC)Just, Wow. I'd love to read your meta on this, should you decide to write it.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-07 10:11 pm (UTC)I'd love to read a meta - I love to hear about writers thought processess during and after they write, as i find it's often the little things that are written that the reader may miss, that for whatever reason mean something to the writer, and knowing that makes the reading so much more fulfilling.
Thanks for battling your way through this; it was so very worth it :)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-07 11:10 pm (UTC)This is just amazing. You captured the "feel" of the film. The vast openness of the west, the wry humor and affection between Ethan and Martin, the dust... John's world weary air, Rodney's persistence. Cameron Mitchell as the young soldier at the end! So perfect! He has that same wide-eyed innocence.
This whole story was just atmospheric and lovely. I feel like I should be able to provide specific examples of the awesomeness, but I need to read it again.
As for meta? Yes, please!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-07 11:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-07 11:45 pm (UTC)But Sheppard just sighed, a long, drawn-out breath. “That’ll be the day...”
And here's where my enjoyment of a fun, interesting, thought provoking, hot fic switched gears and ramped right up into ZOMG FANGIRLING.
Seriously, can I just marry your meta? Your interpretations of canon... are they single?
And if they're not, how about your porn? I'm not asking for an exclusive relationship, but oh, baby.
See, the thing that *gets* me about a lot of your fic is the way that I can spend most of the first half of a lot of your stories sort of humming happily and going, "This is nice! I'm not sure I agree with what she's doing here, but good writing! Cool!" And then details start whirling around and giving clues to the real structure of meaning behind the story, and I am blindsided by it every fucking time.
I love this John, even as he severely freaks me the fuck out. I love this Rodney, put in a postition where he could go right out of character and become a drippy nuisance, *pulling himself together* with no experience, and saving the world for everyone else. I love the minor characters, playing out their roles in such small perfection.
I love YOU! *hearts*
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-08 01:01 am (UTC)You may feel free to date any aspect of my writing. I should warn you, though: they're all a little needy. *g*
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-08 12:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-08 01:50 am (UTC)This was wonderfully written even though it was one of the most painful stories I've read in a while. John and Elizabeth and Nick broke me about two paragraphs in.
The scene of Aiden basically committing suicide was absolutely heartbreaking. That was so wonderfully done, and it was such a punch in the gut.
And even though I don't think of Rodney as reliable narrator in most stories, in this one, his bearing witness of all the events made everything more poignant because he was--more than any other stories I've read recently--an every man, slowly being initiated to this painful world.
Really, a lovely story. But unlike some of your others, this is not a story that I could bring myself to read again (though I'm so glad I read it).
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-08 02:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-08 02:11 am (UTC)I'd love to hear whatever meta you're thinking of, delving into how authors put their stories together is always interesting!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-08 02:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-08 02:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-08 05:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-08 06:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-08 10:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-08 01:21 pm (UTC)Thanks
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-08 02:47 pm (UTC)Great story. Sad and hopeful and in small parts gut-wrenching. Thank you.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-08 05:58 pm (UTC)Thank you for painting such beautiful pictures in my head.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-08 06:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-08 06:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-08 07:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-08 07:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-08 08:19 pm (UTC)I could practically taste the dust.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-08 08:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-08 08:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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