Lt. Col. John Sheppard stumbled blindly into his quarters like an old man, relieved beyond measure to hear the doors close behind him, to know that he was completely alone and no longer at the mercy of sympathetic glances or well-meaning but excruciating touches meant to comfort. Even the sight of Teyla cutting off people like an elegant and well-trained sheepdog hurt almost as much as if they’d managed to slip by her to speak to him. The fact that Teyla felt it was even necessary to shield him was reason enough for the pain. 

 

But now he was alone and for at least the next 8 hours or so, he didn’t have to speak, explain or relive the day’s events. Only it that was impossible, he couldn’t prevent the scenes rolling before him in an endless loop in his mind’s eye. He would never stop reliving the day’s events. Never.

 

He began mechanically to remove his tac vest and gear; the attachments stiff with blood and dirt. His hands were caked in blood too and he suddenly could not stand to look at them, but it seemed too much effort to do anything about it and he ended up sitting on the edge of the bed before falling on his back to stare at the ceiling, booted feet still on the floor. How could someone be so vividly, vibrantly alive one moment and exsanguinating beneath your desperate grasp the next? One moment Rodney was stalking ahead in the brush, waving his hands about, complaining loudly about the cold the night before and the expected heat of the day to come and the fact that come hell or high water he was not going to sleep on the ground again. The next instant he was hurtling through the air with the force of the unexpected explosion. Dear god, parts of him weren’t even all in the same place any more and his blood was pumping out of where his leg had been attached. So much blood. Too much blood. Even as he scrabbled in the dirt to clamp down on Rodney’s femoral artery, desperately trying to tie a tourniquet around the blood-slicked stump remaining, John could see the light, the energy, the passion that was Rodney leaving his face.  

 

There had been that instant, that fragile microsecond in time, when they all heard the small snick as Rodney triggered the trip wire. Ronon recognized it for what it was instantaneously, and was already forming the words McKay, don’t move! But it was too late—Rodney was already in motion. Since when was Rodney ever still? And the land mine, placed there by some forgotten faction of an army in wan hope of holding back the Wraith, took out Rodney McKay, PhD.

 

He was still now. Those expressive hands would no longer fly over a keyboard or radiate irritation or delicately repair a piece of 10,000 year old equipment. He would no longer rock on his heels with pleasure at being proved right once again, or scowl at the incompetent idiots surrounding him or trade sharp-witted banter with John with the skill of a trained swordsman. 

 

There had been a brief moment, between the time that John dove on the fountain of blood pouring out of Rodney’s leg and when there was no more blood to be lost, when Rodney had plucked at his sleeve. John had the tourniquet in place by then, but the hand that brushed against him was cold when he caught it in his own, and Rodney’s normally pale features had been a sickly white, all color leached out of every part of him, except for his blue eyes.

 

“Hey,” John had said, his voice thick, as though he had been swallowing Rodney’s blood. “It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay. We’re just going to get you patched up here…”

 

Rodney’s fingers had tightened ever so slightly in John’s wet grip and he gave him a much weakened version of his famous, ‘yeah right, you moron’ look.

 

“John.” Rodney never called him John. To hear Rodney use his first name like that, a slight smile on his graying features, made something break inside him.

 

“NO!” He had shouted then, becoming incoherent with rage and loss. It had done no good. Rodney had slipped away from them anyway.

 

He had no idea how long they had all sat there on the blood-soaked ground beside Rodney. Ronon had moved first, face expressionless as a stone, getting up to scan the area for other booby traps. There had not been any others, and the one that had killed Rodney had been so old the trip wire had almost rusted through. Another day, another week, a good rainstorm and the mine would have gone off on its own, with no one involved at all. If a bomb goes off in the woods and there is no one there to be killed by it, then did it really go off at all? 

 

When Ronon returned and John finally looked up, he saw that Teyla was sitting with exquisite stillness beside him, tears coursing silently down her face. He was struck by the image of Teyla as a bronze statue, somewhere in Rome perhaps, maybe something by Cellini.   A part of him wanted to reach out to her, to comfort her, but he knew that he would only be stealing comfort from her instead and he that did not want; he could not be comforted now. Teyla and Ronon were strong, stronger than him. They would be okay. But for him to continue functioning, he had to maintain some semblance, some fiction of strength himself. 

 

The rest of the day passed in an awful, agonizing feat of endurance. They had hiked in as far as they did the night before and made camp because the forest was too dense to fly a jumper to the base of the mountain. They had to build a makeshift litter to carry Rodney’s body back to the Gate. They covered his body as best they could with Ronon’s coat, knowing that they would never get the blood out of it again. Hours of one foot in front of the other, muscles protesting at the constant drag of Rodney’s inert weight, the incessant buzzing of flies attracted to all the blood…that was not penance enough. Back at the Gate, there was the surreal communication with Elizabeth, in which he had to inform her of Rodney’s death, and then when they came through the event horizon itself, the throngs of people crowding the Gateroom, shocked, pale faces following their movement as they carried Rodney home. 

 

They wouldn’t let anyone else take Rodney to the infirmary. Carson and Radek both fell into step alongside them, each taking hold of the litter and assisting, but they did not try to remove the burden from the exhausted team. When they reached the morgue and at last set Rodney down, Ronon turned to face John.

 

“I should have been in front.” His face was as grim as John had ever seen it, and before he could respond, Ronon turned and stormed away. No one dared to stop him.

 

Carson turned to John as well, reaching out with a gentle hand and saying in his soft brogue, “Colonel…”

 

John threw both hands up as if to ward off a blow and spun on his heels to move away, to head anywhere else but there. He knew he was breaking protocol, but damn it, no one was going to be able to persuade Ronon to come back for his medical clearance, and by god, John wasn’t above using that as an excuse to get out of his own. Just this once. He knew Carson wouldn’t push it, not this time. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Teyla dropping in behind him. Most of the people they ran into on his way back to his quarters stopped cold in their attempt to speak to him after seeing the expression on his face, but he was deeply grateful when Teyla cut Elizabeth off as she approached. He couldn’t talk to her just yet. Not now. Not tonight. He had run to his quarters like they were some sort of sanctuary, a den for a wounded animal, but he knew there was no solace to be had there either. He had entered his rooms without a backward glance, leaving Teyla standing in the hall.

 

He threw one arm over his eyes where he lay now on the bed. The awfulness of the next few days marched out in front of him. The debriefing. Contacting Rodney’s sister. Packing his things. The memorial service. It all had to be endured and he was not certain he could bear it. He was a soldier. He understood sudden and unexplained death. They had already lost too many people on this expedition to believe that anyone was safe. But the Rodneys of this world weren’t supposed to die. Well, not unless the whole city, the ship, the planet went with him, to sort of dilute out the effect. Not unless John went with him. Rodney wasn’t supposed to go first, goddamn it.

 

The sharp, metallic smell of blood on his sleeve made him gag suddenly and he jerked upright, narrowly missing vomiting all over the floor. He quashed the nausea with the skill of long experience, hating himself for being able to do so.   In abrupt, violent distaste he got up and began to peel his off his clothing, stiff with Rodney’s blood. When his pants became hung over one foot because he forgot to take his boots off first, instead of sitting down and untying his laces, he fought with the clothing, struggling as it became increasingly stuck like a small animal caught in a snare, choking itself to death.

 

He caught himself hopping around in a small circle, trying to pull his pants leg off over his boot, the other half of his pants still on and hampering his movement and he ended up falling over onto the side of the bed. It struck him as suddenly funny and he could just picture Rodney giving him a hard time about it. He could almost hear Rodney’s voice saying, “What, haven’t you learned how to undress yourself yet? What are you, five?”

 

With a sudden wrench and the tearing of fabric, he successfully pulled off the pants leg over the boot and began to laugh. The laughter quickly morphed into a choking gasp for air and he found himself crying brokenly, nosily. This won’t do. Stop it. To start now would be to lose it totally. He nipped the emotion in the bud on the third sob, swallowing it back down again. Quietly, he unlaced his boots and toed them off before standing and stripping off his remaining clothes. 

 

Everything he wore had blood on it. Rodney’s blood had even seeped through to his underwear. He left the clothes in a heap on the floor and moved slowly into the bathroom, turning on the shower and stepping into the spray. The blood on his hands began to run off as it re-hydrated, suddenly making it seem as though he himself were bleeding. He stayed in the shower a long time, scrubbing at his hands. He understood how Lady Macbeth felt now. The blood was stubborn to come off, embedded deep under his nails and clinging to his cuticles. He had Rodney’s blood on his hands.    Out, out damned spot. 

 

Tomorrow, he thought as he lay naked on his bed, too tired to even throw on a pair of sweats, tomorrow he would seek out Ronon and Teyla and make sure they were okay. He would commiserate with Elizabeth; accept some Scotch from Carson and some vodka from Radek. He would listen as Rodney’s friends told stories about him and he would tell a few himself. He would hug people and allow himself to be hugged. He would do it because Rodney’s friends needed it and Rodney deserved it.

 

But tonight he would stare at the ceiling and wonder why it was that he never told Rodney how much he cared for him, more than a friend, more than a team leader should have cared for a member of the team. All the good reasons in the world for not telling Rodney before paled in comparison to the reality of not being able to tell him now. John wrapped himself in his blanket, the coldness within him seeping into his very bones. 

 

                                                            ***  

 

His first coherent thought when he awoke was that he was getting a little too old for this camping on the ground shit. Even with the ground pad. Not that he would admit as much to Rodney, who had bitched non-stop the night before about needing a special orthopedic mattress before dropping off quickly to sleep. 

 

As Rodney’s name entered his mind, memory suddenly returned with full force and he froze on an intake of breath as he registered his surroundings. Rodney was dead. They took his body back to Atlantis yesterday. He had fallen into an exhausted sleep in his own quarters last night.   So why was he in a tent, listening to someone snoring quietly on the other side? He rolled over abruptly to see the top of Rodney’s head just barely visible from inside his sleeping bag, the soft snuffling sounds of ‘someone who doesn’t snore, thank you very much’ coming from within.  

 

John lay propped on his elbows within his own bag, breath coming in short, sharp bursts, as though he’d been running. What the fuck was going on? Disentangling himself from the sleeping bag, he crept over in his thermal shirt and boxers to peer down at the sleeping form in the other bag. Yup. Rodney alright. Yup. Alive. He rubbed the heel of one hand into his eye and looked again. Well, this was getting him no further…

 

He hurriedly pulled the rest of his clothing out of the sleeping bag where it was pleasantly warm. He dressed quickly, shivering more than just in the cold mountain air. He ducked under the tent flap, not bothering to lace up his boots before entering the small clearing where they had set up camp. The first pale streaks of dawn were lighting the sky. Ronon sat hunched by the fire in his great leather coat, tending to a pot of coffee whose aroma was filling the air.

 

With a terrible sense of déjà vu, John approached the fireside and spoke the same words he had said the previous morning. “I see you broke out the good stuff.” He indicated the pot.

 

Ronon’s grin gleamed whitely in the gray half-light. “Thought we might have trouble getting McKay up before noon otherwise.” He filled a mug with the dark, rich liquid and passed it over to John, who once again, recognized it from Rodney’s lab. He stared blankly at the lettering on the side. 

 

“Call the village and tell them I found their idiot,” it read. Someone had added an ‘s’ after ‘idiot’ in white paint. John’s hand started to shake slightly, causing the coffee to slop gently within the cup. 

 

When he looked up, Ronon was eyeing him with that unfathomable expression that John took to be concern. He started to ask Ronon if he didn’t feel as though they had this conversation before, like yesterday morning perhaps, but for some reason he could not utter the words. He gave Ronon a weak grin instead.

 

“Better go beard the lion in his den.” He turned back towards the tent, feeling Ronon’s eyes upon him. Inside the tent, he hesitated. He had long ago given up prodding Rodney awake. Rodney either tended to wake slowly in stages, grumbly and irritable like a bear coming out of hibernation or else he sat bolt upright, arms flailing, which tended to be hazardous to anything or anyone standing nearby. In the past, the best course of action was to nudge the sleeping bag with a foot, while verbally threatening to do dire things if Rodney did not get a move on. Today, John had the horrible sensation that if he used the usual method to wake Rodney, he might discover that his legs were no longer attached to his body.

 

Instead he settled for squatting close to Rodney’s head while holding the steaming mug of coffee in near proximity, supporting his right elbow with the other hand braced across his knees. It took a moment or two, but then the sleeping bag began to twitch and Rodney’s head appeared, much like a woodland creature cautiously exiting his burrow.  

 

“Oh god,” he moaned when he could focus on John. “I’m getting too old for this Boy Scout crap.” He began to sniff the air appreciatively. “You’ve got coffee? Real coffee?” He struggled to sit up, his short brown hair going in all directions. 

 

John waggled the cup slightly and saw Rodney’s eyes fixate on it. Aha. Target acquired. Rodney’s hands shot out of the bag and he reached for the mug, making greedy, grabbing motions with his fingers as John placed the mug within his reach. He pulled the mug in close, inhaling the scent of the coffee like it was oxygen to a drowning man.

 

He took a deep, appreciative swallow and then moaned his delight. “Ohmygod. This is the real thing. You’ve been holding out on me, haven’t you? I thought we were all out of everything but that instant crap until the Daedalus came back again. Will you marry me?”

 

Startled, John almost stumbled in the act of rising to his feet, glancing back at Rodney who was smiling wickedly over the brim of his cup. 

 

“Relax, Colonel.” Rodney closed his eyes in bliss as he continued to make love to his mug. “I would marry a Wraith right now if it brought me coffee, real coffee, in bed.”

 

“Eww. TMI, McKay,” John automatically responded before withdrawing to his side of the tent. Okay, so the events of the day were already starting to diverge somewhat. This conversation was not one that he’d had with Rodney the day before. He busied himself with putting on the rest of his gear, but inside his head was spinning. Could ‘yesterday’ have possibly been an incredibly realistic and gruesome nightmare? It didn’t feel like a nightmare though. It had been too real. His heart was pounding now and he felt the way he did on a mission when he could sense a trap, only he couldn’t tell where it was just yet.

 

“Everything okay?” Rodney’s voice broke in suddenly on his thoughts. He looked up to see Rodney fixing him with a very intense stare, the kind usually reserved for pieces of equipment that were not functioning according to specs.

 

“What? Uh, yeah, fine, just fine. Why?” If he told Rodney that he’d had a vivid and detailed dream in which he died in a horrific manner, he’d be dealing with the panic attack for the rest of the day. He glanced away from Rodney’s face quickly and dropped down to lace up his boots.

 

“Oh, nothing,” Rodney muttered into his coffee. “Only you brought me coffee when you normally reserve it as the motivational factor for getting me up out of bed and you haven’t yet threatened me with cruel and sadistic ways to kill me and…”

 

John interrupted him by stalking over to where he was sitting still in the bag and snatching the cup out of his hands.

 

“Hey!” Rodney protested as John placed the cup just out of Rodney’s reach.

 

“Happy now?”

 

“Jeez, who pissed in your Wheaties this morning?” Rodney grumbled, half lying back down and beginning the contortionist movement within the bag that signaled his attempt at getting dressed without leaving the warmth of the bedding. “Ow, ow, ow.” He let his head fall back to the ground.

 

“What?” John’s voice admittedly had a sharper edge of concern than it might have normally on a similar occasion.

 

“Muscle cramp,” Rodney ground out through clenched teeth. As the spasm obviously passed, he made a face and said, “Remind me again why is it that I come on these missions? Hello, scientist here.”

 

“You were the one that found the reference to the ZPM in the archives. And you’re the one who is reasonably sure that this time, we will discover a working ZPM in the temple. It’s not my fault said temple happens to be perched on a mountain peak that is inaccessible by jumper and that we’ve had to hike all this way out here. Hey, you want to call it a day, we can head back to the Gate right now, fine by me.”

 

Rodney blinked owlishly at him. “Why are you so mad at me?”

 

Great. Of all the times for the normally oblivious astrophysicist to suddenly become incredibly perceptive.   John bit back a sigh.

 

“I’m not mad at you, Rodney,” he said at last. “I just had a really bad dream last night, okay?”

 

“Oh.” Rodney sat up straighter in his bag, frowning.

 

“Really bad.” John felt the need to expound.

 

“Uh-uh.”

 

“Bad,” he added lamely.

 

“Got that part.” There was a long pause. “Want to talk about it?”

 

“No!” John snatched up his pack and hefted it over his shoulders. “Look, if we want to make it to the temple and back before nightfall, we need to hustle. So hurry it up, will ya?” He made a hasty exit out of the tent.

 

God bless Teyla and Ronon. They had efficiently gotten breakfast started and they all fell into the routine of eating, performing morning ablutions, and securing the camp for the day. If anyone noticed that John seemed a little preoccupied, no one commented on it. Teyla did raise an eyebrow at him when he was a little short with Rodney about staying on the trail; he saw the eye roll Rodney gave her and the mouthed words ‘bad dream’. His sense of unease grew as they slogged along the trail towards the base of the mountain and he found himself scanning the forest for anything that seemed remotely familiar, for any slight sound out of place.

 

He almost missed it when Rodney began his rant about the conditions on the planet and he looked back suddenly to see that he had indeed strayed from the trail, moving around a large fallen tree in order to avoid climbing over it.

 

“McKay! Freeze!” He barked out with the force of all his years of military training. Rodney lurched to a stop so suddenly, arms poised in mid-movement, that it would have been funny if the situation hadn’t been so critical. Rodney opened his mouth to protest once he’d gotten over the initial shock; John could tell he was about to straighten and move again.

 

“I’m serious, Rodney. Don’t move.” He stepped quickly behind Teyla on the trail and moved over to where Rodney was standing, a worried expression on his face. Ronon and Teyla had halted as well, and he could see them testing the surroundings for the unseen danger, trying to locate whatever John had perceived. Lining himself up with Rodney’s projected path, he made a careful note of the landmarks. Yes, there was the clearing where Rodney had ended up; there was the stone that sheltered the end of the trip wire. He raised his P-90 and let off a few short bursts into the brush ahead of them as Rodney covered his ears and flinched.

 

Rodney’s “what the hell?” was lost in the subsequent explosion.

 

Clumps of dirt and vegetation rained down on them briefly as everyone around him stood open-mouthed in shock. Rodney was the closest; he turned to face John, blue eyes as wide as saucers.

 

John looked around at his team.

 

“Guys? We need to talk.”

 

                                                            ***

 

In the end, it was Rodney who made the best argument for continuing on with the mission.

 

“We need this ZedPM. We don’t know what caused the ‘potential’ time loop so far, but it’s possible that since the Colonel triggered the bomb, the timeline has been set back on the correct course again. Given the Ancients and their fondness for messing with time, I would be willing to bet that the ZedPM is behind the situation somehow. If nothing else, it is the most likely power source for whatever is happening here. I say we press on to the temple.”

 

John heard the quotes around the word ‘potential’ and wondered which Rodney was having more difficulty believing, the possible time loop or the possibility that John had somehow become clairvoyant. He knew that SG1 had some sort of similar experience in the past with a time loop. He reminded himself once again that he should really read over those reports when he got the chance.

 

“Potential?” He heard himself ask sarcastically. He was betting Rodney just wanted that ZPM. 

 

“One replay of the last 24 hours does not necessarily constitute ‘time-looping’, Colonel.”

 

“Are you kidding me? Are we seriously having a discussion over the semantics of what just happened here?”

 

“I’m just saying…”

 

“If you want to get to the temple while there’s still daylight, then we’d better go.” Ronon interrupted.

 

“Ronon is correct,” Teyla chimed in. “We need to make a decision quickly and act upon it before it is too late to reach our destination.”

 

So, unable to entirely shake off the feeling that he had just made a serious mistake, John gave the order to press on. They reached the base of the mountain soon enough, but the trail to the temple at the peak was arduous. They left as much gear as they could at the base and began the ascent. The pathway was obvious enough but continued resolutely upwards, with switchbacks every fifty feet or so. The air was thinner too, and despite his daily running with Ronon, John could feel the strain on his lungs. It left Rodney with little to no breath for speech, for which the entire team had to be grateful John was sure.

 

Ronon forged on up ahead on the trail. Teyla, as usual, covered their six. John made a point to keep pace with Rodney and called breaks when absolutely necessary. On one such break, Ronon radioed back for Teyla to join him up ahead to discuss the direction of the trail. John waited with Rodney, leaning against a large boulder, sipping from his canteen as he watched Rodney soak a handkerchief and mop the back of his neck. There was little shade on the mountainside now—they were above the treeline. The crisp cold air of the morning was a distant memory in the face of the brutal sunshine.

 

Rodney looked up, caught his eye and then seemed to get flustered. He reached back behind him to feel for the surface of a rock of his own to lean on and then glanced back up at John again before looking out over the valley from which they had climbed.

 

“So,” Rodney said, scanning the view. “I guess I stepped on the land mine in the previous time sequence?”

 

He made the question seem very casual, as though he were inquiring about what he had for breakfast. John closed his eyes. He could hear the explosion; he could smell the iron in Rodney’s blood. He saw Rodney’s fading expression, could hear his whispered ‘John’. When he opened his eyes, Rodney was looking intently at him.

 

“Yes,” he said tersely.

 

“So, ah, when you said you had a bad dream last night, that’s what you were referring to?”

 

“I didn’t know it wasn’t a dream until we came upon the mine in the woods. Not for sure. Can we not talk about this?” 

 

“We’ve never established what exactly triggered the time loop in the first place. It only makes sense to try and figure that out,” he paused, and then with a change of tone, spoke again. “Did I…was it…well, instantaneous?” Rodney’s voice was suddenly hesitant.

 

John felt his head jerk as though he had been slapped. He glared furiously at Rodney for a moment and then began studying the ground. “No. It was not instantaneous.”

 

“Oh.” Rodney’s voice was quiet. Overhead, John could hear the soaring cry of some sort of gliding bird. He’d noted it before, riding the thermals and he wished he could be doing the same right about now.

 

“Soooo,” Rodney began, but John cut him off.

 

 “I’m not talking about it, Rodney.” He stood up abruptly, re-balancing his pack.

 

“I thought we were waiting for Teyla and Ronon.” Rodney looked at him in assessment again. There was a pause. “Did I say anything? You know, before I…” Rodney trailed off, his hand spun out the implied words not said.

 

“There wasn’t any time. What part of ‘not talking about it’ do you not understand?” John pointed at the trail ahead and Rodney sighed before turning to start the ascent again. Up ahead, Ronon appeared on what looked to be some sort of plateau above them, Teyla moving in to stand by his shoulder. Ronon lifted his hand and let it fall. They were obviously waiting for John and Rodney to join them. 

 

John watched Rodney’s broad back moving ahead of him and when they had almost reached the ledge where Ronon and Teyla were waiting, he said, “You spoke my name.”

 

Rodney came to an abrupt halt, looking back at John with a frown. “That’s it?” He seemed incredulous. 

 

John felt the idea of a smile tease at his lips but the remembrance of Rodney’s face as he said John’s name wiped it away.  “You spoke my name,” John repeated.

 

He wasn’t sure just what Rodney saw in his face, but whatever it was made him swallow hard and turn abruptly to finish the climb upwards.

 

On the leveled out area, Ronon explained the choices. “The trail winds around this rock face here. We can follow it, or we can climb this surface here and pick up the trail above.” He indicated a steep wall of rock rising above them. John ran a practiced eye over the cliff side; it had good footholds. It wouldn’t be easy though.

 

Rodney gasped. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

 

Ronon shook his head, causing his dreads to move stiffly. “It’s not that bad. It’ll cut off at least two hours of climbing time.” He paused, appeared to assess Rodney’s red face and perspiring brow and continued. “Maybe more. We’ve lost a lot of daylight already today.” His tone implied ‘by sitting around talking things to death’. “I can go up first and secure the ropes.”

 

“Alternatively,” Teyla added serenely, “we could plan on setting up camp once we reach the temple and not try to make it back tonight.” Her proposal had the sound of an argument she had already begun with Ronon before their arrival. 

 

“Set up camp? With what? We left everything back at the…real camp below.” Rodney struggled only momentarily for words. “Not that our camp last night was anything to write home about, but at least it has our sleeping bags and our important staples like, I don’t know, food?”

 

“And here I thought you were going to say ‘coffee’,” John commented. “So does this mean you want to try the climb?”

 

The look Rodney gave him was the ‘you moron’ look number twenty-three. The one that said, ‘and I don’t like you very much right now’ as well. 

 

They had watched in silence as Ronon casually scaled the cliff with careful slowness, testing footholds and choosing the best path. Once he had made it to the top, he began belaying down ropes to the others. Teyla climbed next, not being able to take the exact same path that Ronon took because her reach was so much shorter. When Rodney walked to the base of the cliff, John helped him hook into his harness and then did likewise, preparing to climb with him.

 

“You know, I’m not so good with heights,” Rodney mumbled, checking his harness for the tenth time. 

 

“Don’t look down,” John advised. “Besides, I’ll be right there.”

 

Rodney gave him a quick glance and then a stiff smile before starting to climb, huffing softly with each movement upwards. John paralleled his movement on the second set of ropes. They had gotten about halfway up the face when suddenly Rodney yelped, swinging his arm back with such force he caused himself to spin and he had to grab hard for the wall. “Sonofabitch!” He shouted, shaking his hand.

 

“Rodney?” John started but Rodney continued on.

 

“Jesus, some red and black thingy stung me! Oh god, red and black…in this galaxy that is soooo bad. It looked like a scorpion. I put my hand down on it before I saw it. Oh god, oh god…” John heard the wheeze in Rodney’s voice and began working his way closer to where he was gripping the wall. Rodney was scrabbling at his vest pockets to pull out his epi-pen and John saw him fumble and drop it before he made it to Rodney’s side.

 

“Oh god!” He swiveled again, staring after the pen as it made its bouncing descent down the cliff side, almost losing his grip on the wall. “We’ve got to go down, we’ve got to get it…I can feel, it’s starting…”

 

John touched the radio headset in his ear. “Ronon. Rodney’s been stung by something and is having a reaction. We’re headed back down to the bottom. Don’t try to come this way—I don’t know what got him.” As he finished speaking he swung himself over so that he was straddling Rodney’s body, pinning him to the cliff.

 

“Rodney.” He could hear the rattle in his chest, feel the panic in the body underneath him. “Stay calm. I have another pen.” Even as he spoke, he fished it out of its secure location in his vest, popped the top on it with one hand and with a swift movement, injected it into Rodney’s thigh, through his pants. “C’mon. Let’s get you back down.”

 

Rodney was resting his face against the cliff wall; he turned his head slightly to look at John over his shoulder. John was startled to see that his eyelids and lips were already getting puffy. Making the descent a little too quickly for safety, John had to nearly catch Rodney in his arms when their feet at last touched bottom again.

 

John lowered him carefully to the sharp-shaled surface of the trail. “Rodney?”

 

Damn it, that epi-pen surely should have kicked in by now. Rodney’s features had not become any more swollen, but he was becoming distinctly cyanotic, his lips turning lavender in color. John could hear the fluid every time he tried to breathe. This didn’t seem like any anaphylactic reaction that Carson had described to him, but he started to look for the original epi-pen just in case.

 

Rodney grabbed at his sleeve with his left hand. “Not ana…not ana…” he wheezed.

 

John gripped his hand. “What is it?  What’s going on?” Not again, he thought. Please god, not again. 

 

“I can’t feel my arm.” John rolled Rodney slightly to pull out his right arm and push up the sleeve. He’d never seen anything like it. Rodney’s hand was swollen and turning black, red streaks running up his arms along his veins. He pulled his eyes away to make shocked contact with Rodney’s, hoping that he wouldn’t give anything away in his expression.

 

“Okay,” he said for the record. “Not some sort of anaphylaxis, but some sort of toxin.” He began to fumble at Rodney’s arm; the thought that he needed another goddamned tourniquet crossed his mind.

 

“I’m going to die.” White flecks of foam appeared at the corners of Rodney’s mouth. 

 

“You’re not going to die,” John said fiercely, only to be brought up short by Rodney’s violent coughing. He steadied Rodney’s head in his hands and wiped away the trickle of dark, blackish blood that came up with the cough.

 

“John,” Rodney said with difficulty.

 

“Okay, okay. So maybe you are dying. But this is the time loop thing, right? So when we wake up in the morning, we’ll all be back at the base camp and this next time, we’ll figure out how to stop it…”

 

Rodney fixed on him a beady stare. “That’s supposed to make me feel better?” He wheezed, breath becoming more labored. “Asshole,” he mouthed before he died.

 

                                                            ***

 

John woke with a violent start, and took a deep sigh of relief when he realized that he was in his sleeping bag again. He lifted his head to look for Rodney, only to discover that his bag was empty. Empty.

 

Disoriented, panic starting to rise in his chest, he struggled to unzip the bag and rolled out of it onto his feet. He had just reached the tent flap when it lifted and Rodney barreled into his arms.

 

“Rodney! Where the fuck have you been?” His words were harsh, his breathing ragged. He clutched Rodney’s biceps in a grip of steel, knowing he was going to leave bruises.

 

“Ow!” Rodney complained, wriggling in his grasp. “I had to take a leak. What the hell’s wrong with you?”

 

John released him so abruptly Rodney almost fell down. “I’ll explain later. Get dressed. I need to talk to everyone together.”

 

He turned and began to swiftly pull on his own clothing. Behind him, he heard Rodney mutter, “Jeez, who pissed in your Wheaties?”

 

 Read Perchance to Dream Part Two here