kriadydragon | Story - Lost and Found Pt. 2

Rodney didn't really think Sheppard was playing hooky. Ronon was right, Sheppard would never do that, not in the middle of a crisis. And just because they were back on an oxygen rich planet didn't mean the chaos was over, not with a damaged city ship and a lot of pissed-off Asurans looking for some payback.

He didn't hold it past Sheppard to be lost; possibly having taken a wrong turn into an unexplored section or hit the wrong destination on the transporter. Those transporters had been known to have a few hiccups, especially when the rest of the city's systems were struggling. Sheppard was lost, had probably tripped and dropped his radio - that was all.

Ronon's and Sheppard's jogging route had been a bust up until Ronon nearly slipped in a smeared puddle of yellow slime in front of one of the transporters. Had it not been for the crutch, Ronon – in his infinite lack of wisdom – would have crouched and touched the stuff. Instead, he poked at it with the crutch while McKay called someone down from biology to take a sample. Then they moved on.

“We need the scanner,” Rodney said. “Without it, we're looking for a needle in a bunch of other needles.” The biometric scanner had more fun features than the LSD. An LSD could be programmed to pick up on a subcu-transmitter, which was pointless at the moment since they all had them, but the bio-scanner could be calibrated to pick up on smaller nuances, such as the dab of wraith DNA in Teyla and Iratus DNA in Sheppard. It would also be able to tell them if the source of that slime puddle was a just leak or something more organic and mobile.

“At least the needles are all spread out,” Ronon said.

Rodney glared at his back. “You know what I mean.”

“Actually,” Teyla said, “that is the problem – we are all spread out, and there are too many places to search.” She then cupped her hand over her mouth and called, “Colonel Sheppard?”

They were in an uninhabited part of the city, now. The lights were off to help conserve what was left of the ZPM, and unable to be turned on thanks to all the glitches flitting around the systems. Rodney could easily picture John wandering around in the dark, trying not to look bewildered, and probably blaming this on Rodney just to keep himself from feeling like an ass.

Rodney wondered if they wouldn't even be in this mess if he – they – had just taken up John's offer to join him for dinner. Or maybe if he'd listened to Ronon's whining and stopped chasing that energy reading. It all depended on the time and circumstances surrounding Sheppard's disappearance, of course, and doing anything differently wouldn't necessarily have changed anything. Still, he couldn't stop considering...

Rodney's comm crackled.

“Zelenka to McKay. I have the scanner working. I am reading two bio-signs not far from you. One of them is not registering as human and it is slowly approaching the other.

Rodney's heart thudded and Teyla and Ronon exchanged tense looks.

“How far?” Rodney asked.

“Head north to where the hall branches and go right. And you need to hurry, whatever-it-is is getting closer.”

Ronon was already clacking down the hall, and Rodney and Teyla had to run to catch up.

Non-human entity – Rodney had to wonder if they shouldn't have gone to the mainland at all.

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The muscles of John's body not yet numbed trembled. The lack of feeling had slowed to a barely a crawl on surpassing his hips and shoulders. He couldn't move his neck, but still had control over the muscles of his face. He wondered, hysterically, if what ever was coming for him liked its prey alive, warm, and screaming as it went down.

Not screaming. When John tried to call out, all he got was a dry croak. Alive, warm and terrified then, surges of adrenaline giving it a little extra flavor.

The thing hissed again, closer, right next to John. John flinched and forced his stinging eyes open to misty darkness, patches of wan light, and movement on the floor. John's heart pounded so hard it hurt. He could hear the soft rasp of scales, smell putrid breath like rotten meat, feel it puff hot against his cheek and the tickle of a forked tongue on his temple. He could almost see a flash of gray light off the thing's eyes or maybe it was its scales. It didn't matter because it was right frickin' next to John and he couldn't move.

The thing hissed again. John felt its body slide along his flank, moving toward his feet. It was going to swallow him whole, feet first, still alive. Bile crawled into John's throat and he gulped fast to keep it from spilling into his airway.

He was going to be eaten alive.

“Sheppard!”

There was a flash of red followed by an inhuman shriek. A muscled body thrashed and coiled against John's leg. Another flash of red and, suddenly, the thing stilled with a final twitchy thump.

“Colonel?”

“Sheppard!”

“John!”

It hurt too much for John to keep his eyes open, but he no longer needed to and let them slam shut. Hands touched his head and the tender skin of his chest, making him moan and whimper. He felt his head lifted to rest on something soft as a hand rushed back his hair.

“He's having trouble breathing...”

“We need a med team down here, now!”

“John, stay with us.”

John longed to talk and say that he wasn't going anywhere, and also to beg them to stop touching his chest. There came more noise – voices, demanding and questioning, clatters and thumps and tapping footfalls, all not loud enough to drown out the thunder of John's heart and his wheezing breaths. Something cool and plastic was pressed against his face and, oh, the heaven that was pure oxygen pouring into his desperate lungs. The band around his chest loosened and the cramping in his ribs flowed away as he sucked in greedy breath after greedy breath. His head spun when he became momentarily weightless, then throbbed harshly on being set down on a solid bed. The voices continued to talk, some shouting numbers and complicated words, while others spoke soft assurances that John would be all right, that he wasn't alone, and asking him to hang on.

John wanted so bad to say that he was hanging on, but also that he was tired. He couldn't help slipping away into darkness, even when they asked him not to. He was just so tired...

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“... think it might have slipped into the 'jumper. Maybe hid up there with all the equipment.”

John wanted to open his eyes and tried, but something soft was pressed against his eyelids, keeping them from parting.

“Dr. Cole said it was an adolescent. It wouldn't have been able to swallow Sheppard but was certainly starved enough to try.”

Swallow him whole. Him? What had tried to swallow him whole? Where was he? Why couldn't he open his eyes? Why did his chest hurt...

Something next to John's head hissed, and he remembered. He jackknifed upright with a cry of warning strangled by his aching throat. Something next to him shrilled and hands against his shoulders pressed him back against a soft surface.

“John! Calm down! It is all right, you are safe.”

Teyla's voice. That was Teyla's voice.

“Easy Sheppard.”

Ronon's.

“Sheppard, you need to slow down your breathing before you hyperventilate.”

Rodney's, sounding strained and panicked.

“S – sna-ake...” John gasped, barely above a whisper. “S-s-na – snake.. snake...”

A small, cool hand brushed back the hair from his forehead, and he knew it was Teyla's. He would know that soothing action anywhere. “The snake is dead, John. Ronon has killed it.”

“And its corpse is currently resting in pieces in the biology lab,” Rodney added.

A few deep, satisfying breaths slowed John's heart and the rapid beeping of what could only be a heart monitor, which meant he was in the infirmary. “An – any... hurt? Any – o-one...”

Teyla's hand moved off his head to take his own hand and squeeze. “No, John. No one else was hurt.”

John's heart slowed a little more and a tension he hadn't realized was there melted out of his muscles, leaving him achy and spent. He felt a larger hand squeeze his shoulder, and a medium one his wrist. The numb, obviously and thankfully, had cleared up.

“That crap all over your face,” said Rodney, “was some kind of paralyzing agent. Knocks you out with pain, then numbness so the snake-thing can... you know. Kind of like a... um... you know...”

“Know,” John mumbled. He shivered, though his skin still felt too warm. He blinked and winced when his eyes burned. It took a lot of energy to lift his hand, sliding it across his bare chest, wincing again when the skin throbbed, and finally brought it to his face where his fingers encountered gauze.

“You're not blind,” Rodney quickly assured. “That crap did a number on your eyes but Keller promises they'll heal back to normal. That stuff – poison - supposedly soaks into the skin and wreaks havoc on the nerves on its way to your blood. You've got the nastiest looking rash on your chest, neck and face. They're probably going to hurt for a while.”

John dropped his hand back to his side, exhaling in a relief so consuming it made him shake. A nasty rash he could live with. Blindness – he didn't even want to imagine it, couldn't without his chest constricting and his heart tripping over itself. Being eaten alive he immediately pushed out of his mind.

All this constant stream of relief wore him out, and with his eyes already shut, it was impossible to fight sleep. He slipped away with the weight of his team's hands still holding on to him.

After that, waking was sporadic and sometimes difficult to tell apart from his vivid dreams. Once John's body was clear of the last of the toxins, Keller was able to give him painkillers, blurring the lines between reality and unconsciousness even more. Then, three - maybe four, or five, John couldn't say - days later the bandages on his eyes came off. The world was still a fuzzy blur, which Keller promised would clear up in time – maybe another day or two.

When that day or two passed and the world sharpened, John was released to his quarters to convalesce in quiet. The toxin had kicked his ass good – weakening his body down all the way down to his immune system so that his stay in the infirmary had added up to a week and two days. Even when “set loose” as Keller put it, he was still weak, just not as susceptible.

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The face that looked back at John from his bathroom mirror was pale, gaunt – sickly: the face of a man who everyone probably thought should still be in the infirmary. His joints were sore, including his chest, and there were still patches of fading red on his skin. Keller, however, had sworn that his current appearance really was a major improvement.

Appearance wasn't what John was worried about. That snake's toxin had held him up in the infirmary for more than a week, time John couldn't afford to lose again if this toxin had left a parting gift before being flushed out. The shock on Keller's face when John suggested that he should probably remain in the infirmary a little longer would have made him laugh if he'd had the energy or the humor. But Keller's insistence he heal in his room, away from the constant, stress-inducing activity of the infirmary, had been just as shocking.

Tearing his gaze from the mirror, John finished dressing by slipping into his long-sleeve shirt, then headed to his bed. Exhaustion and building back his appetite was all John had left to contend with, and the more rest he got, the quicker he could get over it and get back to work.

John didn't know how long he was asleep when he heard his door chime. He sat up, wincing when his back and rib muscles pulled, and scooted back to sit against the wall.

“Come in,” he croaked.

The door opened and Ronon limped in, easily balancing two trays in his hands. He'd graduated from crutches to a sports bandage two days ago, and despite him still being slightly invalid, he'd been all grins about it. With surprising ease, he set one tray on the nightstand and swung the other tray around into his lap at the same time he dropped himself onto the foot of John's bed.

“Brought soup,” he said, already digging into his mountain of casserole.

John carefully slid the tray with its bowl of soup and bottle of juice onto his lap with shaking arms. It was vegetable soup, with alphabet noodles and thick broth – a step up from the watery chicken noodle of yesterday.

They ate in silence for the first three minutes, when Teyla and Rodney arrived carrying their own trays. John raised an eyebrow at Teyla.

“When did you get back?” he asked.

Teyla, taking the desk chair Rodney rolled toward her, smiled. “Not long ago. I wished to get back in time for dinner as I enjoy this casserole.”

Which was news to John – her food preferences, not when she got back. Although he was pretty certain that she was back early. When coherent enough to speak in discernible sentences, John had badgered Teyla into visiting her people as she had planned before the snake incident. It wasn't until after the bandages on his eyes came off that she'd went. He thought for sure she'd stay longer than two days – that she needed to stay longer than two days. Although, she did look quite refreshed: glowing and buoyant, even. A visit with her people, even a quick one, always did wonders for her.

Rodney plopped down beside Ronon with an equal amount of food on his plate.

“She's just saying that because she doesn't want to admit how sick she is of that root soup stuff her people always make,” he said.

Teyla's foot lashed out in a light, playful kick at Rodney's shin. “That is not true. Besides, I have seen how much of that “root stuff” you consume. You know it is not a food you grow weary of, quickly.”

Ronon gave Rodney a nudge in the ribs. “She's got you there.”

“Yeah,” John joined in. “You used to carry a thermos of the stuff around... until you lost a thermos.”

“Lies and exaggerations,” Rodney said, seemingly unfazed. “Although that does remind me – I do need to put in a requisition for a new thermos – hey!”

Ronon moved lightening quick when he grabbed a brownie from McKay's pile and shoved it into his mouth. Rodney's frown of indignation became a smug smirk and he grabbed one of Ronon's peanut butter cookies. It went on like this: escalating to mild pushing and shoving, Teyla trying not to laugh as she reprimanded, until they'd eaten each other's desserts.

When John finished and set his tray back on the nightstand, he curled up beneath the covers and drifted off to the gentle murmurs of his team. He awoke – according to his clock – four hours later to the Mack-truck rumble of snoring. He pushed himself up on one elbow in search of the source, and saw Teyla stretched out on the small couch and covered by a blanket, Ronon stretched out on the floor, and Rodney in the desk chair with his feet propped up on the end of the bed and his laptop still open in his lap.

John grinned at the line of drool on Rodney's chin stained blue by the computer's screen-saver. He tossed a wadded up tissue in a perfect arc that bounced it right off of McKay's forehead. Rodney snuffled, snorted and, thankfully, stopped snoring. John hunkered back under his covers and slept without dreaming.

The End

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