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“Sheppard!” Rodney called in a loud whisper. Which was stupidly contradictory, he knew, but contradiction had been trumped by Rodney's stronger desire to avoid the man looking for his dog. The guy loses a dog, Rodney loses a human – the irony was more than he wanted to deal with right now. “Sheppard!”
Two beams from two flashlights spasmed over loamy earth, mossy trunks, and a smattering of young ferns making an early break from beneath the soil. Everything smelled of dirt, plant, wood, and moisture, and the air was already cooling from tolerable to chilled.
“You're going to have to call a little louder than that, McKay,” Daniel said from about eleven feet ahead.
Rodney shrugged. “Yeah, well....” He wasn't in the mood to explain his current bout of what could be considered irrational thinking. He just wanted to find Sheppard, get him back in the house, and get him under the covers after chewing him up and spitting him out for taking off.
That is, if he had taken off and not something else.
“He couldn't have gone far,” Daniel said. “Good thing this dirt is moist.”
Sheppard had left distinct tracks that a five-year-old could follow. Although Rodney didn't hold it past Daniel to have picked up a few tracking skills from Teal'c and a host of other intergalactic hunters. Not that Rodney really cared. His mind liked to wander to the pointlessly mundane when he was panicking, like a pathetic attempt at clinging to sanity. Or maybe it was a sign he was losing his sanity.
“Sheppard!” Rodney hissed, logic still be damned for once because he really didn't want to draw in the attention of the dog guy. Thinking about the dog guy, Rodney was hit with a sudden realization. “Not to sound paranoid or anything, but I'm finding it rather ironic that some random guy drops by and attempts to hassle me into helping him find his dog the same time Sheppard disappears. Coincidence or just bad timing?”
Daniel glanced over his shoulder. “Can't really say until we find Sheppard.” When he looked ahead, he slowed, paused, then burst into a run kicking through the young ferns and budding shrubs, calling, “Sheppard!”
Rodney's heart slammed, and he took off after Jackson. They crested a low incline that topped before a steeper incline on the other side. There, Rodney's heart dropped into his stomach.
Sheppard was half-propped against a tree, one arm trembling as it fought to keep him upright and the other wrapped around his middle. His breathing was rough, labored, and his body slumped near-boneless.
And lying sprawled on the other side of Sheppard was a body.
Every single nerve-ending in Rodney's own body seemed to pop like fireworks forcing every hair to stand on end. He shuddered, gaped, and when he finally found his voice, shrilled a piercing, “Sheppard, what the hell did you do!”
Daniel, after crouching by Sheppard to ensure he was alive, moved over to the body, making room for Rodney to drop next Sheppard. Rodney could feel cold, dirty moisture soak into his pants and didn't care. He grabbed Sheppard by the shoulders of the sweater and jerked him forward so hard the man's teeth clacked audibly.
“What did you do!” he snarled again. “Why'd you take off? What the hell were you thinking! What the hell is wrong with you!”
Sheppard slipped his arm between them and pushed against Rodney's chest, his strength so depleted he couldn't break Rodney's hold, let alone put any extra space between them. But his eyes were steely when they met Rodney's, his resolve dangerous in its intensity.
“I was saving your ass, McKay. I know that guy. I've seen him before.” His eyes closed briefly in a tight squeeze of pain. After a moment, they opened, the steel made even harder by the discomfort he was obviously fighting against. “He would've led the others to us. You would've gotten in trouble.”
Rodney stared, wide-eyed and speechless. He'd been right. All this time, he'd been right about Sheppard and still had allowed himself to see the man's weakened state and moments of lucidity as possible sanity. Sheppard wasn't sane. He was far from being sane.
For once, Rodney hated it that he'd been right.
Pointing a rigid, shaking finger at the body, he spat with unbridled venom, “He's not the damn enemy, Sheppard! He was probably one idiot helping another idiot find a stupid dog, and you... you... you did something to him! Damn it, Sheppard, everything was fine, just fine. It was going to be fine, and you had to go and... and... why? They're not going to let this slide. They'll lock you up again – in prison, for freakin' murder!”
“He's still alive,” Daniel announced.
Rodney shoved Sheppard against the tree. “That doesn't change anything.” Then rocked back on his heels, rubbing his face with both hands. “Damn it, Sheppard... this is what I was afraid of. Why the hell did you have to come to me, huh? Why did you have to trust me? You screwed all of us; we are so friggin' screwed.”
When Rodney lowered his hands to glare at Sheppard, it was to Sheppard glaring right back with a lot more potency.
“You're right, McKay,” he spat. “We are screwed.”
“Uh, Rodney?”
It took a lot of effort and willpower to turn his head enough to see Daniel, still next to the bod- unconscious man, holding up the man's wallet illuminated by the flashlight. Rodney squinted and scooted closer for a better look.
Rodney's jaw dropped. The guy was an orderly, so said the I.D. in his wallet, an I.D. for the very hospital that Sheppard had escaped.
“No way,” Rodney breathed. He whipped his head around, back to Sheppard, but Sheppard had his face turned away as though unable to even stomach looking at McKay.
Not that Rodney could blame him, not now.
“And it gets even better,” Daniel said, pulling Rodney's attention back to him. His jaw practically hit the ground at what Daniel was holding up.
A gun, M9. Daniel held it by the corner of the grip as though it were diseased, though more likely to avoid the addition of his finger prints. He met McKay's shock with a grim expression of his own.
“I'd have to agree,” Daniel said. “I don't think that guy was looking for a dog.”
It took a moment of stammering and remembering how to speak before McKay was able to ask, “W-what do we do? I mean... what....” He snapped his fingers then pointed at Daniel. “The SGC, we need to call them, get them down here. No! We need to get the hell out of here before more come. They're going to start wondering what's up when their guy doesn't return. They'll see it as a hostile act, take Sheppard by force... if that wasn't their plan all along. Why else bring a gun, right?” Rodney moistened his suddenly dry lips with the tip of his tongue and forced his lungs to take slower, less gulping breaths. “We, uh... we... what should we do?”
He looked at Daniel when he said this since, so far, the man had offered most of the more reasonable and successful answers.
Daniel's answer was a helpless shrug and lips so tightly pursed they were white. “I – I have no idea.”
Rodney gaped then scowled. “Not helpful!”
“I'm thinking in possibilities here, McKay. These people came here armed, and Sheppard just knocked out one of their own. It's been my experience that secret organizations can get pretty mean when they're found out. Mean and desperate and... incredibly virulent.”
Rodney grimaced in agreement. “You don't have to tell me.”
“If we stay, they have us cornered. If we go, they may try to chase us down. Depending on how desperate they are to grab Sheppard, of course.”
Sheppard. Rodney scuttled around and over the ground back to the colonel now hunched and shivering in the sweater. One arm was still hugging his mid-section, the other employed in rubbing the side of his head. By the pain lines around his squinting eyes, the headache must have kicked it up a couple of notches.
Rodney removed his own jacket and placed it around John's shoulders. “We need a solid game plan, sometime before Sheppard drops dead from hypothermia.”
The lack of a caustic response from Sheppard ratcheted McKay's worry even further.
“Definitely call the SGC,” Daniel said, coming around to the other side with the gun still in his hand, his flashlight pinned between his neck and shoulder and his cell phone in the other, dialing. “And my personal opinion would be that we'd be better off on the move.”
The reverberating snap of a branch deeper in the woods caused both men to freeze.
“Move first then call?” Rodney suggested, his heart hammering in his throat.
Daniel, wide-eyed, nodded. “Good idea.”
Rodney took one side of Sheppard by the upper arm, Daniel the other after pocketing the gun and phone, and together they hauled him to his uncooperative feet. Yet despite the pain Sheppard was in, he still managed to eventually get his feet under him and make the going easier.
“What if my place is being watched?” Rodney panted. Sheppard may have been making things easier, but the forest debris wasn't.
“It is,” Daniel said. “Obviously. But the way I figure it – being in a neighborhood and all – they're going to be as inconspicuous as possible about it, even in the dark. There shouldn't be a whole bunch of them, at least not yet I don't think.”
“I only saw one guy,” Sheppard croaked. “Looking in through the window. S-scout. I think they're just... scouting -” He whimpered when Rodney's knuckles knocked against his side.
“Did he put up a fight before you knocked him out?” Rodney asked. John nodded, too busy wincing against the pain to respond verbally. Rodney gritted his teeth. If Sheppard's ribs hadn't been cracked before, they probably were now – hopefully nothing more than that – and Rodney had no time to check.
They hadn't gone far from the house – only five minutes out, give or take – and slowed on approach. Daniel, releasing Sheppard for Rodney to take most of his weight, removed the gun and slid around to the other side of the house. It was short seconds later when he returned, waving them on. Sheppard and Rodney hobbled to Daniel's car, Daniel opening the door. Once settled in the back, Rodney hopped into the passenger side and Daniel the driver's side, passing the phone to McKay.
“Call.”
McKay dialed. Daniel backed out of the drive, the tires making a small squeal of protest when he peeled off down the street.
“Not too fast unless you want to deal with the cops, too,” McKay said, dialing.
“Better them than someone else,” Daniel said.
McKay focused entirely on the task of dialing, which the SGC didn't make easy. Besides the connecting number, an I.D. code needed to be input, along with a second number that would make the line secure. It was a pain in the ass, but a lesser pain compared to the long winded answering machine droning on about the SGC being a pharmaceutical research facility and that they would get back to you as soon as they could. And that was only if you dialed the wrong I.D. He wasn't sure what you got when you didn't input the security code.
“McKay?” Sheppard croaked from behind.
“Little busy, Sheppard.”
“Oh, crap,” Daniel breathed. That got Rodney looking up and around at a pair of headlights barreling their way so fast that Daniel didn't have time to act.
The car struck, crunching glass and metal, snapping their heads back, the impact fumbling the phone from Rodney's hand onto the floor. The car backed off just enough to swerve to the side and come up beside them.
“Hang on!” Daniel cried.
“To what!” Rodney shouted and was pitched forward hard when Daniel slammed on the breaks just as the enemy car veered sharply toward them. The maneuver put them behind the car only for a few minutes when the car peeled into the opposing lane empty of any traffic and mimicked the move, putting it back behind Daniel's car. It sped forward, more metal crunched, and Rodney's head whipped so far back it was a miracle his neck didn't snap.
“What the hell is wrong with these people!”
Daniel swerved, narrowly avoiding another hit. “Rodney, the phone!”
Rodney bent forward, his fingers dancing over the mat and carpeting of the floor. “I can't find it!” Another, lesser hit thumped Rodney's head against the glove compartment. “Son of a bitch!”
“Slow down,” he heard Sheppard rasp in a pain-tight voice. “Just enough... for me to jump out -”
Rodney, snapping upright, twisted his head as far as his aching neck would allow and sneered. “Like hell!”
“They're not going to kill me, McKay,” Sheppard said. Even with the blinding headlights behind them, all McKay could see of Sheppard was a huddled lump and a few spikes of hair. “But they might kill you. You two'll be safe. You can find me again later. Or... I can just escape again.” Even through the pain, McKay could hear the tired smile in Sheppard's voice.
Rodney shook his head fiercely, wincing more than once for it. “No. Hell no. Double hell no and end of discussion!”
“Rodney -”
“No!”
“It may be the only way.”
The enemy car rammed again, the additional pain increasing Rodney's ire into full blown fury. “May being the friggin' operative word, Sheppard! Stop being so damn fatalistic and put a little effort into your own damn self-preservation for once.”
“I'm not being fatalistic, and I am self-preserving!” Sheppard snarled back. “But there are times when I need to survive and times when everyone else needs to survive. You outrank me in importance, McKay, whether you like it or not. Both of you. These people don't want me dead, but I can't say the same for you, and like hell I'm going to take that chance!”
“Well, too bad, because I am.”
“McKay -!”
“No! End of discussion!”
“Hang on!” Daniel shouted louder than the both of them. When the enemy car sped forward for another hit, Daniel swerved, paralleling them. He gave the wheel one massive, hard twist, plowing into the side of the enemy and shoving them toward the wall of trees and shrubs lining the road. Branches clipped the enemy car, and when Daniel released it to speed up and put distance between them, the enemy fishtailed, jolting and bouncing as it attempted to right itself.
It bought them maybe a minute, enough time to get ahead, maybe turn off at the nearest exit. But Rodney knew this road, knew there were no exits for another fifteen miles.
There were, however, old dirt roads leading off into the woods. The only reason Rodney had ever noticed any was when a truck loaded with hunting gear pulled off onto one. Rodney remembered thinking how trucks, camouflage, and rifles would be such a Ronon thing had he been born on Earth.
And Rodney knew where that very road was. They were coming up on it, now, just on the other side of the deer crossing sign. Rodney tapped Daniel's arms. “Shut off the lights, and when I tell you, turn.”
Daniel complied right when they came to the exact place to turn. At least Rodney hoped it was the exact spot when he shouted, “Turn!”
The car made a sharp L that rocked them back and forth, the timing so precise dirt replaced asphalt preventing the tires from squealing. Daniel went as far as he dared without the headlights on, stopped, shut everything down, and they waited.
Rodney could hear the enemy car approach, its engine snarling. He hunkered down into the seat as if it would actually make a difference, watching the rearview mirror as the pale glow of headlights brightened the black asphalt to a pallid white. Then the car whipped past, dropping them back into darkness. Only when the fading hum of the engines vanished all together did Daniel restart the car - even turning on the lights – and took them deeper into the woods. They didn't stop until after they followed a bend in the road, hiding them behind a nice, solid wall of trees, shrubs, and wild grasses.
Rodney didn't hesitate, hopping out of the front seat and around to the back seat, his flashlight already out of his pocket and in his hand.
“Finally,” he huffed. “All right, Sheppard, how much damage this time?”
Sheppard looked like hell, almost white, hunkered low in the corner against the door and facing Rodney though his eyes were squeezed shut. His breathing was heavy, and sweat glittered on his brow. He opened his eyes at Rodney's question only to snap them back shut with a pained groan.
“I would have preferred something more specific,” Rodney muttered. He decided to start with Sheppard's side, first. He nudged Sheppard's arm aside then lifted the sweater, shining his light on even darker bruises taking up the majority of Sheppard's flank.
“Here,” Daniel said, twisted halfway around in his seat and reaching for the flashlight. “Let me hold that.”
Rodney let him. It freed up his hands to finger Sheppard's ribs that didn't tell him much except for how much pain Sheppard was in when he cried out and recoiled violently, bumping his head against the window. Rodney snatched his hand away in horror. He had barely touched Sheppard, he'd thought, yet Sheppard was still shaking and panting similar to when salt water had pissed off the iratus bug around his neck.
“Sorry,” Rodney said in a small voice. He carefully lowered Sheppard's shirt, but Sheppard still flinched when the cloth brushed his injured side. This was bad, very bad.
Next Rodney checked Sheppard's head, finding no bumps or bleeds that would explain the excruciating headache. When Rodney looked at Daniel for suggestions, Daniel mouthed “withdrawal.”
“Could also be whiplash,” Rodney said out loud, irritated. It lacked conviction since Sheppard's head had been hurting before their own little Cannonball Run. Speaking of which.... “Where did you learn to drive like that?” he asked, feeling the back of Sheppard's neck. “You could have killed us.” His last Earth chiropractor had taught him out to spot misalignment then told him not to come back in unless he knew for a fact something was wrong with his vertebra. Sheppard's vertebra felt just fine, though the neck muscles were stiff with tension. When his fingers brushed the pulse-point, he could feel Sheppard's rapid heartbeat.
“I think, under the circumstances, it was a necessary evil,” Daniel deadpanned, a touch testy.
“Don't take it personal, Doc,” said John. “It's just McKay's personal brand of thank you.” He then coughed, moaned, and huddled tighter around his injured side.
Rodney continued his search for head injuries in case he missed anything smaller, sneering at having to pick through Sheppard's hair like a monkey looking for lice. “I stand by what I said. And you, Lt. Colonel 'Sacrifice-me-for-the-greater-good.' Has the numerous fender-benders we suffered tonight scrambled your brains so badly as to honestly believe we'd dump you out of a moving vehicle to save our own asses? Or was my original assessment correct and you are insane?”
A bony shoulder bounced. “Doesn't hurt to try.”
“Uh, yes it does, Colonel. Do you know how much it sucks to be placed in that kind of a position? Do you know....” Rodney snapped his jaw shut when fury rose like magma having reached its exploding point. Do you know how much it sucks to have logic thrown in your face like that? To actually consider such a stupid, idiotic plan and realize “son of a bitch, he has a point?” Do you!
Instead, what eventually came out was, “It had flaws, anyway.”
John sighed heavily, his body deflating, as though the last of his energy were leaving it. “Do tell.”
“You don't know what their plans are. They may be desperate to get you back just to kill you and dispose of the evidence. So desperate that even if we had been stupid enough to let you take a nose dive out of the car, they would have continued coming after us to ensure a complete lack of witnesses. Therefore, your plan wouldn't have made a damn lick of difference – except that one or all of us would be dead. And don't say better you than me! Or... or me than you... or whatever.”
Sheppard's mouth shut with an audible click.
“Oh, and by the way,” Rodney continued, still picking through Sheppard's hair only at half attention, “that, um, stuff I said – when we found you and the unconscious guy... I didn't mean it.”
“Yes, you did,” John said, blinking drunkenly.
Rodney's shoulders stiffened, the tension crawling up his neck to make his head throb, and he glared. “No, I didn't. I was – I was freaking out. You know I don't think rationally when I'm freaking out.”
Sheppard smiled. “Actually, it's been my experience that that's when you're usually at your most miraculous.” His smile fell. “You meant it, Rodney. It's not like I've been giving you any reason to think differently. You said you saw video of me flipping out, so....” Hazel eyes rolled up to meet Rodney's. “It's cool, McKay. Trust me.”
“Still,” Rodney muttered. “I thought I knew you better than I do.”
“People change.”
“Not you.”
“Even me. And will you please stop messing with my hair?”
Rodney hadn't even realized he was still doing it. Pulling his hands away, he sat back, shaking his head. “Not you. Yes, we all change, but some things stay the same. You've always been good at the whole self-control thing. Always been good at not giving in, not backing down, stuff like that. So when I saw those videos, and visiting you at the hospital.... I'm not going to sugarcoat it: I took it all as a shattered illusion of you. I thought... no, I started to think... I was starting to think that, maybe, it really was possible that... that... you know.”
John grinned tightly. “That I'd lost it? Fell off the deep end? Flew over the cuckoo's nest? Was off my rocker--”
“Broken?” Rodney said, and the taste of the word lingered on his tongue like something poisonously bitter, making him cringe and hate himself for having said it. John Sheppard did not break, and to make amends for even suggesting it, he added, “Before I started thinking too much, I thought it was some device or drug screwing up your brain.” He shrugged and chuckled weakly. “Guess I was right the first time.”
A skinny, shaking hand flopped on Rodney's shoulder and squeezed. “It's cool, Rodney. I'm human. I try pretty damn hard to keep it together, but that doesn't mean I'm any less likely to break than the next guy.” A hard shudder rippled through Sheppard's slender body even as he laughed. “Got pretty damn close this time, though. Right?”
Rodney didn't have a response for that, once again at a loss for words, which made it how many times in two days? The moment had declined into one of those that Rodney had no idea how to handle: what to do and what to say to make everything all better or, at the least, less suffocating. Sheppard had practically admitted to just how bad things were with him, not just physically but mentally. Hell, he'd been admitting it the moment he'd showed up on McKay's doorstep: through expression, action... words... humiliation be damned, but humiliation there had been.
What the hell had those stupid, vicious bastards done to him?
It was Rodney's turn to reach out and clasp Sheppard lightly on the shoulder, just in case there were bruises there (there had been so many, he couldn't be sure the exact locations of them), and be just as reassuring in return.
“You're going to be all right, John,” he said with as much conviction as he could muster and was a little surprised by how easy it came out. He thought for sure it would have sounded forced, but then, he supposed, it was nothing but the truth. Sheppard would be all right; Rodney would make sure of it.
Pressing his lips, eyes squinting with the pain of his headache, Sheppard managed a small nod.
A muffled thump made both men jump, and Rodney's head snap back and forth, double-taking between Daniel coming back around from the trunk to the driver's side and the flashlight that had been wedged into the front seat's headrest.
“What the hell? When did you leave!”
“I just went to the trunk,” Daniel said. He slid back into the seat, passing back two folded blankets with two water bottles, a couple of packages of peanut-butter crackers, and five Power Bars sitting on top. “To get these.”
Rodney took them, gaping. “Got a back-up generator in there while you're at it? How about a buffet?”
Daniel gave him a confused look. “Standard emergency kit. Food, blankets, water. First-aid kit and clothes if we need them. Didn't you attend the lectures on emergency preparedness? They have them every month, and attendance is mandatory”
“Well, yes,” Rodney said, tucking two of the Power Bars into his pocket. “But I only have one blanket and, um... I didn't think I was going to be here long enough for anything to happen....”
Daniel sighed. “And, suddenly, I no longer regret us taking my car.”
“Sorry 'bout that, Doc,” Sheppard said sleepily and half-muffled with his face buried in the back seat. “Didn't 'xpect they'd come after me like that.”
Daniel shook his head. “Don't worry about it. Believe it or not, the SGC actually provides coverage for brutal acts of conspiracy and cover-up. Did you know that coverage now includes F-302s and puddle jumpers... well, puddle jumpers in the Milky Way. Pegasus is considered too far out of their zone.”
Rodney raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I did not know that.”
“It's stated in the policy that comes with the waiver you have to sign.”
“I never really read those things, just skimmed them.” Rodney scooted back, making room enough to shake out the blanket and get Sheppard to lie down. “So is this our plan? Wait them out here?”
“Wait until morning, actually,” Daniel replied, wrapping up in his own blanket. “By then they'll have given up. If not, traffic will be heavier, making us less conspicuous even with the damage.”
“How bad is the damage?” Rodney asked, curious.
“Dents, scrapes – I've had worse.”
Once again Rodney found himself tucking Sheppard in, topping it off by sliding his folded jacket beneath Sheppard's head for a pillow. The colonel had already drifted off to a pained sleep by then.
Rodney slid out of the back seat, shut the door, and returned to his own seat, tugging the lever that inclined the seat and hunkering into his own blanket when his feet kicked something small and hard.
The cell phone. Rodney snapped forward and grabbed it from the floor, flipping it back open and about to dial, only to have the words “no signal” glare up at him against blinding white.
“Crap,” he hissed. Squirming back under the blanket, Rodney wondered if the SGC's coverage included fixing vertebra misaligned by car-chases and being forced to sleep in a car while hiding out in the woods.
TBC...
On to Pt. 9
A/N: *cringes* Please don't hate me, but I won't be able to post any more until Monday. *ducks flying vegetables*
Two beams from two flashlights spasmed over loamy earth, mossy trunks, and a smattering of young ferns making an early break from beneath the soil. Everything smelled of dirt, plant, wood, and moisture, and the air was already cooling from tolerable to chilled.
“You're going to have to call a little louder than that, McKay,” Daniel said from about eleven feet ahead.
Rodney shrugged. “Yeah, well....” He wasn't in the mood to explain his current bout of what could be considered irrational thinking. He just wanted to find Sheppard, get him back in the house, and get him under the covers after chewing him up and spitting him out for taking off.
That is, if he had taken off and not something else.
“He couldn't have gone far,” Daniel said. “Good thing this dirt is moist.”
Sheppard had left distinct tracks that a five-year-old could follow. Although Rodney didn't hold it past Daniel to have picked up a few tracking skills from Teal'c and a host of other intergalactic hunters. Not that Rodney really cared. His mind liked to wander to the pointlessly mundane when he was panicking, like a pathetic attempt at clinging to sanity. Or maybe it was a sign he was losing his sanity.
“Sheppard!” Rodney hissed, logic still be damned for once because he really didn't want to draw in the attention of the dog guy. Thinking about the dog guy, Rodney was hit with a sudden realization. “Not to sound paranoid or anything, but I'm finding it rather ironic that some random guy drops by and attempts to hassle me into helping him find his dog the same time Sheppard disappears. Coincidence or just bad timing?”
Daniel glanced over his shoulder. “Can't really say until we find Sheppard.” When he looked ahead, he slowed, paused, then burst into a run kicking through the young ferns and budding shrubs, calling, “Sheppard!”
Rodney's heart slammed, and he took off after Jackson. They crested a low incline that topped before a steeper incline on the other side. There, Rodney's heart dropped into his stomach.
Sheppard was half-propped against a tree, one arm trembling as it fought to keep him upright and the other wrapped around his middle. His breathing was rough, labored, and his body slumped near-boneless.
And lying sprawled on the other side of Sheppard was a body.
Every single nerve-ending in Rodney's own body seemed to pop like fireworks forcing every hair to stand on end. He shuddered, gaped, and when he finally found his voice, shrilled a piercing, “Sheppard, what the hell did you do!”
Daniel, after crouching by Sheppard to ensure he was alive, moved over to the body, making room for Rodney to drop next Sheppard. Rodney could feel cold, dirty moisture soak into his pants and didn't care. He grabbed Sheppard by the shoulders of the sweater and jerked him forward so hard the man's teeth clacked audibly.
“What did you do!” he snarled again. “Why'd you take off? What the hell were you thinking! What the hell is wrong with you!”
Sheppard slipped his arm between them and pushed against Rodney's chest, his strength so depleted he couldn't break Rodney's hold, let alone put any extra space between them. But his eyes were steely when they met Rodney's, his resolve dangerous in its intensity.
“I was saving your ass, McKay. I know that guy. I've seen him before.” His eyes closed briefly in a tight squeeze of pain. After a moment, they opened, the steel made even harder by the discomfort he was obviously fighting against. “He would've led the others to us. You would've gotten in trouble.”
Rodney stared, wide-eyed and speechless. He'd been right. All this time, he'd been right about Sheppard and still had allowed himself to see the man's weakened state and moments of lucidity as possible sanity. Sheppard wasn't sane. He was far from being sane.
For once, Rodney hated it that he'd been right.
Pointing a rigid, shaking finger at the body, he spat with unbridled venom, “He's not the damn enemy, Sheppard! He was probably one idiot helping another idiot find a stupid dog, and you... you... you did something to him! Damn it, Sheppard, everything was fine, just fine. It was going to be fine, and you had to go and... and... why? They're not going to let this slide. They'll lock you up again – in prison, for freakin' murder!”
“He's still alive,” Daniel announced.
Rodney shoved Sheppard against the tree. “That doesn't change anything.” Then rocked back on his heels, rubbing his face with both hands. “Damn it, Sheppard... this is what I was afraid of. Why the hell did you have to come to me, huh? Why did you have to trust me? You screwed all of us; we are so friggin' screwed.”
When Rodney lowered his hands to glare at Sheppard, it was to Sheppard glaring right back with a lot more potency.
“You're right, McKay,” he spat. “We are screwed.”
“Uh, Rodney?”
It took a lot of effort and willpower to turn his head enough to see Daniel, still next to the bod- unconscious man, holding up the man's wallet illuminated by the flashlight. Rodney squinted and scooted closer for a better look.
Rodney's jaw dropped. The guy was an orderly, so said the I.D. in his wallet, an I.D. for the very hospital that Sheppard had escaped.
“No way,” Rodney breathed. He whipped his head around, back to Sheppard, but Sheppard had his face turned away as though unable to even stomach looking at McKay.
Not that Rodney could blame him, not now.
“And it gets even better,” Daniel said, pulling Rodney's attention back to him. His jaw practically hit the ground at what Daniel was holding up.
A gun, M9. Daniel held it by the corner of the grip as though it were diseased, though more likely to avoid the addition of his finger prints. He met McKay's shock with a grim expression of his own.
“I'd have to agree,” Daniel said. “I don't think that guy was looking for a dog.”
It took a moment of stammering and remembering how to speak before McKay was able to ask, “W-what do we do? I mean... what....” He snapped his fingers then pointed at Daniel. “The SGC, we need to call them, get them down here. No! We need to get the hell out of here before more come. They're going to start wondering what's up when their guy doesn't return. They'll see it as a hostile act, take Sheppard by force... if that wasn't their plan all along. Why else bring a gun, right?” Rodney moistened his suddenly dry lips with the tip of his tongue and forced his lungs to take slower, less gulping breaths. “We, uh... we... what should we do?”
He looked at Daniel when he said this since, so far, the man had offered most of the more reasonable and successful answers.
Daniel's answer was a helpless shrug and lips so tightly pursed they were white. “I – I have no idea.”
Rodney gaped then scowled. “Not helpful!”
“I'm thinking in possibilities here, McKay. These people came here armed, and Sheppard just knocked out one of their own. It's been my experience that secret organizations can get pretty mean when they're found out. Mean and desperate and... incredibly virulent.”
Rodney grimaced in agreement. “You don't have to tell me.”
“If we stay, they have us cornered. If we go, they may try to chase us down. Depending on how desperate they are to grab Sheppard, of course.”
Sheppard. Rodney scuttled around and over the ground back to the colonel now hunched and shivering in the sweater. One arm was still hugging his mid-section, the other employed in rubbing the side of his head. By the pain lines around his squinting eyes, the headache must have kicked it up a couple of notches.
Rodney removed his own jacket and placed it around John's shoulders. “We need a solid game plan, sometime before Sheppard drops dead from hypothermia.”
The lack of a caustic response from Sheppard ratcheted McKay's worry even further.
“Definitely call the SGC,” Daniel said, coming around to the other side with the gun still in his hand, his flashlight pinned between his neck and shoulder and his cell phone in the other, dialing. “And my personal opinion would be that we'd be better off on the move.”
The reverberating snap of a branch deeper in the woods caused both men to freeze.
“Move first then call?” Rodney suggested, his heart hammering in his throat.
Daniel, wide-eyed, nodded. “Good idea.”
Rodney took one side of Sheppard by the upper arm, Daniel the other after pocketing the gun and phone, and together they hauled him to his uncooperative feet. Yet despite the pain Sheppard was in, he still managed to eventually get his feet under him and make the going easier.
“What if my place is being watched?” Rodney panted. Sheppard may have been making things easier, but the forest debris wasn't.
“It is,” Daniel said. “Obviously. But the way I figure it – being in a neighborhood and all – they're going to be as inconspicuous as possible about it, even in the dark. There shouldn't be a whole bunch of them, at least not yet I don't think.”
“I only saw one guy,” Sheppard croaked. “Looking in through the window. S-scout. I think they're just... scouting -” He whimpered when Rodney's knuckles knocked against his side.
“Did he put up a fight before you knocked him out?” Rodney asked. John nodded, too busy wincing against the pain to respond verbally. Rodney gritted his teeth. If Sheppard's ribs hadn't been cracked before, they probably were now – hopefully nothing more than that – and Rodney had no time to check.
They hadn't gone far from the house – only five minutes out, give or take – and slowed on approach. Daniel, releasing Sheppard for Rodney to take most of his weight, removed the gun and slid around to the other side of the house. It was short seconds later when he returned, waving them on. Sheppard and Rodney hobbled to Daniel's car, Daniel opening the door. Once settled in the back, Rodney hopped into the passenger side and Daniel the driver's side, passing the phone to McKay.
“Call.”
McKay dialed. Daniel backed out of the drive, the tires making a small squeal of protest when he peeled off down the street.
“Not too fast unless you want to deal with the cops, too,” McKay said, dialing.
“Better them than someone else,” Daniel said.
McKay focused entirely on the task of dialing, which the SGC didn't make easy. Besides the connecting number, an I.D. code needed to be input, along with a second number that would make the line secure. It was a pain in the ass, but a lesser pain compared to the long winded answering machine droning on about the SGC being a pharmaceutical research facility and that they would get back to you as soon as they could. And that was only if you dialed the wrong I.D. He wasn't sure what you got when you didn't input the security code.
“McKay?” Sheppard croaked from behind.
“Little busy, Sheppard.”
“Oh, crap,” Daniel breathed. That got Rodney looking up and around at a pair of headlights barreling their way so fast that Daniel didn't have time to act.
The car struck, crunching glass and metal, snapping their heads back, the impact fumbling the phone from Rodney's hand onto the floor. The car backed off just enough to swerve to the side and come up beside them.
“Hang on!” Daniel cried.
“To what!” Rodney shouted and was pitched forward hard when Daniel slammed on the breaks just as the enemy car veered sharply toward them. The maneuver put them behind the car only for a few minutes when the car peeled into the opposing lane empty of any traffic and mimicked the move, putting it back behind Daniel's car. It sped forward, more metal crunched, and Rodney's head whipped so far back it was a miracle his neck didn't snap.
“What the hell is wrong with these people!”
Daniel swerved, narrowly avoiding another hit. “Rodney, the phone!”
Rodney bent forward, his fingers dancing over the mat and carpeting of the floor. “I can't find it!” Another, lesser hit thumped Rodney's head against the glove compartment. “Son of a bitch!”
“Slow down,” he heard Sheppard rasp in a pain-tight voice. “Just enough... for me to jump out -”
Rodney, snapping upright, twisted his head as far as his aching neck would allow and sneered. “Like hell!”
“They're not going to kill me, McKay,” Sheppard said. Even with the blinding headlights behind them, all McKay could see of Sheppard was a huddled lump and a few spikes of hair. “But they might kill you. You two'll be safe. You can find me again later. Or... I can just escape again.” Even through the pain, McKay could hear the tired smile in Sheppard's voice.
Rodney shook his head fiercely, wincing more than once for it. “No. Hell no. Double hell no and end of discussion!”
“Rodney -”
“No!”
“It may be the only way.”
The enemy car rammed again, the additional pain increasing Rodney's ire into full blown fury. “May being the friggin' operative word, Sheppard! Stop being so damn fatalistic and put a little effort into your own damn self-preservation for once.”
“I'm not being fatalistic, and I am self-preserving!” Sheppard snarled back. “But there are times when I need to survive and times when everyone else needs to survive. You outrank me in importance, McKay, whether you like it or not. Both of you. These people don't want me dead, but I can't say the same for you, and like hell I'm going to take that chance!”
“Well, too bad, because I am.”
“McKay -!”
“No! End of discussion!”
“Hang on!” Daniel shouted louder than the both of them. When the enemy car sped forward for another hit, Daniel swerved, paralleling them. He gave the wheel one massive, hard twist, plowing into the side of the enemy and shoving them toward the wall of trees and shrubs lining the road. Branches clipped the enemy car, and when Daniel released it to speed up and put distance between them, the enemy fishtailed, jolting and bouncing as it attempted to right itself.
It bought them maybe a minute, enough time to get ahead, maybe turn off at the nearest exit. But Rodney knew this road, knew there were no exits for another fifteen miles.
There were, however, old dirt roads leading off into the woods. The only reason Rodney had ever noticed any was when a truck loaded with hunting gear pulled off onto one. Rodney remembered thinking how trucks, camouflage, and rifles would be such a Ronon thing had he been born on Earth.
And Rodney knew where that very road was. They were coming up on it, now, just on the other side of the deer crossing sign. Rodney tapped Daniel's arms. “Shut off the lights, and when I tell you, turn.”
Daniel complied right when they came to the exact place to turn. At least Rodney hoped it was the exact spot when he shouted, “Turn!”
The car made a sharp L that rocked them back and forth, the timing so precise dirt replaced asphalt preventing the tires from squealing. Daniel went as far as he dared without the headlights on, stopped, shut everything down, and they waited.
Rodney could hear the enemy car approach, its engine snarling. He hunkered down into the seat as if it would actually make a difference, watching the rearview mirror as the pale glow of headlights brightened the black asphalt to a pallid white. Then the car whipped past, dropping them back into darkness. Only when the fading hum of the engines vanished all together did Daniel restart the car - even turning on the lights – and took them deeper into the woods. They didn't stop until after they followed a bend in the road, hiding them behind a nice, solid wall of trees, shrubs, and wild grasses.
Rodney didn't hesitate, hopping out of the front seat and around to the back seat, his flashlight already out of his pocket and in his hand.
“Finally,” he huffed. “All right, Sheppard, how much damage this time?”
Sheppard looked like hell, almost white, hunkered low in the corner against the door and facing Rodney though his eyes were squeezed shut. His breathing was heavy, and sweat glittered on his brow. He opened his eyes at Rodney's question only to snap them back shut with a pained groan.
“I would have preferred something more specific,” Rodney muttered. He decided to start with Sheppard's side, first. He nudged Sheppard's arm aside then lifted the sweater, shining his light on even darker bruises taking up the majority of Sheppard's flank.
“Here,” Daniel said, twisted halfway around in his seat and reaching for the flashlight. “Let me hold that.”
Rodney let him. It freed up his hands to finger Sheppard's ribs that didn't tell him much except for how much pain Sheppard was in when he cried out and recoiled violently, bumping his head against the window. Rodney snatched his hand away in horror. He had barely touched Sheppard, he'd thought, yet Sheppard was still shaking and panting similar to when salt water had pissed off the iratus bug around his neck.
“Sorry,” Rodney said in a small voice. He carefully lowered Sheppard's shirt, but Sheppard still flinched when the cloth brushed his injured side. This was bad, very bad.
Next Rodney checked Sheppard's head, finding no bumps or bleeds that would explain the excruciating headache. When Rodney looked at Daniel for suggestions, Daniel mouthed “withdrawal.”
“Could also be whiplash,” Rodney said out loud, irritated. It lacked conviction since Sheppard's head had been hurting before their own little Cannonball Run. Speaking of which.... “Where did you learn to drive like that?” he asked, feeling the back of Sheppard's neck. “You could have killed us.” His last Earth chiropractor had taught him out to spot misalignment then told him not to come back in unless he knew for a fact something was wrong with his vertebra. Sheppard's vertebra felt just fine, though the neck muscles were stiff with tension. When his fingers brushed the pulse-point, he could feel Sheppard's rapid heartbeat.
“I think, under the circumstances, it was a necessary evil,” Daniel deadpanned, a touch testy.
“Don't take it personal, Doc,” said John. “It's just McKay's personal brand of thank you.” He then coughed, moaned, and huddled tighter around his injured side.
Rodney continued his search for head injuries in case he missed anything smaller, sneering at having to pick through Sheppard's hair like a monkey looking for lice. “I stand by what I said. And you, Lt. Colonel 'Sacrifice-me-for-the-greater-good.' Has the numerous fender-benders we suffered tonight scrambled your brains so badly as to honestly believe we'd dump you out of a moving vehicle to save our own asses? Or was my original assessment correct and you are insane?”
A bony shoulder bounced. “Doesn't hurt to try.”
“Uh, yes it does, Colonel. Do you know how much it sucks to be placed in that kind of a position? Do you know....” Rodney snapped his jaw shut when fury rose like magma having reached its exploding point. Do you know how much it sucks to have logic thrown in your face like that? To actually consider such a stupid, idiotic plan and realize “son of a bitch, he has a point?” Do you!
Instead, what eventually came out was, “It had flaws, anyway.”
John sighed heavily, his body deflating, as though the last of his energy were leaving it. “Do tell.”
“You don't know what their plans are. They may be desperate to get you back just to kill you and dispose of the evidence. So desperate that even if we had been stupid enough to let you take a nose dive out of the car, they would have continued coming after us to ensure a complete lack of witnesses. Therefore, your plan wouldn't have made a damn lick of difference – except that one or all of us would be dead. And don't say better you than me! Or... or me than you... or whatever.”
Sheppard's mouth shut with an audible click.
“Oh, and by the way,” Rodney continued, still picking through Sheppard's hair only at half attention, “that, um, stuff I said – when we found you and the unconscious guy... I didn't mean it.”
“Yes, you did,” John said, blinking drunkenly.
Rodney's shoulders stiffened, the tension crawling up his neck to make his head throb, and he glared. “No, I didn't. I was – I was freaking out. You know I don't think rationally when I'm freaking out.”
Sheppard smiled. “Actually, it's been my experience that that's when you're usually at your most miraculous.” His smile fell. “You meant it, Rodney. It's not like I've been giving you any reason to think differently. You said you saw video of me flipping out, so....” Hazel eyes rolled up to meet Rodney's. “It's cool, McKay. Trust me.”
“Still,” Rodney muttered. “I thought I knew you better than I do.”
“People change.”
“Not you.”
“Even me. And will you please stop messing with my hair?”
Rodney hadn't even realized he was still doing it. Pulling his hands away, he sat back, shaking his head. “Not you. Yes, we all change, but some things stay the same. You've always been good at the whole self-control thing. Always been good at not giving in, not backing down, stuff like that. So when I saw those videos, and visiting you at the hospital.... I'm not going to sugarcoat it: I took it all as a shattered illusion of you. I thought... no, I started to think... I was starting to think that, maybe, it really was possible that... that... you know.”
John grinned tightly. “That I'd lost it? Fell off the deep end? Flew over the cuckoo's nest? Was off my rocker--”
“Broken?” Rodney said, and the taste of the word lingered on his tongue like something poisonously bitter, making him cringe and hate himself for having said it. John Sheppard did not break, and to make amends for even suggesting it, he added, “Before I started thinking too much, I thought it was some device or drug screwing up your brain.” He shrugged and chuckled weakly. “Guess I was right the first time.”
A skinny, shaking hand flopped on Rodney's shoulder and squeezed. “It's cool, Rodney. I'm human. I try pretty damn hard to keep it together, but that doesn't mean I'm any less likely to break than the next guy.” A hard shudder rippled through Sheppard's slender body even as he laughed. “Got pretty damn close this time, though. Right?”
Rodney didn't have a response for that, once again at a loss for words, which made it how many times in two days? The moment had declined into one of those that Rodney had no idea how to handle: what to do and what to say to make everything all better or, at the least, less suffocating. Sheppard had practically admitted to just how bad things were with him, not just physically but mentally. Hell, he'd been admitting it the moment he'd showed up on McKay's doorstep: through expression, action... words... humiliation be damned, but humiliation there had been.
What the hell had those stupid, vicious bastards done to him?
It was Rodney's turn to reach out and clasp Sheppard lightly on the shoulder, just in case there were bruises there (there had been so many, he couldn't be sure the exact locations of them), and be just as reassuring in return.
“You're going to be all right, John,” he said with as much conviction as he could muster and was a little surprised by how easy it came out. He thought for sure it would have sounded forced, but then, he supposed, it was nothing but the truth. Sheppard would be all right; Rodney would make sure of it.
Pressing his lips, eyes squinting with the pain of his headache, Sheppard managed a small nod.
A muffled thump made both men jump, and Rodney's head snap back and forth, double-taking between Daniel coming back around from the trunk to the driver's side and the flashlight that had been wedged into the front seat's headrest.
“What the hell? When did you leave!”
“I just went to the trunk,” Daniel said. He slid back into the seat, passing back two folded blankets with two water bottles, a couple of packages of peanut-butter crackers, and five Power Bars sitting on top. “To get these.”
Rodney took them, gaping. “Got a back-up generator in there while you're at it? How about a buffet?”
Daniel gave him a confused look. “Standard emergency kit. Food, blankets, water. First-aid kit and clothes if we need them. Didn't you attend the lectures on emergency preparedness? They have them every month, and attendance is mandatory”
“Well, yes,” Rodney said, tucking two of the Power Bars into his pocket. “But I only have one blanket and, um... I didn't think I was going to be here long enough for anything to happen....”
Daniel sighed. “And, suddenly, I no longer regret us taking my car.”
“Sorry 'bout that, Doc,” Sheppard said sleepily and half-muffled with his face buried in the back seat. “Didn't 'xpect they'd come after me like that.”
Daniel shook his head. “Don't worry about it. Believe it or not, the SGC actually provides coverage for brutal acts of conspiracy and cover-up. Did you know that coverage now includes F-302s and puddle jumpers... well, puddle jumpers in the Milky Way. Pegasus is considered too far out of their zone.”
Rodney raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I did not know that.”
“It's stated in the policy that comes with the waiver you have to sign.”
“I never really read those things, just skimmed them.” Rodney scooted back, making room enough to shake out the blanket and get Sheppard to lie down. “So is this our plan? Wait them out here?”
“Wait until morning, actually,” Daniel replied, wrapping up in his own blanket. “By then they'll have given up. If not, traffic will be heavier, making us less conspicuous even with the damage.”
“How bad is the damage?” Rodney asked, curious.
“Dents, scrapes – I've had worse.”
Once again Rodney found himself tucking Sheppard in, topping it off by sliding his folded jacket beneath Sheppard's head for a pillow. The colonel had already drifted off to a pained sleep by then.
Rodney slid out of the back seat, shut the door, and returned to his own seat, tugging the lever that inclined the seat and hunkering into his own blanket when his feet kicked something small and hard.
The cell phone. Rodney snapped forward and grabbed it from the floor, flipping it back open and about to dial, only to have the words “no signal” glare up at him against blinding white.
“Crap,” he hissed. Squirming back under the blanket, Rodney wondered if the SGC's coverage included fixing vertebra misaligned by car-chases and being forced to sleep in a car while hiding out in the woods.
TBC...
On to Pt. 9
A/N: *cringes* Please don't hate me, but I won't be able to post any more until Monday. *ducks flying vegetables*
