The Ice Queen by lavvyan (Fairy Tale Challenge)

[lavvyan]

Title: The Ice Queen
Author: lavvyan
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: John/Rodney
Word Count: ~ 9,200
Warnings: Canon character death (i.e. neither John nor Rodney in any permanent way)
Summary: The Ice Queen might be beautiful but her kisses were deadly, they said. Freezing soul and body alike, stealing warmth and breath and life; she might be beautiful, but she was evil.
Notes: This is an AU that vaguely uses Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen and The Ice Maiden for inspiration. One bit of dialogue was inspired by Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I actually started writing this story a few days before Christmas, so I guess it isn't really flashfic. But the challenge fit and it got me to finish the damn thing, so hey, no harm done, right?
Huge thanks go to my beta-readers villainny, winkingstar and neevebrody, who were all a great help (and whose advice I ignored here and there, so if you find anything off? That's probably where I should have listened).

ETA:


Cover by berlinghoff79 (click if you'd like to go to her post and tell her how awesome she is ♥)

~~~

The Ice Queen

This was how the stories went: the Ice Queen was irresistibly beautiful, with skin as pale as ice and snow-white hair that brushed the floor behind her feet and eyes that were as wide and dark as a frozen lake. She was as tall as a man and slender, and to see her was to kneel before her, such was the force of her beauty.

Many had gone to find her, but none had ever returned. For it was said that the Ice Queen gave her kisses freely and with a smile, but that every woman, every man would only feel the touch of her lips upon theirs a single time in their life.

The Ice Queen might be beautiful but her kisses were deadly, they said. Freezing soul and body alike, stealing warmth and breath and life; she might be beautiful, but she was evil. Those frozen ones, fallen victim to her kiss, she put up as statues to decorate her icy fortress. Surrounding herself with death.

An entire palace of death, set in eternal snow, that was where she lived. Where humans died. And yet men and women alike kept seeking her, for even a terrible beauty holds a powerful appeal.

This was how the stories went. "Do not go near her," mothers told their children. "Don't be an idiot," men told their drunken friends. "Best stay away," those telling the stories usually ended, receiving nods and uneasy smiles and possibly a warm drink.

As with any warning, some people did not heed those well-meant words. Some people, much like the proverbial cats, found that curiosity was sometimes too hard to resist.

And some people, sometimes, found themselves where they did not want to be…

~~~

John crept slowly along the wall. It curved blue and glittering behind his back, rising up to meet a ceiling so high that he couldn't even see it. The only light came from oddly patterned columns here and there, their bluish glow barely enough to illuminate the icy halls. It was cold, a dry coldness that bit at his nose and cheeks and made his eyes water as he tried to find his way through the gloom. His breath hung in the freezing air like a cloud. If he were standing completely still, he thought that maybe he would be able to hear the cloud's tiny ice crystals clink together. John shivered and pulled his insulated leather jacket tighter around himself as he quickly crossed a narrow hallway and continued on his chosen path.

He hadn't imagined the palace to be so cold, or so vast. He'd been trying to get his bearings for hours now, but between the gently curving halls and the lack of any windows John had gotten lost almost as soon as he'd sneaked into the castle. A feat that had been easier than he'd expected, but then the Ice Queen wasn't known for keeping people out. It wasn't until deep within the palace that he'd run across the first guards, only noticing them at the very last moment and barely managing to hide behind the ice-covered statue of a young man; at least he hoped it was a statue. The guards had marched right by him, looking eerily alike with their sickly blue skin, their narrow faces and their long white hair. They were clothed all in thin leather coats, and John wondered how they didn't freeze.

Then again, John wondered about a lot of things, like how the hell Mitch, Dex and Holland had thought it was a good idea to try and catch a look at the Ice Queen. They must have been stupid drunk at the time. He wondered if they'd still have gone had he been with them, if he'd have been able to keep them back, keep them safe. He wondered if he was too late and they had already gone and collected their smile and their kiss and their death.

If they hadn't, he was so going to kick their asses. He was getting too old for this shit.

After the war, they all were at loose ends. John had been thinking of retiring, maybe go back home to see if he was still any good at the whole horse-breeding business. He wasn't good enough with money matters to open his own business, he'd always been too suspicious of magic to learn it - despite his mother insisting he had inherited her talent and would be a natural at illumination spells - and he didn't know what to make of the steam technology that was starting to spread into every aspect of life; but horses, those he knew. Horses, and fighting, and he was pissed at the guys for forcing him to pick up his sword again. He'd rather deal with his uptight brother than shed yet more blood.

John reached the intersection of corridors he'd been creeping up to, gripping the hilt of his sword tightly as he peered around the corner. The hallway crossing this one was a little broader, a little more brightly lit. It was also a little more occupied, and he grimaced as he counted the guards patrolling up and down the hallway: five, with the possibility of more turning up at any moment, and he'd have to sprint across the intersection and into the deepening gloom ahead while their backs were turned. Or he could go back and try another way, but he'd lost too much time already and every minute he spent sneaking through the Ice Queen's castle was one less for his friends.

Cautiously, John peered around the corner again, quickly checking both directions. To his right, two of the guards had stopped to chat with each other, their voices a low hiss. To his left, one more guard had disappeared into another corridor. Of the remaining two, one had his back to him; the other was turned mostly away.

This was probably as good as it would get.

John took a short breath and prepared to make a run for it - and all but yelped when something grabbed his arm and dragged him behind yet another statue, this one of a woman frozen in mid-motion. Falling back on his training, John twisted in his attacker's grip and slammed them against the smooth, cold wall, forearm pressed against their throat and sword flat against their gut, ready to cut through clothes and flesh alike.

His attacker turned out to be a man somewhere in his mid-thirties, thin-haired and stocky, staring at John with wide eyes as he struggled to take a breath, one hand still clutching John's arm. His other hand was raised in the universal gesture of surrender. John relaxed his forearm enough to let the man breathe but kept the sword right where it was.

There was something strange about the guy. John couldn't quite put his finger on it, but something was definitely off.

"Who are you?" he demanded in a low voice, careful not to let the guards hear him. This man was the first living person he'd encountered in hours, since entering this place; the first human, in any case, but John wasn't about to trust him blindly. Either the man was here for the same reason as John, which meant he was possibly just as lost, or he was looking for the Ice Queen to collect his one kiss, which meant that he was an idiot.

Or maybe he was one of her creatures, who knew?

"Rodney," the man replied in an equally quiet whisper, which naturally didn't tell John anything but that the man wasn't all that eager to draw the guards' attention, either. "Rodney McKay."

"And what are you doing here, Rodney McKay?" The sword was pressed a bit more firmly against McKay's belly, a lifetime's habit of emphasis, and McKay flinched.

"That's, uh, that's not important. What's important is that I can get you through the city without anyone seeing you. The palace, I mean. You're, uh, not here for the Queen, are you? You don't look like you're here for the Queen."

"No," John said shortly.

"Yes, well, I didn't think so. You, uh, you don't look like you are." The man swallowed, talking even faster. "Look, I know all the hidden passages. An entire group of travellers arrived the other day, five or six people. The Queen didn't... she hasn't taken all of them, yet. I can get you to the cells unseen."

John's grip around the hilt of his sword grew so tight his knuckles hurt. If McKay knew his way around, that meant he'd spent some time here, and that probably meant that he was the Queen's servant, leading John straight into a trap. Except why would the Queen set up traps in her own castle when allegedly no one had ever tried to escape… but then, why did she have cells?

"Why should I trust you?" John asked finally, torn between taking a chance and ditching McKay right there.

"You don't have much of a choice." McKay raised his chin in a gesture of haughty defiance; a gesture that was completely ruined by his nervous twitching. "Or are you actually trying to tell me you have the slightest idea where you're going? Because it's clear that you don't."

John kept the sword where it was for another long moment. Then he slowly pulled it away, sliding it back into the sheath at his belt.

McKay sagged a little, carefully rubbing his throat as he nodded. "Right. So. Are you going to tell me your name, or do you want me to guess?"

John contemplated not answering him, but McKay was right: John had no idea where he was going. There were guards everywhere. If he wanted to get his friends out of the castle, he needed McKay. Besides, his name wasn't going to tell the man anything.

"John Sheppard."

"Well then, John Sheppard," McKay tapped lightly against the wall, and John blinked open-mouthed as a door slid noiselessly open behind him. "Follow me."

~~~

McKay led him through a maze of hidden passages, empty quarters and deserted corridors where dust lay on the ice like a fine sheet of snow. Strange machines stood in dark laboratories, their mechanisms frozen and partially hidden under a thick casing of ice. Other rooms were clearly devoted to alchemistic research, some even covered in what were clearly symbols of magic. It seemed like the Ice Queen had once had different interests than just kissing people to death and putting them up for interior design; or maybe someone had lived here before. But whatever experiments had once gone on here, they had been abandoned a long time ago. John kind of wished he'd learned those illumination spells after all. He was itching to have a better look at some of those machines they passed, but in the gloom of the palace he was lucky if he could make out more than the shape of things.

John couldn't have found his way back to the entrance after five minutes of McKay rapidly turning corners and opening doors. He kept his eyes uneasily on McKay's back, alert for any sign of betrayal, but none came. McKay even stopped in what looked like an abandoned bedroom to dig around in a closet, finally handing John a blue-grey, downy vest much like the one he himself was wearing. John pulled it over his jacket and did feel a little warmer after he'd buttoned it up, but his cheeks and fingers were still burning with coldness, and his throat had started to ache. Hell, his damn teeth felt brittle. John decided to strike up a conversation to distract himself.

"Why did you call it a city?"

"Hmm?" McKay asked distractedly, pressing yet another panel that looked exactly like the ones around it, only to have part of the wall reveal itself as a door.

"The palace. You called it a city earlier."

"Because that's what it was."

McKay didn't seem inclined to elaborate, his lips set in a thin line, one corner of his mouth pulled down. John sighed, his breath escaping in a drawn-out cloud. He motioned for McKay to lead the way, and after seemingly assessing John for a moment, McKay turned around and walked through the newly-opened door.

"Who are you looking for anyway?" he asked with badly faked casualness. "Friend? Lover? Relative?"

"Friends," John answered briskly. This time he was the one refusing to elaborate. "You do know your way around pretty well," he remarked when McKay led them down another of what seemed like an endless series of secret corridors, not even bothering to hide his suspicion.

"I've been living here for quite a while," was McKay's short reply.

"Really," John drawled. "So you're what, the Queen's servant?"

McKay snorted. It wasn't a happy sound. "Not really, no."

"McKay-"

But McKay had stopped in the middle of the corridor, one hand raised to signal the need for silence. John closed his mouth and slowly reached for the sword at his belt, pulling it out of its sheath with only a whisper of a sound. Footsteps were nearing their position from up ahead, the sound of boots on ice, and McKay turned around, wide-eyed and panicked.

"Get back," he whispered harshly, "we have to-" except it was a little too late for that.

"Human!" The guard had appeared at the end of the corridor, its voice an almost toneless hiss. "What are you doing here?" Then it spotted John and snarled, "Stealing the Queen's toys!"

The guard charged, and McKay threw up his arms with an alarmed shout, trying to hide behind his own hands. John shoved him against the wall, and the guard's hand closed around air instead of McKay's throat. It hissed in annoyance and made a grab at John. John's sword sliced through its palm and it howled in pain, but it caught itself almost immediately, the cut on its palm closing as if it had never been there. John started, then he cried out as it hit his wrist with a hard jab, the sword falling from numb fingers and skidding across the floor. Damn, but the thing was strong. He looked up barely in time to see the guard spin around for a kick that would have probably broken his ribs, but McKay was there, slamming bodily into the creature and distracting it from John.

"You have to break his neck!" he shouted, letting out a pained huff as the guard shoved him out of its way and against the wall. "Your sword won't hurt him; breaking his neck is the only way to kill him!"

"Silence!" it hissed, backhanding him across the face and sending him sprawling to the floor. John took a breath and let out a war cry that tore at the back of his throat as he jumped on the creature's back, grabbing its head with both hands. The guard batted at him but he gritted his teeth and jerked. There was a loud snap and the guard went limp beneath him, slumping to the ground as John slid off its back.

He was breathing heavily, massaging his wrist to get the feeling back into his fingers. Nothing was broken, thankfully, but he could already see the massive bruise forming underneath the skin. He walked the few steps to pick up his sword and slip it back into its sheath, then reached down to pull McKay to his feet. McKay was panting almost as hard as John, stumbling a little before he caught his footing, his eyes still wide as he stared at the dead guard.

And John finally figured out what was wrong with him.

McKay let out a squawk when John grabbed him and pushed him against the wall, the sound abruptly cut off by John's forearm pressing hard against his throat.

"You're one of them."

McKay's only answer was a strangled croak, and John grimly pressed down harder, cut off his air entirely. He should have known better than to trust the guy just because he looked human; should have suspected at least something from the way McKay had moved through the castle like he owned it. He was breathing, yes, but there was no puff of white in the air, no warmth radiating from the body John had pressed against the wall. McKay wasn't any more human than the dead guard at their feet.

"Where are my friends?" John demanded harshly, shoving against McKay for emphasis. The man's face was beginning to turn red, and he was blinking helplessly, clutching uselessly at John's clothes. "How do I get there?"

He kept his forearm in place for a moment longer, just to show McKay he was serious, then he relaxed the pressure enough for McKay to take a breath. The man immediately started coughing and wheezing as he tried to protest.

"I was helping you! You didn't have to-" John cut him off again, grimly enjoying the way McKay's eyes widened with real fear, fingers tightening in John's jacket as he choked.

"I don't care who you are, or what you're doing here," he said quietly, his voice calm. McKay went still. "Whatever your plan was, it didn't work, so don't mess with me."

McKay nodded frantically. John let him breathe.

"Now. You're going to tell me where I can find my friends, and then you're going to sit down and be very quiet. And maybe, if you're good, I won't kill you."

McKay gave him a detailed, slightly breathless description of the way from the corridor to the cells, words tumbling over each other as he hurried to follow John's order. John nodded and made him repeat it twice more, and then he tied McKay up with strips of his vest and told him in no uncertain terms that if McKay raised any kind of alarm, John would find and kill him before the guards took him down. McKay nodded miserably, trying once again to convince John that he wasn't one of the Queen's minions, but John didn't listen to his bullshit. He just walked away.

Making his way down dark hallways and fumbling for hidden switches to open secret doors, John told himself that he'd let McKay live because the guy was too nervous to be a danger, not because he was so utterly tired of killing things. It would take a few hours at least to get out of those bindings - or until another guard found him, but the corridors still looked pretty deserted so John thought the chance was slim - and by the time McKay could run to his Queen and rat John out, John would be long gone.

Besides, he had gotten John this far and helped him against the guard, and he deserved a little gratitude for that. Which was why John hadn't killed him; simple gratitude, and not at all the panic in those wide blue eyes.

Another door slid open, and John stepped through without looking back.

~~~

McKay had actually pointed him in the right direction. The cells lay deep within the castle, the way there almost brightly lit, with light columns every few yards. John had to cross that corridor a few times, carefully evading the guards and trying not to look too hard at the statues that stood everywhere the closer he got to his goal.

He nearly walked by the figures of Mitch and Dex, would have if he hadn't caught Dex's familiar profile from the corner of his eye. He stopped, and turned, and then he clenched his fists so hard he thought the skin across his knuckles might split and bleed. His breath came in sharp gasps as he stared at them, gritting his teeth and blinking against the sharp sting of cold in the corners of his eyes. His friends were frozen with expressions of surprise on their faces, their bodies nearly translucent, and he barely recognised them.

Maybe they hadn't been the greatest guys in the history of the world, but they had been his friends. Mitch, with his bad jokes and endless hunting stories, always a mug of beer in his hand. And Dex, leering at everything female and laughingly calling John queer for not seeing the appeal. They had taken him at face value, commenting on everything he did but accepting it nevertheless, making one stupid joke after another but beating up everyone who'd dare call John names. They had been loud and brash and now they were frozen, dead, and he didn't even have the time to mourn. All he could do was get Holland out of there and then maybe see if a castle made of ice could be fucking burnt to the ground.

The cells were deathly quiet as John walked on, the sound of his boots on the floor unnaturally loud in the stillness. The halls were filled with… figures. It was easier to call them that than 'bodies'. John walked past the empty metal cages, gritting his teeth so hard he thought they might break. Walked past the statues of ice, forever frozen mid-kiss, and looked for a sign of life within the silence. And yet, when he found it, he was halfway past the cell before he registered the faint wheeze for what it was, before he stopped and peered deeper into the gloom. And saw, right there in the corner, the slow white huff of breath.

His heart leapt into his throat as John fumbled for the small set of lock picks in his pocket and started on the cell door, his hands shaking so hard he almost dropped the lock picks twice. He was into the cell as soon as the door swung open, kneeling next to the shivering man on the floor and gently turning him around.

Holland.

"Hey, buddy," John breathed, briefly closing his eyes against the overwhelming relief. Holland's face was white as snow and his body far too cold, but he was alive. He was alive, and John would make sure he stayed that way. "What say we get out of here?"

Holland blinked slowly, like he wasn't entirely comprehending what was going on. There were ice crystals in his lashes.

"Sheppard?" His hand came up to grope clumsily for John's arm, fingers latching tightly onto the fabric of John's vest. "Sheppard?"

"Yeah." John patted the other man's shoulder, then grabbed his too-thin jacket. "Come on, let's get you up."

Getting Holland to his feet wasn't easy. Holland tried to help, but his movements were stiff and slow, and he ended up leaning heavily on John, his arm slung across John's shoulders. John half-dragged, half-carried him out of the cell, encouraging him with a muttered, "Doing good there, buddy, come on, just a bit further," even though he had no idea how far they had to go.

As it turned out, not far at all.

"You want to leave already when I have not even bid you welcome?"

The voice was female, smooth as ice and about as cold, and John flinched and spun around, stumbling when Holland lurched against him. For one brief moment, he considered simply dropping the other man and going for his sword, but there were six guards around them, blue-skinned and long-haired and sneering, two of them grabbing his arms before he could even let go of Holland's waist. And then the decision was moot anyway, because two more of the creatures took hold of Holland and pulled him away from John, not even reacting to John's curses as he struggled against the hands that held him back.

"Fuck! Let go, you-"

But the guards were stronger than him and he couldn't get free. Holland hung between his captors as if all strength had left him, moaning softly as they yanked him around to face the Queen. Long fingernails dug into John's arms, causing him to bite his lip as the guards manhandled him as well, turned him around. And then he saw her, and held his breath.

She wore a white dress, thin straps across her shoulders, her skin as pale as the fabric. Blue shadows played in her long white hair, which reached almost to the small of her back. Her features were even and stunningly beautiful, and her eyes… her eyes were huge and dark and captivating. She really was the most beautiful woman John had ever seen, but it was a cold beauty. There was no compassion in her features, no warmth in her eyes. Her lips twisted into the mockery of a smile, cruel enough to jar John out of his fascination.

He started struggling again, landing a good kick against the left creature's knee that made it buckle, but the other held him firm and fast. John felt like an idiot for thinking they could get away when he should have known that McKay would find a way to alert his Queen the instant John had turned his back on him. He should have killed him, and he had known better, hadn't he? He'd been stupid to let McKay live, and he wanted to tell the man so, except McKay was nowhere to be seen.

That cowardly little-

"What, so he could run to you and blow the whistle, but now he's too much of a chicken to show up?" John spat, twisting in the guards' grip in the hope of finding a weakness.

The Queen tilted her head, regarding John with a detached sort of interest. "What do you mean?"

"Like you don't know."

She just kept looking at him with those huge dark eyes, as if waiting for him to explain, and John realised with a start that she really had no idea what he was talking about. Or whom.

Whatever had led her here, it hadn't been McKay. But if John didn't come up with an explanation right fucking now, he might have killed the guy as surely as his sword through his gut because the Queen didn't seem stupid. She might figure it out.

God, what a mess he'd made.

"I…" he cleared his throat, "the guard. I thought there was a guard who saw me."

"If that is so, he shall be punished. Nobody told Us of your presence. We do not like surprises." The Queen stepped closer, running her icy fingers down his cheek before pressing down on his shoulder, her touch so cold it burned, even through his thick clothes. "But for you, We shall make an exception."

John twisted away, trying to make her stop touching him. His knees buckled and jarred as they hit the ground. And apparently that was what the Queen had wanted all along, him on his knees, because she took a few steps back and turned to Holland. Holland, who was still hanging between his guards like his legs were too weak to carry him. His breath was barely visible.

"This is your friend?"

John licked his lips. "Look. He's far too weak to be any fun. Why don't you just take me and let him go?"

The Ice Queen smiled at him as if he were a child who had successfully recited a difficult poem. "And why settle for one when We can have two?"

She reached for Holland, long fingers reaching for his chin and tilting his head up. Holland's eyes were glazed and his expression pained as his gaze half-focussed on John.

"'m sorry, Sheppard," he mumbled, and John shook his head.

"Don't be." His voice was scratchy as he replied, his throat tight.

Holland smiled weakly and closed his eyes as the Queen bent down to kiss him. John wanted to look away, but he didn't. He couldn't.

The moment the Queen's lips touched Holland's John saw him tense, his body stiff and unmoving in the guards' grasp. Holland's lips turned pale blue, then his cheeks, his forehead, his neck. His hair turned white, crackling with ice. His clothes frosted over until even his boots looked frozen. He looked like a half-slumped statue, carved from the side of a glacier, and then the Ice Queen stepped back, took her hand off Holland's face, and his body shimmered into translucence. Everything - his hair; his clothes; his curled fingers - and John was clenching his teeth so hard it hurt, his eyes burning and his fingernails digging into his palm.

Holland was dead. John had failed.

The Queen turned to John, pale and beautiful, and he stared at her with his lips pressed together, still kneeling on the ground. She looked down at him, wearing a smile that seemed oddly detached, and waved a hand at the guards who were still holding Holland's frozen body.

The guards let go.

"No!" The shout escaped John as he fought to jump to his feet, but his own guards slammed him back to his knees. It was too late anyway; Holland's frozen form was already toppling over, gaining momentum as one of the creatures pushed against his arm. The ice cracked as it hit the ground, splintered, shattered, hundreds of pieces skittering across the floor between the other statues. John swallowed hard as something that looked like a finger bounced off his knee, his quick, shallow breaths hanging in the air like one huge white cloud as he struggled not to throw up.

Then the Queen gestured to the guards and they hauled him to his feet, holding him as he twisted and fought.

"Hold still," she said, reaching for him, "hold still and be quiet."

John opened his mouth to say something, anything, but the Queen was already there: her hands cupping his face, gentle and so awfully, painfully cold, her lips inches from his own, taking away his words and his breath and his warmth.

And then she kissed him.

John jerked, tried to scream as the terrible coldness burned its way from his mouth down his throat, into his lungs, into everything. He tried to move, tried to pull away, but he couldn't; and the coldness ate its way all the way down to his toes, his fingertips, taking everything he was and turning it to ice. The last thing he felt was the Queen's fingers, brushing over his frozen cheek.

Then all he knew was ice, and quiet, and nothing.

~~~

Someone was kissing him. He thought. Someone… a kiss, yes. There were lips on his own and a hand in his hair. It crackled with ice. His hair. Breath in his mouth, not his own, not warm at all, but it thawed him, made him ache. Made him open his mouth wider. Another breath was blown into him, and another, and the thaw spread from his lungs to his limbs. His fingers twitched and he let out a moan as the ice melted away, leaving shivering coldness and pain, so much pain. His legs gave out and he fell, was caught, was lowered gently to the ground. Someone was holding him close, kissing him, blowing breath after breath after breath to break the Ice Queen's deadly spell. Deadly. Dead. He was… he should have been… and it had been so cold and he couldn't move, and John shuddered and blinked his eyes open.

A man was looking down at him, still cradling John on his lap. A man, pale and wide-eyed and looking unhappy, one corner of his mouth turned down. John blinked and reached to pull it up again, but the man caught his hand and held it.

"We have to get you out of here," he whispered, his words so fast they almost tumbled over each other, little white clouds colliding in the air. "I don't know how long… we have to get you out of here."

"M'Kay," John managed through chattering teeth, remembering those wide blue eyes. He frowned. "McKay?"

"Yes, yes, it's me, will you get with the program? You have to… get… up…" The last was huffed through gritted teeth as McKay hauled John to his feet, grabbing him and keeping him upright as John started to sway.

"Didn't rat me out," John muttered, clutching at McKay's shoulder when the other man slung John's arm around his neck. For some reason it seemed important he say that.

"No, I didn't." McKay started toward the door and John staggered along, dragging his feet and twisting his neck as he peered at the frozen people around them.

"Mitch and Dex, you have to, McKay-" he begged, willing him to stop, to understand, but McKay just made a low, bitter sound in the back of his throat.

"I'm sorry, but it really doesn't work that way."

"But-" John stumbled, would have fallen if not for McKay keeping him upright. He looked around again, trying to find his friends so he could drag McKay to them, by force if he had to. His feet tangled and he stumbled again, barely swallowing a moan of frustration.

"Sheppard."

Transparent and frozen, everyone looked the same. But their clothes would be different; Mitch and Dex who had never truly said goodbye to the military, and if John only tried hard enough, looked hard enough, he could-

"Sheppard."

John lurched to a halt. He took a shaky breath and looked down, blinking against the cold sting in his eyes. McKay's fingers were digging into the arm he had slung across his shoulders.

"I can't help them, but I can help you, so please. Please. Let me help you."

John swallowed, staring at the smooth floor. There were little bits of ice strewn across it, glittering between the frozen feet of at least three dozen statues. Holland, he thought, bile rising in his throat. He swallowed again, and nodded. His limbs were so heavy all of a sudden, and his head felt like it had been filled with fresh snow. He sagged, and McKay hauled him up again.

"G'nna come back and kill 'er," John promised to the ice on the floor and the others still standing as McKay started to drag him toward the door again.

"Yes, you do that," McKay grunted, looking left and right before hauling John across the corridor to one of his hidden passages. "I suggest some kind of long-range weapon. A catapult, perhaps."

"G'nna make 'er kata-put," John emphasised, starting and then grinning as McKay let out a sharp laugh.

"Yes. You do that." His voice sounded weirdly affectionate, and John mulled over that as he let himself be pulled along. McKay was weird. All John had done was push him against the wall, twice, and choke him. Yet McKay seemed to like him, somehow, a little, and that was just… it was weird. John very deliberately didn't think about the kissing.

"Why're you helping me?" he wanted to know, lurching as McKay's shrug pulled him off-balance.

"Because you're pretty," McKay snapped, then he huffed and seemed to think the question over. "Because… because I'm less than a servant, and that's not… I never wanted to be… this." The answer was slow, hesitant, and John didn't understand it at all. He didn't think McKay wanted him to ask, though, so he kept quiet.

The way out of the castle blurred into a series of corridors and corners. John's thoughts were sluggish, icy molasses in a frozen brain, but he did his best to keep up, to coerce his feet into walking. It didn't work very well, and more than once he was afraid they both would fall, but they didn't. Then they were outside, stumbling through snowdrifts and wind so harsh its noise was even louder than John's gasping breaths.

"S-so… cold!"

"I know."

John nodded jerkily, stumbling again and feeling himself dragged onward. McKay was mostly carrying him by now, but that was all right. John was barely shivering anymore, but McKay knew it was cold: he was shivering himself, just a little. That seemed to be the most important thing in the world, that McKay knew it was cold.

The snowdrifts were getting steeper now, and John let his head drop to his chest. It seemed far too much effort to hold it upright and McKay was the one who knew where they were going anyway. Dimly, John thought he should maybe take an interest in where the other man was dragging him, but that seemed too much effort as well, so he didn't. He frowned at his feet when they tangled again, then blinked when the snow seemed to… just end, right in front of him, like a line drawn with a spring bow. On the other side of the line it looked like summer, brownish-green grass and short red flowers growing on either side of a faded path.

"Whuh?" John managed, but his only reply was McKay straightening and disentangling himself from John with brusque movements, pushing him away and over the snow's edge. He tumbled, fell, the warmth hitting his skin like a burning blanket and he whimpered, his fingers digging into the short grass as he curled in on himself on the dry ground, trying to get away from the heat, trying to get more. The dust was clinging to him, and it was only then that John realised his clothes were soggy with rapidly thawing snow.

"They can't reach you there." Rodney's voice sounded strangely subdued, but that might have been the rushing in John's ears. He had a hard time following the words when Rodney went on, "I'm not sure where you came from, but there's a village down that path. They'll take you in, but you have to walk there, so get up."

Shivering violently, John tried to stand up, but the tremors were wracking his body too hard and he shook his head.

"Can't," he panted, expecting a large hand to haul him to his feet again, but the anticipated touch didn't come. Trying to suppress the shudders, John looked up.

McKay was still standing on the other side of the line, alone between the snowdrifts, his arms crossed over his chest. His hair was plastered to his skull, snowflakes were clinging to his eyelashes, and with his pale skin and blue eyes he looked eerily like the ghost of someone who had frozen to death. He looked cold.

"I can't help you any further," he said, his expression unhappy. "You have to make it on your own now."

John took a breath, then another. Sheer stubbornness let him pull himself to his knees, but then another shudder made him almost double over. He thumped a fist to the ground and gritted his teeth against the pain, using it as a distraction to force himself to kneel upright at least.

"Come with me," he said, surprised to find that he was asking for McKay's sake more than for his own. "The Queen will kill you when she finds out what you did."

McKay pulled a face, shifting on his feet as he agreed, "Probably."

"So come on, McKay," John urged him, tried to order him, not caring that his teeth were chattering and he was swaying on his knees. "Just… come with me."

McKay stared at him blankly for a moment, then he shook his head and smiled, oddly wistful. "I can't. But it was nice to… to have some company, for a while."

"McKay-"

"I… I can't. I'm sorry." McKay started to turn around, then bit his lip and hesitated. "I..." But whatever he meant to say, he decided against it, once more shaking his head and smiling that strange, lost smile. "Farewell, John."

John blinked up at him, wanting to say something without knowing what, or why, but there weren't any words to lodge in the back of his throat. Instead he watched, mute and shivering, as McKay walked back toward the castle, his shoulders hunched against the cold and his breath a cloudy white, which was… weird, somehow, but John couldn't put his finger on why it would be. McKay's solid figure looked small against the vast expanse of snow and ice, like he might disappear if John so much as blinked.

John was left staring after him, feeling strangely hollow. Then he clenched his fists and struggled to his feet, head spinning, biting his lip so hard he tasted blood until he stopped swaying, and started stumbling down the narrow path.

After McKay had risked so much just to get a stranger out of that castle, John would be damned if he died in safety.

~~~

The village was small and several hours from the snow's edge, though that didn't mean much. John had staggered more than walked there, finding himself further down the path more than a few times with no recollection how he'd gotten there, and by the time the first red clay roofs had blurred into view he'd just about fallen down. He was tired, so tired, still cold although at least the shivering had stopped, and when the villagers - upon hearing where he'd been - offered him hot food and a bed he was so grateful he nearly cried.

He slept for almost a day.

Waking up was a slow drifting into awareness, not the snapping-awake-ready-to-go he was used to. He blinked at the low wooden ceiling above him, patches of light from the late afternoon sun streaking the walls beneath, then he turned his head when he caught a movement from the corner of his eye. A young woman was sitting next to his bed, petite and slender with reddish-brown hair, scowling down at what seemed to be a patchwork blanket in the making. She flinched and pulled her left index finger to her mouth, aborting the motion when she noticed John staring at her. There was a tiny drop of blood on her finger.

"You must have been very exhausted to sleep this long," she said, smiling kindly at him. "I am Teyla Emmagan, daughter of Tagan. Would you like some water?"

"Yeah," John croaked, licking his dry lips as he struggled to sit upright, almost fumbling the cup she handed him. "Thanks."

The water was cool and soothing down his throat, and he emptied the entire cup. Teyla set it down on a small table next to his bed when he handed it back to her, fidgeting like she wanted to say something and didn't quite know how.

"John Sheppard," John said finally, belatedly realising he should probably introduce himself. "Uh. My name."

"I know." Teyla smiled again. "You told us so when you arrived here. Do you not remember?"

"'Here'?" John asked, looking around again as if there might be a sign on the wall telling him where he was.

"You are in the village of Athos," Teyla explained, "three hours from Atlantis."

"Um. Atlantis?"

She said the word so casually, like it should hold a deeper meaning for John, but he'd never heard of 'Atlantis' before except in old legends, where it had been an island that had sunk into the sea. They were a far way from the ocean.

Teyla sighed, thankfully not looking at him like she thought he was an idiot. "The Ice Queen's castle was once a city, beautiful and full of life. Its people were friends of ours, even though they were highly advanced in both magic and technology and we prefer a simpler way of life." She paused, her face sad as she remembered. "The city was beautiful, its spires stretching toward the sun like they wanted to greet it. There were the most colourful windows, and pillars of light and water. I often played there when I was a child." She smiled.

John tried to imagine the creepy palace he remembered as a place of light and colour, and couldn't. "What happened?"

Teyla's smile disappeared. "The Ice Queen was jealous of Atlantis's beauty. She wanted it for herself. One night she came and brought her wraiths, to kill everyone she did not make into a statue. The Atlanteans had not anticipated an attack such as this; they were helpless against it. Only one of them survived."

"Rodney McKay." It wasn't a question.

"So you did see him." Teyla's expression brightened, but only for a moment. She hesitated before she asked, "Was he well?"

John remembered the broken smile, the haunted expression on McKay's face. "I wouldn't say so, no."

Teyla sighed again and nodded. "He is still feeling guilty, I fear, for not finding a remedy against the Ice Queen's curse in time to save his people."

"But he's still alive," John pointed out, not quite willing to outright call McKay a traitor. He didn't see any other way for the man to have survived when everyone else had been killed, but he'd been wrong about the man before and still felt vaguely ashamed about it.

Still, Teyla seemed to hear what he wasn't saying and frowned at him. "Rodney is a very smart man, but even he cannot work miracles. He found a way to make himself resistant to the Ice Queen's kiss and the coldness that surrounds her, but it was too late to share. Worse, whatever magic he cast now binds him to Atlantis, rendering him unable to leave the snow. The Queen knows this and keeps him as a pet for her amusement."

I'm less than a servant, McKay had said, and John couldn't even begin to imagine living like that. Knowing that you hadn't been able to save anyone, that your own survival didn't mean a thing. That everyone you loved was dead because you hadn't been good enough.

Then again, maybe John could imagine that just fine. He swallowed, feeling nauseous. "How do you know all this?"

"I often wait for Rodney at the snow's edge, and sometimes he comes out to talk. I have known him since we both were little." Teyla looked deeply unhappy. "I worry for him. What if the Ice Queen gets bored with him one day? Even if he does not feel the cold, he still bleeds."

"I think that might not be a problem," John said, his nausea deepening. He remembered McKay's hunched shoulders, the white clouds of his breath when he'd walked back to the castle. John wasn't sure, but he thought McKay's breath had been visible from the moment he had brought John back to life, and he wanted to break something, preferably McKay's nose for being such an idiot. Whatever magic was still binding him to that place; it wasn't keeping him safe anymore. That part had been spent when he'd saved a stranger's life. John's life. And that was a gift he simply couldn't accept.

"I'm going back," he said, his fingers clutching the sheets as he avoided Teyla's wide-eyed stare.

No one was going to die in that accursed castle anymore. Not ever, and definitely not for him.

~~~

The Athosians hadn't wanted to let him go alone, but John had argued that one man would be harder to detect than ten, and they'd eventually agreed. Teyla had wanted to come, too, and he'd had a much harder time convincing her to stay behind, finally telling her that her repeated presence at the snow's edge might have caused the Queen to take an interest in her, and that her detection might well mean Rodney's death this time. She had relented, and John had felt vaguely guilty. His words had been true, but they weren't the reason he didn't want company. He just felt like he had to finish this as alone as he'd started it. Still the Athosians made him wait another two days to get his strength back before they let him leave, and during those two days he was antsy and short-tempered.

The guy he was trying to save might not have that much time.

Getting into the palace a second time was easy, even more so now that John knew about the hidden passages and how to find them, even if he'd never be able to retrace the route Rodney had taken when he'd first led John through the maze of rooms and hallways. Finding Rodney, however, turned out not to be easy at all. The palace - the city, Atlantis, John reminded himself - was vast, long hallways and towers with so many floors that John lost count. It was impossible to tell which parts simply weren't patrolled the moment he hurried through them and which were genuinely empty, and by the time he'd reached one end McKay might have moved to a different one altogether, all without knowing John was even there.

John had tried all the places that had seemed likely for McKay to be. He'd been to the crossroads where they'd first met, then to the corridor in which he'd killed the Wraith. He'd tried the cells, his fists clenching as he moved past Mitch and Dex, as he carefully stepped around the pieces of ice strewn on the floor. Finally, because he didn't know where else to go, he licked his lips and squared his shoulders and let his hand fall from the hilt of his sword, and walked toward the most brightly lit hallway he could find.

He told himself that this was gratitude, that his presence had nothing at all to do with McKay's wistful expression when he spoke of companionship. That his desire to save McKay had nothing to do with John's own loneliness. Only gratitude, except he'd never been very good at lying, not even to himself.

John stepped into the hallway, and the guards turned their heads to look at him. They made no move to grab him, though, so John strolled up to the one closest to him and asked, "Where's the Queen?" like he had every right to be there.

The thing hissed at him, exposing sharp, rotting teeth, but it jerked its chin toward one end of the hallway.

"Thanks." John walked into the direction it had indicated, heart pounding as he walked past the guards. This was stupid; this was monumentally stupid, but it was the only plan he could come up with that might help him find Rodney.

Now he only had to figure out what to do when he'd found him.

The hallway led to a set of stairs, which led up and to another hallway, which led to a longer stairwell, which led to a short corridor that ended before a pair of heavy metal doors. John was slightly out of breath after climbing so many steps, leaning against the wall until his heart had slowed down and the cold air didn't feel like razorblades stroking down his lungs anymore, ignoring the single guard by the door who was watching him with obvious contempt. Then he straightened, and walked into the Ice Queen's throne room.

The room was huge, the floor and walls covered in ice like the rest of the castle, but here the ice was thin, allowing the muted red of the floor to shine through. One wall - behind something that looked like a circle embedded into the ground, though it was hard to tell with all the icicles obstructing it - seemed to be made almost entirely of stained glass. There were stairs leading up to a second level of interconnected balconies, and at the top of those stairs, the Queen's throne, a dark, knobbly construct that looked completely out of place. But it wasn't the throne that drew John's eyes.

Rodney was standing at the bottom of the stairs, his figure so pale it was almost translucent. Almost; not quite. His hands were hanging lax at his sides; his eyes were closed, his lips slightly parted. He looked almost peaceful.

He didn't move at all.

"You are back, then." The Queen's voice was amused as she walked down the stairs, her white dress sweeping over the steps. Only three guards, watching her, watching John, but making no move toward him. And why would they? After all, he had come on his own.

John forced his hand to stay away from his sword. "Yeah." He licked his lips. "I couldn't forget…"

He broke off, unsure how to end that sentence, but the Ice Queen seemed to take it as a compliment to her beauty. She smiled, stepping even closer to him, cold prickling on the skin of his face.

"We will put you in the main hall," she promised, trailing her fingers down his cheek without quite touching him. So close to him, the coldness radiating from her body was almost enough to freeze him. John's fingers twitched, but she either didn't notice, or didn't care. "Forever beautiful, for all to see."

"I…" John licked his lips again, the spit freezing instantly. His thoughts were already slowing down, like freezing molasses. A hand at the nape of his neck, fingers carding through his hair, and he shivered, his gaze flinching away from her white face to fall on McKay, almost as colourless, almost as beautiful.

McKay. Rodney.

"I think I'll pass," John forced himself to say, jerking a step back as the Ice Queen gaped at him in surprised anger. The hilt of his sword was cold, but his hand closed around it in a firm grip and he yanked the weapon out of its sheath.

The Ice Queen's blood was red. Somehow, he hadn't expected that.

She gasped, once, and he pressed the sword deeper into her body. Her eyes were wide and dark and fixed on him, even as she started to fall. Somewhere to his left a guard was screeching and John pulled the sword free and whirled around, ready to take it on. But the guard just screeched again, a pitiful, wailing sound, arms stretched out toward its queen. Then it crumbled, fell apart, until it was nothing more than a soft pile of fresh snow.

The Ice Queen was dead.

John stared dumbly down at her body, at the sword still in his hand, dripping blood. He let go of the hilt and it fell, striking the floor with a sharp clang. A deep breath, and another, and then he was stumbling over to Rodney.

Rodney who was still frozen, and John had hoped that the Queen's death would mean the end of her curse, but that seemed to be too much to ask. He didn't let himself think about it too much before he took Rodney's cold face between his hands, praying to every god he'd ever heard of as he pressed his mouth against the parted lips and breathed out, breathed into Rodney. Nothing happened, so he did it again, and again, except of course Rodney's spell of protection had never worked on John like it had on Rodney, so there was no reason to expect it to…

Rodney's cheeks felt a little warmer. John closed his eyes, shaking a little, his lips still pressed firmly to Rodney's - and weren't they a little softer? - as he kept breathing, kept hoping, as he absolutely didn't make a broken sound of relief when Rodney took a first, hitching breath of his own.

He didn't know how, or why; or if perhaps the last combined traces of whatever magic remained in his and Rodney's bodies were just enough to work one final time. He only knew that he was breathing into Rodney, that Rodney was breathing into him, and that what they were doing could only really be called kissing; and that he didn't mind. He didn't mind at all.

Around them, the ice started to melt.

~~~

End.