Flashfic Picture Challenge: Woman at the Window
Title: Woman at the Window
Author: Coolbreeze1
Spoilers: Set toward the end of season 4, so spoilers to that point
Words: ~9,500
Summary: John wakes up alone in a desert with no memory of how he got there.
Huge thanks to everybetty for the beta! All remaining mistakes are my own. Written for the Flashfic picture challenge - I didn't think I'd actually come up with a story for my picture, but here it is!
Woman at the Window
John woke up to a hot wind whipping up sand and pelting the grains against his face. Bright sunlight pierced his eyelids and caused a spike of pain through his head. He moaned, rolling over and bringing an arm up over his eyes. The brief darkness in the crook of his elbow was enough to chase consciousness away, and he sank back into quiet oblivion.
ooooooooooooooooo
He woke up again to hands grabbing him, pushing him onto his back. He groaned then flinched when a hand swatted the side of his face. He flailed his arms but they were grabbed instantly and pinned back to the ground.
“He is alive,” a voice called out, rough and hard.
“Who is it?”
“No one I have seen before.”
“A stranger? How did he come to be here?”
“We should leave him be.”
“He will be dead by morning if we do not help. He looks as though he has baked in this sun all the day.”
“We do not know what evil or darkness he carries with him.”
“Nonsense. He is sick or hurt, I cannot tell. Bring the cart-we will carry him to Healer Maetan.”
The unfamiliar voices swirled around him, grating against his ears. John cracked open his eyes, expecting bright sunlight. The sky was ablaze, streaked with orange and red and yellow, but not the eye-piercing intensity he had expected. A tanned, weathered face appeared above him.
“He is awake.”
John watched the mouth move, the skin brown and cracked from long days in the sun. A gust of hot wind kicked up the sand all around them and John closed his eyes. Hands began digging under his back, and the voices broke out in renewed conversation. A moment later their grips tightened painfully and he whimpered at the pain boiling through his body.
“Gently, gently,” one of the voices said.
He was set down on a hard surface and then a hand moved over his face, peeling back his eyelids. He turned his head with a cry, but the rest of his body betrayed him, lying limp on the wood platform of the cart, surrounded by people he did not know.
“He is too far gone,” a raspy voice proclaimed, the same one who’d wanted to leave him where he was in the first place.
“Perhaps, perhaps not. It is not for us to say. Healer Maetan will know what to do.”
John pictured the old, weathered face speaking and felt a hand rest lightly against his chest.
“He breathes still, and that is enough for now. I will take him to the healer-the rest of you back to work.”
There was a murmur of responses, though John could not understand any of them. The cart began to roll, its wheels crunching against the sand. His body jerked and jumped as the cart began to move faster, rattling against the platform like bacon in a hot frying pan. He gasped at the pain that erupted and spread like flames through his entire body.
He opened his eyes again to see the sky turn to molten lava, and then the cart hit a rock, bouncing his head against the platform with a crack.
ooooooooooooooooo
“Swallow,” a man commanded.
John blinked open heavy lids just as a hand slipped behind his head and tilted it upright. He had just enough time to see a small room come into focus before a glass of water was pressed against his mouth.
Water.
He was dying of thirst, maybe literally dying. He gulped the cool liquid down as fast as it was poured into his mouth, feeling half of it dribble out the corners of his mouth and run down his face. The glass was pulled away too soon, and he tried to sit up to follow it.
His strength gave out all at once, and his head flopped back into the man’s hand.
“Easy, son. You do not want to drink too much too quickly.”
Carson? It sounded like him, and yet didn’t. John opened his mouth to speak, turning his head toward the man, when his breath caught in his throat. Whatever water he’d been given was gone, and his throat felt drier than sand. He choked, then coughed, feeling his chest jerk painfully as it tried to pull in a breath.
The man returned, bending over him with another glass of water. Not Carson-Carson was gone. It was the same color of eyes, though, but the man was older, with gray hair and a pock-marked face. He lifted John’s head again to give him water, slowly this time, and the cough gradually eased.
John lay back in the bed, exhausted. The room was small but clean, with white walls and dark wood beams across the ceiling. Nowhere he recognized. He glanced toward a small square window and saw blue, almost transparent drapes fluttering in a light breeze.
His head was pounding, an all-encompassing vice behind his ears and eyes, an ice pick digging into his temples and threatening to burst out through the crown of his head. He lifted an arm up off the bed, but the muscles shook with weakness and he dropped it after just a few seconds of effort.
What the hell was going on? What had happened to him?
The man with the water was moving around him, pulling up a stiff wooden chair. John turned to look at him, intent on asking one of a thousand questions that suddenly poured into his mind, but the man shook his head.
“Do not try to speak yet. You have teetered on the precipice between life and death for many days, and your body is still weak. You must not push it.”
John shook his head. He wanted answers, now. He wanted-
“Peace, child,” the old man interrupted before John could even attempt to talk. “We all have questions in need of answers, but they can wait. I am Maetan, the healer of this village. You were brought to me three days ago and I am happy that I can finally say fate has decided to preserve you a little while yet.”
John blinked at the healer, only understanding half of what he was saying. The accent was flat and rough, but the words danced and lilted to a rhythm of their own. Like Carson, but not. John was beyond exhausted, and his vision began to dim. His last sight was of Maetan, smiling, only half his teeth still in his mouth, and then he gave up the battle and drifted back to sleep.
ooooooooooooooooo
Maetan was waiting for him when he woke up again, a glass of water in hand. John drank greedily, more thirsty than he ever remembered being. The old man obliged, holding his head up and tilting the glass just enough that John did not choke. After two full glasses, John collapsed back on the bed, his stomach swishing and his throat only partially sated.
“Wh-” he started, then swallowed, working some moisture into mouth. “Where am I?”
His voice was hoarse and raspy, and his throat burned from the effort of talking. The old healer leaned back in his chair, gazing at John with enough intensity that John finally squirmed and looked away.
“Rata,” the healer said and John looked over at him.
“Rata? Where-what planet?”
“What planet?” Maetan repeated, a look of genuine confusion crinkling his brow.
“How did I get here?” John asked instead, changing tact.
Maetan rubbed his chin. “Ah, I see. I can answer part of that question, but it will not be the information you seek. You were brought to my home,” he waved a hand in the air to indicate the room, “by Kalel-he cares for the mograve herds out in the western fields. His men loaded you up on a cart and brought you to me.”
John waited. He vaguely recalled the men in the desert picking him up, arguing over whether or not to let him die. When did Maetan say that had been? At least three days ago, maybe more now.
“How you came to be in Kalel’s field in the first place, I do not know,” Maetan continued. “I suspect that is what actually occupies your mind.”
“My team?” John rasped, his mind reeling. He had no memory of this place, or of how he’d gotten here. “What about a stargate? A ring of the ancestors?”
“There are others out there?” Maetan asked, leaning forward. “Are you sure? Kalel knows every inch of that area and he has not brought anyone else into the village.”
“I was alone?”
“You were. And I do not know of this star-gate.”
John shook his head. No stargate? Then how… he let out a frustrated breath and felt his chest catch. He began to cough, setting off a concussive throbbing in his head, and he swallowed the little bit of moisture in his throat in an attempt to dampen the building irritation. Maetan poured another glass of water and lifted John’s head again.
This time, John managed to bring a hand up and steady the glass, and he swallowed as much of the water as he could between each choking hack. His face flushed from the exertion and tears leaked out of his eyes. After a long moment, the coughing eased, and John pulled in a tentative breath.
“Better?”
He nodded at Maetan and watched the man wring out a wet rag. When he pressed it against John’s face, John almost moaned in relief, but he bit his lip.
“Tell me of your team,” Maetan said. “Are you sure they were with you?”
“I don’t know,” John whispered. Lethargy swept in, sucking out his remaining energy.
“How many were there?”
“Three.”
“Men like yourself?” Maetan pressed.
John shook his head, feeling his eyes drift closed despite his best efforts. “No. Two men, one woman. Good team-they’ll find me. They’ll come.”
“They are skilled warriors then?”
He felt himself nod and might have said more, but the urge to sleep was overwhelming and he gave into it despite Maetan’s continued questioning.
ooooooooooooooooo
He came awake abruptly and realized three things. One, it was night, the only light in the room that of the moon hanging in the single window. The moonlight filtered through the thin drapes, casting bizarre shadows across the walls and ceiling. Two, he was naked. Had he been naked before? Presumably, he’d lost his clothes sometime after arriving at the healer’s home, at least he hoped so. And three, he really should not have drank so much water earlier.
His head still ached, but not as badly as before. He rolled to his side, wincing as stiff muscles stretched and pulled. He could tell he’d been in bed for awhile-he could feel it. He pushed himself up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, then stopped with a moan. The entire room began to spin around him.
He ducked his head, closing his eyes and breathing deeply through his mouth. The only thing keeping him upright was the death grip he had on the edge of the mattress. He could feel his arms shaking, already tired.
A wind blew, ballooning the drapes out into the room. The air was hot and dry, despite the fact that it was the middle of the night. John slid his feet carefully to the floor, but didn’t dare attempt to stand up yet.
A minute passed before he opened his eyes. He would have to stand up eventually, or lay back down. He could feel weakness thrumming through his body, threatening to pull him down any minute. He inched closer to the edge of the bed, wondering if his legs would even support him.
A shadow passed in front of the window, and John glanced up, startled. In the darkness, it took a minute for his eyes to adjust, but then he picked out a darker outline against the black night. A shadow that hadn’t been there before.
“Who…” John started, then cut off when another gust of wind blew back the curtains.
A woman appeared, her head wrapped in a shawl. John could just make out dark, wavy hair. She was thin, but the features of her face were otherwise lost in the shadows. She raised a hand up to the window, and for a moment, the gesture and the hand reminded John so strongly of Elizabeth that his breath caught in his throat.
He started to stand, then remembered he wasn’t wearing anything and grabbed at the blanket, pulling it around his waist. He’d glanced away for no more than a second, but when he looked up again, she was gone.
“Elizabeth?” he called out. But it couldn’t be Elizabeth. Elizabeth had been taken by the replicators over a year ago.
He stood up, everything else forgotten. If she was here, somehow, wherever here was…
He made it two steps before his knees gave out and his legs folded underneath him. He crashed to the floor, a tangled heap of limbs. His head exploded in agony and a sharp spike of pain erupted in his leg. He lay gasping on the floor, feeling his stomach churn in sudden nausea.
Pounding footsteps reverberated through the floor and stopped near his head. He felt hands pulling and turning him over, and he whimpered at the rolling agony that shot through his battered body.
“What has happened?” Maetan called out, pressing a hand against John’s forehead.
John groaned as Maetan began to maneuver him back into the bed. He shot one last glance at the window, looking for the woman, but it was empty, and the sight made his chest twist in pain.
He was alone.
ooooooooooooooooo
Maetan was a gruff old man, but seemingly competent enough and gentle when he needed to be. John leaned his head back against the pillows, willing his body to hurry up and heal already. The healer had propped him up in the bed and left him alone for the time being, for which John was grateful. The man’s questions were endless, though he claimed it was the villagers demanding answers and not himself.
Who was he? How did he come to be here? What did he do? Where was he from? Why was he here? What was he planning to do?
John had shrugged through most of the questions, either because he really didn’t know the answer, such as how did he come to be here, or because he was feigning memory loss, specifically for the questions revolving around who he was and where he was from.
It was late evening now, on what he figured had to be the fifth or sixth day since he’d arrived. He was a little stronger-at least he was not sleeping twenty-four hours a day-but he had little energy for anything besides sitting and staring out the window.
He flashed on the woman who’d stared in at him. In the daylight, it seemed impossible that it could have been Elizabeth. It likely wasn’t anyone, just a dream or his mind looking for something in the shadows that had never been there in the first place.
He sighed and leaned over toward the nightstand. Maetan made sure there was always a glass of water there. John gulped it down, as thirsty as he had been since the first moment he’d woken up here. It had to be the heat. Wherever he was, it was clearly a desert but not even the nights cooled down.
He stared out the window, watching the blue sky begin to darken. The clouds turned a golden yellow, signaling the beginning of the sunset. The little he could see from the window was beautiful.
His entire body ached, but his head throbbed more than anything else. Had he hit his head on something? Was that why he couldn’t remember anything? He’d fingered his head a few times, searching for bruises or welts, but had found nothing so far.
He cast his mind back to the last thing he remembered before arriving here. He’d been home, on Atlantis. He had vague memories of gathering in the gate room with his team, of staring at the shimmering surface of an active wormhole. Had they stepped through? They must have, but to where?
Nothing came up after that. The stargate activated, his team had stepped forward toward the event horizon, and then… and then…
Then nothing. Then he woke up in the middle of a desert, alone. He sank deeper into the pile of pillows behind his back. At some point he’d have to get up and explore this village, and the surrounding area. Maetan seemed to have no knowledge of stargates, but John had arrived here somehow.
The sky was turning from bluish-yellow to yellowish-orange, and John settled in to watch the rest of the sunset-what he could see of it anyway. The constant wind blew through the window, showering the room with a spattering of sand, and John closed his eyes instinctively.
When he opened them again, he jerked upright in bed. The woman was back, staring in at him through the window. One hand held the shawl around her head closed at the neck while the other hand reached out toward him. The shawl cast just enough shadows over her face that he couldn’t quite see her, but her eyes caught a flash of light from the setting sun.
It wasn’t Elizabeth, but it did kind of look like her. John slid out of bed and staggered to the wall, grabbing onto it for support. He’d hardly stood up in the last week, let alone walked around. When he glanced up again, the woman had disappeared.
“No,” he breathed out. He pushed forward, swinging at the blowing drapes until he reached the window.
The woman was there, standing roughly fifteen feet back. She was wrapped in a flowing gown the same color as the drapes. She pushed her hair back with one hand, tucking it in behind her ear exactly the way Teyla did. She stared at John, her dark eyes flashing, then looked away, out toward the desert.
John followed her gaze. The healer’s home sat on the edge of the desert and John looked out across a rolling, sandy vista. Scattered brush dotted the landscape, and in the distance, rugged, rocky plateaus lined the horizon. She took a step away, then looked back at him.
“What?” John whispered, but he had the sudden urge to follow her. She took another step away from him, and looked back again, this time beckoning with her hand.
He stumbled out of the room, hardly aware of what he was doing and found himself standing out in the sun and sand. Wind whipped at his pants, and he realized belatedly that he was wearing neither socks nor a shirt.
The woman moved away from him, walking out into the desert and pausing every few feet to make sure John was still with her. John staggered forward, feeling his mouth go dry in the hot, arid wind. His muscles screamed at the movement, too tight and stiff to be wandering around in a desert.
The healer’s home disappeared behind him as they crested a hill and began to descend down the other side. The sky was on fire above him and he heard a distant lowing drifting on the wind.
“Hey,” he called out to the woman, though he didn’t actually expect a response and didn’t get one. That should have been strange, and he knew it, and yet it wasn’t. The woman continued to walk and he dragged his feet across the sand, trying to catch up.
They walked for a while. John had no idea how long, but the sky turned from red to purple, and the shadows cast by the small scrub brushes grew long and deep. He couldn’t see any sign of the village behind them. They began to climb another sandy hill, the woman moving with such ease and grace that she almost seemed to float to the top.
John’s heart pounded in his chest, and his lungs heaved as they struggled to pull in enough air. He could feel sweat dripping down the sides of his face, and his legs trembled with every step.
“Wait,” he called out, or tried to, but his voice caught in his throat and slid out in a huff of air and spit.
The woman paused at the top of the hill and turned back to look at him. John pushed himself up the rest of the hill and stopped beside her. He wanted to stare at her, to rip the shawl from her face, but he could hardly stand up straight. He dragged in as deep a breath as he could.
The woman lifted a hand, her robe and shawl fluttering in the air, and pointed toward the rocky plateau still miles away. John followed her finger and squinted out into the growing darkness. At first, he couldn’t see much of anything, then slowly a gray circular shape coalesced together.
The stargate.
John sucked in a startled breath. There was a stargate here. How could Maetan not know of it? Why had he not mentioned it to John earlier? The world began to tilt and spin, and the stargate-along with the rocky vista behind it-disappeared as black spots mottled his vision. He bent forward, his hands on his knees, and fought against the wave of dizziness.
Not now. He was so close. If he could just keep walking, he could dial the Alpha site and get back home… His knees hit the sand, jarring him all the way up to the crown of his head. He heard himself cry out, and the sound echoed across the barren, empty landscape.
The woman was gone. John felt his body tilting to the side but he could do nothing to stop himself from falling. He landed on his back, the air whooshing out of his lungs and his legs folded underneath him, and he let the darkness of the night sky envelop him.
ooooooooooooooooo
“It is not possible,” Maetan’s voice cried out. His voice sounded strangled, and John opened his eyes to see the healer standing at the foot of his bed with his hands on his hips. He couldn’t see his face, but his neck was red and his body shook with rage.
“Who else could it be?” another man responded. The voice was familiar, and it took a minute for John to remember it from the voices in the desert the first night he’d arrived. The raspy one, the one who’d been afraid of him despite the fact that he’d been only semi-conscious and dying.
“I tell you, he is too weak. How he managed to leave this room, I do not understand, but he collapsed only a few feet from the front door.”
“Maetan, please, calm down,” a woman’s voice said, sounding soothing and yet carrying a tone of authority.
John rolled his head on the pillow trying to see the people standing in the doorway, but Maetan’s body blocked his view. His stomach was flipping and twisting, and heat poured off his skin despite the fact that he was shaking. He knew he was hot, but he tried to pull the thin blanket up closer around his body.
“He is awake,” the raspy voice said.
“Donnin, he is sick. He is not responsible for this atrocity.”
Atrocity? John felt his heart begin to pound in his chest. What atrocity? What had happened? The gaps in his memory were unnerving, and he felt his body shudder in response. He remembered following the woman out into the desert, of seeing the stargate, and then…
Nothing. The next thing he recalled was this moment, lying here in this bed and overhearing an argument that made no sense.
“Are you accusing someone in the village of doing this, then?” the woman asked, her voice hard and cutting.
“No, of course I am not. No one in this village is capable of murder.”
John jerked, rolling to the side. Murder? What the hell was going on here? He tried to push himself up but his arms gave out almost instantly, and he dropped back to the bed.
“Then someone else has wandered in from the desert?” Donnin asked. “One of his fabled teammates?”
“There has been no one else, Donnin,” the woman said.
“Aelil did not strangle herself. The marks on her neck were those of hands and fingers, and her family demands justice,” Donnin spat back.
“We all know this. Let us not be distracted. Maetan, as representative of the village council, I am to inform you that the stranger is to be held before the village to account for his actions, to defend himself and submit to their decision of guilt or innocence.”
“Look at him,” Maetan raged, stepping aside. The man and woman in the doorway glanced briefly in John’s direction then turned back to focus on the healer. John tried to look up at them, but his stomach was churning wildly and he panted against the nausea. He wrapped his arms around his body and closed his eyes. Get it together, John. Pull yourself together.
“You admit he left your care for an undetermined amount of time?” the woman asked. John looked at her through half-lids, noting her hair and clothes were as severe-looking as her voice.
“For a short amount of time,” Maetan said. “He left this room, and I found him shortly afterward just outside the front door.”
“How long afterward?”
Maetan could not answer the woman’s question, so he said nothing. John watched the three of them stare each other down.
“I warned everyone that this stranger would bring nothing but evil and darkness. We should have left him to die in the desert,” Donnin hissed.
“Hush, Donnin. I will hear no more of that nonsense from you,” the woman commanded.
Someone was dead. A woman-Aelil. Was it the same woman he had followed into the desert? He couldn’t have possibly done anything to her. As soon as the thought crossed his mind, a thousand scenarios flitted through his brain, circumstances where he would kill the woman if it meant protecting himself or his friends or his home. But in his current condition…
“Maetan,” the woman was saying. “He must be taken to the holding cell.”
“Can’t you leave him here? You can post guards outside the room if need be, but let me care for him.” The anger was gone from the healer, replaced now with begging.
“I am sorry,” the woman said. “Donnin-”
“Wait, at least let me prepare him to be moved. Donnin, please, don’t-”
Whatever Maetan was going to say was interrupted by thudding footsteps across the room. John turned his head just in time to see a thin man, rough and unshaven standing over him, hatred etched into every line of his face. He grabbed John by the arms and ripped him from the bed.
John cried out, too weak to struggle. He lost the battle against the nausea and threw up all over Donnin’s shoes, to which the man screamed in outrage and probably would have kicked him had Maetan not intervened. John was vaguely aware of the healer lifting him up and carrying him outside, where a bubble of voices erupted, screaming in anger and grief. John turned his head away, closing his eyes and wishing he would wake up from this nightmare.
ooooooooooooooooo
The cell looked like a number of cells he’d seen on various planets-thick stone walls, a barred door, and bars over the small window high up near the ceiling. John lay on the single wooden bench under the window, staring up into the sky.
It was either sunrise or sunset, he wasn’t sure. The sky was almost white and streaked with lines of purple. The trip from the healer’s to the jail cell had passed in a haze of pain and heat, as had the next couple of days at least. The healer had been there occasionally, working to bring down John’s fever and clean him up again, but mostly John lay flaccidly, drifting in and out of consciousness.
He’d been aware enough to ask about the woman, Aelil. Her description matched that exactly of the woman he’d seen outside his window, but he still could not bring himself to believe he’d killed her or was in any way responsible for her death. He’d said as much to Maetan, but the old man had simply nodded, resigned to whatever trial process John was about to be subjected to.
And no one knew about the stargate, either. Had he dreamed it? Had he simply imagined walking across the desert and seeing it in the distance? Maetan insisted John had gone no farther than a few feet from the house, but that couldn’t be right. John remembered walking farther-and not the way one remembers a dream.
He was sure it had happened and that the stargate existed, and he ignored the small kernel of doubt trying to burrow its way into him. If the stargate existed, then his team could find him. McKay would figure out the gate address; Ronon and Teyla would break him out of the cell. Keller would fix him, cure whatever was ailing his body, and in a few days, this hot, dry desert of a planet would be a distant memory.
John must have drifted off to sleep. When he woke up again, the cell was dark and the stars glittered through the small window above his head. He was still tired, but not quite as hot and feverish, and he hoped that meant he was finally recovering. He rolled onto his side and stared out the barred door into the empty cell across the way.
Not empty. A shadow moved across the door, a soft swish of cloth reaching John’s ears. He raised his head as two pale hands gripped the bars, and then a head leaned forward. A woman.
The woman he was supposed to have killed.
“Are you awake?” a soft voice whispered.
John pushed himself up to a sitting position and leaned against the wall. “Yeah,” he answered, careful to keep his voice low. He had no idea how many guards were around, or how close they stayed.
“I am sorry you are here,” the woman said. “You should not have been brought into this.”
“You’re alive.”
“My death was a lie, to you and many others. I am not sure of the purpose of it all, but I do know they intend to find you guilty by end of day tomorrow.”
“What’s the punishment for fake murder around here?” John asked, though he really didn’t want to know.
“Execution, by hanging, to be carried out at sunrise the following morning.”
“I was afraid of that,” John whispered. Now would be a good time for his team to sweep in and get him out of this. He’d give every one of his desserts for the next year to McKay and Ronon if they somehow found him and got him out of this.
The door across from him squeaked as it swung open, and the woman was suddenly at his door, trying to unlock it as quietly as possible. John sat up straighter, not expecting rescue from the mysterious woman.
“Aelil? That’s your name, right?”
“Yes,” Aelil smiled. She glanced down the hall then swung John’s door open, padding silently across the cell. “Can you walk?”
“Gonna have to,” John grunted, pushing himself up to his feet. The room spun for a second and he grabbed the wall for support, feeling a small hand wrap around his other arm and hold him steady.
“Come,” Aelil whispered, guiding him out of the cell. She was wearing the same light blue robe, and she pulled the shawl up around her head as they reached the end of the hallway. Maetan had dressed John in a fresh shirt and pants soon after he’d been locked up, but that had been days ago and he was acutely aware of how badly he must smell.
There were only four cells in the entire building, and no sign of any guards. Aelil whispered that there were those in the village trying to help them and that they had provided the keys and distracted the guards. She kept a hand on John’s arm, leading him through the village and bearing more and more of his weight.
After the last several days of sickness, he was way too weak to be running around and he fought against the constant dizziness threatening to pull him down to the ground. They’d reached the edge of the village and were hiding in the shadows of a small structure when cries of alarm erupted from the direction they’d just come.
“They have discovered our escape,” Aelil said, panic lacing her voice. “We must hurry.”
John nodded, too out of breath to say anything else. Aelil pulled him away from the building out toward the desert. He could just see the jagged outline of the distant plateaus, a darker star-less silhouette against the night sky.
He heard the scuffle of feet against stone behind him. His body tensed in alarm and he grabbed at Aelil to warn her. There was a swish of cloth as someone rushed toward them. Had John been in good health, he would have been able to fight the man off easily. Instead, he turned too slowly, bringing an arm up just as their attacker swung a heavy stick toward him.
It arched through the sky, whistling in the air, and landed across John’s shoulder blades. He cried out, dropping to his knees at the line of burning pain blazing across his skin. He pitched forward and dropped to the ground, not even able to bring his hands up to catch himself. He distantly heard Aelil screaming and someone snarling back, but the pain in his back was spreading, clawing its way into the bones and muscles and wrapping searing hot tentacles around his chest.
His lungs heaved and his heart stuttered in his chest. This was it. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. He would die here on this planet, and his bones would be thrown out into the desert to bake in the sun. He’d never see his team or Atlantis again.
He buried his face in the sand, letting hot tears spill from his eyes and soak into the parched earth.
ooooooooooooooooo
He didn’t die. He woke up laying face down on the bench in his cell, his back one massive, throbbing bruise. Maetan was kneeling next to him, his fingers pressing gently into the muscles. John gasped at the lance of pain that shot through him, bringing the healer’s face down to his level.
“You are lucky, son,” Maetan said. “The bruising is deep, all the way to the bone. I do not believe the bones were broken but they could have, easily. You could have been killed, or at the very least left with no sensation in your lower body.”
John swallowed and tried to shift into a more comfortable position, succeeding only in spreading the pulsing agony from his back into his head. He groaned, closing his eyes.
“What were you thinking? Of escape? Into the desert? This sickness is messing with your mind. There is nothing out there but death and sand.”
And a stargate. John was sure of it now, sure that Maetan and maybe others were trying to keep him here in the village. He’d stumbled into something-a political game, a vying for power, a rivalry between two families. He had no idea what, but he knew he was being used.
“Go to hell,” he mumbled.
Maetan stared at him a moment, a look of resignation crossing his face. “I am sorry for what you have had to endure at the hands of my people. They are generally much gentler and kinder, but these last several years have been difficult for many.”
“So your solution is to fake a woman’s death then blame it on the new guy?” John asked, rage giving him the energy he needed to lift his head and pin Maetan with a glare.
Maetan stared back, baffled. He was either a very good actor or he really had no idea what John was talking about.
“I assure you, John, Aelil is dead. I examined the body myself.”
John shook his head. “No, I saw her.”
“Where?”
“In the other cell. She had a key, she opened the doors. She said we had both been set up. We were making a run for it when I was attacked.”
“There is no one else here. You are the only prisoner.”
“Maetan, she was with me,” John insisted. He pushed himself up in an attempt to sit and would have collapsed had Maetan not grabbed him under the arms and leaned him back against the wall. John panted through the pain brought on by the movement, closing his eyes. The healer sat down on the bench next to him, sighing heavily.
“You were alone.”
“I wasn’t. She was there. Go ask whoever hit me across the back-he would have had to have seen her.”
Maetan sighed again, leaning forward and resting his hands in his head. “I grow too old for this.”
John had no response to that, in part because he wasn’t sure exactly what Maetan meant by this. The cool stone numbed the throbbing in his back a bit and he let himself relax just a fraction. “Where’s my shirt?” he asked.
Maetan stood without speaking, grabbing a shirt draped over the bars of the cell door. It was the same white shirt John had been wearing earlier. He let the old healer manipulate his arms through the sleeves, grunting when the shirt was pulled over his head and down his back.
“You should rest.”
“Find the woman, Maetan. Please. She’ll tell you-”
“John-stop. Aelil is dead. Do not desecrate her name or her memory by insisting otherwise. Your fever is rising again; I will return later with medicine and food. In the meantime, speak no more of the woman or you will only make your situation worse.”
“What situation is that?” John scowled. His head was threatening to fall forward. Why the hell was he so tired all the time?
“You know of what I speak.”
“Oh, right. The trial-the one where everyone’s already decided I’m guilty. Then what, Maetan? Execution at dawn? Hanging in the town square?”
Maetan looked away, his face reddening, and John knew he was right. The woman had been telling him the truth. He closed his eyes, signaling the end of the conversation. Whatever Maetan’s intentions were, John couldn’t trust him. He couldn’t trust anyone. Maetan lingered for a moment, but eventually left without saying a word, closing the cell door behind him with finality.
ooooooooooooooooo
“A verdict has been reached,” the severe woman-the representative of the village council-said. She stood on the other side of the barred door and stared down at John.
John uncurled from the bench and pushed himself upright, wincing at the tenderness in his back. He’d dozed off for awhile, but surely he hadn’t missed the trial completely.
“What do you mean, a verdict has been reached? I thought there was going to be a trial.”
“There was.”
“Without me?”
“You are the accused. What right do you believe you have to be part of this decision?”
John sputtered, feeling his heart sink. “What right? The right to defend myself. This is my life we’re talking about.”
“You were defended, and defended well, but the council has made its decision.”
John pushed up from the bench and staggered toward the council representative. His legs felt rubbery beneath him, and he lunged for the door to keep himself from falling flat on his face. The woman’s eyes widened and she stepped back. A second later, her face hardened.
“You have been found guilty,” she reported, her tone cold and clipped. “You will be executed at dawn in view of the entire village.”
“She’s not dead,” John stammered, tightening his grip on the bars and locking his knees.
The representative stared back at him, looking at him as if he were crazy. She shook her head. “Maetan was right, you are not well, but that does not change the punishment for the crime you have committed.”
“I didn’t do it,” he whispered, knowing how desperate and ridiculous it sounded. How many criminals had uttered those same words across the galaxy? Across two galaxies?
She said nothing in response, just walked away. John’s legs gave way and he sagged to the floor, sliding against the bars.
“Come on, guys,” he whispered, staring up at the ceiling. His team wasn’t unused to last-minute miracle rescues, but time was running out. He had hours.
The cell grew dark around him as the sun set, and he fought the urge to sleep. If he slept, he would be signing his own death warrant. He had until dawn to figure a way out of this. He glanced over at the bench, knowing that it would be way more comfortable, but he couldn’t find the energy to get up off the floor.
“John?”
He jerked up, stifling a yawn. Had he fallen asleep? The room was almost pitch black now. He must have dozed for a few hours. Stupid.
“John?” a voice whispered again.
He glanced around. He was still leaning against the barred door of his cell and he pressed his face against it to look out into the hallway.
“Who’s there? Aelil?”
The woman appeared, squatting down and reaching a hand through the bars to touch his face. Her hand was soft and cool, and John breathed in deeply. Real-she was real and very much alive.
“Yes.”
He heard a jingle of keys and he pushed back away from the door.
“We must hurry,” Aelil said. “The council has reached its decision.”
“I know,” John answered, rolling to his knees. Aelil darted into the cell, grabbing him by the arms and pulling him to his feet. He grunted when she wrapped an arm across his back.
“Are you well enough to run?”
“Yeah,” he breathed out. How far he could run was a whole other question.
They crept through the prison structure and out the door, just like before. There was no moon this time, and John could hardly see his hand in front of his face. At least they had a chance of getting away unnoticed this time.
“The stargate,” he breathed out, acutely aware of every sound he was making as they stumbled through the village. “The ring. I have to-”
“I know,” Aelil breathed back. “I will take you there. Quiet now.”
Aelil dragged him forward, deceptively strong. The desert was an abyss of silence. John bit his lip as they walked, trying to ignore the small brush and rocky stones grabbing at his bare feet. They moved endlessly, the only sound that of John’s ragged breathing.
“How far?” he gasped out when he was sure they were well away from the village.
“It is not close,” Aelil responded, and John’s heart sank. He was on the verge of collapse already. “We can reach it before dawn, but we must hurry. The villagers will soon discover our disappearance if they haven’t already.”
“What do they want? Why are they after us?” John asked.
Her response was lost to the sound of an audible snap. Agony raced through John’s leg, followed quickly by instant numbness. He fell forward, rolling and sliding down a short sandy hill.
“John? What is it? Where are you?”
He heard Aelil a few feet away from him, kicking through the sand as she searched for him.
“Here,” he whispered. He’d stopped sliding and lay huddled in a dazed ball.
He felt a hand on his shoulder, then another on his head. “John, what’s wrong?”
John shook his head. His entire body was shaking. “I… I don’t know…” he breathed out. He was cold, freezing almost, despite the fact that he knew it had to be at least ninety degrees out here. He pressed his face against the sand, gulping in oxygen.
“Can you keep going?” Aelil sounded panicked and desperate.
He grunted, forcing his body to uncurl. His leg still felt strangely numb but as he pushed himself up to his knees, a twisting agony shot up from deep within the bone. He cried out, collapsing back to the ground and pounding his fists into the sand.
“John? What is it?”
“My leg,” he ground out. “I think my leg is broken.”
“What? How?”
He shook his head, then realized Aelil probably couldn’t see him. “Don’t know,” he breathed out, panting. He closed his eyes, drawing in as much air as he possibly could and forcing the pain to the back of his mind. He pushed up again, whimpering at the agony that shot through him.
Aelil grabbed him, pulling his arm across her shoulders and lifting him up. John bit his lip at the cry that threatened to escape and forced his other leg to straighten out. His injured leg hung uselessly.
“We will move slowly. Lean your weight on me,” Aelil whispered.
They began walking again, and the minutes passed in a haze of burning hell. Every hopping, dragging step jarred his leg, and he swore he could feel the broken ends of the bones grating against each other. His other leg shook from the effort of carrying his entire weight, and he knew it was just a matter of time before his body gave out completely.
“There,” Aelil suddenly cried out, jarring John out of his daze. He looked up to see the stargate looming against the night sky, less than a hundred yards away.
“Thank God,” he breathed out.
Behind him he heard a wailing alarm-an eerie, breathy horn floating across the still night. Beneath that was the clattering of hooves against the sandy floor.
“They are coming,” Aelil said. “Hurry!”
They pushed forward, the last hundred yards feeling like a hundred miles. The horn sounded again, too close, and John forced himself to concentrate on moving one step at a time. The pain in his leg had spread up into his stomach and chest, and his head felt like it was about to implode.
His good leg finally gave out a few feet from the DHD, but Aelil dragged him over to the console. He could hear the pounding feet of animals and the shouts from the men riding them.
“Quickly. Dial your home,” Aelil begged, glancing back into the darkness behind her.
John reached out a hand to press the first symbol then paused. How had he broken his leg? It had been fine, and then it had just snapped.
“What are you waiting for?” Aelil pressed. She grabbed the arm hovering above the DHD and pulled it toward the keys.
Something was wrong. Something had been wrong the entire time he’d been here. Where was his team? Why hadn’t they found him yet? Why couldn’t he remember how he’d arrived here or how he’d gotten hurt in the first place?
He jerked at the squealing sound of the horn ripping through the air and pressed the first symbol to the Alpha site. Regardless of what was going on, how much choice did he have? He pressed the second symbol but leaned over too far to do so and put too much weight on his throbbing leg. He screamed at the lightning bolt of pain that exploded up it and collapsed forward, hitting too many of the keys and negating the first two symbols.
“Dial the address, John,” Aelil screamed, the sound of beating hooves and raging men surrounding them. “What is it? I will do it. Tell me the symbols for your home world.”
John pushed back on shaking arms, then flinched when something whizzed past his head. He reached a hand out again to press the first symbol but froze. Aelil screamed and John looked up at her, startled. She grabbed him by the shirt and lifted him up, bringing his face inches from her own.
“Tell me the symbols of your home world,” she screeched, and her voice morphed, the pitch growing deeper and reverberating in his head. The desert around them suddenly grew brighter, and Aelil’s face paled, transforming into that of a Wraith queen’s.
John stared, too stunned to move. The desert façade dropped around him, replaced by a dark gray room. He was sitting in a chair, strapped down and wired to blinking consoles, their screens filled with scrolling Wraith script. Sharp, twisting pain pulsed in his head, back, and leg, in time with his heartbeat.
The queen had him by the vest, pulling him halfway out of the reclined chair. She snarled again. “Tell me the address to Atlantis.”
A shower of sparks exploded behind her and she whipped her head around, dropping him. He fell back in the chair, cracking his head against the back of it. He heard a burst of gunfire and the familiar whishing blast of Ronon’s gun. The queen screamed, but her voice was drowned out by the sound of more explosions and the ground shaking and vibrating underneath him.
John turned his head away, squeezing his eyes shut. When a hand pressed against his face, he jerked, his eyes flinging open with a gasp.
“It is alright, John.”
Teyla’s voice floated above him, and he blinked blurry eyes at the figures moving around him. He felt hands undoing the bindings over his ankles and wrists, and a sharp sting as a needle was pulled out of his forearm.
“Hang on, buddy. We’ll get you out of here,” Ronon said, patting him on the shoulder.
“I didn’t tell her,” he whispered, his voice hoarse.
“We know,” Teyla answered, her hand still on his face. She glanced up, looking at something or someone behind him. “Rodney?”
“Yeah, okay. It should be safe to disconnect him now,” McKay answered.
“What?” John rasped.
Teyla reached up toward his temples, pulling away two small, sticky discs with disgust. John grimaced at the sight and watched her fling them against the wall.
“Sheppard, buddy.”
Ronon tapped John’s chest, and John rolled his head slowly toward him.
“Can you walk?”
He jerked at the question, flashing suddenly on Aelil asking him the same question in the prison. It had been fake-all of it. Her, Maetan, the desert village. He swallowed, shaking his head. His entire body was beginning to tremble uncontrollably.
“Leg,” he ground out, and Ronon ran his hands down both legs, stopping when John cried out. His entire body was throbbing, the pain growing more intense with every second.
“Think it’s broken,” Ronon said to the others. Another explosion shook the small room, sending a scattering of dust from the ceiling raining down on top of them, the small grains pelting John in the face.
“We must hurry. There is not much time left,” Teyla said and John moaned at how much that had sounded like Aelil. He had almost given up the address to the Alpha site-it wouldn’t have been Atlantis, but from there the Wraith could have attacked, interrogated more people and figured it out. They could have found Atlantis, and from Atlantis, Earth.
Hands dug under him, lifting him up. He heard all three of his teammates talking, telling him to hold on. His body flopped lifelessly between Ronon and McKay’s arms, and his last sight was of Teyla stepping out into the hallway, P90 raised, before he let himself slip away.
ooooooooooooooooo
“You can see him for a few minutes.”
Doctor Keller’s voice floated through the infirmary and John blinked open tired eyes. He looked around, soaking in the pale greens and blues of Atlantis.
“But if he’s asleep, don’t wake him up,” Keller commanded, and John smiled at the irony of being woken up by Keller’s command to not wake him up.
He heard footsteps shuffle across the floor, and then a moment later, the curtain was pushed aside and his team appeared.
“You are awake,” Teyla said, smiling.
“Yep,” John answered. His voice sounded rough and grating and he winced. “Don’t tell Keller.”
His teammates piled in, pulling up chairs and settling in around the bed. John was exhausted. His return to Atlantis was an agonizing haze of memories, but now that he was settled in bed and pumped full of painkillers, he wasn’t quite ready to let go of consciousness.
“How are you?” McKay asked, his eyes darting across John’s body.
John shrugged. “Feel okay right now,” he rasped out. “Keller’s got me on the good stuff.”
“That is good,” Teyla answered.
John nodded, rolling his head toward her. “Don’t really remember what happened to me though.”
“A small faction of the Natameirans turned out to be Wraith worshippers.”
“Who?” John asked, utterly confused. He glanced between the three of them, hearing his heart rate pick up speed on the monitor.
Teyla leaned forward, grabbing his hand. “Doctor Keller said you hit your head hard during the initial explosion. It is not abnormal for you to have no memory of the event.”
“What explosion? What event?”
“Do you remember the mission at all?” Ronon asked.
John shook his head. “I think I remember being in the gate room before we left, but after that…”
“We went to Natameira to negotiate a trade agreement-in a jumper, by the way, so you probably remember us gathering in the jumper bay, not the gate room,” McKay started. “The Natameirans were showing the three of us different parts of the village while you were talking with their leader when the building you were in exploded. Keller said that’s likely where you sustained most of your injuries-your head and broken leg. Oh, and that bruise across your back. You’re lucky. She said it was bad enough that it could have broken the vertebrae, maybe caused spinal damage.”
“My back?” John squeaked, squirming in the bed.
“Your back is fine, and your leg and head will heal,” Teyla interrupted, shooting a disgruntled look McKay’s way. “You are severely dehydrated, but Doctor Keller assured us that she was treating it.”
John nodded, relishing the cool sheet against his skin. He flashed to the heat of the desert village then shook his head. The desert hadn’t been real. It had all been in his head.
“What happened after that?”
“When we heard the explosion, we came running,” Ronon picked up. “The Wraith worshippers had already grabbed you and taken you to their hideout.”
“They had a Wraith queen,” McKay interjected.
“What?”
“Yeah, a queen. Apparently she lost her ship, crashed it somewhere in the mountains and had no way of getting off the planet. I guess all her drones were killed in the crash so she turned to the locals and started…uh…converting.”
John scowled, knowing what that entailed.
“She had you hooked up to some machine-looked like she’d built it from spare Wraith ship parts. Anyway, it messed with your mind. She was pumping you full of some kind of sedative as well, though Keller said it seems to be flushing out of your system fairly rapidly.”
“Hmm,” John mumbled, the pieces starting to click into place.
“Took us almost a day to track you down, but, you know, we found you,” McKay finished.
“Yeah, you did,” John said. “Knew you would.”
They sat in silence for a moment, and John relaxed. He could feel the painkillers starting to pull him under.
“What was it like?” McKay asked, frowning when Ronon and Teyla shushed him. “What? I was just wondering.”
“What was what like?” John whispered, not sure he had the energy to answer anything else.
“The dream world the Wraith queen put you in. Were there other people there?”
An image of Maetan flashed through his mind, then Donnin and the council representative, and the woman at the window. Aelil. He nodded, letting his eyes drift closed.
“There was a woman, wasn’t there? Was she hot-ow, Teyla, I didn’t mean to…oh, good grief.”
John smiled, hearing Teyla swat playfully at McKay and Ronon’s rumble of laughter. He would tell them all about the desert village and the woman at the window, but later. Right now, he was ready to sleep.
END
Author: Coolbreeze1
Spoilers: Set toward the end of season 4, so spoilers to that point
Words: ~9,500
Summary: John wakes up alone in a desert with no memory of how he got there.
Huge thanks to everybetty for the beta! All remaining mistakes are my own. Written for the Flashfic picture challenge - I didn't think I'd actually come up with a story for my picture, but here it is!
Woman at the Window
John woke up to a hot wind whipping up sand and pelting the grains against his face. Bright sunlight pierced his eyelids and caused a spike of pain through his head. He moaned, rolling over and bringing an arm up over his eyes. The brief darkness in the crook of his elbow was enough to chase consciousness away, and he sank back into quiet oblivion.
ooooooooooooooooo
He woke up again to hands grabbing him, pushing him onto his back. He groaned then flinched when a hand swatted the side of his face. He flailed his arms but they were grabbed instantly and pinned back to the ground.
“He is alive,” a voice called out, rough and hard.
“Who is it?”
“No one I have seen before.”
“A stranger? How did he come to be here?”
“We should leave him be.”
“He will be dead by morning if we do not help. He looks as though he has baked in this sun all the day.”
“We do not know what evil or darkness he carries with him.”
“Nonsense. He is sick or hurt, I cannot tell. Bring the cart-we will carry him to Healer Maetan.”
The unfamiliar voices swirled around him, grating against his ears. John cracked open his eyes, expecting bright sunlight. The sky was ablaze, streaked with orange and red and yellow, but not the eye-piercing intensity he had expected. A tanned, weathered face appeared above him.
“He is awake.”
John watched the mouth move, the skin brown and cracked from long days in the sun. A gust of hot wind kicked up the sand all around them and John closed his eyes. Hands began digging under his back, and the voices broke out in renewed conversation. A moment later their grips tightened painfully and he whimpered at the pain boiling through his body.
“Gently, gently,” one of the voices said.
He was set down on a hard surface and then a hand moved over his face, peeling back his eyelids. He turned his head with a cry, but the rest of his body betrayed him, lying limp on the wood platform of the cart, surrounded by people he did not know.
“He is too far gone,” a raspy voice proclaimed, the same one who’d wanted to leave him where he was in the first place.
“Perhaps, perhaps not. It is not for us to say. Healer Maetan will know what to do.”
John pictured the old, weathered face speaking and felt a hand rest lightly against his chest.
“He breathes still, and that is enough for now. I will take him to the healer-the rest of you back to work.”
There was a murmur of responses, though John could not understand any of them. The cart began to roll, its wheels crunching against the sand. His body jerked and jumped as the cart began to move faster, rattling against the platform like bacon in a hot frying pan. He gasped at the pain that erupted and spread like flames through his entire body.
He opened his eyes again to see the sky turn to molten lava, and then the cart hit a rock, bouncing his head against the platform with a crack.
ooooooooooooooooo
“Swallow,” a man commanded.
John blinked open heavy lids just as a hand slipped behind his head and tilted it upright. He had just enough time to see a small room come into focus before a glass of water was pressed against his mouth.
Water.
He was dying of thirst, maybe literally dying. He gulped the cool liquid down as fast as it was poured into his mouth, feeling half of it dribble out the corners of his mouth and run down his face. The glass was pulled away too soon, and he tried to sit up to follow it.
His strength gave out all at once, and his head flopped back into the man’s hand.
“Easy, son. You do not want to drink too much too quickly.”
Carson? It sounded like him, and yet didn’t. John opened his mouth to speak, turning his head toward the man, when his breath caught in his throat. Whatever water he’d been given was gone, and his throat felt drier than sand. He choked, then coughed, feeling his chest jerk painfully as it tried to pull in a breath.
The man returned, bending over him with another glass of water. Not Carson-Carson was gone. It was the same color of eyes, though, but the man was older, with gray hair and a pock-marked face. He lifted John’s head again to give him water, slowly this time, and the cough gradually eased.
John lay back in the bed, exhausted. The room was small but clean, with white walls and dark wood beams across the ceiling. Nowhere he recognized. He glanced toward a small square window and saw blue, almost transparent drapes fluttering in a light breeze.
His head was pounding, an all-encompassing vice behind his ears and eyes, an ice pick digging into his temples and threatening to burst out through the crown of his head. He lifted an arm up off the bed, but the muscles shook with weakness and he dropped it after just a few seconds of effort.
What the hell was going on? What had happened to him?
The man with the water was moving around him, pulling up a stiff wooden chair. John turned to look at him, intent on asking one of a thousand questions that suddenly poured into his mind, but the man shook his head.
“Do not try to speak yet. You have teetered on the precipice between life and death for many days, and your body is still weak. You must not push it.”
John shook his head. He wanted answers, now. He wanted-
“Peace, child,” the old man interrupted before John could even attempt to talk. “We all have questions in need of answers, but they can wait. I am Maetan, the healer of this village. You were brought to me three days ago and I am happy that I can finally say fate has decided to preserve you a little while yet.”
John blinked at the healer, only understanding half of what he was saying. The accent was flat and rough, but the words danced and lilted to a rhythm of their own. Like Carson, but not. John was beyond exhausted, and his vision began to dim. His last sight was of Maetan, smiling, only half his teeth still in his mouth, and then he gave up the battle and drifted back to sleep.
ooooooooooooooooo
Maetan was waiting for him when he woke up again, a glass of water in hand. John drank greedily, more thirsty than he ever remembered being. The old man obliged, holding his head up and tilting the glass just enough that John did not choke. After two full glasses, John collapsed back on the bed, his stomach swishing and his throat only partially sated.
“Wh-” he started, then swallowed, working some moisture into mouth. “Where am I?”
His voice was hoarse and raspy, and his throat burned from the effort of talking. The old healer leaned back in his chair, gazing at John with enough intensity that John finally squirmed and looked away.
“Rata,” the healer said and John looked over at him.
“Rata? Where-what planet?”
“What planet?” Maetan repeated, a look of genuine confusion crinkling his brow.
“How did I get here?” John asked instead, changing tact.
Maetan rubbed his chin. “Ah, I see. I can answer part of that question, but it will not be the information you seek. You were brought to my home,” he waved a hand in the air to indicate the room, “by Kalel-he cares for the mograve herds out in the western fields. His men loaded you up on a cart and brought you to me.”
John waited. He vaguely recalled the men in the desert picking him up, arguing over whether or not to let him die. When did Maetan say that had been? At least three days ago, maybe more now.
“How you came to be in Kalel’s field in the first place, I do not know,” Maetan continued. “I suspect that is what actually occupies your mind.”
“My team?” John rasped, his mind reeling. He had no memory of this place, or of how he’d gotten here. “What about a stargate? A ring of the ancestors?”
“There are others out there?” Maetan asked, leaning forward. “Are you sure? Kalel knows every inch of that area and he has not brought anyone else into the village.”
“I was alone?”
“You were. And I do not know of this star-gate.”
John shook his head. No stargate? Then how… he let out a frustrated breath and felt his chest catch. He began to cough, setting off a concussive throbbing in his head, and he swallowed the little bit of moisture in his throat in an attempt to dampen the building irritation. Maetan poured another glass of water and lifted John’s head again.
This time, John managed to bring a hand up and steady the glass, and he swallowed as much of the water as he could between each choking hack. His face flushed from the exertion and tears leaked out of his eyes. After a long moment, the coughing eased, and John pulled in a tentative breath.
“Better?”
He nodded at Maetan and watched the man wring out a wet rag. When he pressed it against John’s face, John almost moaned in relief, but he bit his lip.
“Tell me of your team,” Maetan said. “Are you sure they were with you?”
“I don’t know,” John whispered. Lethargy swept in, sucking out his remaining energy.
“How many were there?”
“Three.”
“Men like yourself?” Maetan pressed.
John shook his head, feeling his eyes drift closed despite his best efforts. “No. Two men, one woman. Good team-they’ll find me. They’ll come.”
“They are skilled warriors then?”
He felt himself nod and might have said more, but the urge to sleep was overwhelming and he gave into it despite Maetan’s continued questioning.
ooooooooooooooooo
He came awake abruptly and realized three things. One, it was night, the only light in the room that of the moon hanging in the single window. The moonlight filtered through the thin drapes, casting bizarre shadows across the walls and ceiling. Two, he was naked. Had he been naked before? Presumably, he’d lost his clothes sometime after arriving at the healer’s home, at least he hoped so. And three, he really should not have drank so much water earlier.
His head still ached, but not as badly as before. He rolled to his side, wincing as stiff muscles stretched and pulled. He could tell he’d been in bed for awhile-he could feel it. He pushed himself up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, then stopped with a moan. The entire room began to spin around him.
He ducked his head, closing his eyes and breathing deeply through his mouth. The only thing keeping him upright was the death grip he had on the edge of the mattress. He could feel his arms shaking, already tired.
A wind blew, ballooning the drapes out into the room. The air was hot and dry, despite the fact that it was the middle of the night. John slid his feet carefully to the floor, but didn’t dare attempt to stand up yet.
A minute passed before he opened his eyes. He would have to stand up eventually, or lay back down. He could feel weakness thrumming through his body, threatening to pull him down any minute. He inched closer to the edge of the bed, wondering if his legs would even support him.
A shadow passed in front of the window, and John glanced up, startled. In the darkness, it took a minute for his eyes to adjust, but then he picked out a darker outline against the black night. A shadow that hadn’t been there before.
“Who…” John started, then cut off when another gust of wind blew back the curtains.
A woman appeared, her head wrapped in a shawl. John could just make out dark, wavy hair. She was thin, but the features of her face were otherwise lost in the shadows. She raised a hand up to the window, and for a moment, the gesture and the hand reminded John so strongly of Elizabeth that his breath caught in his throat.
He started to stand, then remembered he wasn’t wearing anything and grabbed at the blanket, pulling it around his waist. He’d glanced away for no more than a second, but when he looked up again, she was gone.
“Elizabeth?” he called out. But it couldn’t be Elizabeth. Elizabeth had been taken by the replicators over a year ago.
He stood up, everything else forgotten. If she was here, somehow, wherever here was…
He made it two steps before his knees gave out and his legs folded underneath him. He crashed to the floor, a tangled heap of limbs. His head exploded in agony and a sharp spike of pain erupted in his leg. He lay gasping on the floor, feeling his stomach churn in sudden nausea.
Pounding footsteps reverberated through the floor and stopped near his head. He felt hands pulling and turning him over, and he whimpered at the rolling agony that shot through his battered body.
“What has happened?” Maetan called out, pressing a hand against John’s forehead.
John groaned as Maetan began to maneuver him back into the bed. He shot one last glance at the window, looking for the woman, but it was empty, and the sight made his chest twist in pain.
He was alone.
ooooooooooooooooo
Maetan was a gruff old man, but seemingly competent enough and gentle when he needed to be. John leaned his head back against the pillows, willing his body to hurry up and heal already. The healer had propped him up in the bed and left him alone for the time being, for which John was grateful. The man’s questions were endless, though he claimed it was the villagers demanding answers and not himself.
Who was he? How did he come to be here? What did he do? Where was he from? Why was he here? What was he planning to do?
John had shrugged through most of the questions, either because he really didn’t know the answer, such as how did he come to be here, or because he was feigning memory loss, specifically for the questions revolving around who he was and where he was from.
It was late evening now, on what he figured had to be the fifth or sixth day since he’d arrived. He was a little stronger-at least he was not sleeping twenty-four hours a day-but he had little energy for anything besides sitting and staring out the window.
He flashed on the woman who’d stared in at him. In the daylight, it seemed impossible that it could have been Elizabeth. It likely wasn’t anyone, just a dream or his mind looking for something in the shadows that had never been there in the first place.
He sighed and leaned over toward the nightstand. Maetan made sure there was always a glass of water there. John gulped it down, as thirsty as he had been since the first moment he’d woken up here. It had to be the heat. Wherever he was, it was clearly a desert but not even the nights cooled down.
He stared out the window, watching the blue sky begin to darken. The clouds turned a golden yellow, signaling the beginning of the sunset. The little he could see from the window was beautiful.
His entire body ached, but his head throbbed more than anything else. Had he hit his head on something? Was that why he couldn’t remember anything? He’d fingered his head a few times, searching for bruises or welts, but had found nothing so far.
He cast his mind back to the last thing he remembered before arriving here. He’d been home, on Atlantis. He had vague memories of gathering in the gate room with his team, of staring at the shimmering surface of an active wormhole. Had they stepped through? They must have, but to where?
Nothing came up after that. The stargate activated, his team had stepped forward toward the event horizon, and then… and then…
Then nothing. Then he woke up in the middle of a desert, alone. He sank deeper into the pile of pillows behind his back. At some point he’d have to get up and explore this village, and the surrounding area. Maetan seemed to have no knowledge of stargates, but John had arrived here somehow.
The sky was turning from bluish-yellow to yellowish-orange, and John settled in to watch the rest of the sunset-what he could see of it anyway. The constant wind blew through the window, showering the room with a spattering of sand, and John closed his eyes instinctively.
When he opened them again, he jerked upright in bed. The woman was back, staring in at him through the window. One hand held the shawl around her head closed at the neck while the other hand reached out toward him. The shawl cast just enough shadows over her face that he couldn’t quite see her, but her eyes caught a flash of light from the setting sun.
It wasn’t Elizabeth, but it did kind of look like her. John slid out of bed and staggered to the wall, grabbing onto it for support. He’d hardly stood up in the last week, let alone walked around. When he glanced up again, the woman had disappeared.
“No,” he breathed out. He pushed forward, swinging at the blowing drapes until he reached the window.
The woman was there, standing roughly fifteen feet back. She was wrapped in a flowing gown the same color as the drapes. She pushed her hair back with one hand, tucking it in behind her ear exactly the way Teyla did. She stared at John, her dark eyes flashing, then looked away, out toward the desert.
John followed her gaze. The healer’s home sat on the edge of the desert and John looked out across a rolling, sandy vista. Scattered brush dotted the landscape, and in the distance, rugged, rocky plateaus lined the horizon. She took a step away, then looked back at him.
“What?” John whispered, but he had the sudden urge to follow her. She took another step away from him, and looked back again, this time beckoning with her hand.
He stumbled out of the room, hardly aware of what he was doing and found himself standing out in the sun and sand. Wind whipped at his pants, and he realized belatedly that he was wearing neither socks nor a shirt.
The woman moved away from him, walking out into the desert and pausing every few feet to make sure John was still with her. John staggered forward, feeling his mouth go dry in the hot, arid wind. His muscles screamed at the movement, too tight and stiff to be wandering around in a desert.
The healer’s home disappeared behind him as they crested a hill and began to descend down the other side. The sky was on fire above him and he heard a distant lowing drifting on the wind.
“Hey,” he called out to the woman, though he didn’t actually expect a response and didn’t get one. That should have been strange, and he knew it, and yet it wasn’t. The woman continued to walk and he dragged his feet across the sand, trying to catch up.
They walked for a while. John had no idea how long, but the sky turned from red to purple, and the shadows cast by the small scrub brushes grew long and deep. He couldn’t see any sign of the village behind them. They began to climb another sandy hill, the woman moving with such ease and grace that she almost seemed to float to the top.
John’s heart pounded in his chest, and his lungs heaved as they struggled to pull in enough air. He could feel sweat dripping down the sides of his face, and his legs trembled with every step.
“Wait,” he called out, or tried to, but his voice caught in his throat and slid out in a huff of air and spit.
The woman paused at the top of the hill and turned back to look at him. John pushed himself up the rest of the hill and stopped beside her. He wanted to stare at her, to rip the shawl from her face, but he could hardly stand up straight. He dragged in as deep a breath as he could.
The woman lifted a hand, her robe and shawl fluttering in the air, and pointed toward the rocky plateau still miles away. John followed her finger and squinted out into the growing darkness. At first, he couldn’t see much of anything, then slowly a gray circular shape coalesced together.
The stargate.
John sucked in a startled breath. There was a stargate here. How could Maetan not know of it? Why had he not mentioned it to John earlier? The world began to tilt and spin, and the stargate-along with the rocky vista behind it-disappeared as black spots mottled his vision. He bent forward, his hands on his knees, and fought against the wave of dizziness.
Not now. He was so close. If he could just keep walking, he could dial the Alpha site and get back home… His knees hit the sand, jarring him all the way up to the crown of his head. He heard himself cry out, and the sound echoed across the barren, empty landscape.
The woman was gone. John felt his body tilting to the side but he could do nothing to stop himself from falling. He landed on his back, the air whooshing out of his lungs and his legs folded underneath him, and he let the darkness of the night sky envelop him.
ooooooooooooooooo
“It is not possible,” Maetan’s voice cried out. His voice sounded strangled, and John opened his eyes to see the healer standing at the foot of his bed with his hands on his hips. He couldn’t see his face, but his neck was red and his body shook with rage.
“Who else could it be?” another man responded. The voice was familiar, and it took a minute for John to remember it from the voices in the desert the first night he’d arrived. The raspy one, the one who’d been afraid of him despite the fact that he’d been only semi-conscious and dying.
“I tell you, he is too weak. How he managed to leave this room, I do not understand, but he collapsed only a few feet from the front door.”
“Maetan, please, calm down,” a woman’s voice said, sounding soothing and yet carrying a tone of authority.
John rolled his head on the pillow trying to see the people standing in the doorway, but Maetan’s body blocked his view. His stomach was flipping and twisting, and heat poured off his skin despite the fact that he was shaking. He knew he was hot, but he tried to pull the thin blanket up closer around his body.
“He is awake,” the raspy voice said.
“Donnin, he is sick. He is not responsible for this atrocity.”
Atrocity? John felt his heart begin to pound in his chest. What atrocity? What had happened? The gaps in his memory were unnerving, and he felt his body shudder in response. He remembered following the woman out into the desert, of seeing the stargate, and then…
Nothing. The next thing he recalled was this moment, lying here in this bed and overhearing an argument that made no sense.
“Are you accusing someone in the village of doing this, then?” the woman asked, her voice hard and cutting.
“No, of course I am not. No one in this village is capable of murder.”
John jerked, rolling to the side. Murder? What the hell was going on here? He tried to push himself up but his arms gave out almost instantly, and he dropped back to the bed.
“Then someone else has wandered in from the desert?” Donnin asked. “One of his fabled teammates?”
“There has been no one else, Donnin,” the woman said.
“Aelil did not strangle herself. The marks on her neck were those of hands and fingers, and her family demands justice,” Donnin spat back.
“We all know this. Let us not be distracted. Maetan, as representative of the village council, I am to inform you that the stranger is to be held before the village to account for his actions, to defend himself and submit to their decision of guilt or innocence.”
“Look at him,” Maetan raged, stepping aside. The man and woman in the doorway glanced briefly in John’s direction then turned back to focus on the healer. John tried to look up at them, but his stomach was churning wildly and he panted against the nausea. He wrapped his arms around his body and closed his eyes. Get it together, John. Pull yourself together.
“You admit he left your care for an undetermined amount of time?” the woman asked. John looked at her through half-lids, noting her hair and clothes were as severe-looking as her voice.
“For a short amount of time,” Maetan said. “He left this room, and I found him shortly afterward just outside the front door.”
“How long afterward?”
Maetan could not answer the woman’s question, so he said nothing. John watched the three of them stare each other down.
“I warned everyone that this stranger would bring nothing but evil and darkness. We should have left him to die in the desert,” Donnin hissed.
“Hush, Donnin. I will hear no more of that nonsense from you,” the woman commanded.
Someone was dead. A woman-Aelil. Was it the same woman he had followed into the desert? He couldn’t have possibly done anything to her. As soon as the thought crossed his mind, a thousand scenarios flitted through his brain, circumstances where he would kill the woman if it meant protecting himself or his friends or his home. But in his current condition…
“Maetan,” the woman was saying. “He must be taken to the holding cell.”
“Can’t you leave him here? You can post guards outside the room if need be, but let me care for him.” The anger was gone from the healer, replaced now with begging.
“I am sorry,” the woman said. “Donnin-”
“Wait, at least let me prepare him to be moved. Donnin, please, don’t-”
Whatever Maetan was going to say was interrupted by thudding footsteps across the room. John turned his head just in time to see a thin man, rough and unshaven standing over him, hatred etched into every line of his face. He grabbed John by the arms and ripped him from the bed.
John cried out, too weak to struggle. He lost the battle against the nausea and threw up all over Donnin’s shoes, to which the man screamed in outrage and probably would have kicked him had Maetan not intervened. John was vaguely aware of the healer lifting him up and carrying him outside, where a bubble of voices erupted, screaming in anger and grief. John turned his head away, closing his eyes and wishing he would wake up from this nightmare.
ooooooooooooooooo
The cell looked like a number of cells he’d seen on various planets-thick stone walls, a barred door, and bars over the small window high up near the ceiling. John lay on the single wooden bench under the window, staring up into the sky.
It was either sunrise or sunset, he wasn’t sure. The sky was almost white and streaked with lines of purple. The trip from the healer’s to the jail cell had passed in a haze of pain and heat, as had the next couple of days at least. The healer had been there occasionally, working to bring down John’s fever and clean him up again, but mostly John lay flaccidly, drifting in and out of consciousness.
He’d been aware enough to ask about the woman, Aelil. Her description matched that exactly of the woman he’d seen outside his window, but he still could not bring himself to believe he’d killed her or was in any way responsible for her death. He’d said as much to Maetan, but the old man had simply nodded, resigned to whatever trial process John was about to be subjected to.
And no one knew about the stargate, either. Had he dreamed it? Had he simply imagined walking across the desert and seeing it in the distance? Maetan insisted John had gone no farther than a few feet from the house, but that couldn’t be right. John remembered walking farther-and not the way one remembers a dream.
He was sure it had happened and that the stargate existed, and he ignored the small kernel of doubt trying to burrow its way into him. If the stargate existed, then his team could find him. McKay would figure out the gate address; Ronon and Teyla would break him out of the cell. Keller would fix him, cure whatever was ailing his body, and in a few days, this hot, dry desert of a planet would be a distant memory.
John must have drifted off to sleep. When he woke up again, the cell was dark and the stars glittered through the small window above his head. He was still tired, but not quite as hot and feverish, and he hoped that meant he was finally recovering. He rolled onto his side and stared out the barred door into the empty cell across the way.
Not empty. A shadow moved across the door, a soft swish of cloth reaching John’s ears. He raised his head as two pale hands gripped the bars, and then a head leaned forward. A woman.
The woman he was supposed to have killed.
“Are you awake?” a soft voice whispered.
John pushed himself up to a sitting position and leaned against the wall. “Yeah,” he answered, careful to keep his voice low. He had no idea how many guards were around, or how close they stayed.
“I am sorry you are here,” the woman said. “You should not have been brought into this.”
“You’re alive.”
“My death was a lie, to you and many others. I am not sure of the purpose of it all, but I do know they intend to find you guilty by end of day tomorrow.”
“What’s the punishment for fake murder around here?” John asked, though he really didn’t want to know.
“Execution, by hanging, to be carried out at sunrise the following morning.”
“I was afraid of that,” John whispered. Now would be a good time for his team to sweep in and get him out of this. He’d give every one of his desserts for the next year to McKay and Ronon if they somehow found him and got him out of this.
The door across from him squeaked as it swung open, and the woman was suddenly at his door, trying to unlock it as quietly as possible. John sat up straighter, not expecting rescue from the mysterious woman.
“Aelil? That’s your name, right?”
“Yes,” Aelil smiled. She glanced down the hall then swung John’s door open, padding silently across the cell. “Can you walk?”
“Gonna have to,” John grunted, pushing himself up to his feet. The room spun for a second and he grabbed the wall for support, feeling a small hand wrap around his other arm and hold him steady.
“Come,” Aelil whispered, guiding him out of the cell. She was wearing the same light blue robe, and she pulled the shawl up around her head as they reached the end of the hallway. Maetan had dressed John in a fresh shirt and pants soon after he’d been locked up, but that had been days ago and he was acutely aware of how badly he must smell.
There were only four cells in the entire building, and no sign of any guards. Aelil whispered that there were those in the village trying to help them and that they had provided the keys and distracted the guards. She kept a hand on John’s arm, leading him through the village and bearing more and more of his weight.
After the last several days of sickness, he was way too weak to be running around and he fought against the constant dizziness threatening to pull him down to the ground. They’d reached the edge of the village and were hiding in the shadows of a small structure when cries of alarm erupted from the direction they’d just come.
“They have discovered our escape,” Aelil said, panic lacing her voice. “We must hurry.”
John nodded, too out of breath to say anything else. Aelil pulled him away from the building out toward the desert. He could just see the jagged outline of the distant plateaus, a darker star-less silhouette against the night sky.
He heard the scuffle of feet against stone behind him. His body tensed in alarm and he grabbed at Aelil to warn her. There was a swish of cloth as someone rushed toward them. Had John been in good health, he would have been able to fight the man off easily. Instead, he turned too slowly, bringing an arm up just as their attacker swung a heavy stick toward him.
It arched through the sky, whistling in the air, and landed across John’s shoulder blades. He cried out, dropping to his knees at the line of burning pain blazing across his skin. He pitched forward and dropped to the ground, not even able to bring his hands up to catch himself. He distantly heard Aelil screaming and someone snarling back, but the pain in his back was spreading, clawing its way into the bones and muscles and wrapping searing hot tentacles around his chest.
His lungs heaved and his heart stuttered in his chest. This was it. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. He would die here on this planet, and his bones would be thrown out into the desert to bake in the sun. He’d never see his team or Atlantis again.
He buried his face in the sand, letting hot tears spill from his eyes and soak into the parched earth.
ooooooooooooooooo
He didn’t die. He woke up laying face down on the bench in his cell, his back one massive, throbbing bruise. Maetan was kneeling next to him, his fingers pressing gently into the muscles. John gasped at the lance of pain that shot through him, bringing the healer’s face down to his level.
“You are lucky, son,” Maetan said. “The bruising is deep, all the way to the bone. I do not believe the bones were broken but they could have, easily. You could have been killed, or at the very least left with no sensation in your lower body.”
John swallowed and tried to shift into a more comfortable position, succeeding only in spreading the pulsing agony from his back into his head. He groaned, closing his eyes.
“What were you thinking? Of escape? Into the desert? This sickness is messing with your mind. There is nothing out there but death and sand.”
And a stargate. John was sure of it now, sure that Maetan and maybe others were trying to keep him here in the village. He’d stumbled into something-a political game, a vying for power, a rivalry between two families. He had no idea what, but he knew he was being used.
“Go to hell,” he mumbled.
Maetan stared at him a moment, a look of resignation crossing his face. “I am sorry for what you have had to endure at the hands of my people. They are generally much gentler and kinder, but these last several years have been difficult for many.”
“So your solution is to fake a woman’s death then blame it on the new guy?” John asked, rage giving him the energy he needed to lift his head and pin Maetan with a glare.
Maetan stared back, baffled. He was either a very good actor or he really had no idea what John was talking about.
“I assure you, John, Aelil is dead. I examined the body myself.”
John shook his head. “No, I saw her.”
“Where?”
“In the other cell. She had a key, she opened the doors. She said we had both been set up. We were making a run for it when I was attacked.”
“There is no one else here. You are the only prisoner.”
“Maetan, she was with me,” John insisted. He pushed himself up in an attempt to sit and would have collapsed had Maetan not grabbed him under the arms and leaned him back against the wall. John panted through the pain brought on by the movement, closing his eyes. The healer sat down on the bench next to him, sighing heavily.
“You were alone.”
“I wasn’t. She was there. Go ask whoever hit me across the back-he would have had to have seen her.”
Maetan sighed again, leaning forward and resting his hands in his head. “I grow too old for this.”
John had no response to that, in part because he wasn’t sure exactly what Maetan meant by this. The cool stone numbed the throbbing in his back a bit and he let himself relax just a fraction. “Where’s my shirt?” he asked.
Maetan stood without speaking, grabbing a shirt draped over the bars of the cell door. It was the same white shirt John had been wearing earlier. He let the old healer manipulate his arms through the sleeves, grunting when the shirt was pulled over his head and down his back.
“You should rest.”
“Find the woman, Maetan. Please. She’ll tell you-”
“John-stop. Aelil is dead. Do not desecrate her name or her memory by insisting otherwise. Your fever is rising again; I will return later with medicine and food. In the meantime, speak no more of the woman or you will only make your situation worse.”
“What situation is that?” John scowled. His head was threatening to fall forward. Why the hell was he so tired all the time?
“You know of what I speak.”
“Oh, right. The trial-the one where everyone’s already decided I’m guilty. Then what, Maetan? Execution at dawn? Hanging in the town square?”
Maetan looked away, his face reddening, and John knew he was right. The woman had been telling him the truth. He closed his eyes, signaling the end of the conversation. Whatever Maetan’s intentions were, John couldn’t trust him. He couldn’t trust anyone. Maetan lingered for a moment, but eventually left without saying a word, closing the cell door behind him with finality.
ooooooooooooooooo
“A verdict has been reached,” the severe woman-the representative of the village council-said. She stood on the other side of the barred door and stared down at John.
John uncurled from the bench and pushed himself upright, wincing at the tenderness in his back. He’d dozed off for awhile, but surely he hadn’t missed the trial completely.
“What do you mean, a verdict has been reached? I thought there was going to be a trial.”
“There was.”
“Without me?”
“You are the accused. What right do you believe you have to be part of this decision?”
John sputtered, feeling his heart sink. “What right? The right to defend myself. This is my life we’re talking about.”
“You were defended, and defended well, but the council has made its decision.”
John pushed up from the bench and staggered toward the council representative. His legs felt rubbery beneath him, and he lunged for the door to keep himself from falling flat on his face. The woman’s eyes widened and she stepped back. A second later, her face hardened.
“You have been found guilty,” she reported, her tone cold and clipped. “You will be executed at dawn in view of the entire village.”
“She’s not dead,” John stammered, tightening his grip on the bars and locking his knees.
The representative stared back at him, looking at him as if he were crazy. She shook her head. “Maetan was right, you are not well, but that does not change the punishment for the crime you have committed.”
“I didn’t do it,” he whispered, knowing how desperate and ridiculous it sounded. How many criminals had uttered those same words across the galaxy? Across two galaxies?
She said nothing in response, just walked away. John’s legs gave way and he sagged to the floor, sliding against the bars.
“Come on, guys,” he whispered, staring up at the ceiling. His team wasn’t unused to last-minute miracle rescues, but time was running out. He had hours.
The cell grew dark around him as the sun set, and he fought the urge to sleep. If he slept, he would be signing his own death warrant. He had until dawn to figure a way out of this. He glanced over at the bench, knowing that it would be way more comfortable, but he couldn’t find the energy to get up off the floor.
“John?”
He jerked up, stifling a yawn. Had he fallen asleep? The room was almost pitch black now. He must have dozed for a few hours. Stupid.
“John?” a voice whispered again.
He glanced around. He was still leaning against the barred door of his cell and he pressed his face against it to look out into the hallway.
“Who’s there? Aelil?”
The woman appeared, squatting down and reaching a hand through the bars to touch his face. Her hand was soft and cool, and John breathed in deeply. Real-she was real and very much alive.
“Yes.”
He heard a jingle of keys and he pushed back away from the door.
“We must hurry,” Aelil said. “The council has reached its decision.”
“I know,” John answered, rolling to his knees. Aelil darted into the cell, grabbing him by the arms and pulling him to his feet. He grunted when she wrapped an arm across his back.
“Are you well enough to run?”
“Yeah,” he breathed out. How far he could run was a whole other question.
They crept through the prison structure and out the door, just like before. There was no moon this time, and John could hardly see his hand in front of his face. At least they had a chance of getting away unnoticed this time.
“The stargate,” he breathed out, acutely aware of every sound he was making as they stumbled through the village. “The ring. I have to-”
“I know,” Aelil breathed back. “I will take you there. Quiet now.”
Aelil dragged him forward, deceptively strong. The desert was an abyss of silence. John bit his lip as they walked, trying to ignore the small brush and rocky stones grabbing at his bare feet. They moved endlessly, the only sound that of John’s ragged breathing.
“How far?” he gasped out when he was sure they were well away from the village.
“It is not close,” Aelil responded, and John’s heart sank. He was on the verge of collapse already. “We can reach it before dawn, but we must hurry. The villagers will soon discover our disappearance if they haven’t already.”
“What do they want? Why are they after us?” John asked.
Her response was lost to the sound of an audible snap. Agony raced through John’s leg, followed quickly by instant numbness. He fell forward, rolling and sliding down a short sandy hill.
“John? What is it? Where are you?”
He heard Aelil a few feet away from him, kicking through the sand as she searched for him.
“Here,” he whispered. He’d stopped sliding and lay huddled in a dazed ball.
He felt a hand on his shoulder, then another on his head. “John, what’s wrong?”
John shook his head. His entire body was shaking. “I… I don’t know…” he breathed out. He was cold, freezing almost, despite the fact that he knew it had to be at least ninety degrees out here. He pressed his face against the sand, gulping in oxygen.
“Can you keep going?” Aelil sounded panicked and desperate.
He grunted, forcing his body to uncurl. His leg still felt strangely numb but as he pushed himself up to his knees, a twisting agony shot up from deep within the bone. He cried out, collapsing back to the ground and pounding his fists into the sand.
“John? What is it?”
“My leg,” he ground out. “I think my leg is broken.”
“What? How?”
He shook his head, then realized Aelil probably couldn’t see him. “Don’t know,” he breathed out, panting. He closed his eyes, drawing in as much air as he possibly could and forcing the pain to the back of his mind. He pushed up again, whimpering at the agony that shot through him.
Aelil grabbed him, pulling his arm across her shoulders and lifting him up. John bit his lip at the cry that threatened to escape and forced his other leg to straighten out. His injured leg hung uselessly.
“We will move slowly. Lean your weight on me,” Aelil whispered.
They began walking again, and the minutes passed in a haze of burning hell. Every hopping, dragging step jarred his leg, and he swore he could feel the broken ends of the bones grating against each other. His other leg shook from the effort of carrying his entire weight, and he knew it was just a matter of time before his body gave out completely.
“There,” Aelil suddenly cried out, jarring John out of his daze. He looked up to see the stargate looming against the night sky, less than a hundred yards away.
“Thank God,” he breathed out.
Behind him he heard a wailing alarm-an eerie, breathy horn floating across the still night. Beneath that was the clattering of hooves against the sandy floor.
“They are coming,” Aelil said. “Hurry!”
They pushed forward, the last hundred yards feeling like a hundred miles. The horn sounded again, too close, and John forced himself to concentrate on moving one step at a time. The pain in his leg had spread up into his stomach and chest, and his head felt like it was about to implode.
His good leg finally gave out a few feet from the DHD, but Aelil dragged him over to the console. He could hear the pounding feet of animals and the shouts from the men riding them.
“Quickly. Dial your home,” Aelil begged, glancing back into the darkness behind her.
John reached out a hand to press the first symbol then paused. How had he broken his leg? It had been fine, and then it had just snapped.
“What are you waiting for?” Aelil pressed. She grabbed the arm hovering above the DHD and pulled it toward the keys.
Something was wrong. Something had been wrong the entire time he’d been here. Where was his team? Why hadn’t they found him yet? Why couldn’t he remember how he’d arrived here or how he’d gotten hurt in the first place?
He jerked at the squealing sound of the horn ripping through the air and pressed the first symbol to the Alpha site. Regardless of what was going on, how much choice did he have? He pressed the second symbol but leaned over too far to do so and put too much weight on his throbbing leg. He screamed at the lightning bolt of pain that exploded up it and collapsed forward, hitting too many of the keys and negating the first two symbols.
“Dial the address, John,” Aelil screamed, the sound of beating hooves and raging men surrounding them. “What is it? I will do it. Tell me the symbols for your home world.”
John pushed back on shaking arms, then flinched when something whizzed past his head. He reached a hand out again to press the first symbol but froze. Aelil screamed and John looked up at her, startled. She grabbed him by the shirt and lifted him up, bringing his face inches from her own.
“Tell me the symbols of your home world,” she screeched, and her voice morphed, the pitch growing deeper and reverberating in his head. The desert around them suddenly grew brighter, and Aelil’s face paled, transforming into that of a Wraith queen’s.
John stared, too stunned to move. The desert façade dropped around him, replaced by a dark gray room. He was sitting in a chair, strapped down and wired to blinking consoles, their screens filled with scrolling Wraith script. Sharp, twisting pain pulsed in his head, back, and leg, in time with his heartbeat.
The queen had him by the vest, pulling him halfway out of the reclined chair. She snarled again. “Tell me the address to Atlantis.”
A shower of sparks exploded behind her and she whipped her head around, dropping him. He fell back in the chair, cracking his head against the back of it. He heard a burst of gunfire and the familiar whishing blast of Ronon’s gun. The queen screamed, but her voice was drowned out by the sound of more explosions and the ground shaking and vibrating underneath him.
John turned his head away, squeezing his eyes shut. When a hand pressed against his face, he jerked, his eyes flinging open with a gasp.
“It is alright, John.”
Teyla’s voice floated above him, and he blinked blurry eyes at the figures moving around him. He felt hands undoing the bindings over his ankles and wrists, and a sharp sting as a needle was pulled out of his forearm.
“Hang on, buddy. We’ll get you out of here,” Ronon said, patting him on the shoulder.
“I didn’t tell her,” he whispered, his voice hoarse.
“We know,” Teyla answered, her hand still on his face. She glanced up, looking at something or someone behind him. “Rodney?”
“Yeah, okay. It should be safe to disconnect him now,” McKay answered.
“What?” John rasped.
Teyla reached up toward his temples, pulling away two small, sticky discs with disgust. John grimaced at the sight and watched her fling them against the wall.
“Sheppard, buddy.”
Ronon tapped John’s chest, and John rolled his head slowly toward him.
“Can you walk?”
He jerked at the question, flashing suddenly on Aelil asking him the same question in the prison. It had been fake-all of it. Her, Maetan, the desert village. He swallowed, shaking his head. His entire body was beginning to tremble uncontrollably.
“Leg,” he ground out, and Ronon ran his hands down both legs, stopping when John cried out. His entire body was throbbing, the pain growing more intense with every second.
“Think it’s broken,” Ronon said to the others. Another explosion shook the small room, sending a scattering of dust from the ceiling raining down on top of them, the small grains pelting John in the face.
“We must hurry. There is not much time left,” Teyla said and John moaned at how much that had sounded like Aelil. He had almost given up the address to the Alpha site-it wouldn’t have been Atlantis, but from there the Wraith could have attacked, interrogated more people and figured it out. They could have found Atlantis, and from Atlantis, Earth.
Hands dug under him, lifting him up. He heard all three of his teammates talking, telling him to hold on. His body flopped lifelessly between Ronon and McKay’s arms, and his last sight was of Teyla stepping out into the hallway, P90 raised, before he let himself slip away.
ooooooooooooooooo
“You can see him for a few minutes.”
Doctor Keller’s voice floated through the infirmary and John blinked open tired eyes. He looked around, soaking in the pale greens and blues of Atlantis.
“But if he’s asleep, don’t wake him up,” Keller commanded, and John smiled at the irony of being woken up by Keller’s command to not wake him up.
He heard footsteps shuffle across the floor, and then a moment later, the curtain was pushed aside and his team appeared.
“You are awake,” Teyla said, smiling.
“Yep,” John answered. His voice sounded rough and grating and he winced. “Don’t tell Keller.”
His teammates piled in, pulling up chairs and settling in around the bed. John was exhausted. His return to Atlantis was an agonizing haze of memories, but now that he was settled in bed and pumped full of painkillers, he wasn’t quite ready to let go of consciousness.
“How are you?” McKay asked, his eyes darting across John’s body.
John shrugged. “Feel okay right now,” he rasped out. “Keller’s got me on the good stuff.”
“That is good,” Teyla answered.
John nodded, rolling his head toward her. “Don’t really remember what happened to me though.”
“A small faction of the Natameirans turned out to be Wraith worshippers.”
“Who?” John asked, utterly confused. He glanced between the three of them, hearing his heart rate pick up speed on the monitor.
Teyla leaned forward, grabbing his hand. “Doctor Keller said you hit your head hard during the initial explosion. It is not abnormal for you to have no memory of the event.”
“What explosion? What event?”
“Do you remember the mission at all?” Ronon asked.
John shook his head. “I think I remember being in the gate room before we left, but after that…”
“We went to Natameira to negotiate a trade agreement-in a jumper, by the way, so you probably remember us gathering in the jumper bay, not the gate room,” McKay started. “The Natameirans were showing the three of us different parts of the village while you were talking with their leader when the building you were in exploded. Keller said that’s likely where you sustained most of your injuries-your head and broken leg. Oh, and that bruise across your back. You’re lucky. She said it was bad enough that it could have broken the vertebrae, maybe caused spinal damage.”
“My back?” John squeaked, squirming in the bed.
“Your back is fine, and your leg and head will heal,” Teyla interrupted, shooting a disgruntled look McKay’s way. “You are severely dehydrated, but Doctor Keller assured us that she was treating it.”
John nodded, relishing the cool sheet against his skin. He flashed to the heat of the desert village then shook his head. The desert hadn’t been real. It had all been in his head.
“What happened after that?”
“When we heard the explosion, we came running,” Ronon picked up. “The Wraith worshippers had already grabbed you and taken you to their hideout.”
“They had a Wraith queen,” McKay interjected.
“What?”
“Yeah, a queen. Apparently she lost her ship, crashed it somewhere in the mountains and had no way of getting off the planet. I guess all her drones were killed in the crash so she turned to the locals and started…uh…converting.”
John scowled, knowing what that entailed.
“She had you hooked up to some machine-looked like she’d built it from spare Wraith ship parts. Anyway, it messed with your mind. She was pumping you full of some kind of sedative as well, though Keller said it seems to be flushing out of your system fairly rapidly.”
“Hmm,” John mumbled, the pieces starting to click into place.
“Took us almost a day to track you down, but, you know, we found you,” McKay finished.
“Yeah, you did,” John said. “Knew you would.”
They sat in silence for a moment, and John relaxed. He could feel the painkillers starting to pull him under.
“What was it like?” McKay asked, frowning when Ronon and Teyla shushed him. “What? I was just wondering.”
“What was what like?” John whispered, not sure he had the energy to answer anything else.
“The dream world the Wraith queen put you in. Were there other people there?”
An image of Maetan flashed through his mind, then Donnin and the council representative, and the woman at the window. Aelil. He nodded, letting his eyes drift closed.
“There was a woman, wasn’t there? Was she hot-ow, Teyla, I didn’t mean to…oh, good grief.”
John smiled, hearing Teyla swat playfully at McKay and Ronon’s rumble of laughter. He would tell them all about the desert village and the woman at the window, but later. Right now, he was ready to sleep.
END