Waking up on a freezing cold stone floor was getting mighty old, Rodney thought to himself. He'd lost count of the number of times he'd undergone this process in the last day alone, never mind however many years he'd spent being dragged through horror after horror by one Colonel Sheppard – and speaking of.

"Hmmff," he groaned lightly trying to dissuade the insistent tapping on his cheek. The fingertips paused on his face for a moment, then fell away as an audible sigh ghosted past him.

"One of these days McKay," said a wrecked voice above him, "You're going to give me a heart attack."

It was the rasp in John's voice that caught his attention most, dragging his eyes open without any conscious decision on his part and then almost wishing he hadn't bothered. The Colonel looked like a corpse and it was only the rattling wheeze of his breath that reassured Rodney otherwise. "What-" he tried immediately, the rest of the words snagging at his throat and strangling him before they could escape. Panic, thick and fresh, welled up in his chest as though it had been waiting for him to waver on the edge of sanity.

"P5L-774," the Colonel supplied instantly. "Attacked and imprisoned in some caves. We've been over this."

On another day in another life, Rodney would have been offended by the short, sharp-edged tone John was using but when faced with how badly injured he was, it seemed there was a lot the scientist could forgive. Memories returned in short bursts, a hundred things that he didn't want to think about and many more that were too indistinct to make out but it was something. Right then, it was everything. "Poisoned?"

"Drugged certainly. I thought we agreed you're going to be okay." The corner of John's lips twitched as though he was going to smile but it faded into non-existence before it could take root. Even that minor action was too much for his overtaxed body.

"What happened this time?" Rodney shimmied uncomfortably against the floor for a moment, using his legs to push himself towards the wall and prop himself up. With his hands still shackled, it was difficult to worm his way to mostly upright, but John was clearly unable to help him further and he really didn't want to stay on the ground any longer than he needed to.

"You started shouting about a monster. Said you could hear it."

The sound of snuffling breath ghosted past McKay's ear but he firmly told it to shove off. It wasn't real. If John hadn't heard it too then it couldn't be real – of the two of them, he was the only one they could trust to be seeing reality right now and if he said there was no monster, then there was no monster. That conclusion did nothing to stop the bright thrill of fear that lanced through his chest.

"I wasn't dreaming," he said slowly, realising something that he should have known instantly.

"McKay," Sheppard said firmly, exasperated, "There's no monster. There's nothing down here except us."

"No, that's not-" He wasn't breathing right, heart hammering like a rabbit's, and he had to take a second to centre himself so that he could speak without choking. "You said I was shouting," he managed at length, "Not asleep."

"Oh," John uttered, catching up to his train of thoughts. Rodney hadn't been having another dream like before – when it had begun, he'd still been conscious. A hallucination?

"What's happening to me?" Rodney murmured. He hadn't meant to say it aloud but he was tired and he was aching and in that moment he would have given absolutely anything to be a thousand miles away from where they were. The words escaped him without much protest.

Sheppard's expression was soft, creased into deep lines of exhaustion and pain but he still had enough heart to raise his uninjured arm and squeeze Rodney's shoulder. "I don't know," he said and it sounded honest because it sounded like it hurt him. "But we're going to get you back to Atlantis and Beckett is going to figure it out, alright? You're going to be fine. We'll fix this."

There was no way he could know that for certain but even McKay would have felt like an ass to point that out. Fear continued to press against the back of his skull like a physical presence, but he forced himself to swallow and steady himself. "We should keep moving, right? They must have realised we're gone by now."

The look that Sheppard threw over his shoulder into the darkness beyond was concerned, determined and resigned all at once. "Probably. I'm hoping that they'll take some time to gather up a search party."

"If they know these caves well then they might have sent people to the other entrance. We don't know where this tunnel lets out…"

"But they might," John agreed readily, so obviously wishing that he could arrive at a better plan but coming up short.

Rodney felt a sudden, fierce desire to be someone other than himself, to be someone who could take over leadership of their little duo for just a little while if only so that John could have half an hour where he didn't have to think or to worry about the helpless scientist. There'd been plenty of occasions in Rodney's life where he'd wanted to be faster or stronger but it had never dug in so deeply or with so little warning. What if his dreams weren't just dreams? Looking at Sheppard now… Could they be predictions?

No, he told himself sternly. There was no such thing. He didn't believe in all that voodoo crap and even if he did, he certainly wasn't a psychic himself. No amount of potential poison was going to change his opinions there. John was going to be fine. He'd said so himself.

"Can you stand?" Sheppard asked, unaware of the scientist's internal conversation.

"Can you?"

"I've got a few miles left in me yet," John replied lightly. "Don't go quitting on me now."

"Who's quitting?" Rodney shot back breathlessly, struggling to lift himself up without using his hands. Beside him, John forced himself to do the same. Neither of them were willing to admit just how difficult it was to get themselves upright and stay there, Rodney dipping awkwardly to retrieve the torch from where he must have dropped it and holding it aloft once more.

"After you," he said courteously, tilting his head towards the uninviting blackness ahead of them.

His ability to speak vastly restricted now that he was having to devote a large amount of his concentration to staying on his feet, John started trudging forwards without another word. Rodney followed on with all the courage he could summon.

At the back of his mind, the shuffling steps of an unseen horror prowled closer.

"We can't carry on like this Colonel," Rodney said, more to himself than anyone. He'd taken to randomly spouting the first thought in his head to drown out the now-ever-present sound of scuttling in the dark; he'd tried to ask John if he could hear it too but the look he'd received for his troubles was enough of an answer and he hadn't had the courage to ask again.

"No… Choice," John wheezed back, not even slowing in his steady forwards march. Every now and then he would stumble helplessly as his knees began to buckle but he managed to catch himself every time. Rodney wanted to help him but there was no way to support him without also risking setting them both on fire with the fading torch.

"Look, I know you like to pretend that you can keep going on sheer determination, but not all of us are so easily propelled," he said waspishly. "We need to rest. You need to rest."

"We keep moving."

"Running isn't going to do us any good if we both push ourselves to the point of exhaustion Colonel, and I for one am not going to just stand here and-"

"Rodney."

"-For all we know there could be people right behind us now and there's nothing-"

"Rodney."

"-and I know that you think you can do everything just because you're Colonel John Sheppard and you can do anything but-"

"McKay!" His voice was raw with anger and frustration and more than a little pain. John had stopped in the middle of the narrow tunnel they were following him, twisting awkwardly on one leg to look him dead in the face. In the flickering light, Rodney could only see the sharp shimmer in his eyes, the rest of his face shrouded in shadows. "We can't stop. I need-" he cut himself off, dragged in a tense breath, continued, "I need you to keep moving. We can't stop."

"Look at yourself Colonel. You know that you can't keep moving much longer." He didn't want to tell John the truth, tell him that whatever drug it was in his system was starting to drag him away from consciousness. He could feel the black tendrils of it snaking through his veins with every beat of his heart. "We need to rest and you know it. If they were behind us we would have heard them."

There was no point in saying that he'd been hearing sounds of pursuit for hours now.

"Rodney… If I stop, I can't guarantee I'll start moving again." John sounded a mix of ashamed and defeated – it was horrible to hear.

"Cross that bridge when we come to it?"

That was enough to drag a huff of pained laughter from the Colonel. Rodney wanted to smile back at having achieved even that much but with his heart trying to squeeze itself between his ribs to escape, he couldn't quite make the expression take shape.

"Alright," Sheppard said slowly, voice quiet and eyes downcast. "You're right. Of course, you're right. We need rest."

Rodney watched with trepidation as the Colonel swayed awkwardly towards the tunnel wall, all but collapsing into it before he let his legs give way so that he could slide to the ground.

Bizarrely needing someone to be the cheerful one and painfully aware that John couldn't fill that role himself, Rodney found himself saying, "For all we know, Teyla and Ronon might have made it back to Atlantis by now. Maybe the cavalry is already on its way."

"Even if they're coming," John huffed, "They won't know where we are. No signal down here." He poked mutinously at his forearm where Rodney knew his subcutaneous transmitter was buried, then grimaced as the action pulled at too many things that must have hurt.

The scientist's mind dripped back into thinking about how far down they must be – he forced himself instead to remember the 'bitch fit' – John's words, not his – he'd thrown when he'd been forced to receive a transmitter of his own. Of course, the stupid thing had saved his life on multiple occasions at this point but that didn't stop it from hurting like hell.

"You don't know that. We might get lucky."

"When do we ever get lucky?"

"Statistically it has to happen at some point."

The laugh that escaped John at that was a pained, rasping thing and it was enough of a shock to his ears that Rodney's head jerked up from where he'd been resting it against the freezing cold wall. John's eyes were slipping closed, his jaw hanging slack as consciousness crept away from him.

"Colonel? Hey, Sheppard!" Rodney gripped at the shoulder closest to him with both hands, only just stopping himself from shaking the man. With all his injuries, that could only end badly. Instead, he squeezed down as hard as he could, fingers digging into the slack muscles under his hand and willing life into them. "We said rest but that doesn't mean you can fall asleep. I need you to stay awake. Sheppard? Sheppard?"

There was no response other than a faint flicker across the man's brow before his face smoothed out completely.

"John?" He asked softly, already knowing futility. "John, please. Don't leave me here alone."

No answer.

The torch flickered, John's breathing stuttered then eased, the scuttling sounds from beyond the firelight intensified.

A shadow moved closer.

Rodney tried not to scream.