As the second needle headed for his left eye, John wished he had just taken the shot. He was choking, his throat swollen and raw, drowning in his own tears. A stream of them soaked his face and sputtered and splattered with each exhale. Another river coursed down the back of his throat and made him cough as he aspirated them with each ragged inhale. Not all of the tears were the natural reaction to the eye trauma.
The point pierced his eyeball and John heard a scream that echoed off the walls. But it wasn't him. At least not all him.
His vision blacked out completely as the second needle hit home, but John felt the giant's hands lose their hold on him for a microsecond. He whipped his head to the side, trying to pull free.
The needle was still in his eye.
Pain that felt like his eye had been sliced across the middle with a hot steak knife consumed him. He clamped his teeth down, gritting them until he thought they might crack, every neuron in his brain screaming for him to shut down, check out, fade to black.
He was on the verge of that welcoming chasm, ready to step off, when he heard the only things that could have kept him there.
Rodney's voice shouting, "Sheppard!" and a growled battle cry from Ronon.
The hulking guard dropped John's head, shoving him away to fall to his side. Then the bed sank deeply before rebounding back with a jolting jounce, tossing John about on top of it like driftwood in a storm.
He heard the doctor yelp, then the soft thwack of fist on flesh. He heard a bellowed, guttural moan and then what sounded like a herd of elephants stampeding across the floor. The bed shook with each pound of the giant's feet.
Realizing he was finally free to move, John realized that he couldn't. He was curled up, fingers clawing at the flesh around his eyes, digging into the bone around the sockets, slipping in the tears that still flowed.
Using his feet to push off he slid across the slippery silk sheets, managing to keep the top one haphazardly wrapped around his waist. His hands never left his face as he clunked to the floor, grunting as he slammed his raw and weeping back into the wall.
The sounds of battle continued. The voice of the Premika came ringing through the din, cold and haughty but tinged with fear. "Stop this! You mustn't interfere!!" The last words were tight, higher. Desperate.
John pulled his hands from his eyes with an effort that had him gasping. There was no sight in the left and the right showed everything blurry, refracted as if several feet under clear water and with a halo of rainbows. He could barely make out the forms of the two behemoths, grappling in the candlelight. The flickering orange lit the scene like a strobe, giving the two figures a stilted, old movie appearance.
A man who looked like Rodney, but didn't, sat straddling the saffron-robed physician. The little man's glasses were broken, hanging by one earpiece. Rodney slammed another fist into the bloodied face, then stopped, looked up, met John's eyes. He paused, glanced back at the doctor, back at John, as if weighing his options. At the next look at John the hand descended once more to silence the moaning man.
Rodney sat back, rubbed his fist unconsciously as if hardly noticing the bloodied and swollen knuckles. Then he scrambled to his feet and rushed over to fall to his knees in front of John.
Before he could say a word, John asked, "Where's Teyla?"
"Getting help. I hope," was his reply. Then he shook his head dismissively at himself. "She is. Getting help. We just need to, um…"
They both looked over to see the end of the heavyweight bout. Ronon's skill won out against the giant's bulk. The runner was kneeling beside the guard, hands wrapped around the obsidian knife handle, stretched into the air for the killing blow.
The Premika shrieked, flung herself at Ronon, pulling frantically at his arm locked above his head.
"Ronon!" John yelled, spluttering to clear the tears from his lips.
The Satedan hesitated, looked over at John and glared. Then he reversed the knife in his hands and brought the hilt down with all his might on the thick skull. The mute grunted once then his head fell to the side, eyes closed, blood trickling from a clearly broken nose.
The Premika sobbed, falling to her knees to pick up the massive head and cradle it in her lap. Her fingers brushed softly through the giant's hair, then she looked up, nodded once at John before closing her eyes to weep.
Ronon righted the knife and slid it out of view with a blurred fast motion. Casting a final disgusted look at the Premika still sobbing quietly over her fallen giant, he stood to height and scanned the rest of the room. The very corner of his mouth quirked up in a smile at the sight of the motionless physician on the floor and he nodded his head once, short and tight, at Rodney.
The physicist paled, swallowed, then nodded back but his jangled nerves had his head bobbling like a hen's. "Come on. Frankenstein and Igor might wake up or call reinforcements."
The runner cocked an eyebrow at the reference but understood loud and clear what Rodney meant. He strode over, dropped easily into a squat next to his two friends. "Can you walk?"
"Yeah, it's the seeing thing that's not working so good. What the … what…" He shook his head, squeezed his eyes shut and cringed at the pain. "What did they do?" There was an edge to his voice. Fear. You could retrofit anything to be flown with a damaged leg or arm. But blindness…
He eased his eyes open in time to catch the end of a heavily weighted look passing between the two men. "What?" He raised his hands to his face, fingers climbing reluctantly but desperately towards his eyes. "What did they do?" he asked again. "Tell me!"
"Nothing Beckett can't fix, Sheppard," Rodney said brusquely, wrapping his fingers around one of John's arms. "Don't just sit there- help me help him," he continued, flapping his free hand at Ronon.
Between the two of them they got John to his feet, Rodney huffing and making exasperated, embarrassed noises as he tried to wrap the sheet around John's waist. The muttering stopped abruptly. Held up by each arm, eyes clenched tightly closed, John wavered on his feet. "What?"
"Nothing," Rodney said tightly. Then there was a sound that John recognized as hands being rubbed on fabric. He pried open his slightly better right eye in time to see Rodney wiping a crimson soaked hand on his pants. "Sorry, McKay."
"What …? What are you saying sorry for? God, you're just… can we just go?"
John nodded tiredly and took a step forward, limping heavily as his weight fell on his bad leg.
"Oh, my God. You're like an old couch, falling apart at the seams. Ronon, can't you…"
"No! No, I'm good. Just – just need a little help. And navigation. Guidance systems are off line."
"Yeah, you're good," Rodney scoffed but tightened his grip on John's arm and leaned in to offer his shoulder.
Each man at his side, bodily heaving him from the room, the last thing John heard as the curtain swung shut behind them was the Premika still sobbing.
The smell was what he picked up on first. The unmistakable, instantly recognizable odor from the team of ghota. Then he heard their cantankerous whinnying and the creak of the leather straps holding them.
Without warning he was lifted into the back of the wagon, the smell of kahava and wood filling his nose. Then the chk chk of the driver and the cart took off down the hill.
His presence no longer being needed, he allowed himself to lean against the warm form nearest to him. He felt something drape over his chest and he pulled it up to his chin against the cold, rushing air. The wagon rocked beneath him, lulling him into a fretful sleep.
When next he awoke it was to realize he was no longer lying on rough wooden slats or smelling horsey musk. Beneath him now was the familiar feel of the cool metal floor of a puddle jumper.
And the smell was undeniably Carson. Antibacterial soap and the super-rich hand moisturizer he used since he had to wash his hands with that harsh soap so often. The smell intensified and John felt a thumb on his lid, pulling it up gently.
"Steady, lad. Just a peek…"
The hiss as John sucked in a breath at the stabbing pain was almost loud enough to overwhelm Carson's softly whispered oath. "Bloody hell. What did that monster do?"
"We'll explain later, Carson," came Rodney's voice, bitterly spat out. "Let's just get the hell out of here."
"Aye. I couldn't agree more," Carson replied as he finished with the second eye exam and patted John's shoulder reassuringly. "Hand me my kit, please, Rodney."
John felt something cold being swabbed on his upper arm. He struggled to sit up, his hand batting at the air until he found Carson's wrist and pushed it away. "No… no, wait. Where's Teyla?"
"I am right here, John," came Teyla's calm, soothing voice. He felt a soft, warm hand stroke his cheek, wiping away the tears that still moistened them. "Carson is here; you can rest easy now."
John struggled to sit up, one elbow digging painfully into the metal floor. "How? Is Ronon still here? Why was she crying?" His thoughts were all jumbled, flashes of memory mixing up with the present.
"Yeah, I'm here. Take the damn shot, Sheppard."
John smiled weakly at the small joke and nodded. Allowed Carson to slip the needle into his arm and fell back, expecting his head to clunk on the floor but instead found Teyla's outstretched leg.
"Thanks, Carson," he slurred as he slipped away. "It didn't even hurt this time."
He woke up to the coppery taste of blood in his mouth, his throat raw. He tried lifting his lids open but something held them shut so he lay for a moment in the darkness, assessing his injuries and his pain. His back ached, but it was removed. Dulled. Ditto for the trench dug in his arm and where the cat had gnawed on his thigh and shoulder. The nausea he recognized from anesthesia roiled his belly and he gulped painfully, frantically as it worsened, seemingly by the second. The pain in his left eye was already throbbing in time with each beat of his quickening heart rate.
He'd been sick the night before Homecoming. Just a 24 hour flu bug but he'd puked for most of the day. He'd blown a capillary in his eye with the constant retching and had declared himself to scary and gross to be seen at the dance. His hayride with the lovely, soft, pink-sweatered Jenny Stakowski had been his last date with her. She'd hooked up with another guy at the dance after he stood her up. Brad. Tad. Chad? The following month his dad got transferred again anyway.
Fuzzy as he was waking up, head full of cotton batting, he knew instinctively that puking would be a Bad Thing. He heard a long, low, keening moan. It wasn't until he connected the sound with the vibration in his sinuses that he realized that he was the one making it.
Next he heard the jangling of a privacy curtain being pulled open on its metal rail and he felt the breeze a body makes rushing into a room.
"Easy…. steady on, lad. Slow breaths, Colonel."
He would have nodded his acknowledgment but he was too busy trying to battle the gorge that rose in his throat. The head of the bed lowered a few degrees, the awareness that he was sitting straight up in bed only just dawning on him.
"Do what you can, lad. Slow and steady. Don't go undoing all the work we just did. Twas masterful work but nothing I'd want to do again anytime soon. My feet are still killing me. They really need to pad the floors in surgery. Six hours on cold, hard tile has my wee piggies begging for my slippers."
John wrapped his fingers in the sheets, concentrating on dragging one painful breath in after the other, grateful for what he recognized as Carson's attempt at calming distraction.
"Good job, lad. There you are. We'll fix you up right as rain in a moment. Let you sleep on through this. Candace? Push another of the Droperidol and another few migs of the Demerol. Thank you, love."
John felt a hand pat his shoulder gently. "Just give the meds a chance to work, son. No worries. Dr. Chen was brilliant. I have no doubt you'll be back to 20-20 in no time."
The Demerol seeped into his system and he felt his breathing slow, the sharp edges of pain dull, and the coil in his belly unclench. The mattress grew softer beneath him until it fell away completely.
"Don't touch that."
John's hand stilled where his fingers had just brushed the fabric that currently covered his left eye. Stubbornly, he continued to probe, albeit a little more tentatively, working out the borders of the patch and the bandage holding it in place.
"Seriously. Do you know what Carson would do if he saw you?"
"No, Rodney. What would he do?" The doctor emerged from around the curtain with a smile and a tray of medical supplies.
"Hey. If the man wants to stick his dirty fingers in his eye and get it infected, more power to him. Spacial perception- who needs it? Oh, right. Pilots."
"I'm not touching it, McKay," John finally managed to cut in. Ten minutes awake and he was already wishing he'd kept the other eye closed.
"No, of course you aren't, Colonel. You've never been known to ignore medical advice and push your boundaries," Carson said not unkindly as he set down the tray. He bustled over and picked up John's wrist, shooting his wristwatch forward. "You're a bit more sprightly than the last time you woke up. Any nausea?"
"Nothing I can't handle," John answered honestly. "In fact, I'm kinda hungry. I haven't eaten since… since. Don't remember when I last ate, actually."
Rodney folded his arms and humped. "Probably the coffee and power bar you call breakfast the day we left for that stupid planet. You weren't treated to the horse meat and starch concoction they served us … with a side of sedatives."
John sat up straighter, wincing as his back rubbed on the pillows piled behind him.
Carson raised an eyebrow and sighed. "Rodney, the man just bloody woke up and you already have his pulse doing a polka."
John pulled his hand free and glared at the two men. "Damn it! Stop keeping me in the dark and tell me what happened!"
"You know, the glare loses something with only one eye, Sheppard," Rodney said smugly. He glanced over John's shoulder. "But Carson's glare works just fine. Fine. If I start back a bit and leave out some of the scary gross parts can I tell him?"
"You're gonna put him in more of a tizzy if you don't, I think," Carson said with a sigh. "You can fill him in. Might be a nice distraction while I change the bandages."
"Oh, goody," John muttered, flashing a tight smile. "Spill it, McKay."
"Wait," Carson broke in as Rodney went to pull over a chair. "I can't put him on his stomach because of the intra-ocular pressure, and he can't sit too far forward either. Help us here, Rodney."
"Help?"
"Yes. Och, ya daft bugger, I just need you to help hold him up."
"But the eye thing really…"
"His back, Rodney."
"Oh. Okay."
Carson pulled the pillows out from behind John as he sat up more. When he started to fall forward, Rodney's hands shot out and grabbed him by the shoulders.
"Exactly. Thank you, Rodney," Carson said with an encouraging smile. He untied and peeled open the halves of fabric, exposing John's back covered in heavy, blood-stained gauze.
"Yeah, thanks," John mumbled. "No more stalling. From either of you!"
"Okay. So. You remember the green tiger thing?"
"Vividly."
"Oh. Yeah. Well. The Premika and Dr. Mengele seemed like they were taking pretty good care of you. You got sewn up and tucked in and they said you'd sleep. So we asked for chairs to sit in while we waited.
But, Mengele insisted we leave. Sounded a lot like you do sometimes, Carson. Anyway, they chased us out, cooked this meal for us, served it with some fruity beer, sorta like I imagine a Corona would taste like, although I've never really had the full on Corona experience, of course what with the limes--"
John hissed and fidgeted as a bandage pulled free from one of the longer stitched up tears in his back.
"Sorry, son. Stubborn bugger."
"S'okay, doc," John said tiredly. "Go on, Rodney."
Rodney cleared his throat and smiled tightly. "You sure? I mean, this can wait…"
"It's gonna hurt no matter what, Rodney. Carson's right. You make an okay distraction."
"Okay? Okay. So. Ronon of course didn't eat any of the meal on principle. Teyla nibbled at it for appearances' sake but mostly just moved it around on her plate."
"And you?"
"Well, you wouldn't let me have that pastry in the market--"
John chuckled and nodded. "It's okay, Rodney."
"I was only worried I'd be of no use to anyone if my blood sugar got too low. I… I picked at it. It was way too spicy. Was sort of like a horse meat Vindaloo with way too much curry. Anyway, I couldn't eat it and I couldn't drink the beer. It had something…lemon-esque in it. Turns out it was … serendipitous."
John cocked an eyebrow and shifted again. "Thanks for the review on the meal, Rodney."
"Yes well. This animal comes into the room. Mangy dog, coyote thing, all fleas and fur. The puppy love thing must be truly universal- galactic, even- because Teyla immediately starts cooing at the ugly beast and it walks right up to her and gives her these moony, begging eyes. I mean, cats at least have the decency not to mooch at the table. So Teyla throws a piece of meat out for it. It snaps it up and falls asleep about thirty seconds later-- sorry. Are you - do you want me to stop," he asked as John gasped and pulled back from his hands.
"Yeah, no, that was just --"
"The shoulder's a wee bit infected, lad. Sorry. Needs more irrigation if you can hold out. Let me know if you want me to bump up your pain meds."
"No. I'm good, doc. Continue, Rodney. Please… just cut to the chase already."
"Fine. Guards come in expecting us to be sleeping facedown in our curry. Seem more than a little disappointed when we aren't. Room with locks on the doors. Primitive locks. Ronon's knives. He gives Teyla his blaster in case she runs across the Jolly Green Tiger and sends her to radio for help from the jumper. Conan and I make our own escape. Find you and - what- they were doing … you know the rest. At least, you seemed pretty aware. For the most part."
"Yeah, I know what they were doing, Rodney. I was there and awake the whole time. What I don't know is why and what's going on now. And by the way, isn't Chen the guy with the fungus fetish?"
Carson pulled off his blood-stained gloves with a rubbery snap and toed open a nearby waste container, tossing them in with a grin. "THAT was a spot of excellent luck, Colonel. Turns out, before he became a mycologist he was a veterinary surgeon. Specialized in ophthalmology."
"You let a vet slash mushroom doctor operate on my eye?"
"Not just any vet slash mushroom doctor," Rodney chimed in. "Apparently, he was responsible for saving the eye of one of the giant pandas at the Beijing Zoo. Sing-Sing, I think."
"That's a prison, Rodney."
"Whatever. He operated on some famous horse in the states. Won the Stanley Cup of horseracing or something. The guy retired and with all the money he made switched careers and found a new love for mushrooms. And mildew and mold and other icky stuff that grows in basements and bathrooms."
"Elizabeth hired him based on both his skills, Rodney. But yes. Dr. Chen did save your eye, Colonel. As I said, you should be back to your normal 20-20 in no time."
"That's great, doc. I mean it. Thank Dr. Chen and thank you. But I still don't know what the hell they were doing!"
Carson reached over and put his hand on John's shoulder. "Easy there. You need to keep your blood pressure at a nice even keel. And I need more bandages and saline before I do your leg. Rodney, why don't you show the colonel."
"Yes, Rodney. Why don't you," John said dryly as he eased slowly back against the upraised bed.
"Okay. But bear in mind, Carson said it's definitely temporary."
"What is, Rodney?"
The physicist reached over to the counter and picked up a shaving mirror. He hesitated for a second, then handed it over to John.
His right eye's cornea was a bright, inhuman blue, shot through with reddened capillaries and a pencil eraser sized spot of blood. The other eye was covered in a fabric patch.
John studied himself in the mirror without a word then looked up. "I… I look like a Fremen. Like a demented Fremen."
"A demented Fremen pirate, actually," Rodney said, poking a finger at his own left eye. "And you made a Dune reference. You read Dune? No. Wait. Of course. You saw the movie."
"I read the book." He paused, staring once more at his reflection, then looked up and frowned. "And I saw the movie. The one with Sting. But I read it in college. Always thought how cool it was that he could use his name as a killing word. Come on. Imagine it. Sheeeeeppard! Bam! Awesome, right?"
"Hm." Rodney appeared to consider then smiled goofily. "Muuuuuuhkay!"
"Rodney works better, I think. Raaaahdney! See? Has more punch." He dropped his gaze back to the mirror and sighed dejectedly. "This is really not permanent?"
"Carson and Chen both say it should absorb into your system in a few weeks. Something about it being a vegetable based dye -- I really wasn't listening by that point."
"But why?"
Rodney hooked the chair leg and pulled it over, dropping heavily into it.
"On our way out, after you - after we - we weren't exactly sure how we were going to get you back down the mountain and back to the jumper. Jahni was outside at his wagon. Came running over to us, babbling about how he tried to stop them, you saved his son, blah blah blah. We got him calmed down enough to get the wagon going. I think he was happy to be able to help. And he told us the craziest damn story. Actually, with you? Maybe not all that crazy."
He took a deep breath. "Seems they have this prophecy. A quote," and here he punctuated with his fingers, "'blue-eyed warrior, descended from the First Ones and bearing the Mark of the Goddess, end quote, was supposed to be the savior of the Svargans. Apparently, you had everything but the blue eyes. So they, um…improvised."
"Savior? Exactly how and from what was I supposed to save them?"
"By mating with the Premika. Quel surprise, I know. And not just mating with her, but giving her what I gather to be a dozen sons. These sons would grow up to be great warriors and the defeat the Wraith next time they show. Which is, I guess, why she was so desperate. While Svarga has been happily unvisited for the past hundred years, give or take, according to the almanacs, they're due for a culling in another 20-25 years. Just enough time for the Spawn of Sheppard to save them."
John closed his eye and sighed. "I guess I can't completely blame her."
"What? Are you seriously nuts or is that the morphine talking? They stuck needles in your eyes to make them blue. She would have held you captive there while she birthed a few litters of John Juniors."
John looked up and nodded. "I'm just saying, I understand her desire to save her people. That's all." He picked the mirror back up and turned his head to see the pinky-red splotch near his ear. "Mark of the Goddess, huh? Doesn't look like much."
"It's faded a little. The nurses tried a few different thing to clean it up but… it still looks like you got French-kissed by a clown."
"Och. That's not a kiss," Carson said as he returned, setting down an armful of supplies. "I have a strawberry birthmark that looks exactly like a kiss. My mum called it a stork bite and she used to kiss it every time she changed my nappies," he said with a wide grin. Wanna see it?
"No!" John and Rodney chorused but Carson was already turning around and yanking the top of his uniform pants down to show a half moon of pale white flesh. There, at the top of his cheek, was a birthmark the perfect image of a kiss.
"Oh, God, Carson," Rodney said, quickly averting his eyes. "TMI. And TMA for that matter. What a horrible image."
"Och, Rodney. Nothing wrong with a mum planting a kiss on a bairn's bottom. Just because your mum never showed you any affection."
"I'll have you know that my mum -mother- was very kind and affectionate. In her own, coolly removed and stoic way. Anyway, are we done here?"
"I still need your help Rodney," Carson said, fighting a smirk. "I need to get at the back of his thigh so help me roll him over on his side."
"Oh, come ON. Don't you have nurses to do this kind of thing?"
Carson just tapped his foot and John shifted uneasily in bed.
"Fine. What do I have to do?"
"Good man, Rodney. Now don't let him fall over too far and keep his upper body elevated if you can. And mind the tubing."
"Yes. Please. Mind the tubing," John said, a small amount of panic slipping into his voice.
"Minding the tubing. Keeping him elevated. Got it."
They got John rolled over and Carson pushed the gown away from his thigh.
"Oh, great. First Carson's ass, and now yours. Because the view I got when we lost your sheet halfway to the jumper wasn't enough apparently."
"Shut it, Rodney. Or I'll administer your next series of vaccination boosters in the gate room and have Elizabeth call the whole city in." Carson put on a fresh glove and his fingers broke right through. "Bloody hell! I've told them before to stock the small gloves separately from the large ones! Hang on a tick, lads. I'll be right back."
And he left.
Rodney studied a spot on the far wall and John tried to breathe through the pain and the draft.
"So… that mark on Carson's butt. Looked like a kiss, didn't it?"
"Yeah."
"And he does have the gene. And blue eyes."
"He's not exactly a warrior, McKay."
"I don't know about that. He's seen Braveheart at least a dozen times."
"That's true. I sometimes catch him mouthing the words along with William Wallace when we watch it in the rec room. You don't think…"
"Nah… … … You think?"