Title: Candle in the Dark, part 3/3
Author: Sholio
Rating: PG/T
Characters: Sheppard and McKay (no big surprise)
Genre/spoilers: Gen. Season 2.

---

Sheppard had to hand it to McKay: he was taking all this remarkably well. True, there had been a little bit of freaking out, and there was his whole tendency to use talking as a coping mechanism -- but when he thought back to the Rodney he'd first met in Antarctica, and the way that that Rodney used to behave on missions, the difference was remarkable. He was pleased and gratified to find that the same Rodney who used to panic at the drop of a hat had turned into a man who had managed to keep his head -- well, sort of -- while losing the use of his hands, being attacked by a robotic scorpion and having his team leader bleed all over him.

Currently Rodney was propping him up with a shoulder while Sheppard unstrapped his canteen. Shakily, he held it up to the general vicinity of Rodney's mouth -- the location of which he determined without difficulty from its nonstop talking -- and managed to give him a drink without drowning him, before drinking himself.

"Hungry?"

"No," Rodney said morosely, "but eating would probably be a good idea. What I could really use is more Tylenol."

"Food first, Tylenol after." He unwrapped a PowerBar, held it without much interest, then broke it in half and put it up to Rodney's face.

Rodney's presence retreated -- he'd jerked his head back. "What flavor is that?"

"Does it really matter?"

In his mind's eye, Sheppard could see the withering McKay glare boring into his skull. "What, do you think I'm a human garbage disposal? That I don't even notice the flavor of my food? I'm just saying, Colonel, that this had better be one of the chocolate or coffee ones. Peanut butter, I can deal with. If it's apple cinnamon, I'm out of here, and while the light's not too good up here, it's looking suspiciously pale."

"Take a bite, then you'll know."

Rodney groaned, and took a bite, loudly, which he proceeded to chew in Sheppard's ear. "Ugh. Vanilla. Whose idea was it to take a perfectly edible food product and put vanilla in it?"

"Why does everything have to be a struggle with you?" Sheppard wanted to know.

"Because I'm complex," Rodney said smugly, and leaned in for another bite. "This is really embarrassing, you know," he added, while chewing.

"What, being hand-fed like a pony? It's not much fun for me either." Sheppard ate his half of the PowerBar without much interest. He didn't intend to admit it, but Rodney was right about the vanilla flavor.

"Oh, thank you for the comparison. I'd complain louder, but you're the only one of us who can open packets of Tylenol, and right now I'd sell my soul for one, especially after that mauling you call first aid."

Sheppard had bandaged them both with the remaining gauze, what there was of it, using a clean bandana from one of his vest pockets for a pressure pad on the gash on Rodney's ribs. He'd cut off parts of his own pants leg to use on his leg injury, noticing Rodney's thoroughly blood-soaked arm without comment. (Rodney, however, had had plenty of comments, starting with several variations on "This is completely unsanitary" and ending with "This had better be it for the life-threatening injuries on this trip, Colonel, because we're totally out of bandages now.")

"How's your side feeling?"

Rodney snorted. "It'll be better once I get some Tylenol in me. Which you can pass back here anytime, by the way. How's your leg?"

"It doesn't feel like much of anything. Kind of numb. Head hurts like a bitch, though." His shaky fingers fumbled the first aid kit, nearly dropping it. When Rodney helped him pick out the right package, it took him two tries to open it.

"You didn't look that great before, Colonel, but you really look bad now," Rodney contributed, unhelpfully. "I think you've lost an unhealthy amount of blood and you should probably be lying down."

He'd love nothing better than to lie down, but somehow he doubted if he'd get much chance anytime soon. "I'm doing better than I look. Soon as the Tylenol takes effect, let's see if we can find a way out of here."

Rodney snorted. "Well, you couldn't possibly be doing worse than you look, what with the fact that you've been spurting blood everywhere like a firehose. By the way, don't forget there's a big hole in the floor. Falling through that onto an angry scorpion the size of a Thoroughbred wouldn't exactly be a pleasant addition to your day."

Sheppard felt a cold chill crawl around his stomach. He actually had forgotten about the crack in the floor -- or, rather, he'd forgotten that he was going to have to avoid it without being able to see it. Only one response came to mind. "This sucks."

"No argument over here."

A scrabbling sound made them both freeze. It came from below them, and it was close. "Oh, hell no," Sheppard said.

"Oh hell yes," Rodney said in a tight, frightened voice. "Guess what, Colonel: it can climb. I'd suggest we get a little farther away from the hole in the floor. Now seems good."

They both scrambled backwards, while the scritchy sounds from below them grew louder. Sheppard raised his P90. "Rodney, you said earlier that you didn't think the robot could fit through the gap. How sure of that are you?"

"Do I think it's possible? Not really. Would I bet my life on it? Not really."

"In other words, it's possible."

Rodney heaved a sigh and started on a sarcastic comeback, which turned into a yell of "CLAW!"

"Where, dammit?" Sheppard demanded, swinging the P90's muzzle to cover the general direction of the scrabbling.

"Le -- Ri -- Uh, eleven-thirty!"

Sheppard sent a burst of submachinegun fire in the direction that he hoped Rodney meant. He heard the bullets ping off metal, and then there was a screeching sound and a very loud clang from below.

"I hope that means it fell."

"It fell," Rodney confirmed, breathing hard. "But I don't think it intends to stay down there for long."

Sheppard listened to the rapid scrabbling from below. "A way out of here would be nice ..."

"Wouldn't it, though? I'd also like some ice cream and a puppy. Oh, and a whole barrel of morphine." Rodney's sarcasm receded in the distance as he walked away, hopefully looking for an exit.

Sheppard pushed himself to his feet and limped doggedly after him. At least the gash from the scorpion's claw was in the same leg he'd twisted, so he still had one good leg to lean most of his weight on.

"Why are you following me?" Rodney's voice echoed back down the empty space. "Sit, for God's sake, before you fall down! It's not as if you can help me search!"

"The objective is to protect you, Rodney, since I'm the only one of the two of us with a big gun or the ability to shoot one."

"Ah." He actually fell silent, for a change, until Sheppard started wishing he'd say something to make him easier to orient on. The only sounds were footsteps and occasional clattering sounds as he dislodged loose rocks and dirt atop the metal doors. Sheppard found himself becoming uncomfortably aware that only a couple feet of metal separated them from a rather long fall -- metal designed to retract, no less. He knew that the doors were probably corroded in place and solid as a floor, but that didn't make their position any less precarious.

Tilting his head, he listened to the scrabbling below. From the sound of things, the scorpion had fallen a couple of times in its attempts to climb the wall, but having succeeded once, it clearly did not intend to give up until it did so again. "Hey, Rodney, any luck?"

"Actually, yes, I think." The voice came, surprisingly, from above him. Sheppard tilted his head back automatically, even though it didn't help.

"Where are you, McKay?"

For once, the answer wasn't tinged with sarcasm. "Climbing rock piles. We're inside a big shaft here -- it probably goes all the way to the surface, not that we can really take advantage of it at the moment. But the inside of the shaft has sloughed off in places, and I think I've found a tunnel here. I haven't got a clue where it goes, but it goes away from here, and right now that's all I really care about."

"I won't argue with you." Sheppard started towards the sound of Rodney's voice, paused as his feet began encountering more loose rocks. "How steep is it?"

"Not very. I was able to climb it without using my hands ... obviously."

He didn't want to admit how weak his leg was. "All right ... coming up."

The footing wasn't good, but he actually made it to the top without falling, though sometimes he had to use hands as well as feet to keep from slipping. He was aware of Rodney hovering, probably wanting to help but unable. The man was never entirely quiet -- always in motion, with little rustles and mutters and breathy noises ... Sheppard had never really noticed before, and he found it oddly comforting.

"You okay?" Rodney asked, as Sheppard paused at the top to breathe.

"I'm fine, I'm fine." He wasn't fine, he was actually pretty woozy, and suspected it stemmed from a combination of head injury and blood loss. He knew better than to tell this to Rodney, however. He was confident that he could keep going, at least for a while, and beyond that ... they'd have to cross that bridge when they got to it.

Rodney hmph'd, and Sheppard felt him nudge against the P90. "Hey, let's get some light here. Now that we're away from the hole in the floor, I can't see a thing."

"Your wish is my command," Sheppard murmured, snapping on the light. "Any sign of the bug from hell back there?"

"No, but I don't intend to stick around here and wait for it."

The tunnel turned out to be, as Rodney put it, more of a glorified crack in the rocks than any kind of self-respecting tunnel -- just something that had opened up in some earthquake long ago. This probably meant that it could end at any time, trapping them against a dead end with a giant metal scorpion behind them ... but he decided not to dwell on that. If they had to backtrack, then they'd backtrack, and this offered a better hope of escape than any of their other options.

In any case, though, the going was slow. In the first few minutes, Sheppard tripped several times on unexpected rocks, and cracked his forehead against a low-hanging part of the ceiling. Stopping, once again, to wait for Sheppard to pick himself up, Rodney grumbled, "You're going to be one giant bruise if this keeps up, not to mention losing any hope of ever joining Mensa."

Sheppard sat on the floor for a moment while the swirling dizziness and nausea receded. The last thing his head had needed was another blow. "You got a better idea?" he asked, picking gravel out of his stinging palms. He'd managed to break his fall with his hands, and they didn't appreciate the treatment.

"I do, actually." Something jostled against him; reaching out, he touched a blood-stiff jacket sleeve. Rodney had knelt down next to him. "Yes," Rodney said impatiently, "I'm actually volunteering to be your seeing-eye dog, but only because you might break the flashlight if you keep falling down."

And also tacitly offering assistance in standing back up, which Sheppard suspected he might need. Getting a secure grip on Rodney's shoulder, he leaned on the other man as they both got to their feet. "Excalibur ... onward and upward," Sheppard panted.

Rodney snorted a weary laugh. "That's 'excelsior'. Excalibur was King Arthur's sword."

"Once again your memory for useless trivia amazes me, Rodney."

"Oh really? Well, once again your inability to remember details related to anything that doesn't have wings or make loud noises amazes me, Colonel."

... and so it went, snarking through the dark. At one point Rodney paused with a soft hiss of dismay. Sheppard bumped lightly into his back before managing to stop. "What?"

"Hole," Rodney said succinctly. "Big freaking hole. Shine our light down in front of us, but kindly don't step forward or it'll be the last step you ever take."

Sheppard took his hand off Rodney's shoulder and tilted the P90 downwards. He heard Rodney whistle softly. "Okay, that is one damn big hole. Actually, more of a chasm. It bisects the tunnel to both sides, and there's kind of a big jumble of rocks off to our right ... leading to another crack that we can probably follow without having to cross this." More and more, as they went deeper into the tunnel, he'd been explaining what was in front of them in detail so that Sheppard could visualize and avoid obstacles. Sheppard hadn't commented on it, for one thing because he really appreciated it and didn't want Rodney to get embarrassed and clam up, but also because he hated being that dependent on another person for anything -- even if the person was Rodney.

"So we have to climb a rock pile." Sheppard hesitated, contemplating the logistics of doing so when one of them couldn't see and the other one couldn't use his hands. "That promises to be fun."

"Tell me about it."

They climbed separately. It was obvious to both of them, without needing to discuss it, that all they'd accomplish if they tried to stabilize each other's balance was risk getting tangled and falling. Rodney went up first, while Sheppard waited at the bottom, tense and anxious, trying to tilt the light at the proper angle. The only sounds were Rodney's harsh breathing and an occasional mumbled curse or sharp intake of breath. Eventually he shouted down, "I'm at the top. Come on up."

"Took you long enough," Sheppard retorted as he raised a foot and tapped his boot on the rocks.

"Notice I'm not rising to the bait because I'm a bigger man."

"You said it, Rodney, not me." Sheppard slung the P90 over his shoulder, and bent over to use his hands to help support his body as well as feeling his way up the rock pile. Somewhat to his surprise, it worked quite well. He was tempted to take off his boots so that he could use his toes to help feel out the unstable rocks, but didn't want to risk injuring a foot or losing a boot ... not to mention that his leg hurt like hell and he didn't think he could bend it to remove the boot. He had to keep it rigid as he climbed, leaving him in an awkward twisted position with one leg fully mobile and the other one stiff. By the time he reached the top, the world was spinning again and his leg felt wet and slippery. He sank down in a heap and rested his face on his arm.

There was a waiting, hovering silence from Rodney's direction, until finally Rodney couldn't take it anymore and said nervously, "Are you, um, all right?"

Sheppard swallowed and tried raising his head. He didn't pass out or throw up. "I'm fine, but a short rest might be in order."

"Your leg's bleeding again," Rodney reported.

"I know. It'll stop." But he rested a hand against it, applying pressure despite the pain. He wished he could see how badly he was hurt, and at the same time was glad he couldn't.

"Tylenol?" Rodney asked hopefully.

Sounded like heaven. They went through their usual Three Stooges-like efforts to get food and water from Sheppard's hands to Rodney's mouth, finishing off a couple of PowerBars -- Sheppard didn't really want it, but made himself choke it down for the sake of the energy -- and nearly emptying one of their two canteens.

"Shouldn't we be saving the water?" Rodney asked as Sheppard capped the canteen.

"No point. Let's face it -- we're not in any shape to stay down here more than a day or two under any circumstances. Keeping ourselves hydrated and capable of moving is better than trying to ration our water and ending up dehydrated and comatose. We're not really getting as much water as we need anyway, with the injuries and exertion."

"You're such a ray of sunshine." Little rustling fidgety sounds emanated from Rodney's direction. "My hands itch."

"For God's sake don't scratch them."

"I'm not an idiot, Colonel. Hey, do you think it's a good sign? Maybe it means the skin is growing back."

"Your skin isn't going to grow back in a couple of hours."

"Thank you for the professional opinion, Doctor Sheppard."

His mother told him there'd be days like these ... "Let's move on before our scorpion buddy picks up our trail, shall we?" He tried to get up on his own, sank back with a soft breath. And Rodney was there, offering a shoulder to support him. Saying nothing, he gripped hold and let himself be helped.

What came next was long. Very long. There were more rock piles, more climbing, and he was pretty sure that the squishy feeling in his boot was from blood running down his leg and soaking his sock. Sometimes they seemed to be going up; sometimes they went down. Once they had to jump from one rock to another -- Rodney never did tell him why -- and that was difficult. Sometimes he just walked in a hazy dream state, not really aware of his legs rising and falling, letting his grip on Rodney's shoulder tug him along. At some point he became aware that McKay was shivering under his grasp, had been for some time, and the thought worked its way into his consciousness that both of them were in pretty bad shape.

"This is really extensive," Rodney was saying, rambling in a soft voice that seemed to be intended for himself as much as for Sheppard. "The caves, I mean. This area must have had some kind of pretty intense geological disturbance at some point in the long-distant past. I wonder if the Ancient facility could actually have had something to do with that. I mean, maybe this place is geothermal-powered, like the one where we found the Orion. Once we get back to Atlantis -- notice I didn't say if -- we'll have to figure out what they used for a power source here. Could also be a ZPM, you know, probably depleted but ... oh, no."

The sudden alarm in his voice jolted Sheppard out of his sleepwalking state. "What?" Rodney's shoulder twisted out of Sheppard's grasp, and he felt suddenly bereft, helpless. He didn't dare take a step forward, not knowing what lay ahead of him. The P90 slipped in his suddenly sweat-slick fingers. "Rodney? What? Dammit, what's the matter?"

"This is what's the matter, Colonel." There was a series of thunks, and it wasn't until a solid object struck his boot that he realized he'd been hearing the sound of Rodney kicking something along the floor. Bending over from the waist -- his leg wouldn't bend, and he knew if he sat down he'd never get up -- Sheppard touched it with his fingertips, feeling cold metal.

"What is this?"

"This, Colonel, is a claw, or a piece of one." Rodney's voice had that tight, desperate sound that it got when he was on the edge of panic. "As in, a claw partly severed by a P90 that eventually just got loose enough to fall off. Sheppard, the damned robot is in this maze with us."

They both fell silent and Sheppard found himself straining his senses, listening for that metallic skittering sound. All he heard was Rodney's rapid breathing, and his own. "It doesn't seem to be close."

"Sheppard, it's in here with us."

"And we'll deal with that when we have to, but in the meantime, there's nothing we can do except keep trying to find our way out."

"We don't even know if there is a way out." Despair surged up in Rodney's voice, deeper and blacker than the darkness behind Sheppard's closed eyelids. "We've been walking for hours, we're probably going in circles, there's a robotic bug thing in here somewhere that can't be killed but wants to kill us, we're running out of water and we have almost no food, and I wish you could see yourself right now, Colonel, because you look like something my cat dragged in and I don't feel any better ... and sooner or later one of us is going to collapse, probably you from the look of things, but whichever one it is, the other one's going to be totally screwed because it's all we can do to move ourselves right now, let alone another person ..." He trailed off into silence.

Neither of them spoke for a few minutes. Then Sheppard gave the claw a final nudge with his boot, and stepped over it. He'd only taken a few steps when there was the quick sound of feet and Rodney's body blocked him from moving any farther. "Hey, where do you think you're going? You'll walk off a cliff, you idiot."

"I'm getting out," Sheppard said simply.

He stopped. Listened. Waited. And finally Rodney took a long, deep, shaky breath. Sheppard raised a hand, and Rodney shrugged his shoulder under it -- back to their guide-dog position.

"You're insane," Rodney said as he trudged forward. "Certifiable. I am stuck in a maze with a crazy man. Granted, a crazy man who has a long history of surviving impossible situations. Maybe fortune really does favor children and fools. Lord knows you've been known to qualify as both, depending on circumstances."

They hadn't been walking for very much longer -- maybe fifteen or twenty minutes; hard to say -- when Sheppard's strength gave out. It happened from one step to the next: his knees buckled, and rather than using Rodney for a guide, he was suddenly supporting almost his entire weight on the shoulder under his hand. Rodney, unsurprisingly, staggered with a surprised exclamation, made a move as if to catch him and then froze uncertainly, while Sheppard continued to fall, going down hard on his butt and dragging McKay with him. He slumped forward, elbows on knees, resting his head in his hands and feeling the world go spinning and swooping away.

Next thing he knew, something was nudging at him, something warm and insistent. It made him think of a dog, and he tried to tell it to go away, when he woke up enough to realize that Rodney was prodding him with both leg and elbow -- the handless equivalent of shaking his shoulder, no doubt -- and speaking his name in a voice laced with worry.

"Colonel! Sheppard, are you in there?"

"I'm having a bad day," Sheppard rasped.

"Funny, me too." Rodney's voice was light with relief. He rested his shoulder against Sheppard's, who held out for about a half-second before giving in to exhaustion and allowing himself to lean into Rodney's solid warmth and accept the wordless support that had been freely offered. The only alternative was falling over, and he really didn't feel like he was there yet.

"Think they've sent a rescue party through?" Rodney asked after a moment.

"Hard to believe they haven't, but if they have, they haven't hailed us." His foggy brain began catching up with circumstances, and he added, "Oh, right. Underground. No radio signals."

"We could be closer to the surface now," Rodney pointed out hopefully.

He had a point. Sheppard raised his arm -- it seemed to weigh a ton -- and tapped his radio. "This is Colonel Sheppard. Anybody reading this? Teyla, Ronon, Lorne. This is Sheppard. Talk to me, people."

He tried a few more times before giving up and letting his hand fall back to his side.

Rodney shifted against him, getting more comfortable. "You can say 'I told you so'. I'll even shut up and take it."

"About what?"

"Coming here. Ignoring the anthropologists. It wasn't exactly my shining moment, I'm starting to realize with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight."

"I could say 'I told you so', Rodney, but it would be a lie, because I didn't tell you so, at least not at the time. Granted, in the future I think listening to the anthropologists regarding the homicidal tendencies of the people we meet ... just might be a good idea. That is why we pay them, after all."

"We get paid?"

Sheppard laughed a little. There was a silence, then, and he found himself drifting towards sleep. Dammit John, get a grip.

"There's something else, too," Rodney said hesitantly.

Oh great, now what. "If this is heading for personal conversation territory, McKay ..."

"What? No, good grief, no." Rodney sounded, briefly, more animated than he had in hours. "Don't be ridiculous -- we may be trapped together in a cave, but if I start regaling you with tales of my childhood, please just shoot me. No ... I didn't want to mention this earlier, because it really wouldn't have helped, but the flashlight seems to be dying."

Sheppard raised his head, startled. "And we're sitting here wasting it? Rodney ..." He felt for the P90, flicked off its light.

"I know, I know." Rodney managed to sound both impatient and weary at the same time. "It's idiotic and probably entirely incomprehensible to you, especially considering your present condition. A bad decision. No need to rub it in."

And there he stopped. He didn't need to say It's dark in here. Sheppard said nothing, either; maybe he leaned a little more weight against the slightly trembling shoulder propping him up.

He was drifting again when Rodney stirred. "Hey ... Sheppard ..." There was something new in his voice, something alert and hopeful. "Sheppard, are you awake? It's not completely dark. There's light coming from somewhere."


------


Light.

Rodney hadn't realized it until the P90's rapidly dimming flashlight had been shut off long enough for his eyes to adjust to the dark. He'd expected the surge of darkness to be a tsunami, a Rodney-swamping wave that would leave him struggling to breathe. And it had been, when Sheppard first shut off the light -- but, slowly, light crept back, and he began to make out dim shapes of boulders around him.

"Colonel." He shrugged his shoulder, trying to jostle the still, heavy lump of semiconscious pilot into wakefulness. "Sheppard, I can see. There's light coming from somewhere."

Sheppard stirred sluggishly, raised his head. "What kind of light? Natural daylight? Lamplight?"

"Does it matter?" Rodney was half-laughing. "It means there's something down here other than rocks and killer scorpion things. Maybe we've found our way out, maybe we've circled back to the Ancient facility, and you know what? I don't care. Anything's better than what we have now."

"Not necessarily anything, Rodney." Sheppard got a tight grip on his shoulder, and Rodney braced his legs under him, helping hoist them both to their feet. Sheppard was leaning a lot of weight on him, swaying drunkenly.

"You know," Rodney began, reluctantly, "I could go on ahead, just a little, and scout --"

"We stay together."

"Good." It came out small and probably frightened-sounding, but he didn't really care. The last thing he wanted was to be by himself in the dark.

"You want the flashlight on?"

"No, no. I need to be able to see where the light's coming from."

Without the flashlight, Rodney was almost as blind as Sheppard, and they both banged shins on rocks in the near-dark, until the light grew bright enough that Rodney could steer them around obstacles.

"Definitely daylight," Rodney reported for benefit of his companion. "Coming from above us, I think. It's ... aha ..." He let the words fade away thoughtfully, staring upward. "Well, that just about fits with the kind of day we've been having."

A single shaft of sunlight pierced the darkness, spiking from a point high above their heads. It appeared that the way to the surface had been opened by some long-ago rockslide; a treacherous expanse of giant, broken boulders and near-vertical rockfaces led up to the gap.

"McKay," Sheppard said impatiently, raising his head from where it had slumped to rest against Rodney's shoulder. "I don't know what you're looking at. You found where the light's coming from, right?"

"Yeah." Rodney continued to gaze at it, head tilted back, trying not to give in to despair. How were they going to manage that? Well, better be realistic here -- how was he going to manage that? Sheppard might be able to climb it, but the injured Colonel was in no shape to hoist a somewhat ... healthily built physicist up that distance. Aware of Sheppard's impatience, he said, "We're going to have to climb. Again. And it'll be a lot harder than what we've climbed up before. It's very nearly vertical."

"We still have the rope."

"Yes, and I still have no hands. You can't see how steep this is, Shep--"

He froze. So did Sheppard. From somewhere off in the darkness had come a distinct sound of metal ringing on rock.

"We're going to die," Rodney said promptly in a very small voice, half-choked by the flood of terror surging inside him.

"Sound carries in caves." Sheppard slipped away from the supportive shoulder and propped himself on the wall of the cave, getting out the rope which he had re-coiled after untying it from Rodney.

Rodney stared at the pale, blood-covered figure. Sheppard's fingers were trembling as he ran them down the rope, checking for worn spots. "Colonel, you can't lift me. You can't possibly lift me."

"We'll do it in stages, not in one long climb," Sheppard said as if he hadn't spoken. "Rodney, I need you to find, and describe to me, the first place up there that you think we could stop for a few minutes -- a ledge, a big boulder, a flat place, anywhere I can get enough purchase to pull you up."

Rodney swallowed, trying to maintain control. One part of him wanted to grab Sheppard by the shoulders, shake him and scream into his face, Leave me and get out, you idiot! The other part of him wanted to wrap himself around Sheppard's leg and whimper Please, please don't leave me to die in the dark. He forced both parts of himself down, trying to get the logic centers of his brain working again, and looked up at the rocks hanging above them.

"Um ... maybe about ... seven or eight meters above us, there's a place where a big rock slid out from the wall. It looks stable enough to stand on. I guess."

"Good. I need somewhere above it to anchor the rope. The higher the better -- it's going to be much more difficult to throw the rope once we're on the cliff, so if I could get it all the way to the top, that would be best. How high is it?"

"It's not really a cliff, you know. More like a big pile of rocks." Rodney tried to estimate distance. "I'm not good at this. Maybe ... thirty meters? Forty? Can you throw that high?"

"Guess we'll find out." The rope spun; the grappling hook flew, falling far short, snagging on a boulder about halfway up. Sheppard gave it an experimental tug. It seemed to hold. "How high did it go?"

"Halfway." Rodney's head snapped around at another sliding metallic sound, distinctly closer. "Uh, Sheppard ..."

"I know. We'll just have to anchor it again when we're higher ... or I could free climb and set the rope at the top. C'mere."

Rodney dutifully stood still as the rope was laced around him again. "You know, I don't want to complain but I really thought I'd better mention it ... this really hurt the last time."

"I know. It shouldn't be as bad this time around -- you can use your legs to take the weight off your body. In fact, the more weight you're able to put on your legs, the easier it'll be for me to lift you and the faster this will go." Sheppard gave the rope a sharp jerk and settled the P90 into a secure position.

"I probably don't need to say this, but please hurry."

Sheppard nodded, gripped the rope and began climbing. Little rocks slipped from under his feet and started miniature rockslides. "Hurry, hurry, hurry," Rodney chanted under his breath, dividing his attention between Sheppard and all of the many dark gaps in the rock where a killer robot scorpion could be hiding.

It seemed to take forever, but eventually Sheppard vanished over the top of the big cleft in the rocks. The rope went slack, then the Colonel called down, sounding weary and out of breath: "Get ready to help out here. Have you ever rappelled before, Rodney?"

"You're joking, right?"

Sheppard gave a tired, but genuine, laugh. "Well, you're about to learn a new skill."

The rope tightened and Rodney kicked off as best he could. This did turn out to be less painful and terrifying than dangling above the floor. It was almost like walking up a wall, and much sooner than he expected, Sheppard was hauling him over the edge. Rodney fell to his knees, and Sheppard collapsed back against the rocks, white as a sheet.

"You know, Colonel, I'm running out of ways to say 'You look like crap'. Want to rest for a minute?"

Sheppard flexed his reddened, rope-burned hands and rubbed them gently together. "Depends."

"On what?"

"On whether or not there's a killer robot climbing up after us."

"I told you not to call it that. And the answer to that is ..." Rodney risked a peek over the edge. "No. Not at the moment."

"Well, that's something, anyway." Sheppard dragged himself away from the rock. "Hold on, I need to tighten your harness and shorten the remaining rope."

Rodney sighed and stood still for it. "You know, wearing yourself out to the point where you fall or drop me isn't going to help us much."

"I know my limits, Rodney," Sheppard said shortly, testing the knots with his fingers. "We can rest before we have to reset the rope."

And so he was gone, up the rope and out of sight over the edge of a rock overhang above them. Rodney gritted his teeth. "I hate it when you do this!" he yelled up at the jerking, dangling rope.

No answer. Rodney sighed and leaned back against the rock, then looked over the edge just in time to see black robotic death skitter out of one of the openings below him.

He opened his mouth to shout a warning up to Sheppard -- or maybe just to scream -- then realized that it didn't seem to have figured out where they were yet. It scuttled about aimlessly beneath him, and just when he was hoping it might give up and leave, Sheppard dislodged some loose rocks that clattered down and bounced off its metal carapace. The eyeless head oriented upwards, and Rodney threw caution aside. "Sheppard! SHEPPARD!"

A strained voice floated back down to him. "This better be important, Rodney."

"It's important! It's important! Robot at, uh, under you o'clock! And I think it's about to jump, Colonel!"

There was some frantic-sounding scraping on the rock above him and Sheppard called, "Get back as far as you can. I'm going to shoot and I don't want to hit you."

Rodney flattened himself against the wall as a stuttering burst of P90 fire strafed the cave floor and drew a trail of sparks from the robot's black shell. The thing scuttled hastily out of sight.

"Did that do anything?" Sheppard called down.

"It just hid -- I think it's getting a little more cautious of us. Apparently it can learn. That's really interesting. I'd love to see what's under that thing's hood -- er, shell. It might even --"

"Rodney! Admire it later! Climb now!"

This particular leg of the ascent was considerably more nerve-wracking than the previous one. Looking over his shoulder, Rodney saw to his horror that the scorpion-like robot had skittered out of the shadows and was hovering under him with an expectant air, like a dog waiting for its master to drop a tidbit. It didn't try to jump, however -- it really did seem to be cautious of them now. He noticed that it was missing part of a front claw, which was, in a way, a relief: at least this confirmed that they were still dealing with the same one, rather than a whole herd of the blasted things.

Sheppard helped him wriggle over the edge. His burned hands banged against the rock, but it was a measure of his desperation and exhaustion that he hardly even noticed. Sinking down, he numbly watched Sheppard unhook the grappling hook -- they were on top of the boulder that had caught the hook on the first throw.

"Halfway there," Sheppard said. His voice sounded ragged and hoarse.

"Sit down before you fall off the rock and get sliced and diced by our chitinous little friend."

Sheppard needed no more encouragement; he slumped down in a boneless heap with his bad leg thrust out stiffly in front of him. He kept the P90 in his lap, ready for use. "What's it doing now?"

"You expect me to stick my head over the edge with that thing down there? I'm rather attached to my head, Sheppard."

Sheppard visibly steeled himself to move, and started scooting towards the edge with the P90. "I'll cover you."

They both leaned over the edge, Rodney with an elbow pressed against Sheppard's chest to keep him from falling. "Oh hell," Rodney said.

"What?"

"It's on the ledge we just left. It must've either jumped or climbed. Colonel, we've got to get out of here."

"See anywhere above us that I can set the grappling hook?"

Rodney tilted his head back, and groaned in despair. "No. I can't see anything. There's an overhang right above us."

"Any way around it?"

Rodney got up and made his way as far along the boulder's top as he could safely go. "You can sorta see around it here. And maybe if you could see where you're aiming, you could throw -- but, Sheppard, you'd have to lean way out and basically use random chance. We could be here all day, and we don't have all day."

Sheppard hung the coil of rope on his belt; the end without the grappling hook was still tied to Rodney. "Then I'll free climb. It'll mean leaving you down here alone, and I wish there was some other way --"

"You can't climb that blind!"

"There's not a whole lot of eyesight involved in climbing, Rodney -- it's mostly touch anyway."

Rodney looked him up and down: pale, shaky, covered with blood, barely able to stand. "Sheppard, I'm only gonna ask you this once, but are you absolutely sure you're up to this? Because if you try it and fall, you're going to die, and I'm going to die soon after. It's only in the interests of self-preservation that I'm asking."

Sheppard was silent for a few nerve-wrecking moments. Then he said, "Do you think you can belay me while I climb?"

"If I knew what that meant, sure I could."

Sheppard untucked the rope from his belt and began wrapping it around his body. "It means that if I slip and fall, you'll take up the slack and catch me. Since you're not anchored and we don't really have a way to anchor you, the real danger will be that I'll drag you off the edge. If you hear me start to fall, throw yourself flat and brace yourself on the rock. Since the rock face isn't vertical, I can probably stop myself with drag before I hit the end of the rope anyway. And when we get back to Atlantis, I'm definitely making sure that the standard offworld traveling kit includes some lightweight rock climbing equipment." He hesitated for an instant, thinking, then drew his knife and reached out, groping until he got hold of Rodney by feel. "This is gonna hurt, sorry." He gently placed the knife in one of Rodney's burned hands and very lightly folded the fingers about it.

"Hey!"

"I said sorry ... but some skin damage is better than death. If I do fall, and if I'm going to drag you off the ledge, cut the rope."

Rodney stared at the knife loosely cupped in his hand, feeling ill. "If I do that, you'll die."

"Not necessarily -- if the rope even slows me a little bit, it could make the difference. And I'm serious, Rodney: if you're going to go over, don't hesitate. Don't think about me, don't think about your hand, just cut the rope."

He wasn't sure if he would, if he could, but he said, "Yes. All right," just to get that look off Sheppard's face.

After another brief hesitation, Sheppard nodded, then turned and took a couple steps towards the edge. Rodney flinched backwards as he fired a burst from the P90, then rammed in a fresh clip before returning the gun to its resting place on his vest.

"What are you doing?"

"Cover fire. If it's actually gotten cautious of the gun, that should help keep it from climbing up until I can lower the rope for you." As he spoke, he braced his arms against the rocks, and began to climb. "If it does start climbing again, holler at me and I'll shoot down a few times in the hopes of scaring it off."

"I doubt if it'll scare, Colonel!" Rodney yelled up to him. A shower of dislodged rocks made him duck. "Be careful! Please," he added softly.

In a few minutes, Sheppard was out of sight, and Rodney nervously paced the short distance from one end of the boulder to the other. Occasionally he peeked down. He couldn't see the robot at all and wondered what it was doing. Little clattery sounds from down below made him think it was probably still climbing.

A black claw appeared over the edge of his boulder, not four paces from him. Oh yes ... still climbing.

Rodney let out a yell of shock and -- to his own surprise -- anger, and lashed out with a foot, connecting solidly with the claw. He must have surprised the robot as much as it surprised him, because it recoiled hastily, lost its grip and bounced down the rockpile with a sound like a pile of washtubs being dropped down the stairs.

Distantly, Sheppard's voice called down anxiously, "Rodney?"

"Cover fire would be good!" Rodney yelled back at him. "Very good! Anytime!"

A short machinegun burst answered him. Anxiously he peeked over the edge to see that the robot had vanished again. No telling where it was.

It really did seem to learn from its experiences. It had shown no fear at all of the P90 until getting its claw clipped off. And it was able to strategize, at least to a limited extent. Simple as it seemed, the amount of programming involved in that sophisticated an AI must have been --

The rope jerked, and his radio crackled. "Rodney? I'm at the top. You ready?"

Rodney let out a long sigh of relief and then realized that he couldn't activate the radio without hands. After a fruitless moment or two of trying to touch his elbow to his ear, and then almost stabbing himself in the side of the head when he tried to use the knife, he yelled up the rockslide, "More ready than you'd believe, Colonel! Uh, that's a yes, by the way!"

He was yanked off his feet and instantly lost his loose grip on the knife, which skittered down the rocks and vanished over the edge. Aw crap ... Sheppard's gonna kill me. But then he had more pressing things to worry about, as the rope bit into his shoulders and hips, dropping him just a hitch, then pulling him up another little hitch, then dropping him a tiny bit -- Sheppard must be very nearly at the end of his strength. Rodney's feet scrabbled across the rocks, found purchase, lost it, found it again.

There was a slow-motion desperation to that climb, like the dreams where you run from a pursuing evil with the leisurely grace of underwater ballet. Rodney kept thinking he couldn't do this anymore, that he was too tired, his side and his hands hurt too much ... if he could only rest for a minute ... and then he thought of Sheppard, in far worse shape, hauling him bodily up the cliff, and somehow found the strength to keep going.

He was almost to the top when he looked over his shoulder and saw the black shiny bulk of the robot not ten meters below him, splayed out across the rockface as it crawled dogged after him. The only sound he could manage was a breathless squeak of terror. He kicked at the surface under his feet, dislodging a few small rocks that bounced down and clattered on its carapace, but it didn't fall, only kept coming, closing the distance between them.

Then he was in sunlight, blessed sunlight, with Sheppard seizing a double handful of his jacket and dragging him from the opening. They both crumpled in a tangled heap; he could feel Sheppard's chest heaving with ragged-sounding gasps. All he wanted to do was lie here and sleep for about a year, but the clattery sounds coming up from the hole were getting louder, fast.

"Sheppard." Rodney rolled off him, somehow made it to his knees. "Sheppard, it's right behind me. We've got to get out of here. Get up."

Shakily, Sheppard raised a hand to his face, wiped at the blood and sweat mingled on his cheeks. "Don't know if I can," he panted.

"Too bad, because I don't think you've got a choice."

Holding his leg out stiffly, Sheppard rolled over onto his good knee, tried to lurch to his feet and fell back. Rodney impatiently wormed his way under Sheppard's shoulder, until Sheppard finally got with the program and locked his arm around Rodney's neck so that he could be hauled to his feet.

"McKay, I'm not kidding here," Sheppard panted, leaning most of his weight on Rodney. "You know how I said I know my limits? I think I'm at that point now. Just go --"

"If you tell me to leave you behind, I'll hit you," Rodney informed him, half-carrying and half-dragging him down a short, moss-covered hill into a stand of trees. He looked back just in time to see the robot emerge into the sunlight, its shiny black carapace glistening with an oily sheen.

Sheppard tried to say something else, but it wasn't coherent, nothing but mumbling. His body relaxed, turning to dead weight on Rodney's shoulder, and his arm went slack around the scientist's neck. He just seemed to melt, sinking to the ground in a heap.

"Good one, Colonel!" Rodney yelled at him, looking from Sheppard's body to the robot crouched in the mouth of the cave. "Great timing! Remind me to thank you later! Oh wait -- we'll be dead later!"

He shook Sheppard hard with one foot. There was no response. Only the slight rise and fall of his chest let Rodney know that he was still alive.

The robot oriented on them and began skittering down the hill, gleaming in the sun.

And Rodney hit his breaking point. He'd had it. He was sick of being useless, sick of Sheppard protecting him while about to drop dead from exhaustion and blood loss. He'd just show Sheppard he could do this damned hero stuff too. Show him that he could take his turn, that Sheppard didn't have to do it all.

Protect his friend if it killed him.

He knelt down and fumbled with the clip holding the P90 to Sheppard's vest. Between the burn damage and the gauze on his hands, it was like wearing baseball mitts, and the pain made him hiss and jerk back. No way he was going to be able to undo the clip, so carefully, he propped up the P90 on Sheppard's chest, hooking an arm under it to try to support it and not break any of the Colonel's ribs when the gun went off. The worst part, at least so far, was trying to curl his finger around the trigger, but he had a feeling that all this was going to pale in comparison to actually trying to hold it steady while it fired.

"Eat lead!" Rodney yelled at the robot and yanked the trigger.

The gun bucked and bullets sprayed the soft ground about halfway between Rodney and the robot. He screamed in pain; between the vibration and the gun kicking back against his hands, it felt as if all the skin had been flayed off.

The robot stopped and then resumed its forward scuttle. Gasping and blinking back tears of pain, Rodney tried to summon every ounce of anger he could muster as he steadied the gun and squeezed the trigger again.

This time he hit it, sweeping a swathe of gunfire across its head and front claws. He had to drop the gun, shaking, letting it fall back onto Sheppard's chest. Fresh blood was seeping through the gauze and he didn't want to know what he'd done to his hands. But the robot had stopped moving forward. It remained still, swinging its head from side to side.

And his radio crackled.

"Colonel Sheppard? This is Lorne. We're picking up gunfire -- are you doing that? Colonel Sheppard, Dr. McKay, come in."

Rodney's jaw dropped. They really had sent a rescue party. He reached automatically for his radio, only to bat the side of his head with a gauze-wrapped hand. Now that he'd fired a submachinegun, though, turning the radio on was child's play. He just whapped at it until he got the right button.

"Lorne? Oh thank God. Where are you?"

Teyla's voice broke in. "Dr. McKay? Rodney? Are you and the Colonel all right?"

"No, we're not all right!" His voice cracked as he noticed the robot starting its forward movement down the hill again. "We activated some kind of automatic defense system inside the facility and it's about to decapitate me! A little help would be nice!"

Lorne's voice came calmly over the radio. "Just hang on, Doc; we're orienting on your radio signal." After a beat he said, "I'm picking up two lifesigns in the area of your radio signal, but only two. Yourself and the Colonel? Did you say you were being attacked by something?"

"Robots don't show up on life signs detectors, you moron!" Rodney snapped. "Just shoot it! Where the hell are you?"

And there it was, the most beautiful sight he could ever hope to see: a puddlejumper decloaking as it skimmed low over the trees.

"Whoa, I'm getting a visual," Lorne was saying. "What is that thing?"

"Dead, I hope!" Rodney yelled into the radio.

"You're pretty damn close, Doc --"

"Gonna be closer if you don't shut up and shoot it!"

No more argument came from the radio. Rodney watched dazedly as the small craft banked above them, and a small sparkle from one of the gunports blossomed into a drone streaking towards the robot. It never knew what hit it. Rodney threw himself over Sheppard's head and torso as flaming clumps of grass and pieces of hot metal rained down around them.

The jumper set down at an awkward angle on the hillside. Before it had even touched the ground the hatch was opening and Teyla had leaped out onto the grass, running down the hill.

Rodney straightened up slowly, creakily. Teyla skidded to a halt beside the two of them, taking in their battered condition with a quick sweep of her sympathetic brown eyes. Rodney looked past her to see Beckett, Lorne and a couple of Marines from Lorne's team following her down the hillside. It was going to be all right -- the cavalry was here -- and he found himself sagging into Teyla's supportive hands and grinning dizzily at Carson's half-fond, half-worried exclamation of "What have you two done to yourselves now?"

"Just an easy little meet-and-greet, Carson, nothing to worry about," Rodney told him, and passed out on Teyla.


------


"This is ridiculous, Carson -- can't the bandages come off yet?"

Limping through the infirmary, Sheppard easily found Rodney by the sound of the complaining -- the scientist's strident voice could probably be heard across half of Atlantis.

"Not if you want to have full use of your hands, Rodney, no."

Sheppard tapped lightly on the wall before peeking around the privacy curtain. "Hey, Doc. I'm dressed and ready for a getaway as soon as you put your John Hancock on my prison release papers."

Carson gave him a look of exaggerated shock. "I'm amazed and impressed that you didn't try to sneak out."

Rodney snorted. "Didn't you get the memo? Elizabeth's instituted a month-long, mandatory stand-down period for anyone who tries to escape from the infirmary early. Her official reason is to prevent a repeat of the Ford incident, but I suspect that it's aimed primarily at a certain Lieutenant Colonel who refuses to stay put."

"About bloody time." Carson signed Sheppard's paperwork with a flourish. "You're a free man. Remember, though: no strenuous activity, not if you don't want to lose your eyesight permanently. I'm not joking about this."

"Believe it or not, Doc, that's one instruction I'm more than willing to follow." Sheppard could see blurrily out of one eye; the other was presently covered by an eye patch to allow corneal lacerations to heal. Sheppard thought the patch gave him a rakish air, though Rodney said it made him look like a demented pirate.

Nodding towards Rodney, Sheppard asked, "How are his hands doing?"

"They'd be a lot better if he hadn't tried to fire a submachinegun..."

"Hello, Carson? Homicidal robot? Certain death? Ring any bells?"

"I understand the situation, Rodney; it doesn't mean it was a prudent thing to do."

Rodney groaned and waved his white mitts in the air. "I just want to be able to brush my own teeth again, thank you!"

"I don't know, Rodney." There was a devilish gleam in Sheppard's one visible eye. "Having beautiful nurses wait on you hand and foot doesn't sound like a bad deal to me."

"Unfortunately I don't have beautiful nurses waiting on me, Sheppard -- Carson has given me Ingrid. Have you had the misfortune to encounter Ingrid in your various infirmary visits, pray tell?"

Comprehension dawned. "Doesn't speak English, fifty years old, built like a tank? That Ingrid?"

"That's the one. I still have nightmares about her sponge baths."

"Ingrid is a lovely woman and a great asset to the medical division," Beckett informed them, adding with a pointed stare: "For one thing, patients do what they're told when Ingrid is around."

"That's because the woman has jail tattoos, Carson."

Beckett snorted, and gave Rodney a light shove on the shoulder in the direction of the exit. "Ingrid will be by your quarters at six to help you with dinner, and feel free to call her or stop by the infirmary if you need anything in the meantime. Colonel, you have your meds and I do expect you to take them. Straight to your quarters, now; don't forget, Rodney, I'm counting on you."

He waved them off cheerily. As they left the infirmary, Sheppard asked, "Counting on you for what?"

Rodney rolled his eyes. "To be your watchdog. If I take you straight back to your quarters and make sure you don't do anything stupid along the way -- like, say, skateboarding off the East Pier -- Carson's promised to check the duty rosters and try to get me somebody other than Ingrid tomorrow."

Sheppard gestured at Rodney's mitts. "How long is that supposed to last?"

"He won't tell me. At this point, I think the man is frankly reveling in my discomfort. Either that or Weir has told him to keep me bandaged so I don't go back to look for a ZPM."

Sheppard's one visible eyebrow went up. "You were thinking about it?"

"Of course I was thinking about it! Except that Elizabeth's declared that world off-limits to gate travelers until the anthropologists make 'peaceful contact' with the natives." Rodney used his mitts to make a clumsy attempt at air-quoting "peaceful contact". "She claims that it's 'too dangerous' --" air quotes again "-- just because most of her command staff almost died on the last trip."

"How silly of her," Sheppard said with a straight face.

"Yes, isn't it? By the way, speaking of near-death experiences, how's Ronon doing? I haven't seen him lately, but I heard he's back to beating up Marines."

Sheppard nodded. "Turns out the natives' arrow poison is fatal, at least to most people, but Ronon apparently spent three days throwing up on Carson's nurses and then was perfectly fine. Which is another reason not to risk going back -- if one of those arrows had hit any of the rest of us ..."

"Fine, fine, I get it, no ZPMs. And, oh look, here are your quarters, so I can deliver you like a good package and Carson will be happy. See you later."

"Wait, not so fast!" When Rodney turned around, Sheppard said, "Where are you going?"

"I don't know. The lab, probably."

"And do what?"

"What do you mean, and do what? Work, Sheppard. You know, what you haven't been doing lately."

Sheppard pointed at Rodney's hands. "Without those?"

"Believe it or not, most of my work happens up here." Rodney lightly tapped himself in the head with a mitt. "Miko volunteered to type for me, and while that has turned out to be an exercise in frustration since the woman types about four words per minute, I'm still as indispensable as I ever was. Does that answer your question?"

"It does," Sheppard said, "but I also happen to have a fresh shipment of DVDs from the Daedalus and a case of beer courtesy of one of Caldwell's people owing me a favor."

Rodney looked tempted and impatient at the same time. "I bet anything you're not supposed to have alcohol with your meds."

"I bet I don't care."

"You are causing me to risk losing my promised, Ingrid-free existence in return for losing brain cells to television and alcohol?"

"I was going to call Ronon and Teyla, too."

Rodney threw his hands up in the air. "Well, what could possibly be worth passing up movie night in Idiotland?"

"What indeed?"

Rodney deflated and glanced up and down the corridor. "If Carson finds out about this, you won't have hot water in your quarters for a week."

Sheppard perked up, grinning like a loon. "I knew you couldn't say no."

As Sheppard led the way into his quarters, Rodney gave a loud hmph. "You do realize one of you is going to have to hold my beer for me."

"I nominate Teyla for that duty."

"I'm sure she'll appreciate that."

"She was the only one of us who hasn't been near death's doorstep in the last week. She feels incredibly guilty about it."

"So I should take advantage of her guilt to use her as my personal servant? Sheppard ... that's positively Machiavellian of you." As the door closed behind them, Rodney added in an undertone, "I think there's hope for you yet."

------

Thanks for reading -- your comments have been most appreciated! :)