Through an Acre of Fire I Would Travel/You Shine Where You Stand

[mashimero]

Artist: in_the_bottle
Title: Through an Acre of Fire I Would Travel
Medium: Digital manip
Pairing(s): Could be J/R or gen
Notes: Uh... There's math?

Author: sian1359
Title: You Shine Where You Stand
Wordcount: ~13,900
Rating: G
Pairing(s): McShep
Summary: John and Rodney needed to go through a lot to find the gates for the Midway bridge.
Notes: Set between Season Three, between Phantoms and The Return.
Thank yous to Mrs. Hamill for looking this over, and Himself for helping with the science and proving the reference. Title is from the song, Bonnie Portmore

Companion piece written for the 2010 SGA Reverse Big Bang and
in_the_bottle's art piece: Through an Acre of Fire I Would Travel

You Shine Where You Stand

"Why do you think the Ancients set up space gates?"

Now three hours into the system survey, Rodney was surprisingly ready for a distraction; he'd been minutes away from just opening up Mindsweeper or Solitaire as even his busy work wasn't holding his attention.

"Because they could?" he answered. John had to need the conversation more, not that his companion would ever admit that flying could be boring. Unfortunately, flying in a spaceship was cool only the first few times before the lack of interesting stimuli turned something that should have remained remarkable into something mundane.

"I'm serious, Rodney." John turned his head to give Rodney a look, his expression more real puzzlement than idle curiosity. "Sure, I get the placement of this one, around one of the gas giants since it's not like the gate could be used planetside. But even then, the Ancient were limited themselves to a jumper's worth of study personnel or resource gathering. But most of the space gates we've encountered were around viable habitat planets. So, why did they bother? Did someone talk a couple of scientists or engineers into spending the time, materials and resources to make private gates to secret pleasure playgrounds? Or was it geeks setting up their mad scientist or evil genius lairs?"

Rodney returned John's grin at those thoughts. Atlantis was big enough and the expedition's population small enough still, that there was room for bolt holes. Had they the population like the Ancients had in their heyday according to the records left behind, private locations to escape to would have been greatly limited.

"It does seem redundant to have a gate, but having to also use a ship," Rodney agreed, more or less. "They were the ultimate security measure, I guess."

"For what? Against what?"

John actually looked vexed now, like the Ancients had created this contradiction just to mess with them. On the one hand, Rodney could totally see them doing that, given all of the other fucked up messes they'd left behind and the absolute dearth of … oh, instruction manuals for all of their gadgets. This wasn't a Schrödinger's Cat thing, though, a conundrum to be debated and philosophized about throughout the ages by lesser species.
Building a gate took a great many resources, and while the Ancients could be considered frivolous with the kind of things they created and built, they weren't wasteful.

"I can see the Ancients maybe wanting to keep certain populations isolated in order to maintain disparate gene pools back when they were otherwise seeding this galaxy," John was continuing while Rodney tried to figure out if he was now bothered about if for himself or just for John.

"But then why bother with a gate at all? Gene pools could have been kept pure simply by leaving the planet gateless. It's not like the Ancients didn't have other ships to make the occasional galaxy-wide tour and check in on their experiments."

Rodney shrugged. "Maybe the Ancient anthropologists and sociologists didn't like a long commute. They'd only do the work if it was their day job and they could come home each night."

That suggestion earned Rodney a smirk; they had the opposite problem, with the expedition's pseudo-scientists all wanting extended stays during their research missions. The sociologists, especially, never quite remembered that the expedition's own resources, not just in terms of the military serving as escorts and protection details, were extremely limited.

"Having a gate in space is just cruel," John went back to a frown. "Imagine finally advancing technologically to the point of space travel, only to find a gate in orbit around your planet."

"Some folks might interpret something like that as a reward," Rodney countered. "A 'welcome to the galactic neighborhood and, see, you are not alone'? I could give you names of people on Earth who'd die happy tomorrow in finding something exactly like that."

In fact, Rodney would have been one of them had he not been part of the stargate program. The math demanded there be intelligent life forms beyond Earth, even as it also pretty much proved why they'd never find any unless someone did leave them a calling card. Knowing wouldn't have been enough, but it would have certainly had him dedicating his life to figuring out FTL travel or how to harness wormholes.

John was shaking his head. "I get leaving something to that purpose, but not a gate and especially not a gate that could not be used, since we've never found a DHD floating in orbit along with them. A space gate is simply taunt. Bragging not only that someone else did it first, but that they're so far ahead of you, you really are just ants –or lab rats to be manipulated and interfered with."

Now John sounded angry, and in more than just the 'fucking Ancients' way most of the expedition had come to feel about the progenitor species that fled through ascension and to another galaxy when things got too messy for them here in Pegasus. Rodney supposed it could be slightly displaced anger stemming from John's recent encounter with the Genii and Kolya's pet Wraith, or the earlier shit with the Asurans, since both could be laid at the Ancients' feet, and those incidents were giving him his own nightmares. Surprisingly, John accidentally having shot him just a couple of weeks ago wasn't.

"You've been listening to Rivers and Guevara, haven't you?" Rodney accused him instead of asking if there was something wrong. He'd learned long ago not to ask that question, not unless he wanted to hear how John was fine. Them sleeping together hadn't changed things that drastically.

"Ronon, actually," John admitted. "He's been bringing up stuff about gene pools and lost societies, though I think he's more interested in getting to know Beckett's newest arrival than the answers. She's focusing on researching genetic drift in the Athosians."

Rodney sat back in his seat and stared out the front, though not looking at anything. "Interested as in he's thinking about a relationship?" he asked. "About fathering kids?"
Given that he and John hadn't kept their getting together a secret from either Ronon or Teyla, Rodney wasn't too surprised Ronon might be thinking about that for himself. Rumor had it Teyla was also dating, though she hadn't been as forthcoming. Then there was Ronon's recent return to Sateda, which had to have really brought home how all of his people were gone except for him and a few survivors scattered on a handful of planets. Hell, even Rodney had been thinking about passing his genes on, thanks to reuniting with his sister.

Of course, in his case that would mean Katie –or someone like her –which also meant not John. And as he'd just gotten John –

"Not sure about the kids part, but he's been asking around about courtship rituals." John blushed with that and turned back look forward himself. "I suggested he talk to Elizabeth or Kate. That he stop asking the Marines. And not me," he finished, his words barely voiced.

Rodney grinned, but kept it to himself; the sex thing between them wasn't new, just the monogamy and emotions that now came with it. Watching someone nearly die was not an acceptable form of courtship, nor was getting jealous of yourself.

"Being back on Sateda had to bring up all sorts of memories for him," John brought the subject back from the tangent, with an echo to Rodney's earlier thoughts. "Teyla's pretty sure he had someone there before the Wraith. Not that he's talked to her about it."

Rodney nodded, even less surprised. They were none of them talkers about their past, his team. It was hard to think about Ronon having a girlfriend or a wife, given how young he'd been when Sateda fell, but the one thing the expedition had learned best from Pegasus was not to wait for some safer time –a better future –before finding someone. The Wraith never waited.

"That could explain why Carson's put in so many new requests for field trips to some of the refugee worlds, wanting to start cataloguing and getting samples from as many different representative humans that he can. I never looked past his name to see it was for someone else in his department. If it's Krycek … Kolchak –"

"Keller," John provided.

"If she is the one behind the mission requests, Ronon's has probably offered to go along to play guide or bodyguard. That could also be why he's been bugging Radek for help in finding a list of all known worlds with gates"

"You guys haven't already tried to find a list of gates?" John asked, practically boggling his eyes at him.

Rodney flushed, "It started out as Peter Grodin's project, then Kavanagh took it over, after… "

He didn't need to explain after, not to John, who felt guilt over every death, even if was one of Rodney's scientists.

"Now, well, we have a list of visited worlds, and addresses we've picked up from the people we've met in addition to the first list Peter called up when we all thought we were going to drown, but all the rest have been offshoots from searches for ZedPMs and naquadah. Until Ronon asked, no one noticed we'd stopped looking for a master list. Even our list for potential gate harvesting for the bridge is mostly worlds we've heard have been abandoned."

Instead of laughing at him, or getting angry for the tunnel vision, John gave him a look of sympathy before turning his attention back to the jumper's controls. Finally they were coming up on the planet in the habitable band of this system and, while the jumper pretty much flew itself under John's nudging, he'd given into Rodney's insistence that he maintain a more direct interface when they approached things that the jumper could crash into.

"Have you thought about hacking into the data system the gates use for keeping updated on things like planetary drift?"

Rodney was pleased that John had taken the time to research the gates enough to know about that, but he still had to shake his head. "Elizabeth won't let us. She's afraid we'll mess up the whole thing, like Felger did back in the Milky Way."

John made a query noise and raised the brow that Rodney could see, in Spock fashion.
Rodney absolutely did not find that hot.

"Felgar makes Kavanagh and Bill Lee look like Nobel prize winners," he began. Sometimes he forgot that John had come to Atlantis cold, with no previous knowledge of the SGC program, considering easily John had integrated the existence of alien civilizations –and gate travel –into his worldview. Rodney knew John tried to keep up with SG-1's current mission reports, and any that the SGC flagged, but no one had the time to read every AAR or the internal reports, especially backdated ones covering ten years of gate travel.

"A year or so before we left for Atlantis, he created a computer virus intended to be used shut down specific gates, but uploading it into the entire system. It shut down every gate in the Milky Way, until Sam was able to use some of my research to figure out the fix. Now the SGC won't let anyone do anything that directly interacts with the gate network."

That got John's attention off orbital mechanics. "Jesus, Rodney, should we be worrying about the Wraith being able to do something like that here?"

Rodney shook his head. "They use the gates just as much as we do," he said confidently, though now that John put the thought in his head, he could see one of them trying the specific gate block route.

Shutting down all the gates would cut them off of convenient feeding grounds, but with them living in their ships, it wasn't like they'd be completely cut off, whereas ninety-nine percent of the rest of the population of the galaxy would. And considering most of the worlds only survived through trade with each other, they could be looking at mass extinction within a couple of generations. Okay, well, that's why the Wraith wouldn't/hadn't done that; they'd be destroying themselves too.

They could just move some of the gates themselves, though, without worrying about whether there were people who used it, like he had to and thus this survey. Not too many of them or they'd run into that mass extinction problem again. The Wraith had also already shown a talent for their own computer viruses, so they could send a different kind of virus through –computer or biological. Or they could come up with a way to do a master download, getting a copy of every gate address or at least the frequency of a specific address being used and find the more populated worlds that they might not already know about –

"Rodney?"

John had a way of saying his name that always brought Rodney out of his panic, probably because Rodney had a way -- or rather, didn't have a way of masking when his thoughts spiraled out of control.

"Right." he acknowledged and took a deep breath. Then shrugged. "The gate system is vulnerable, to a whole hell of a lot of interference I never thought about before. And I don't have a clue how to set up any protections. Maybe for Atlantis, but I can't imagine people like the Genii letting us mess with their gate, and some of the scenarios won't matter which gate is accessed. Maybe the Ancients do have something in place that didn't work for whatever reason in the Milky Way that one time. And, maybe, since the Wraith haven't done anything to the gate system so far, they can't. Or won't. If one of them screws up like Felger did, they have as much to lose as the rest of us."

John didn't look quite so sure, but he nodded; probably more because if Rodney couldn't figure out a way to safeguard against them, it wasn't like he would.

"The Queens don't trust each other enough to allow one of them to have such an advantage –or to screw it up for everyone, like you said. So they're oppressing their scientists just like Elizabeth and the SGC is."

Pretty weak, but Rodney appreciated the gesture, both in trying to reassure him, and in the perceived support in 'railing against the man'.

"Hey, maybe it wasn't the Ancients who set up the space gates, but the Wraith? Each Queen set up her own private hunting ground."

"And was too lazy to do it again when they completely culled their Grade A human stock? Don't forget, ninety percent of the space gates we've come across haven't been around populated worlds." The trouble with that argument was that the same contradiction applied to the Ancients' actions too. If they're not protecting/isolating populations, what were they keeping people away from?

"Make that eighty percent," John said, his tone suddenly all business and his attention drawn fully back to the jumper and its systems.

"You're getting readings of a population?" Rodney asked with a new frown. That would mean a wasted trip since neither Elizabeth nor the SGC would let them remove a space gate for the gate bridge, even if the civilization below had no facility for space travel and no access to that gate.

"Yeah."

John called up the HUD, setting the area on Rodney's side to the planetary readings for Rodney to make his own observations and conclusions, while John opened up a window on his side that kept zooming out to encompass the other planets in this seven body system. Just because they hadn't found any race with space travel technology or ships other than what had been scavenged from the Ancients didn't mean they wouldn't. And only idiots would keep their ships in one location, nestled tightly together on the planet they lived on, giving the Wraith one easy target.

"I'm picking up interesting readings down there," Rodney let John know as he tried to match up the oscillating pattern to the catalog he'd compiled from previous explorations. Having an idea of the tech base of the people in advance didn't always keep them out of trouble, but it did give them an idea of who'd be superstitious and who'd just be paranoid.
"ZPM interesting?"

"Maybe," he hedged. Rodney had given up hope in finding the unique energy reading of a ZedPM in this type of situation, as the only times they had come across one, the readings had been masked or shielded. The readings that should have been a ZedPM, in turn, had been someone's nuclear powered toaster or, ultimately, a trap designed to kill them, even if it had just belonged to a failing Ancient ruin or an object in a shrine to some pagan god and not something set overtly to trip them up. The Genii weren't the only ones who knew they were looking for Zero Point Modules.

"Teyla and Ronon will be pissed to find out we met the neighbors without them," John began, not exactly a refusal to go take a look, but he was keeping the jumper in orbit instead of proceeding groundside.

They might not expect to find a ZedPM anymore, but that didn't mean they should ignore the potential just because they'd end up disappointed. "We've got power readings standard to the Ren Faire or goat herder planets, plus one lonely spike of something more. We don’t' go down, then this trip's been a waste."

"Spending an afternoon with me is a waste of time?"

"Considering we've just been sitting here for hours instead of doing something more … interesting, yes."

Since he was usually the one advocating turning around, Rodney grew concerned again over John's reticence. If John was wallowing in his PTSD or getting gun-shy, then they had a problem. Things had been shitty lately, but when had they not. Was Michael or the Asurans that much worse than the Wraith laying siege over Atlantis or the debacle with Ford? Everyone had expected John to have a lot more trauma from being fed on by a Wraith, even if he had been restored, but as far as Rodney knew, he was having worse nightmares than John over it. It was the two of them this time, John wouldn't have to go through anything alone –

Shit. It was the two of them –just the two of them. And the only scars John noticed were those born from guilt. Which Rodney had carved a little deeper, when he hadn't let up about John having shot him while under the influence of the Wraith mind device, even though it had truly been just a flesh wound. John was gun-shy, no doubt thinking about how his decisions had put Rodney in danger, only this time he didn't have Ronon or Teyla along to cover any mistakes.

"Look, all I'm suggesting is we stay cloaked, do a fly-by and figure out if they're Wraith, Asurans, Ancients, or just people living in mud huts outside ruins like on Athos." Trying to talk John out of his guilt involved talking, and in truth he was no better at dealing with personal stuff than John was. It would also be impossible, since not even Elizabeth or Teyla could make a dent in that part of John's armor, and they were good at the talking thing. The best Rodney could do, would be to ignore it, to pretend at normalcy until things were normal again.

"We just pass Go but without stopping to collect our two hundred dollars," he offered in conclusion, knowing full well what he was setting himself up for.

Indeed, John took the bait –the out from talking about the elephant in the jumper that was fueling John's missing sense of adventure.

"Hey, that's right. Who won your great cutthroat Monopoly tournament anyway?" John asked with a smirk that wasn't all that forced. He already knew that Rodney had been eliminated in the first round –because Simpson had totally cheated.

"Katie, if you can believe it. She may seem like the perfect, sweet and quiet girl next door, but she came up with the rules for adding legislation votes and the hostile takeovers. When she nailed Grayson by calling for a strike, she made Radek tear up with pride."

John matched his fond grin before nudging the jumper into a descending orbit. "It's probably not too late to get her back," he offered, though because he turn back toward the viewport, Rodney couldn't be positive of whether John was joking or not.

"Katie might be ruthlessly hot as a virtual real estate mogul, but my boyfriend's that way in reality as well as virtually," Rodney responded carefully, choosing to take John's comment as a joke instead of the bout of insecurity John would never admit to feeling anyway. "You're not getting rid of me that easily."

"You just don't like it when someone else is better at something than you are," John shot back, the tenseness in his shoulders only now obvious as he relaxed them.

"Yes, well, that's definitely not a worry with you," Rodney responded in kind. John didn't normally leave himself that open for Rodney to get a shot in, but maybe his own insecurities about their new relationship had been showing too. Why Rodney thought a deeper relationship with John wouldn't be as complicated as any of his previous relationships.

John just grinned wider and nodded toward the planet now looming before them.
Taking the hint, Rodney turned his attention back to the readings. "There seems to only be one settlement, at least within a couple hundred mile radius of the energy spike. That's near a large body of water. Frankly, it looks a lot like what we read on Athos, so maybe ruins or an Ancient facility left over from years and years ago, with the inhabited village built up in the lea of it. No evidence smoke stacks or industrial pollution, no outgases that would indicate even steam power, though I do show some major cultivation fields and one of the feeder waterways has been diverted from it's original course. So low tech, but not completely clueless."

"Crops imply they're human."

"You were thinking they're not?" Rodney asked, not hiding his surprise.

"Hey, you're the one who mentioned more Asurans or renegade Ancients," John defended himself.

"I said Wraith, too."

"But there aren't any ships hanging around," John pointed out. "The Wraith would have ships, even if this was a private reserve."

"Point," Rodney conceded. "And Asurans don't need to consume food specifically, while renegade Ancients only bother when they're being wined and dined with the last of the fresh strawberries –"

"Jesus, that was nearly three years ago, Rodney, let it go."

"And descended Ancients might as well be humans, so probably no freaky super powers," Rodney spoke over John, ignoring his defense of his actions with Chaya and –

Huh.

He'd always told himself he'd been upset because John had trusted an unknown and definitely dangerous stranger, that he had compromised Atlantis, but the fact that he still thought about her –about John's dinner of seduction –more or less implied he'd been jealous even then.

"Hedda's ability to heal came in pretty handy, but I can't imagine living Teer's life, knowing all of the important events well before they happened."

"Especially when a couple of them turned out to be totally wrong," Rodney agreed.
John still wouldn't speak too much of what had happened during his six months spent in a time dilation field with the wannabe Ancients, but he had confirmed that some of the people there with him had psychic abilities –like Teer's ability to see future events –when Elizabeth had pressed him for details about their methodology for attaining ascension. Rodney had agreed that the super powers were a nice touch, but he still didn't see the point, since you only got them when you were close to ascension, but then couldn't use them after you did.

Pretty much the same feelings he had with ascension in general. The idea of continuing on afterward in a non corporal state but self aware and now open to the secrets of the universe sounded great, until you found out that you couldn't do anything with your newfound knowledge. Spending eternity as a Lotus Eater sounded a lot more like his definition of hell than heaven.

Thankfully, John had agreed with Rodney –at least enough –that he'd turned down the opportunity to ascend with the others, even if he'd likely declined just as much out of an overly developed sense of responsibility.

That same sense of responsibility that had him frowning at the jumper controls –at the world in general –as if they're being out here in the first place hadn't been all Rodney's doing. While Rodney did genuinely feel that he needed to be the one making the evaluations for harvesting gates, any moron with the gene could have handled the flying.
Sure, Rodney had his preference; John did too when it involved anyone on his team or the senior command staff, although, come to think of it, John volunteered to fly anyone, anywhere when his duties not demanding him elsewhere. Still, in this instance Rodney knew John had taken the slot to give them time to spend alone together –even if they weren't doing anything –

"Shit."

Okay, maybe John's frown had been for the jumper and not just in general. Rodney tried to figure out what had caught John's attention, the jumper lurching at the same time he saw the pulse.

"John?"

"It's a beacon of some kind, that's attracted the jumper's attention and it really, really wants to land," John offered, even as he was wresting control back into his hands.

"Beacon or tractor beam?" They hadn't come across those yet, but with every other technology the Ancients had engineered and exploited, they had to exist.

"It's like coming through the gate into Atlantis, with the two systems meshing and taking over flight on automatic. I can override it, but it's a constant struggle. We either get out of here right now, or we let her do what she wants, because I'm not going to win if we stay."

Rodney looked at the graph again that compared the energy output from the spike to all known causes. He was pretty sure it wasn't a ZedPM. He was also pretty sure it was something Ancient, and the reaction from the jumper pretty much confirmed it.

"You're positive it's not Wraith?" Considering the team and Carson's recent run in with Wraith tech that also interfaced with someone's mind, John should be able to tell the difference.

"It's not Wraith."

"Then I say we check it out. It's always going to be a problem if we come back, and it might need my brain or your gene to turn it off. Why wait?" Not that his brain didn't want to give him half a dozen reasons without even having to think about it. "We've still got the cloak, right?" was the only nod to cascading images of what could go wrong.
"Yeah. Cloak and no inhibitions about firing weapons if I have to. She just wants to answer the call."

Not literally, or was it? Rodney supposed the energy spike could be the beacon itself, but that seemed wasteful. Again, going with the assumption that there was a valid and reasonable reason to have a space gate here, it followed that someone would put some sort of alert for another Ancient to point out the finding or experiment. The gate itself would be notable, without someone having to waste a beacon unless there was something specific worth checking out.

Of course, it could be a lure…

Just as he was going to caution against going down without back-up –like the Daedalus –John obviously stopped fighting with the jumper and gave it her head. The acceleration was steady but not excessive, giving Rodney time to put together a message buoy for John to launch, just in case.

Rodney noted the semi-permanent structures that were set up a mile's distance from the shoreline of an inland sea or a lake near double the size of to Lake Superior as the jumper soon began decelerating for a final approach. If the village was nestled on the south side of the lake, the ruins were several miles to the west, with an incongruous lighthouse equidistant between both settlements. The ruined city was close to half the size of Atlantis, while the inhabited town was half the size of the ruins; it probably held or could hold a couple thousand people without over crowding. So either the Wraith were aware of the population and regularly culled it like so many other worlds, or these people were practicing draconic birth control measures.

He supposed they could be recent emigrants as a third choice, only how had they arrived? He was reading absolutely no evidence of a large space craft being stored anywhere nearby. Plus, though he'd never wasted his time studying botany, he'd had enough casual exposure while at University, then the not so casual interest he'd pretended while with Katie, to realize that the neatly rowed fruit trees along the edges of the grain fields were several generations old. So was the lighthouse.

Surprisingly, the jumper was landing itself closer to the village than either the lighthouse or the ruins. Also, the energy spike was coming from the lighthouse, not the ruins. Or from under the leveled ground the jumper chose as a landing pad.

"Before you ask, I'm showing nothing right here to account for bringing down the jumper. Can you sense anything?" Rodney asked.

While his own version of John's Ancient gene could interface with quite a few systems, it didn't always work and never with the jumpers when John was present and possessive. He also distrusted his reactions to the more esoteric qualities of the gene interaction. He'd known long before John had admitted it to him, that John felt a kind of sentience or at least a purpose to Atlantis and some of the tech they'd found. Rodney had also dismissed that reaction as a form of anthropomorphizing, to the point now that even though he was coming to believe it, he'd already jinxed himself in feeling it for himself.

"Not anything like you're hoping I feel." With a glance Rodney's direction, John then closed his eyes and stilled. Around them the jumper powered down completely, save for the cloak. Whether that proved to be a barrier, or there just wasn't anything Ancient nearby to sense, eventually John opened his eyes up again and shook his head. He then surprised Rodney by powering up the jumper and actually bringing it up off the ground to hover for a couple of minutes before setting them back down again.
"The beacon shut off with our arrival," he explained.

"Well, that's … good to know," Rodney decided on, striving to stay optimistic instead of voicing his normal concerns. John was still looking unsettled and Rodney didn't know if it was actually more of a sign of a new ease around him that John wasn't hiding it like he normally would have, or whether John was still really that spooked. The jumper thing was freaky, but maybe more that it was done now, without them having done anything.
"So, we should probably check things out?" His tone made it a question, but John was already rising from his seat and buckling on his thigh holster; Rodney let himself be distracted for a few seconds before he closed his computer and set about doing the same. John then pulled out one of the life sign detectors, and checked that he had the remote for the jumper.

"Any sign we were noticed?" Rodney asked.

"I'm not reading anything but us in range," John responded. "You ready?" he added as he clipped on his P-90.

Rodney nodded and stayed back as John hit the hatch release, then stepped out to further to check their surroundings despite what the tech had told them. Soon John's all clear signaled Rodney to follow; halfway down he jumped off the side of the hatch so it could be closed quicker and reinstate the jumper's invisibility.

"It smiles brinier here than Atlantis," he got out, before a white flash enveloped them, then

******

"Comple haudlus quiescae."

Regaining consciousness to the sound of a foreign language wasn't as unfamiliar as John Sheppard might have hoped, although it didn't happen here in Pegasus very often. Waking up to find himself restrained, unfortunately, was a common occurrence, common enough that John had a routine. A jab into his elbow, however, gave the game away when he couldn't suppress his involuntary jerk. The needle wasn't sharp enough to enter seamlessly, and whatever drug had been injected stung and damn near froze his vein.
"Fuck, that burns!" he heard from Rodney –a good thing in that Rodney wasn't dead or missing –but bad in that John had screwed up and put Rodney in danger again. Then there was the widely disparate reactions between them, meaning they had either been given different drugs, or one of them could be having an adverse reaction to the substance. If anaphylaxis was in the offing, John really wanted to be able to get to one of the epi-pens he carried along with Rodney. Moving in general would be good too. Like being able to open his eyes.

"Popul teno hauldus quiescae."

The words sounded the same to John, but he hadn't been tracking the first time and although he felt stone cold sober now, he still couldn't make out anything familiar in what had been said. It sounded a little like Ancient, not that John was fluent, but also not. Like the difference between Fārsi and Tajiki.

"I don't understand," he spoke up, glad to find his own words sounded normal; he'd spoken not just to make sure his brain hadn't been scrambled by whatever had put him out and make the connection with his hosts, but to also make sure Rodney knew that he wasn't alone. "Do you speak the trade tongue?"

Even Rodney and Elizabeth's linguists weren't sure if there denizens of Pegasus had ultimately developed a standardized language for travelers and trade, or if the Ancients had simply programmed a common language to be downloaded into the brain of anyone going through a stargate. They'd figured out that something certainly got adjusted in a gate traveler's brain, that the traveler then heard someone else's words translated into their own native language. Unfortunately, the only way someone could step outside of that to track the etymology of what the expedition perceived as a trade language, they'd have to bring in a linguist on the Daedalus or equivalent –one who'd never gone through the gate –then take them to a world that didn't have a gate themselves and see how their language differed. Considering the often bad luck they had with societies that were used to outsiders coming to them, so far the risks had outweighed the potential benefits of such an encounter.

"You are from beyond. How?"

Finally, John could open his eyes, though for a moment he wished that he hadn't. The room he was being held in was entirely too bright –or maybe that was just the glitter from the ornate embroidery and beadwork on the robe of the guy standing in front of him. Very arch-bishop, by way of Peter Allen at his most flamboyant, and John had a feeling that wasn't going to bode well; the others were obvious bodyguards or just guards, and were dressed quite austerely in contrast and a little to Imperial Guard from Star Wars for his taste.

It was also disconcerting to note that while his eyes had been closed, it had been like the rest of his senses had also been turned off or muted. Only now could he smell the smoke from the braziers scattered around a room crowded with corners and alcoves. Too much more of the smoke was going to make him cough, though he also now understood the arch bishop vibe he'd decided on for the guy standing over him.

Even more disconcerting, however, was discovering he hadn't been restrained, that he was sitting in place under his own volition. He'd only known that he couldn't move and had assumed the rest, obviously, not being able to feel the difference. He still couldn't move his limbs. Feeling was returning though; in addition to the now familiar pins and needles of his body trying to throw off having been stunned unconscious. He was fucking freezing too, his body starting to shake from it and really making him wish he hadn't been striped down to just his t-shirt and BDU pants –not even because of all the nifty things he carried in his tac vest and jacket.

Rodney, he noted when he could finally move his head enough to find him, was striped of all things useful too, though he was looking like he'd wished they'd taken even more. Already Rodney's skin was flushed, his hair darkened and damp from beading sweat, his shirt also dampening around the collar and under his pits.

Two drugs, or two totally different reactions other than the fading paralysis they were both overcoming. Despite all of that, Rodney's expression eased when their gazes connected, and Rodney lifted his chin, drawing down his mask of arrogance to turn on their captors, pushing away his apprehension.

"Did you steal the ship or its pilot?" the fancy dressed guy suddenly shouted in John's ear as he wrenched John's head back around by tight fingers on John's chin.

Discovering he could feel the priest's fingers drag on his jaw wasn't good –the rasp of five o'clock shadow implied they'd been unconscious for several hours.

Conversely, that also implied in turn, that they were overdue returning to Atlantis. Assuming their message buoy got retrieved, the rescue party would be heading to the right planet, and Elizabeth had Caldwell on call with the Daedalus, which wouldn't even notice the lure that had entranced the jumper down.

"Neither," Rodney answered before John could, his tone at his haughty best.

Sure that he didn't want the priest's attention on Rodney even before the guy's expression tightened along with his fingers, John spoke up before Rodney could say anything more. "We … found it. Abandoned," he added. Something told him telling these guys about Atlantis wouldn't go well, even if the expedition wasn't still trying to keep the city's continued existence a secret from the galaxy at large. "I'm the pilot."

"Defiler," one of the guards broke his beefeater character, and damn near broke his very tall, pointing stick when he pounded it against the paving stones decorating the floor in his anger.

"Haudlus fautron."

"Sorry, du --, ah, your holiness," John corrected himself, figuring the dude would hear whatever appropriate title –or just his own gibberish –either which worked for John. "I don't understand the language you're speaking."

The linguists would wet themselves to be here, not that John was going to let anyone else come back here unless things changed drastically for the better in the next few minutes.
"Then you are one of the tainted?" the priest asked next, back in Trade.

"Ah, do you mean do I carry Wraith genes –you know of the Wraith, right?"

If they did –if they were god fucking damn Wraith worshippers, he and Rodney were screwed. Unless he turned things around.

"Speak not their name."

"Or maybe whether I carry Ancestor's blood?" John tried again, because the speaketh not crap could be as much out of him being one of the unholy as the dude fearing the curse of the Wraith in hearing them named.

Candyman, Beetlejuice, Candlejack! Scream.

"I'd like to say I'm as human as you are, fellow," John said instead of sharing his movie and Freakazoid fu. "But, hey, I don't actually know you're human yourself," he continued, knowing also that he was pushing his luck most likely, but also knowing he could never resist reacting to that type of disapproving expression, whether from his father, one of his COs, or a pain-in-the-ass religious zealot.

His most holy pompous asshole's expression didn't actually turn angrier, leaving John to wonder just what was being translated, and just what the drug he'd been given was, since he could normally keep from mouthing off in situations like this, saving being a smart ass for people like Kolya or Wraith Queens.

"John!"

So Rodney had noticed it too. That Rodney's stage whisper was as loud as Teyla's normal speaking voice wasn't really funny, except John was having to work not to laugh, same as it was taking everything he had not to let his teeth chatter. Hard to be a smart ass or a bad ass then, although Chatterer managed it in the Hellraiser movies.

"Look, we didn't mean anything by coming here," Rodney started speaking again.

John growled, wanted to turn, to shut Rodney up, but Elvis Priestly here still hadn't fucking let go of his chin, his fingernails now digging in when John tried to free himself. Worse, though, the dude's attention was turning to Rodney again.

"Yeah, we'll be happy to take our puddlejumper and go home," John interrupted. "If you like, we can even make sure you never have any visitors again. Well, except for the Wraith or the Ancestors, you know, which ever one floats your boat or puts your panties in a twist. Just let us go –"

And, hey, he could move his arms and legs now, which was really cool, given that he really, really wanted to punch Pope Glitterpus in the face.

He missed everything but the floor –and the edge of the seat he'd surged from with the side of his head –but the shock and sudden pain managed what the small part of his brain had been screaming and straining after. All at once he felt nauseous, but also truly sober this time, also both appalled and a little embarrassed by how out of control he'd been.
Surprisingly neither the priest or his guards seemed to take affront from his words or his attack and, yeah, the latter had been pathetic but any action he took now wouldn't be as bad and –

And they didn't need to threaten or smack him around, not when they had Rodney at their mercy.

Only they weren't menacing him either –or stopping Rodney from leaving his own chair to come and help John sit himself up.

Freaking didn't begin to cover it.

"So, ah, we can go? No hard feelings?" he asked hopefully, while gesturing for Rodney to help him to his feet. He still didn't think he'd be able to take the five men in the room even if he was a hundred percent, given that four of them had weapons, long range weapons, and he just had his hands. He wasn't going to just roll over for them if things went FUBAR either.

"If you pass the test," the priest intoned, now not sounding or appearing self-righteous but rather simply pious and as a believer, though which outcome he was rooting for was still in the air. Like everything else about these guys.

"If you prove worthy, you will find your way free. Your possession will be waiting outside, as will we, if you chose to talk. If you are of the tainted, you will fail and you will die and we will give you to the waters so your taint will be washed from our world." As he finished, the priest as well as his guards began to retreat, though none of them turned their bodies away. Obviously this was not their first time in this room, although the uncanny way they maneuvered around the obstructions without having to look was one more layer of freak that threatened to mess more with John's head.

"Your first trial has already begun. Fortisna."

John thought the priest closed with cryptic and ominous on purpose. He almost didn't care; all along the side of his body that was pressed into Rodney's, he was finally warm, and if the situation was any different he would have tried to push in even further to the furnace that felt so good against him.

Only, while Rodney did normally run hot to John's always feeling cool, John knew this was too hot even for Rodney and didn't need the evidence of the sweat soaking through all of Rodney's t-shirt now. John forced himself to ignore the nearly overpowering scent of so much Rodneyness, just as he forced himself to give up the heat. There had been a distinctive thock in addition to the chuff as the door had closed behind the priest and his men, the sound of a heavy-duty locking mechanism not unlike the sound of the doors on Atlantis being locked down under an emergency quarantine.

"Doesn't anything feel like Atlantis here to you?" he asked Rodney. "I'm sensing nothing but a headache and feeling nothing but fucking freezing," he then offered, needing to make sure that Rodney was aware he was still affected by whatever drug too, despite no longer running off a the mouth. "Fuck, aside from being too hot and terminally embarrassed by me, are you okay?" he then asked. "They didn't hurt you –"

"I got an injection that seems to be boiling my blood but, no, they didn't hit or stick one of their spears in me." Rodney kept his whine to something well short of panic. "How you managed to avoid that –"

"Fortunately, I knocked some sense back into my head, literally when I fell," John apologized. "I think we got different drugs."

Rodney grimaced, but that may have been more from John flinching when Rodney probed the goose egg that was swelling just above John's hairline. Better a little pain that causing a lot of it.

"To answer your original question, maybe?" Rodney then said when he was done reassuring himself that John's brains weren't going to be leaking out of his head –not even any blood, John noted.

"I'm sensing something that's reacting to the ATA gene, but it's muted. Like it's very powerful but several rooms away, or something here in this room that's on its last erg and trying to catch our attention."

"I'll take the left side of the room." John gestured to the left, oriented from the door that locked them in. Lots of places to check, places to hide things as maybe this had once been a busy lab that had needed half-walls and privacy stations to keep people from distracting each other.

"Don't touch anything without letting me look it over first," Rodney admonished, just like he did every time they were in this or a similar situation, whether off-world or even still in Atlantis.

It wasn't like Rodney thought John might forget –considering John's first encounter with Ancient tech had been the control chair in Terra Atlantus, first the Ancients' then the SGC's base in Antarctica and where John first met Rodney, Elizabeth and many of the others now on the expedition –but the warning was one of Rodney's rituals, a signal that he was mostly okay and was dealing with the routine of the matter at hand instead of panicking. John used to do the same kind of thing back when he was flying CSAR, reminding his crew to buckle up every time they got into his bird, even in those instances where his PJs couldn't and still be able to watch over their rescued patients.

If you faked normal long enough, sometimes you could convince even yourself.

"So, do you think our wonky body temperatures are our first trial, or is there something else, something more in store beyond looking for a damn key to the door?" John asked, needing to keep engaged with Rodney, to know that nothing was happing he'd otherwise be unaware of.

"Oh, I think there's something more," Rodney began, his voice coming out higher and strained, and had John immediately abandoning his search to twist and find where Rodney had gotten to.

"Rodney?" Rodney was back in the right most corner, nearly hidden by a partial wall that extruded from the middle of the right side of the room.

"I'm blind,' came the succinct answer. "Fuck, John, I'm bli –"

John could still see Rodney –which staved off his own panic that was all about being a pilot and nothing about Rodney's situation. Until John also realized he was seeing Rodney still speaking, finishing that cursed word and a few more in addition, but John was hearing none of them. Or the sound of his own teeth chattering, his pounding footsteps as he ran over to Rodney, or even his own racing heartbeat.

"Jesus Fuck!" he swore himself, not hearing that either, but Rodney had, given how he jerked and began to pull away only to then turn and orient his body toward the direction John was moving.

John?

John could see Rodney mouth his name. "I can see, but I can't hear anything," he responded, obviously too loudly by how Rodney flinched again.

"Stay still, I'm going to touch you," John tried more softly this time, and waited a beat for Rodney to stand ready before he matched deed to words.

Rodney still flinched, though this time John thought it was from not being able to see, to anticipate, John's hug, not from John still being too loud.

Or maybe because John's skin felt as cold as his insides did.

"It's just like we're in the bedroom," John whispered into Rodney's ear, gathering him close. "Your body knows how to move with mine in the dark."

Even in full daylight, actually; when John took the initiative of their coming together, Rodney kept his eyes closed ninety-nine percent of the time. Of course, when it was the opposite, Rodney watched John's reactions with an intensity that was disconcerting and almost frightening, just like he was straining now.

Not that anything Rodney might want to do to him could ever frighten –or disgust –John. Rodney's curiosity and love for research and experimentation didn't just drive his professional life and behavior, just as John might be similarly categorized for adrenalin seeking and a certain recklessness in all aspects of his life. Only with his own body, of course.

Not surprisingly, they'd meshed almost as perfectly in the bedroom as they had in everything else.

Hopefully, that sense of connection would continue over the next however long, when that connection was going to have to be forced –and entirely physical.

"Do we need to sit you down on one of the chairs, or can you stay hold of my belt or something?" John asked finally, after they'd just stayed close for long minutes, breathing in each other's presence and familiarity.

I'd end up pulling your pants down, he thought was Rodney's response when they pulled away from each other only enough that John could read Rodney's lips again with only having to go slightly cross-eyed since Rodney wouldn't step away even a full arm's length.

Or maybe that was just John.

John also wasn't sure he'd gotten it right, although Rodney had formed his words slowly and over-exaggeratedly. Then he got it; Rodney was always commenting on how loose John's BDU pants were, how frequently –and happily at least –Rodney would get a glimpse of his boxers or the flash of flesh between waistband and shirt hem.

"You wish," John responded dryly, again obviously too loud and he'd have to work on that, knowing he'd probably screw up again, just as Rodney would no doubt forget that John couldn’t hear him and speak while expecting an answer while still behind him.
"Let's put your hand on my shoulder," he suggested as an alternative. "But if I say back off, you have to trust me and do it, Rodney. I might need both arms and hands to deal with something. I promise, though, I'll get us both out of the way if necessary, and I'll talk you through everything. Tug on my ear if you need me to stop; tug twice if you need me to turn so we can talk. Okay?"

For a second Rodney's expression turned inappropriately gleeful, and he reached up from where he'd been keeping his hand on the back of John's neck to tug gently on the top of John's ear instead of the lobe. He then sobered and nodded, letting go next and just holding his hand out that John might properly position him.

If Rodney could have seen it, John would have rolled his eyes at the tug. Yes, his ears might be slightly pointed, though not enough to have deserved all of the elf jokes that had come after they'd been able to catch up on the Lord of The Rings movie trilogy thanks to Carter, Mitchell and Caldwell's supply runs with the Daedalus. John figured he was more Strider to Legolas, or maybe Faramir without all the martyred angst, since Ronon had the Strider part down cold.

It's not like he really objected, as long as it was only Rodney playing with his ears. Nor would he do anything here and now that might take away even a moment of joy for Rodney. Not being able to hear was bad enough and they'd already figured out how to work around it. Not being able to see –John's big nightmare outside of letting people down –there wasn't a good work around for that, and that Rodney wasn't panicking proved that he was a lot braver than John despite discussions to the contrary.

"Okay, I was able to check around the door," John began his report while he got them moving again. "Yes, it was locked and, no, I didn't find any evidence of a control panel to open and override the crystal configuration. Parts of this room feels and looks Ancient-y –

That earned him a quick slap to the back of his head.

" –but I don't know, also off somehow," John continued as if not interrupted. "Like it had been started or finished by the Ancients, used by them maybe, only someone else handled the construction going off incomplete specs."

Yeah, talking without being able to hear his own words was going to get old fast –was already creepy. John hadn't expected it to bother him so much, at least not this soon, but he'd never been one to like living in his head. He could try to imagine it was just like being in a pool, floating on his back with his ears underwater and muting everything, only things weren't just muted and not hearing his own heartbeat and blood moving was freaking him out. He'd never been particularly passive in water, either, having spent most of his time first involved in diving and other daring feats involving seeing how much water he could displace, then discovering surfing when he'd gone to Stanford. Even Olympic sized pools couldn’t hold a candle to an ocean, and the Pacific had been much more inviting than sailing around the Eastern sea coast on the cold Atlantic, or trying to fight his way through the hordes of waders looking to escape the heat waves in the New England summers for his own little spot in the sand. Boats had been Davy's thing –
John only realized he'd stopped –talking and moving –when Rodney pushed carefully against him.

"Shit, sorry," he apologized and got back to the task at hand with one last curse against the silence and against self-righteous societies. Lost in his head indeed, and still under the fucking influence.

"So, did you find anything promising before –" Before you stopped finding anything John didn't finish.

Not fair to ask something more complicated than a yes or no question, but Rodney generally found a way to communicate his point no matter what circumstances, and this time was no different. While John expected either a single or double tap for yes or no, Rodney grabbed for John's right hand and while he nearly ended up with his shoulder being wrenched from it's socket, eventually Rodney got their twined arms pointed to the room behind them, surprisingly lined up with a extrusion of cubicles or something similar, midway along the right wall.

"Timmy's trapped in the middle of the cubicles?" he couldn’t resist, earning himself a much stronger smack against the back of his head. Deservedly so.

"Yeah, sorry, but you would have done it too were out circumstances reversed."

That got him a reluctant single squeeze from where Rodney was still doggedly holding onto John's shoulder with his left hand.

The section of the room was not where John had a very vague sense of something ATA Ancient, no, that was coming from somewhere close to the back wall, from where Rodney had gravitated too almost immediately when they'd started the search, because Rodney had sensed it too, John had thought. But, then, there was nothing that said getting out of this would be as easy as just finding the right button to activate. And just because they were picking up on something ATA Ancient, that didn't mean that that was what they needed. Unfortunately, Rodney wasn't going to be able to figure out any complicated equipment, mundane or Ancient, without having to touch it, same as John, and if anyone was going to be affected by activating something unwisely –

"I think I was right about them being cubicles," John started describing what he'd found as he took them into the maze of half-height, three-walled boxes roughly five by five feet in a series of off-set rows. "I've got waist-high rectangular slabs that could be desks or work tables, along with lower height, smaller cubes that could be their idea of a chair. All of the openings are oriented the same direction –Hell, like this section is a classroom," John concluded, now that he could take in the full scope of the arrangement. "That makes a kind of sense, even with the testing part."

Another single tap had Rodney agreeing with him, so John ignored the rest of the student niches to head for what he expected to be the teaching station. If this was a testing section that the locals had co-opted for some kind of religious proof of holy or worthiness, the test should be out in front of where the student/supplicants would sit and be able to witness.

"Well, goddamn," he exclaimed once he got them there and got a look. "Remember the Brotherhood set-up on Dagan?"

From how tightly Rodney clutched at him, going so far as to start to drag John away, yeah, Rodney remembered. John moved a hand to cover Rodney's and gave his own squeeze. A reassuring one, he hoped as he froze them in place by refusing to be moved.
"This isn't the same device, but it's somewhat similar. No hand rests, so no poison, I'm sure. That's pretty harsh if this is supposed to be a teaching arrangement anyway. And it's not a three by three grid; there are only eight tiles, all arranged in a horizontal line," John got back to describing over speculating. The symbols on top of the tiles look like stylized gate symbols, but as if they were done by someone who'd never actually seen the real symbols. Again, as if they were working off of someone's notes or just a detailed verbal description."

John hovered his hands above the device, doing his best to ignore his own shaking and Rodney's as he tried to pick up any sense of it needing the gene to be activated. The Brotherhood security test hadn't needed the ATA to kill someone, so the fact that he wasn't getting anything didn't mean he was safe but, frankly, it's not like he'd found anything else obvious or more key puzzle like. And, of course, they'd never tested the Dagan device to see if an Ancient getting the grid pieces wrong still wouldn't have been injected and killed.

It took two sets of tugs on his ear for John to remember what that was supposed to mean and get himself turned around. Rodney's face was still flushed and red from whatever the drug was doing to him, his hair now just as damp and plastered against his as his shirt, but underneath the obvious, the rest of his skin was pale and his stare was back to too intense, with his eyes wide and turbulent.

"Unless you've got some other idea, I'm eventually going to have to start playing with it," John spoke before Rodney could form his objections. "I'll go ahead and check out the rest of the room first to make you happy, but this has got to be it. And I think it would be better to sit you down somewhere here while I go. There has got to be some sort of time limit on the test, or maybe to the efficacy of the drug –or more likely an antidote –because another layer of bad would fit with everything else. I promise I won't touch anything without telling you first, without getting your agreement, but I expect you to stay seated and keeping your hands to yourself in return. There is a lot more things here that can hurt you, Rodney, and I'm not going to let that happen."

John would have said more, would have threatened or warned or cajoled, but Rodney did really know his spatial relationships with regard to John's body, and John found solid fingers pressed against his lips before he recognized that Rodney had closed the distance back between them and had moved his hand.

John shut up.

He then waited for Rodney to say/mouth something, only Rodney didn't; his face set and cast in something between anger and frustration. John got that, knew he would be not only panicked but furious if that was him, but he didn't have any better suggestion and wasn't about to let Rodney endanger himself. He'd figured out the Dagan thing, and could certainly work his way around a cockpit or an engine, plus he still had the best touch with Ancient stuff even if Rodney would always end up understanding the tech better. Their only other option would be to wait for Lorne's team or the Daedalus, and John really didn't think they could. Plus, he knew himself well enough to know that even if he agreed, he wasn't going to be able to just sit around and wait when there were things he could try doing.

Finally Rodney removed his fingers, only to replace them with his oh so warm lips. John let himself get lost there for too long –for not long enough –pressing his own kiss then to Rodney's forehead when they broke their embrace. Lifting his chin next, Rodney very carefully mouthed I trust you and tugged on John's hand, backing slowly so that John would understand he could take Rodney back to the nearest cubicle.

After leading Rodney to relative safety, John whirlwind around the room, yelling out, describing everything he was doing, like he was a thirteen year old blogger. He didn't think he'd ever talked so much in his life, especially around Rodney and without being interrupted. He found the stock of incense and other ceremonial paraphernalia; what was obviously once a shower/decontamination booth in the back left corner, and more work benches, lab tables and other useless bits of furniture and debris. No consoles, though, no working bits of machinery, and the only thing Ancient that he could discern, was a piece of marble-like stone set into the far wall slightly off-line from the door that had a few symbols etched into it, but no moving pieces or anything he could touch or think at to get it working.

He decided not to tell Rodney about the recessed, narrow, spiral staircase hidden behind the shower; if the way out was up the stairs and if they were in the fucking lighthouse as he was beginning to suspect, it would take him hours to search everyplace else. He was going to try the gate symbols first, then deal with having to move them upstairs if he had to.

Finished and with a plan, John headed back to Rodney first, touching him for his own reassurance since all the talking had been one sided, of course, and for too many areas in the room he'd not been able to see that Rodney was still there and alright. He told Rodney more details about the marble and tried to describe the etched characters, but it was even worse than trying to describe gate symbols, and if it was language –was Ancient –John couldn't read enough of it to make out anything useful or common to give Rodney a proper point of reference.

After the gate tiles and before they tried the stairs, he supposed he could bring Rodney over and let him touch the characters, hoping he might recognize something tactically, but even though Rodney could read Ancient, probably about as well as Elizabeth or Daniel Jackson by now, reading through touch was it's own highly developed skill, even if the characters were English. At least going by trying to figure out the words, symbols and equations Rodney occasionally drew on John's back while they lay in bed after sex.
Rodney still didn't look pleased when John announced he was going to manipulate the tiles, but neither did he try to stop John from leaving, nor demand that John take him to the teaching table.

John had given some thought to the priest's words of them dying if they failed, eliminating that the guy had just meant that they'd stay locked in here until they died from going crazy from boredom or panic –or dehydration. First trial implied multiple threats, and even just two should have probably produced a different type of warning. Even if he was wrong and there were no more threats, there wasn't anything Rodney could do standing at John's side and while John would have appreciated the nearness and support, John wasn't selfish enough to trade some temporary comfort against Rodney's safety.

"So, eight factorial possibilities, or forty thousand three hundred and twenty," he said to let Rodney know he'd reached the table, even though Rodney would know the math himself. "If the tiles lock into place this will be a snap, but if they don't and I have to get the right combination all in the try, this is going to take a while."

There was no point starting randomly; if he was going to have to go through multiple sequences, the only way he was going to keep track and not waste time in duplication was to do it orderly. Staring with tile one. Which locked into place.

"Well, hot damn. They do lock."

Knowing it couldn't be that easy but still needing to proceed methodically, John then pressed tile two. Which also locked into place.

"Chevron two encoded," he muttered to himself, only then realizing that doing anything sub vocally would only alarm Rodney by having him hear something and not understanding.

"The second tile also locked," he reported. "Let's try number three."

As it reached the halfway point in sinking down, the other two tiles both popped back up, and John felt something of a mild shock racing up his fingers.

"Okay, that didn't work," was all he said for Rodney's benefit, though. "I'm back to square one."

He pressed one, lock, two, lock, four, lock. So three or five, well, three first –fuck!
Again. One, two, four, yes, five –Fuck!

One, two, four, six –FUCK! The shock this time was stronger and if they continued to increase every few times he got it wrong, he was going to be in trouble here.

But only two more chances for the proper first four…

Goddamnmotherfuckingpussbucket!

The seventh tile didn't lock and neither did the eighth, nor did the device wait before increasing the level of the shock this time. He stopped for a moment, trying to catch his breath and slow his racing heart, only to have it threaten to pound out of his chest when Rodney suddenly touched him. John only just stopped from flattening him, then from shaking him for having taken the risk of walking on his own.

Even though the path was clear from the cubicle to the table, Rodney couldn't fly straight and rarely managed to walk so when out on field missions, though that was just as much because he always had his head in a computer or detector than a lack of physical coordination.

"Rodney," he started, unable to help the fear and exasperation that bled through.
Rodney stopped him again with fingers to his lips, plus a strong, double pull on his earlobe. Okay, Rodney wanted to talk this time in addition to having John shut up.

You are panting and swearing. What is happening?

"I can't get the fourth tile to lock." He debated still not mentioning the shocks, but Rodney deserved to know in case John took a jolt that knocked him out.

"It also seems to there's a penalty if you screw up, that or there's a short in the system."

Are you okay?

"Just the fucking pins and needles again," he temporized; not exactly a mistruth since his whole arm was indeed tingling like coming out of another fucking stun. For a moment he had doubts about this being the right object; that maybe the sons of bitches outside had rigged a false trap and he'd be stupid to keep at it, only to then think that this second guessing was the next trial. One to determination whether they'd be willing to see it through even though he'd be hurt in doing so.

"Stupidity or cowardice?" he mused outloud.

Rodney's eyes tightened, his lips thinning in obvious anger. Until he sighed. The Ancients were big on self-denial and perseverance, not so much level-headedness.

"Yeah." So far, the level of the shock was something he could handle, though John wasn't looking forward to doing so repeatedly. It also wouldn't be much of a teaching tool if it killed the student. Well, if it was Wraith design, maybe …

Nope, not thinking about that, even though they still didn't have any answer as to who had left the gate, built this place, or who the inhabitants looked to.

"I'm going to reverse the order of the first two tiles. Maybe it's skip every other."

Even as he thought and said it, something in the back of John's brain wanted his attention. He lost it when he was shocked again from pressing tile one after two and four depressed. God, he didn't want to go through every combination with just two and four. He'd already had three tiles locked!

"Okay, technically, I think I've just proven it's broken or it's a red herring," he began. Only that nagging thought started pushing again and he instead started speaking aloud everything his brain was trying to draw together.

"One first then two then four locks," he proved to himself once more. "Only nothing else locks in fourth position, which means not one first maybe, but two down, then one, then four, with one or two being brought back up, then... He trailed off this time as he tried exactly that, pressing two down then one, then four --.

"It's a goddamn princep puzzle," he laughed when he remembered and tried the first ten moves without receiving any shock. It was going to take one hundred and seventy pushes, moving many of the tiles down and back up over and over, but he'd built one of these electronic puzzles with lights one summer after finding the assembly instructions in one of his grandfather's old Popular Science magazines. Dave never had figured out the solution before he'd pulled the box part in frustration. Too bad John hadn't thought to add the shocks, via a joy buzzer or something.

When he looked back over his shoulder to Rodney, Rodney's expression had eased although he still looked questioning, leaving John to figure that Rodney was relieved because John was sure he'd solved it but that Rodney hadn't heard of the puzzle before. Well, not by that name, maybe, but Rodney would have programmed something similar just fooling around with a computer when he'd been a kid since it was a pretty basic logic code once you got the trick. Probably when he'd been six or seven years old whereas John hadn't built the machine until he was twelve.

"It's a binary counter, sort of." As he started to explain, he continued on in the sequence. "You can only press a tile down when there is only one other tile to it's left down. So one and two are interchangeable as to which moves first, but after you press down four, one has to come back up, then two up, then one down, three down, one up, two down, one down, six up, one down and so on." His moves immediately began speeding up as the pattern came back to him. Right up until he hit a key wrong somewhere around move eighty five and not only had to start all over again, but the shock he received was enough to push him back from the device and into Rodney's sturdy body.

"Sorry, sorry, I was just stupid," he apologized even as he allowed himself to rest in Rodney's immediately given embrace for a moment. "Going too fast instead of playing it safe."

Rodney, his arms wrapped around John from behind, covered John's right hand with his own and began massaging fingers that John hadn't realized he'd been flexing and squeezing in mindless repetition. Not only were the shocks making his whole arm feel numb, but he was still cold to the point of starting to be concerned about hypothermia. His whole body felt stiff and ached from shaking for so long, though until he stopped, he more or less had ignored his body. Now he could only hope his continual shivering meant he was okay the same as if the cold was pressing on him from the outside instead of the inside, but since this was drug related, he couldn't be sure.

He was also growing much more worried about Rodney; John could recover from a hypothermic reaction, whereas Rodney's brain getting pan-fried was not something he'd just get over. John wasn't sure what a hundred and five or six temperature would feel like, especially not now when his own skin was just lapping up the heat but if Rodney was really being cooked, it didn't matter what the cause was, disease or drug.

"I'm good," he shook Rodney off. "How about you, beyond the obvious. You're obviously getting dehydrated and the fuckers didn't leave us any water. Headache? Nausea?" Brain Damage, but he couldn't ask that.

I'll live, was Rodney's answer, making John's breath catch in his chest. Anytime Rodney played down feeling ill or being hurt, that was when John needed to worry.

Right. He knew this. His hands knew this. He just had to relax into it instead of worrying about Rodney, shocks, or anything else. He'd spent a summer winning comic books and baseball cards off his friends, winning movie passes and free admittance to the local carnival from the adults who'd never figure it out either before Dave had gotten so pissed off that his little brother was smarter than he was.

John started humming I Want To Go Home off of Johnny Cash's Songs of Our Soil album, a trick to clear his mind the same grandfather with the magazines had taught him when he'd had to go through the long months of his mother dying. Riding worked better, as did flying, of course, but humming was all he had here, even without being able to hear it. Rodney could hear it, so hopefully he'd know things were okay.

After he finished the first song, his mind segued into the next cut, The Caretaker, but he'd gotten only half way or so before all eight tiles were suddenly down and locked. As he stepped back, not sure what to do next, the symbols on top of each tiles started glowing. Maybe there was an audible sound too, as Rodney cocked his head away from John, listening.

Right. John wouldn't be able to hear the lock disengaging.

"The door?" he asked.

Rodney shook his head and started to reach in the direction of the first tile. John immediately reached over to stop him, not concerned about the sequence being disrupted so much as worried about the strength of the shock at this stage. Rodney shook him off and mouthed something like: It's okay, John.

Trust needed to be a two-way street, John knew, and even blind, Rodney knew how to handle tech better than anyone. John backed off of stopping him, but stayed hovering.

"Okay, Rodney."

Instead of the tile lifting up or pressing down, it came off under Rodney's careful touch, revealing a compartment and, as Rodney delved into it, some sort of sigil hanging off of a chain. No, not just something abstract, but a duplicate of one of the symbols on the marble against the back wall.

"I think it's the key," he suggested to Rodney when it was handed over. "I didn't notice a slot, but this same shape is etched into a protrusion hanging on the back wall. Stay here while I go try it."

Be careful.

Screw careful, just work, John thought to himself. And the priest better not be hanging out nearby, not if their stuff was really outside waiting for them, including any of John's weapons.

Reaching the wall, John looked back to Rodney. "Here goes." He ran his fingers over the carved figures. This time he got a tingle – fortunately not an electrical shock. It took him a couple of seconds to figure out the tingle came from the chain he was holding, not the wall. Cupping the sigil in his palm, he pressed it in the corresponding match, figuring the gene would be needed to, since this whole thing seemed to be about claiming to be an Ancient.

"Something's happening," he let Rodney know. "It's glowing --" Not just glowing, but becoming bright enough that John nearly needed to shield his eyes. He turned his head away instead, to find Rodney covering his ear with his hand, even as he kept his head cocked to hear. Then in his peripheral vision, he saw the door swing open.

"It worked, Rodney. We're out of here," he informed him, hurrying back to Rodney's side and practically dragging him along, afraid the door would close again if they waited too long.

It didn't, and John got them through and out into a countryside that was approaching dusk. There was no sign of the locals, other than a pile of stuff that held at least their jackets, plus a bottle sitting on the bottom of the steps. Antidote or water, John was happy to see it.

It wasn't water, so John tested it first. It tasted like crap, which probably meant it was the antidote, although nothing happened right away. He hadn't expected it to, as the drug had taken time to affect them, but it also didn't seem like it was going to kill him, so he handed the rest over to Rodney. While Rodney finished it off, John moved over to their jackets and put his on, then recovered the small flask of water he kept in his tac vest even when he also carried a canteen, happier to find it still there than he was the device to open the jumper back up, though he was pretty damn happy that hadn't been taken either.
John handed the flask over to Rodney too, then brought him back to the rest of their stuff and while he made sure Rodney drank all of the water, albeit, slowly, John started taking inventory, letting Rodney know what he found –and what he didn't.

His P-90 was gone, but both their handguns had been left, and John's knife, plus their tac vests. He had no idea what all Rodney had squirrel away in his this trip out, but going through his own, the only things missing were his deck of playing cards, his notepad that held mission notes he hadn't yet bothered to use filling out his formal AARs and some other scribbling, plus the book he always made sure to travel with, though for the moment he didn't remember which title he'd picked up this time. Basically, all the smaller items that had writing or images, and he wished the fuckers good luck with it; not even Lorne could always make out his writing and he was pretty sure he'd snagged the book from Cadman, which meant it was probably some torrid romance novel.

Rodney's notebook was missing too, but his computer and electronic slates were all still present –obviously these guys hadn't figured out they turned on and thought them decorative or something. Rodney squawked at that; he'd had his own thoughts and notes not yet transferred into working files, which would be a bitch to recreate, but considering what all could have been missing …

"We were locked up in the lighthouse, which means we have a couple of miles to go to get back to the jumper. We can wait a bit longer, if you need to, but it's getting dark and while I'm not too concerned about any wildlife, it's not like either of us were awake while being brought here, so we're going to need to see –"

Shit, he'd been doing so well only to blow it now.

Rodney found the back of his head unerringly, giving him a slap before getting to his feet and tugging John to his. This time instead of holding on to his shoulder, Rodney took hold of his elbow, but as it was on his left side and he could still shoot if he needed too, John didn't correct him. He snagged his vest on his way up, then bent over to retrieve the rest, pushing all of them into Rodney's arms. Rodney's immediate bitchfest was music to John's ears, meant Rodney was getting bet –

"Shit, Rodney, I heard you!" John exclaimed and turned to see Rodney, to see if Rodney could see him.

In the first seconds, Rodney looked pleased as well as pissed, then suddenly his lopsided frown turned upward and that overly intense look came back into Rodney's eyes. John knew he was being seen, clear down to his soul.

John was no longer cold, either.

-- finis –


Comments

[in_the_bottle]

Wheee!!!! I haven't read the fic yet (in the middle of another fic that I've been reading for 3 days and is only 3/4 through. Srsly!) but I just wanted to say, WHEE!!! Will comment more when I've read fic! :D

[sian1359]

Yep, we're up.

[in_the_bottle]

Read the fic! And whee!! John and maths!! And I love how Rodney just kept smacking him in the head. Hee!!

Awesome!

[sian1359]

Thank you. I know it wasn't exactly the math to go with your image, but I hoped to at least capture the spirit and mood of your cool piece of art.

[in_the_bottle]

Frankly, I wasn't sure what sort of maths is in the art! I'm hopeless with maths and was just grabbing random stuff I find on google, and it was always up for interpretation by the writer. :)

And I've always had a weak spot for smart!Shep, so this is great! :D