"I should have shot the bastard when I had the chance." John's voice was harsh and tight with pain, words spoken through gritted teeth.

In truth, Rodney agreed, but though he wasn't exactly known for his tact, he didn't want John to suffer any more than he already was. He said, "You were being all heroic and gentlemanly and merciful and ridiculous things like that."

"Some good it did me," John gasped, his grip tightening on Rodney's pant leg.

Rodney tried not to think about ‘what if?’ He knew it was unproductive and had stopped doing it in grade school with 'what if I were stupider?' 'More popular?' 'Happier?' It didn't do anything but cause misery.

So he wasn't going to think ‘what if John had killed Kolya?’ He wasn't going to think about how they'd be back happily trading with the Rejekans, smiling and flirting and maybe playing footsie under the table. He wasn't going to think about how they wouldn't be stuck here in some dank, dark cell on an unknown alien world with one sick sadistic bastard taunting them and John bleeding all over himself and the floor and the pathetic bandage Rodney had tried to fashion out of his shirt. He wasn't going to think about what would've happened to Elizabeth and Teyla, because they weren't here and that could be very very bad, and how his legs wouldn't be asleep from keeping John's head cradled in his lap. And he certainly wasn't going to think that if John had shot Kolya then maybe he might not be about to die. Because John wasn't going to die.

No, Rodney decided, John was never ever going to die, because that would have to go against some sort of cosmic law that the hero with the charming smile and the dashing good looks always survives and gets the girl (or the guy in this case) and lives happily ever after. It would probably unravel the space-time continuum or something. In the very least it would unravel Rodney's whole world. And that was just plain unacceptable.

John coughed, curling tighter into himself. Rodney stroked his fingers through John's hair. It was just as deceptively soft and surprisingly hair gel-free as it had been the first time Rodney had tangled his fingers in it for that first tentative but glorious kiss.

He couldn't take the silence. He'd just finally found comfortable silences with John, after at least six months together. Usually it took less time for him to run out of things to say or to get over his nervous tendency to babble. But this time it'd been because talking with John was fun. He couldn't get enough of it. People said that Rodney liked to hear the sound of his own voice. He supposed that was true, but he liked the sound of John's more.

He wanted to hear it now, even tight and laced with pain, because for all he knew, this would be his last chance. "I think he's operating alone," he remarked lamely.

"Duh," John said. It wasn't the insulting trivialization it would have been from Rodney, but simple word economy. It obviously took John a lot of effort to speak. That made Rodney feel momentarily guilty, but not guilty enough to stop.

"What do you think he wants? What did he ask you?"

"Didn't ask me anything," John panted.

That gave Rodney pause. John was the military leader of the so-called enemy. Of course there were things that Kolya wanted from him. In the very least, it would be smart of him to try to get a shield code or something.

"Punishment."

Teyla felt something off the second she stepped through the Gate, reaching out blindly for Dr. Weir and pulling her down into a protective crouch.

She felt heat, felt something more solid than rain tumble down onto her back, tasted the thick stench of ash, choking like the first heady perfumes of the Rite of Ashala the first time she performed it.

Teyla coughed, hearing the sound, faint in the distance as her senses returned. When she opened her eyes, she thought that something must be wrong. The world was tinted red like blood, even the shifting scenery of debris and explosion painted a brilliant crimson, but the sky too was bloody, clouds like gaping wounds, scratches against the brilliance of a too-red sunset.

Dr. Weir was still crouched down beneath her, shallow panicked breaths vibrating against Teyla's palm. More explosions sounded in the distance along with shouts and Teyla had never seen anything like this before.

She had fought. She had hunted. She had stared down a Wraith with adrenaline pumping fast and furious in her veins like the thick acid of the traditional shelbala tea. She had seen death and disease and whole civilizations in ruin. But she had never seen the likes of this - trenches and mangled metal, mud and wire and the scorched sky filled with smoke, shouts and screams and, in the distance, man killing man.