7.

"Come out come out, wherever you are," Major Sheppard cooed ... well, cooed wasn't the right word ... Aiden didn't quite know the right word, but cooed was far too nice for whatever it was. He'd played hide and seek with the Major (what to do in an abandoned city with a bunch of rambunctious alien children) and that was not a voice you wanted to hear.

He tried not to smile. "Sir?"

"I lost the research team." He sounded both disbelieving and slightly offended - as though asking 'how dare you not appear on my sensors?'

"Oh." This could be bad. Aiden tried not to think about the Wraith, about the rotten bodies he had seen, about the way he found that grotesque, yet oddly sensual, woman leaning over the major about to do God-knows-what. He still woke up in a sweat from that and ... well, he'd been through the gate a lot of times, seen some of the worst the Goa'uld had to offer. "You don't think they're ..."

Sheppard gave him one of his 'how could you possibly think that?' looks. "Lieutenant Parker, this is Sheppard. Do you copy?"

"Parker here, sir."

"Status."

"They're getting closer. We need to do something."

"Same as before, Sir." Aiden could see the patented Annie Parker eyeroll arching her light blonde brows. She had served with him on SG-8 and he admired her. She was something he would never be: naturally clever, naturally assertive, and way too smart to be a grunt. She had planned to use the air force to pay for her legal training, become a judge advocate. Her family could never have afforded her education otherwise. But the powers that be pulled her into the Stargate program instead, and then whisked her off to Atlantis. It wasn't law, but Aiden thought she seemed happy to be galaxies away from her parents.

"Hold tight. The cavalry's on its way. Sheppard out." He sounded so confident, as though it would be a walk in the park. Yeah, a walk in a park infested with ugly vampire beings with pointy teeth and an even more superior attitude than the Goa'uld (it was one thing to think of humans as subjects to be ruled, people to be conquered, and quite another to think of them as nothing more than happy meals with legs).

"Something in the cave network must be blocking our life-signs detector," Aiden blurted it out, regretting it the moment he said. God, I sound like an idiot, a farmboy. Well, he was from Idaho, but he wasn't going to remind the major of that. When he first found out Sheppard had asked about potatoes. Potatoes!

"I told you not to call it that, Captain Obvious. Now, I'm going to fly over the ruins in the direction Parker gave us, try to get visual confirmation."

Now, that, I can do. "Yes, sir."

Aiden looked across the vast grey plain. Unlike the ordered farmlands he was used to flying over in the duster, it looked like some giant had puked up a bunch of dark black bushes - not the prettiest of places. If he were going to choose something to puke all over this place, he'd make it less spiky, like jello or something. He liked these flybys, nonetheless - back at the SGC no one but the crew of the Prometheus seemed to get any airtime. He wondered what the hell the AirForce thought they had to do with it other than the fact that they tended to think they were smarter than all the other branches. Of course, judging by people like Parker and Sheppard and Colonel Carter, they probably were.

"Is that not the site of the ruins?" Damn Teyla. Not that he didn't like her. She was nice, if not a bit clueless (well, clueless about human customs ... or at least Earth customs. That had always confused him. All these people on other worlds were still human, yet they were alien, and he wasn't about to call himself a Tau'ri, no matter what the big guy with the snake tattoo said). But Teyla was one of those people who took everything so seriously ... was always outdoing you, despite lack of your abilities. Teyla had never flown before they met, yet she was kicking his butt in the aerial survey department. Not that he was jealous ... he wouldn't want the growing up with the constant threat Wraith attack that had made her the way she was. But still ...

... Sheppard appeared to be listening to her. Then, something about him changed. Aiden couldn't put his finger on it ... his body went still, not unlike when he was simply concentrating on flying, but his eyes weren't focused, they were a million miles away - Aiden could almost see the confident mask slip off, and what was beneath ... he couldn't see because the pod shuddered and jerked as the major's body began to shake, his eyes rolling back into his head.

Aiden didn't think ... couldn't think. His instincts took over and he pushed his CO unceremoniously from the pilot's seat, wincing at the sound of his head banging back against the cold metal of the floor. He heard Teyla shout something in the background and he shouted out, "Don't try to restrain him. Make sure he doesn't hit anything ... or swallow his tongue." That's about all you could do. He had an uncle who was epileptic ... something to do with 'Gulf War Syndrome' (at least now he knew that they weren't producing bioweapons at Area 51, so that wasn't the cause) so he knew the drill.

Now all he had to do was figure out how not to get them all killed in a crash. You can do this, Aiden. Before they had gotten called in for this, the major had promised him, 'Now, Aiden, if you're a good little boy, maybe we can take your new ATA gene out for a spin.' He had never expected to have to use it like this. Aiden dived for the controls, closing his eyes and thinking Please, God, don't let us crash. The Major's 'wondering' worked, surely desperate prayer would be even more effective ... right? He braced himself for impact.

He was thrown back against the seat and then back forward, smacking his nose solidly against the dash. Goddamnit! When he looked up and wiped the blood from his face, the lights were off and there was some shuffling behind him. It looked as though they had crashed into a thicket of bushes that were obscuring most light. Aiden squinted.

"Everyone all right?"

"Yes, Sir," "Fine, Sir," and "I am uninjured," told him that everyone he expected to be was present and accounted for. So, I didn't kill us. Not bad for a first try.

"Major Sheppard?"

"He has stopped shaking and I can feel his breath, but he does not appear conscious." And he calls me Captain Obvious?

"Thank you, Teyla." So, Major Sheppard is incapacitated. That means I'm in command. I'm in command?!

"Markham, Bulter, any idea how to repair this thing?"

Two 'No, Sir's left him empty handed. Damn! He turned on the light on the tip of his P-90. Yeah, the jumper was dead and he had no idea which of the crystals to do whatever it was one did to them to make them active. Of all the missions we have to choose to leave McKay behind. Well, they did have a cave-full of scientists. There was just the little problem of the cave-full of scientists and the scientist-needy object not being in the same place. In fact, if he was watching correctly, they were probably about a mile apart. Now, a mile could be an easy thing ... he could run one in 5 minutes, but with scientists or mysteriously incapacitated commanding officers, with a few hungry Wraith thrown in, it could start looking a lot harder and longer.

Aiden had a decision to make - a strategically important decision, the worst kind. He could either stay here and recall the research team to his coordinates, or he could go find the research team on foot, abandoning the jumper. Splitting up was not an option. Divided we fall ... Now, he had no idea if the jumper was even repairable, so they might all have to huff it back to the gate anyway. Staying also meant that he could give more attention to the major, and not have to move him. Of course, the likelihood of the Wraith finding the jumper crashed in plain sight like this was also pretty damn high, and he didn't want to be trapped here if they couldn't fix it. Going meant more travel time, and probably hiding out in the cave where they might also be sitting ducks, but it left them with more options. And Aiden didn't need to have fought the Goa'uld for three years to know: Freedom good.

"Teyla, did the major suffer any sort of trauma in the crash?"

He saw her fumble with the flashlight. She normally preferred her own lighter-torch-nativish-doohicky, but the situation was urgent enough to warrant the use of what she still viewed as an 'unpredictable piece of technology.' "I believe you knocked his head, but I do not see any other problems."

"All right. Markham, Bulter, grab the major. We're moving out."

Aiden quickly laid down a tripwire and some C-4. If the Wraith wanted to investigate the jumper, they'd get what was coming to them. He spared a second for a wry smile. Aiden was good at trapping things ... whether it be Goa'uld or coyotes and deer trying to encroach on the farm.

Once everything was set, he and Teyla had to use all of their strength to pry the door open. Aiden thanked the variety of deities he knew not to be Goa'uld -the number was getting fewer and fewer- that there weren't Wraith waiting for them on the other side.

After the ominous darkness of the jumper, even the lifeless monochrome of this world seemed to stand out. Aiden blinked a few times, gripping his P-90 and moving off through the maze of bushes, looking for clues the research team might have left in the soft gray dust. He knew he should probably have let Teyla take point -she could sense the Wraith, after all- but he still didn't quite trust her shooting or tracking skills, not matter how much the major praised her.

Well, I'll just do whatever I do when I'm lost: walk until the situation resolves itself. And, sure enough, it did. He could see the faint disturbances in the sand made by military issue boots. He was surprised the Wraith hadn't noticed ... but, then again, they may have lost their more base hunting instincts through years of undeniable technical superiority. Which brought Aiden to the major flaw in his plan ... if the Wraith were tracking them ... they would lead them straight to Parker's team in the cave. Aiden wished he had thought to get the lifesigns-detector from the jumper before it went dead, but he was awfully busy trying keep them all from dying, so he'd excuse himself.

He tried to raise Annie on the radio, now that they were safely on the move. "Ford to Parker."

"Parker here."

"Status."

"Same old same old."

"We had a bit of a," he winced, "setback." There was no way he was going to send the scientists into a panic and leave poor Annie to deal with it. "We're making for your position, be prepared to move out. ETA 5 minutes." He glanced back to where Markham and Bulter were supporting the major between them. He had stopped shaking, but was acting no better than a dead weight, features pale and sweaty. Luckily for Markham and Bulter, the major wasn't that heavy ... it could have been worse: it could have been McKay. But if McKay were here, we wouldn't be walking ... I'd just slap him until he woke up to fix the jumper. Okay, so he did have a bit of an anti-canadian thing, but any diehard Blackhawks fan had to be, right? Plus, McKay was a really annoying Canadian.

Bulter stumbled, and the pair dropped Sheppard as he dragged them all down. It was only Teyla's quick reflexes that kept the major's face out of the dirt. That girl is too perfect. As she helped everyone back to their feet (well, except Sheppard, who she helped to vertical), Aiden sighed and clicked his radio back on. "Better make that ten."

"Understood." He could hear both a smile and a frown in her voice. She was worried about him ... she had always worried about him. Yet, she was amused by what she always teased him was his unwavering ability to shoot high and miss. Aiden thought it was better to shoot high and miss than shoot low and lose. He was an American after all.

The second the radio clicked off, Teyla caught up with him. "Why did you refer to the jumper crash and Major Sheppard's condition as a 'setback?' They are certainly much more serious."

Aiden ground his teeth. Teyla never questioned Sheppard. Then again, she was used to being a leader on her planet, and Aiden was not a hero or a leader (not yet, anyway). Still, he was next in the chain of command - she was a civilian, a hunter with very little combat experience and little technical understanding. And she never had to deal with scientists, if Athosians even had them. "That's how we do things." He didn't need to defend himself to her.

She stared into his eyes for a long moment, but he broke the gaze and focused again on the trail ... they were getting close - he could feel it. Eight minutes later they approached what appeared to be a large obsidian rock formation, but Aiden could just glimpse the disturbed bushes over a low crack at the bottom, like a trench. He had always preferred the Vietnam War, not just for its creative use of explosive devices, but for the demonstration of how a tenacious but technologically inferior group could defeat a larger power, like the Goa'uld or the Wraith, but he could do World War I ... he had read his Hemingway Cliffsnotes.

He radioed Parker, yet again. "Knock knock."

"Get those butt ugly boots of yours in here, asap, Aiden."

He grinned. He had been spending so much time with John recently that he hadn't seen much of Annie. Everyone was just so busy ... he missed her. "Yes, Ma'am." They were the same rank, but he didn't want to bring up the squabble over who was going to get promoted first. He knew that if she were a man ... or willing to screw around, she would already have been.

He pulled some of the brush clear and dropped in to what opened up to be a fairly large cave ... but still a dead end ... a deathtrap. Parker and Stackhouse were waiting for him at the bottom. He started giving orders right away. "We need too ... "

He was interrupted by Teyla's frantic call, "Lieutenant Ford!" He scrambled out of the cave and over to where Markham and Bulter had laid the major down again. He was convulsing, moaning in pain. Shit. There was no way they could travel like this, and no matter what anybody said about making necessary sacrifices, he was not going to leave Sheppard behind - the major would never leave Aiden. He might order me to leave him though.

The seizure subsided, leaving his CO even paler and weaker-looking than before - something Aiden had not thought possible. He leaned down and lifted the supine form up. "Help me," he snapped at Teyla, even though she was already moving to grab the major's other arm. Together they lowered him down to Parker.

"What happened?" He could see the concern flash through her bright blue eyes. For a second she looked like a worried and distraught mother or sister, compassion blossoming in her features, but as quickly as the look had appeared, it was gone, replaced by military professionalism. Woman in the services learned to hide their femininity ... Annette Parker was no exception.

Aiden sighed, grabbing Sheppard and pulling him towards the nearest wall of the cave. "I have no idea. He was having headaches before ... but in the jumper, he just started seizing ..."

Shepard gave a low moan, and the gagged. All this motion must have made him nauseous, Aiden thought, looking down at his now-sullied uniform. At least now I know who's been bogarting the blue jello ... and a couple of turkey sandwiches. He wrinkled his nose in disgust.

If Annie found if funny or at all strange seeing her CO puking all over his 2IC, she didn't let on. Unfortunately, the scientists were not so restrained. "That's disgusting," Slimy-guy said. "I thought you said we were moving out."

"Change of plans," Parker replied distractedly, going through her pack for a medkit.

"We can't just stay here! It's only a matter of time before the Wraith find us. I, for one, am not willing to sit around here and wait for my turn as midafternoon snack."

"You are such a goddamn coward. Grow some balls, will you?" That thin blond chick whose name he could never remember spat from the other side of the cave. She seemed feisty ... a bit too feisty ... and severe. But at least she had the guts to say what's what.

Parker looked from one to the other carefully. "Now, Kavanagh, we agreed you would stay on your side of the cave and shut up. And Simpson, you promised to stay on your side and not bait him." She really was taking on mommy duty here. Aiden felt both immensely sorry for her and absolutely ecstatic that the major had taken him under his wing instead of abandoning him to scientist-watching ... though he was still forced to McKay watch ... at least that was entertaining ... if you actually listened to the guy's mumbles you could hear the strangest things.

"Yes, ma'am." The two scientists hung their heads in shame. Children. The third scientist ... the one Aiden had named Asian Guy #3, seemed completely unphased. He sat in the middle, between Simpson and Kavanagh's sides and appeared to be doing deep breathing techniques. Either he was amazingly calm ... or spoke very little English.

"What now?" Aiden nearly jumped at Teyla's words - in the round of barf-on-your-subordinate he hadn't noticed her and the two sergeants joining them. He supposed she had taken the initiative and ordered them to follow him into the cave.

"Now, we wait." He said curtly, barely masking a sigh. "Teyla, Bulter, watch the entrance. Everyone else, stay on your toes."

"Some rescue mission this is ..." Kavanagh mumbled. Simpson looked like she was dying to make a sarcastic comeback, but quailed under the Parker warning-glare.

Annie grabbed some stuff from her pack and headed over to where Aiden crouched next to Sheppard, under the pretense of providing a wet cloth to bring down the heat they could feel radiating from him.

Aiden took the opportunity to whisper. "Look, Annie, as soon as the major can be moved we need to move out. Something happened to the jumper when the major passed out ... I don't know if it was a chicken or egg deal, but I have no idea whether or not we'll be able to fix it. I planted some C4 ... I just hope the crashed jumper is enough to distract them."

She looked him over carefully, eyes boring into his. Then she answered the unspoken question. "Radioing back is too dangerous. We took a big risk when we did it the first time ... and that was only because Kavanagh dialed up when I wasn't looking. Did you attach a monitor to the C4?"

"Of course." If Aiden knew anything, it was explosives.

"I say we wait for the Wraith to trip it and then make for the gate ... if the major doesn't improve." He nodded. She was good at strategic planning ... though he hoped it wouldn't come to that. He could see the same hope reflected in her eyes.

They both startled when another groan interrupted their pensive introspection.

"It hurts," Sheppard moaned, reaching out to grab Aiden's jacket, pulling him in, desperate for human contact ... comfort.

"Shhh ... I know." He cooed, trying to give what meager relief he could. "Hang in there, buddy." What else could he say? He always felt as though he needed to say something ... something to keep the silence away. He was scarred of John's silences. They had an edge of darkness to them. It was subtle, and not always there, but it almost felt as though if left to himself, John Sheppard could bring the razor's edge of consciousness to bare on whatever it was he brooded about. Then again, other times, he was so relaxed; Aiden thought he might have fallen asleep just sitting there.

Now was the darkest of silences, matching the black of the pupils that obscured most of those ordinarily focused green eyes. I wonder what he sees. Aiden doubted, by the pained expression on the too-pale face, that it could be anything good. He shuddered.

Not that Aiden really minded having John cling to him like this. He had three younger brothers; he'd done his fair share of holding onto puke-capsules ready to explode. Perhaps that was why he'd become a demolitions and weaponry expert.

In fact, it was almost a relief to see his major show some sort of human weakness. Sometimes he seemed so calm, making flippant remarks when they were all in danger ... hell, even when he was screaming in pain as Aiden tried to shoot that wraith-bug-thingy off his neck, he had a collected dignity about him. The major had not cried once.

And now? Aiden could almost read the years of sorrow etched into his face, see the cost of that urgent but somehow detached ability to command. He felt as though he knew more about Major Sheppard in this one moment than he did from months serving together and just hanging out on-base. Aiden counted Sheppard as a friend - the closest he had in this galaxy, but they never seemed to get beyond jokes, sports-talk, and slightly mischievous ways to pass the time.

In command tactics classes they had been taught him that there was a mask an officer put on for the enlisted men. If he was scared, he didn't show it. If he knew some of them were going to die, he didn't say goodbye until afterwards. If he cared about some as friends, he did not let it bias him. But sometimes Aiden got the feeling that John wore the mask all the time. If John really did care about him, beyond someone under his command that he was honor-bound to die for, beyond pleasant company, he wouldn't show it. And, when Aiden tried to make things a little more personal - draw John into his confidence - tell him how much he missed home sometimes, John would listen, but his body would go rigid, and Aiden could see a calculating fidget in his eyes, as though John were wondering if he would be required to reciprocate the sharing.

Teyla came up beside him, despite the fact that he had ordered her to stand watch at the entrance. "He is in pain." It was a simple statement, yet she made it both an accusation and a plea.

Aiden sighed. He wanted nothing more than to pump his friend full of the best drugs the doctor could provide (added to the first aid kit after the little Wraith-buggy-thingy incident), but he knew that it was his duty to ignore the obvious suffering and do what's right. "If I've learned anything from Doctor Beckett it's that you do not mess with stuff you don't understand unless you have no other choice." Not that he was going to tell Teyla that he didn't learn this from Beckett's medical technique, but from the time he sat in the Ancient-chair-weapon-firer and nearly blew the general (and Major Sheppard) up.

There was a sudden scream of pain. It was a hollowing, terrifying sound ... worse than you heard in war movies ... in horror movies even. Hell, it was even worse than the sound of someone suffering under the pain of a Goa'uld hand device ... and that was not something Aiden wanted to hear ever again. But it was a fighter's scream. Did it matter that Sheppard was fighting the demons of whatever phantasmagoria his mind had decided to play for him? Despite the terror of what those demons must be to make a man like Sheppard scream like that, Aiden was glad that he was still fighting.

"He's making too much noise. You're going to get us all killed! I say we leave him behind and make for the jumper." Who was this guy? Better, yet, who in the hell did he think he was? Oh yeah, it was the asshole that wanted to put up the shield and let them all die when they were trapped half in the gate. Why did they even let him out of his cage? Aiden felt a wave of anger rise within him ... not something an objective commanding officer was supposed to feel, but ...

Now, think ... what would Major Sheppard do? Aiden unholstered his nine-mil and brought it to the sniveling scientist's temple. He hoped the grease from this guy's long geeky hair didn't get his gun dirty - he could do without having to polish it. "Shut up, Kavanagh. Parker may be a lady, but I wouldn't hesitate to shoot you." God, he hoped he sounded convincing or at least like a ghost of Sheppard. Don't think ghost ... bad luck.

"No one would even miss you," Simpson sneered from where she was huddled in the corner.

"You too," Parker snapped. She was looking a little haggard. Apparently spending time alone in a cave with Kavanagh and Simpson was a lot worse than an hour-long firefight with a group of Jaffa, because she always seemed to survive those without even a loose strand of hair from her ponytail. She was calm under pressure ... he liked that.

But -no matter how much he hated to say it- Kavanagh was right. The Wraith might be close ... they couldn't afford this kind of noise. He moved back over to where Sheppard lay shaking. He would have to gag him. Aiden paused briefly. Which one's cleaner - undershirt or jacket? Well, he was sure whichever one he chose, the major would tease him about it later ... if the major was around to tease him about it later.

The second the gag was in place (using Aiden's undershirt - it was easier to tear) they all went back to waiting in tense silence. Kavanagh and Simpson were having a glaring match, but everyone else stared into the distance, almost relaxed by Asian Guy #3's meditative calm. Trade him for McKay ... now there's an idea.

Aiden didn't know how long it was that they waited, but he knew that each second of silence increased the Wraith's chances of finding what Kavanagh called their 'midafternoon snack' - though they were inching toward evening now. Aiden didn't know whether to hope for the cloak of darkness or be afraid of walking alone in the nightmarish maze of brambles, with the very-real monsters he'd thought only existed in fairy tales lurking in the darkness ... projecting their own lurid figures upon the minds of their intended victims.

His musings were interrupted by a choking hack. Aiden looked down at Major Sheppard, noticing his eyes open wide in panic - pupils too dilated to truly see. Aiden supported his head, keeping it from banging back against the wall - he already had what looked like promising nugget developing back there.

"Calm down, Major." He frantically undid the knots to the gag ... not wanting his CO to choke. Then I'll have to make all the decisions. He shuddered to think. Sheppard gagged, but nothing came up. That's because it's already all over me.

"Are you alright, Sir?"

"Right as rain," Sheppard coughed. Yeah, right as a goddamn monsoon.

He helped Sheppard back to resting his head against the wall of the cave. The major winced as it came into contact. "Ford. Why does my head hurt from the back now too?"

He grimaced. He was trying to save all their asses, after all. "Sorry, Sir." Now Sheppard would probably hate him.

"What's the situation?" The major sounded so weak - too weak to take on the full direness of their position, even though Aiden knew he probably could. Sheppard's voice was scratchy and his eyes still couldn't seem to quite focus. He looked younger and older at the same time - the vulnerability of youth creeping up on his normally commanding mask of calm, while the pain lines remained, reminding Aiden that every bit of that commanding presence had been earned by hard experience.

"We have to move, Sir," he said reluctantly. Sheppard looked like a gust of wind could topple him, and he hadn't even left the ground yet. But they really had no choice. Aiden wrapped his CO's arm around his shoulder and levered him up.

"What's that smell?"

"Turkey sandwich?" Aiden tried to joke. He really did stink ... though it's all your fault.

Sheppard brought a shaking hand up to massage his temples - obviously the headache remained. "Weir wanted to keep me on base. I really should listen to her more."

Aiden cleared his throat pointedly. "Fine, and to you too."