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One minute before
"Hey, do you feel that?" Sheppard has suddenly stopped walking, and Rodney only narrowly avoids slamming into his back.
"Feel what?" Rodney asks grouchily. Narrow, dark tunnels make him nervous, not to mention claustrophobic and irritable. Well, more irritable than usual. "And next time, a little warning before stopping."
"Dunno," Sheppard says, sounding distracted. "Feels like there's Ancient tech around. You know, that weird feeling of ..." and he pauses, looking for the word, "... of potential."
Rodney, with no knowledge of impending catastrophe, scowls at Sheppard's back and nurses dark thoughts about artificial genes that are almost, but not quite, as good as the real thing. "As a matter of fact, I don't know. Exactly what sort of potential does it feel like?"
"Kind of like a door," Sheppard says. "Hey, maybe it's a shortcut."
Rodney snorts. "We should be so lucky."
One minute after
Ronon's arms are tight around his waist, holding him back, holding him safe, and Teyla is calling frantically for help on her radio, but Rodney can't hear her. He's gone a special kind of deaf, he thinks, because all he can hear is the sound of Sheppard's panicked shout ringing in his ear.
Three minutes after
Ronon tears off his radio and throws it on the ground, fury radiating out and filling the small space. "He's not answering."
Because he's dead, Rodney thinks, but doesn't say it, because he's not quite ready to say it yet, even though he's already convinced, on no real evidence other than a sick, sick feeling in his stomach, that it's true. In front of them, the dusty panel stays stubbornly closed, ignoring all of Rodney's increasingly frantic verbal and mental commands at it to open, open now, god damn it!
"Perhaps the metal of the panel is blocking the signal from the radio," Teyla says, sounding a little desperate, which is just wrong, even if appropriate.
"It's the same fucking metal as the rest of the shaft," Rodney says tiredly. God, he's suddenly so damn tired, and that's why his legs won't hold him up. That's why he has to sit down, has to rest his head on his knees. Because he's tired. Not because he's grieving, or mourning. Not yet. Not so soon.
"He may just be unconscious," Teyla answers, but without conviction, even her famously perpetual optimism dimmed.
"Maybe," Rodney says listlessly, voice muffled by his knees.
Ronon doesn't say anything at all. But then again, he rarely does, even when things are going well.
Five minutes after
"Major Lorne will be here within an hour," Teyla says, crouching down to where Rodney is sitting, staring fixedly at the place Sheppard had been standing moments before. "They are bringing equipment to open the hatch."
"They don't need equipment. They just need Lorne's gene," Rodney says. "His natural fucking gene."
"You do not know Colonel Sheppard activated the panel," Teyla says reproachfully.
"Of course he did." With anger, with grief. "He always does. No matter what might happen. No matter what the consequences."
And just like that, he's furiously angry with Sheppard for being such an impulsive son of a bitch. But it's probably too late to tell him.
One hour after
"It's a river," Lorne says, pacing restlessly. He's angry and pale in the artificial light, shadows like bruises ringing his eyes. "Current's fast. Damn fast."
One of the marines is carefully retrieving a depth probe, winding the cable up and up and up. "It's about a hundred meters down, sir," he says quietly to Lorne.
Deep down, Rodney already knows it; as soon as Lorne had thought the panel open and they'd heard the distant sound of running water, he'd known, but still, hearing it is a shock like an unexpected slap to the face, or blow to the kidneys. Because a hundred meters is not survivable. Not even for John Sheppard.
"The current's probably swept him a hell of a way down the river by now. We don't have the right equipment," the marine is saying to Lorne, and his quiet resignation makes Rodney want to punch him, because he shouldn't be quiet, he should be screaming. They should all be screaming, like Sheppard had screamed when the floor had fallen out from under him, sudden and fast and deadly.
Lorne is shaking his head, face tight and pinched and drawn, and he looks helplessly at Rodney. "We could try to rig something up," he offers, but futility is written bleakly across his face.
"Don't bother," Rodney says, levering himself slowly to his feet. "He wouldn't want us to waste the resources."
Ten hours after
Showered, shaved, and changed into sweats and a tee shirt, Rodney sits alone in his quarters, drinking vodka from a bottle he'd gotten out of Sheppard's secret stash. It's Grey Goose, the good stuff, and Sheppard only brings it out for special occasions, like when they've managed to blow up a Wraith hive ship. It's not that they need to ration the alcohol – there's plenty of it available for those who want it; the Athosians make fruit wine and grain alcohol, and Zelenka and Simpson have a still set up in the back of one of the unused labs – but Sheppard has a special fondness for vodka, and that's only available from the Daedalus supply runs. So he hides it in his closet, and he only ever shares it with Rodney, and even then he makes Rodney promise to appreciate it properly before he lets him have any.
Rodney is appreciating it properly now, he thinks. He's appreciating it glass after glass after glass.
There's an envelope on Rodney's desk: crisp, clean, and starkly white, his own name written on it in Sheppard's messy, looping handwriting. Rodney found it when he went to retrieve the vodka from its hiding place in Sheppard's closet, and he can't figure out whether he should be flattered or insulted that Sheppard knew him well enough to leave the envelope there.
It's not Sheppard's will. Elizabeth has that – she has all their wills, and there are copies at the SGC – so it's probably a melodramatic goodbye letter, full of mawkish, sappy sentimentality, like "I'm sorry I died," and "Don't blame yourself," and "I know you tried your best to save me," and last, definitely worst: "I'm counting on you to keep them all safe." Of course, Sheppard has never shown a tendency towards mawkish sentimentality before this, but Rodney wouldn't put it past him to make sure his last letter was dripping with it, if only because he would have realized Rodney would never have a chance to flay him appropriately for doing it.
Rodney hasn't read the letter, because (a) he's not nearly drunk enough yet, and (b) he can guess the sort of thing Sheppard would have written, and (c) he's not prepared to find out anything he can't guess Sheppard would have written. If there are things Sheppard wasn't brave enough to tell him before he died, Rodney isn't brave enough to learn them now.
The letter sits on the desk, unopened and destined to remain that way for the foreseeable future, while Rodney drinks until he passes out. It's the only way he knows to ensure he gets some sleep.
Fifteen hours after
Rodney wakes up, sweating and shaking, and sits in bed for a full minute trying to convince himself it had just been a nightmare, that none of it had been real, but then he sees the empty bottle of vodka on the floor, the envelope still untouched on the desk, and knows better.
Without bothering to turn on the light, he makes his way to the bathroom and throws up without fanfare. He's still drunk, but not enough that he thinks starting on another bottle of vodka would be a good idea, particularly because he doesn't have one, and the thought of making another raid on Sheppard's quarters is spectacularly unappealing.
There's no point trying to go back to sleep. His mind is whirling in frustrated, drunken loops of random thoughts, too incoherent to decipher, too patchy to parse into something resembling sense. He considers going to the lab, but while it's one thing to work drunk as a grad student, it's quite another to risk it in the labs of Atlantis, dangerous places even when one is stone-cold sober, and Rodney is merely incredibly pissed off right now, not incredibly stupid.
So instead he lies in bed for the next three hours, trying to think of anything except the way Sheppard's scream echoed in the shaft as he fell.
Twenty hours after
"You look awful," Elizabeth says, her nose wrinkling in a way that almost makes Rodney wish he'd cared enough to change his clothes, because stale vomit? Yech. And it's not Elizabeth's fault, so it's not really fair to subject her to it. But, well, he hadn't changed his clothes so she'd just have to deal.
"Rough night," Rodney says brusquely. He turns to the display, hoping his fingers aren't shaking too badly. "The mine is definitely of Ancient design. I guess the natives were right after all. We should send a team down there to survey it. With the scanners we found in the storeroom, they probably won't even need to go past the third level." He pauses, considering bleakly. "Just don't send anybody with the gene, in case they ..." He swallows hard against the lump that rises in his throat, and tells himself it's just breakfast disagreeing with him.
"Rodney," Elizabeth says gently, "we don't need to do this now."
Rodney looks at her in incomprehension, because really. "What else is there to be doing?"
Forty hours after
"What kind of crap is this?" Rodney is yelling. "Who builds a mine with booby traps that can only be activated by the miners?"
"Maybe is not booby trap," Radek says, rubbing at his eyes.
They've been reviewing scans and schematics ever since the survey team got back ten hours ago – without Sheppard's body. Not that they'd been told to retrieve it, but Lorne and Stackhouse had been on the team, and Rodney knows they would have tried anyway, without being told, probably even if specifically told not to. Which means Sheppard's body was not retrievable, and that ... that's more disturbing than Rodney wants to admit, to think of Sheppard's body floating aimlessly down some endless ancient river in an endless, Ancient mine.
"Maybe is garbage chute," Radek suggests. "Who knows? With ZPM in place, maybe was proper lighting, or warning signs. Maybe Ancient miners just knew where not to walk."
"It's a fucking stupid design," Rodney snaps back irritably. "And the Ancients weren't typically fucking stupid."
"You are swearing more than usual," Radek says bluntly. "Vulgarity will not bring Colonel Sheppard back. Go to bed. Survey results will still be here to confuse you in the morning."
Forty-eight hours after
Radek is in his quarters. Why, Rodney thinks in befuddlement, why is Radek in his quarters? For that matter, how is Radek in his quarters? Rodney has security protocols that even Colonel "best fucking gene ever" Sheppard can't override. His brain stutters, before it corrects itself. Couldn't override. Sheppard couldn't override Rodney's security protocols then; he can't override anything now, because he's too busy being dead.
"What're you doing?" he mumbles, burying his head in his pillow, because reality's just kicked him in the teeth again and it hurts and he doesn't want to play today. "Go 'way. I was sleeping."
"You were passed out on your bed in a drunken stupor," Radek says disapprovingly, kicking the empty vodka bottles under the bed. "You are wallowing. Now is time to get up. There is something you need to see."
"Is it a ZPM?" Rodney asks petulantly, because maybe he'd get up for that. Maybe. But everything else can wait until tomorrow when his stomach settles.
"No," Radek says, eyes gleaming. "Is maybe something better."
Forty-nine hours later
"That," Radek said, pointing insistently at the screen. "That is what I am talking about. Please tell me five cups of coffee dilutes the alcohol enough to get your brain working."
"Four cups," Rodney says absently, staring at the screen, not even bothering to frame a sarcastic reply, because, oh my god, he'd been right after all: the Ancients weren't fucking stupid. Which just meant it was Rodney who was stupid, and … god, oh god … how long has it been? How long has he been down there, alone in the dark?
The clock in the corner of the laptop screen tells him. It's been forty-nine hours.
Fifty-one hours after
"Rodney-"
"We don't have time to argue this, Elizabeth! It's been more than two days."
"Rodney, he couldn't have survived-"
"-a fall into the water, yes, yes, I know. But if he was diverted into another chute, he could have survived. If we're looking at the schematic the right way, the fall would have been maybe seven or eight meters."
"Less than ten, certainly," Radek interjects. "Is survivable."
"But he never responded to his radio."
"He might have been unconscious. Or maybe his radio got broken. Who knows? The point is, he might still be alive down there."
Elizabeth nods. "I'll authorize a team. Nobody with the gene-"
Rodney waves a hand dismissively. "No, no, we need someone with the gene to open the panel. But it will be perfectly safe. We've got a map of all the chutes now, and with adequate lighting, we'll see all the hatches before we're near them. Anyway, I don't think they'll open unless we tell them to. Lorne had to really concentrate. Sheppard ... Sheppard must have done it, too. He can't help himself."
Elizabeth breathes slowly, in and out. "All right, you can go. But don't get your hopes up, Rodney."
Rodney frowns. "I won't." Of course, he's lying, because his hopes are currently entering orbit. They'd be higher, except there's a part of his brain that keeps reminding him: fifty-one hours.
Fifty-four hours after
There's a horrible familiarity to all of this, a dreadful sense of déjà vu because they've already done this once, spent hours gathering supplies and making plans, spending time they can't afford to waste, while all the time Sheppard is alone, waiting, wondering if he's been left behind.
This time is different, because there's no time dilation field, no worry that Sheppard's going to die of old age before they get him out, but in its place is worry that Sheppard's just plain going to die. Because the Ancients weren't stupid, but they also weren't prescient; they'd probably assumed that the only people in an Ancient mine would be Ancient miners, and they probably hadn't made contingency plans for an ATA-gifted yet impulse-control-deficient pilot activating waste hatches just because he senses they're there and wonders if they might be shortcuts.
Lorne is gathering equipment, and Simpson is modifying scanners while Ronon's walking around looking impatient and threatening in equal measure, and Rodney ... Rodney's yelling at everyone to move faster, faster god damn it, because it's been more than two days, and they need to hurry it up, people!
Sheppard has abandonment issues. "Abandonment issues", a phrase that's pure squishy psychobabble, but it's Sheppard's squishy psychobabble, and although he was drunk at the time, he was also one hundred percent serious. Psychobabble or not, Rodney has never doubted for a second that it's also the truth, because it's painfully obvious that it is true, the way Sheppard's so fanatical and neurotic about never leaving anyone behind, never giving up on anyone, ever, not even Ford, and that kind of fixation is more than what the military drums into its officers. Because even the American military knows that sometimes you have to cut and run, but Sheppard doesn't seem to.
It's just a thing of mine, Sheppard had admitted that night, back in real time, newly shaven and once again in uniform, pouring himself another shot of vodka with hands that were only shaking a little, just me being a little nuts.
And Rodney had nodded drunkenly, and said they were obviously all a little nuts, more than a little nuts, or they wouldn't be living in a floating city in another galaxy, fighting space vampires with no fashion sense and a desperate need for orthodontia.
Yeah, I guess, Sheppard had said, grinning a little before finishing his vodka, and then he'd said he got it, he did; intellectually he understood it hadn't been six months, it hadn't even been a day, but it hadn't felt like that to him, and maybe it would have been different if he'd just known ...
Yes, Rodney had interrupted bitterly, yes, I should have sent through a note, I know, and thank you for making me feel even more guilty than I already do, because I really need the additional emotional baggage.
But Sheppard had just shaken his head, and shrugged, and said Rodney didn't have anything to feel guilty about, even though, in the past, that had never stopped Rodney from feeling guilty anyway. It's just, Sheppard had said slowly, staring at the shot glass in his hand, it's just that six months is a long time, and he knows they didn't really leave him, but he needs a little time to work through it.
Definitely some issues there, Rodney had concluded at the time, probably due to a horribly traumatic experience at some indefinite point in the past, but Sheppard has never elucidated further, and Rodney hasn't asked, and it hasn't ever come up since, so Rodney hasn't worried. But now it's been fifty-four hours that Sheppard's been alone, and Rodney has this awful, creeping sense of worry that these fifty-four hours will be the ones that break him.
Fifty-seven hours after
Fifty-seven hours, Rodney's thinking now, not sure when he started rounding up except that he obviously has, because it's been almost but not quite that long. Fifty-seven hours in the dark. Fifty-seven hours alone, probably injured, with only one canteen of water and whatever powerbars are crammed into the pockets of a flak vest. Can you survive that? Would you even want to?
Rodney wouldn't. Wouldn't want to, probably couldn't, but Sheppard, Sheppard's different, always throwing himself in front of grenades but only for a good cause, and it'd piss him off to die like this, to die by worthless accident, so if the fall didn't kill him, he's probably still alive down there, waiting, because he trusts Rodney to figure it out.
But still. Fifty-seven hours is a long time to be alone in the dark.
They're back at the spot where it happened, and it takes so much less time to get there with a map and good strong Earth flashlights lighting their way instead of torches, and if they'd had flashlights to begin with, Rodney thinks, this wouldn't have happened, because they'd have seen the damn hatch.
"Still no answer," Ronon says shortly, pawing impatiently at his radio. Again. He's visibly itching with the need to get moving, and Rodney, for the first time, really sympathizes with him in this regard.
"Major," Rodney says, and Lorne nods wordlessly, frowns in concentration, and then a second later the panel on the floor slides open without even a creak. Another Major with a magic gene, Rodney thinks a little sourly, but Lorne's gene, though natural, is nowhere as magic as Sheppard's, and actually, this is the first time there's something he can do that Rodney can't, and so the sourness isn't even fairly aimed. Rodney's pissed at Sheppard, not Lorne, but Sheppard's not around to be pissed at. Fifty-seven hours, Rodney thinks, and snaps at Lorne, "Why are you still standing here? Move!"
Lorne doesn't even take the time to flash him an irritated look, just carefully lowers himself down the chute, seven different safety harnesses in place, unrolling a rope ladder as he goes.
There's silence for a few minutes too long, then his voice, echoing in the shaft. "There is a side chute here, but ..." He's quiet. "I don't see how he'd have gotten into it, Dr. McKay."
"Air currents," Rodney snaps back. "Force fields. Who the hell knows? Lower the ladder down and we'll take a look ourselves."
And they do, even though Rodney has to admit on the slow, scary way down that Lorne's right, it looks incredibly unlikely that Sheppard would have somehow been diverted into this side chute. Except that he's Sheppard, and five unlikely things happen to him every day, three of them before breakfast, and also, Rodney keeps coming back to the fact that the Ancients weren't stupid. Careless in their design perhaps, but not so careless they'd let you kill yourself by accident.
He wonders if that's been any consolation to Sheppard, if he's still alive, for the past fifty-seven hours.
"McKay," Ronon says quietly, and Rodney whirls because there's something in Ronon's voice that says he should be whirling, and Ronon never exaggerates, not even by inference.
It's Sheppard's radio, looking small and fragile in Ronon's huge hands, and it's obvious from a quick glance that it's crushed beyond repair. Ronon's rubbing his fingers together, smelling them, and he frowns. "It's got blood on it."
Fifty-seven hours, Rodney thinks, except now it's almost fifty-eight, but Sheppard was alive when he landed here, and he's not here now so he must have been mobile, must have had some reason to move ...
Water, he thinks, then says it out loud. "He'll have been looking for water. His canteen was almost empty, before."
Teyla frowns too. "There is no water on this level."
"But it sounds like there is," Rodney says, and he moves off down the corridor grasping his flashlight, walking quickly toward the sound of running water, trying not to think of Sheppard, hurting and thirsty, making his way in the dark toward the sound of water, only to find out it's not accessible.
Ronon overtakes him in an instant, moving quickly and purposefully through the gloom, only to go stock still after a few minutes before crouching down to peer intently at the ground.
"He's hurt," Ronon announces, reaching out to trace something in the dirt.
"More blood?" Rodney asks, feeling sick, or sicker, but Ronon shakes his head.
"Tracks," he says succinctly. "He's limping." He scans the ground some more and scowls. "He's limping bad."
"I'll get the stretcher down here," Lorne says. "You'll be all right by yourselves?"
Ronon doesn't answer, because he's already out of sight. Rodney doesn't answer either, because he's following Ronon, and also because Lorne's question had been entirely theoretical; he'd already been halfway back down the corridor before he'd finished talking.
Fifty-eight hours after
It's cold and dark and creepy down here, and Rodney's nervous, claustrophobic and irritable again. But he's also some strange combination of euphoric and petrified: euphoric because they've found two crumpled powerbar wrappers, so Sheppard may be injured, but he was alive long enough to eat, not once, but twice. Petrified because of the way Ronon's frown is getting deeper all the time. Even Rodney can see the way the tracks are degrading; Sheppard's still on his feet, he guesses, but one of those feet isn't ever getting off the ground, and there's blood splattered all over the floor.
Farther down the corridor they find a depleted cigarette lighter. Rodney shivers, because, Jesus, fifty-eight hours alone in the dark, the really dark dark. Not that a cigarette lighter is all that bright, but it can make all the difference in the world in a place like this, where without a flashlight the darkness would be so deep and profound you'd think you'd gone blind. Sheppard doesn't spook easily, god knows, but even so, sometime in the past two days he'd used up the damn lighter.
"Colonel!" he shouts, but there's no answer, and his heart's pounding in time with his feet. Fifty-eight, he's thinking; left foot, fifty, right foot, eight, and he calls out again and again, but there's no answer. He still calls out, because lack of an answer doesn't mean Sheppard's dead. It's only been two and a half days, and Sheppard's stubborn enough to last that long. Even alone in the dark.
They keep going for a while, long enough for Rodney to start chanting fifty-nine in his head, when Ronon lets out a grunt and speeds forward out of the dim light of the flashlights.
"Sheppard," he calls out, urgency in his voice, and then, more softly if no less urgent, "He's here."
Rodney's heart thuds painfully in his chest. Fifty-nine, he can't stop thinking, fifty-nine hours alone in the dark, and what if they were too late? What if Sheppard was already dead?
"Got a pulse," Ronon says, and Rodney's heart stutters to a stop for a brief, painful second of utter relief. "Sheppard?" There's no response.
Rodney skids to a stop besides Ronon and falls to his knees, Teyla close behind. Sheppard's huddled on the ground, curled around himself, and his skin, when Rodney touches him, is ice-cold. Cold as death, he thinks, except that Ronon said he found a pulse, and Ronon's not stupid; he wouldn't lie about that, wouldn't be wrong about that, so Sheppard's still alive, no matter how cold his skin feels.
"He's freezing," Rodney says.
"It is quite cool down here," Teyla answers, "and there is no wood with which to make a fire."
Fifty-nine hours, Rodney thinks again, fifty-nine hours, cold and alone and thirsty and alone and hurt and alone.
"Jesus Christ," he mutters, and tells himself to stop thinking about it because it's over now; they're here and it's going to be fine. "Colonel? It's time to wake up, now." He shakes him, gently, and calls his name again, and this time, Sheppard stirs.
"R'ney?" he slurs, voice so weak it's barely there, but strong enough to be heard, strong enough to prove he's still alive, fifty-nine hours later and still alive.
"Who else?" Rodney says, heart pounding in giddy relief.
Sheppard uncurls just a little and blinks his eyes open, but only for an instant before he cries out in pain and buries his head in his hands, cursing.
Lights, Rodney thinks. Idiots, we're all idiots. "Turn out the damn flashlights!" he snaps, because it's been fifty-nine hours in the dark, and to Sheppard's eyes the military flashlights probably feel like staring into the sun.
They're all blind now. Rodney's blinking into the absolute dark, but there's nothing to see, and he is absolutely, positively not imagining two days in this inky, impenetrable blackness, is in no way, shape, or form thinking about how the dark is so tangible it's like being surrounded by concrete walls with no room to move or breathe, and he's definitely not thinking about waiting, just waiting, wondering where your team is and how come they haven't come to get you yet, and what will happen if they don't. He doesn't think about any of this because there's no point; it's over now; they've got him and it's over.
Then something cold and clammy grabs his leg and he yelps, because god, shit, fuck, are there animals down here?
But then there's a ragged inhale, and the touch resolves into fingers, and it's Sheppard, whispering hoarsely, "So, not a dream this time?"
God, Rodney thinks, and fumbles until he's holding Sheppard's hand. "No, not a dream." Sheppard's hand is trembling in his, tacky with dried blood, and Rodney knows now that Sheppard thought they wouldn't come for him, that fifty-nine hours in the dark, alone, was too long to wait.
"Sorry," Rodney says, a little desperately. "I'm sorry it took us so long to get here."
"It's okay," Sheppard says – lying through his teeth, Rodney thinks, because really, it's as far away from okay as it could possibly be – "you made it here eventually." He doesn't make a move to pull his hand out of Rodney's. "How long has it been, anyway?"
"I don't know," Rodney says. Fifty-nine hours! his mind screams at him, before he sits back and lets the dark envelop him, keeping his grip firm on Sheppard's hand, squeezing gently. "I wasn't keeping track."