Chapter Text
The stargate was blown to shit. But the DHD was fine. That was nice.
"What- how-"
"How's not gonna help us right now, McKay," came the sharp reply from Lt. Col. Sheppard. He grabbed McKay by the vest and pulled him back from the clearing, retreating into the trees with a yelled order to "Fall back!"
He knew Ronon and Teyla would follow, not even a matter of trust, but knew. Rodney was another story, but that was how their team worked. Three of them were required to keep the idiot genius in check. Sheppard could practically hear inside Rodney’s head just then, knowing the man well enough to predict the scientist was more hung up on the destroyed stargate than he was on the fact that they were being shot at. He was probably trying to figure out how to repair it - it's missing the whole center panel at the top, Rodney! - rather than pay attention to the fact that John had a fist in his shirt to drag him down behind a fallen tree trunk roughly the size of a rhino. Plenty of cover. But not great concealment. And Sheppard couldn't see the other half of his team or the Bad Guys.
"Dex!" Sheppard shouted. They could play Marco Polo if they had to, it wasn’t like the other guys didn't have their locations pinned down.
There was no response.
"Teyla!" John tried, Rodney seconds behind him as he seemed to catch on to the situation. He tried to poke his head up like a suicidal meerkat and John dragged him down, hard, and hissed at him to stay down. There was no answer from their team. Just gunfire and bullets thudding into the tree behind them.
They had to move.
Sheppard knew Teyla and Ronon could take care of themselves. He had to get Rodney to ground before he got his head shot off or twisted an ankle or whatever new creative inconvenience the cosmos wanted to throw at him. He caught him by the vest and gave a tug, just enough to make it clear he was to follow. Rodney nodded and moved when John did, the pair of them dodging around the massive dead tree to another area, dropping down into a gully and moving back away from the stargate. That's where the gunfire was centered and it was obviously no use to them now.
The noise stopped, rather suddenly, on an angry shout. Sheppard tripped and caught the edge of the shallow gully they were following, stuck worrying when the voice sounded so close to Ronon's.
"Was that-" Rodney asked. Sheppard just shook his head as he regained his balance and started moving forward again.
"We'll go back when it's safe," Sheppard said. It was the only meetup spot the team had set on this trip; they would have to. Sheppard wanted to go back now, but it was too hot. Rodney was going to be their only way off the planet at this point, and he had to get the man stashed away somewhere safe before he could go back for the others. They knew how to handle themselves. Rodney knew how to point-and-shoot and get himself in trouble.
"Colonel!" Rodney sounded like he was shouting and John turned around to find out what was wrong. And then he felt the dart sticking out of his shoulder, just between his tac vest and his shirt collar. Rodney was on it already, reaching out to pull it away. John nodded his thanks and shoved Rodney ahead of him. They didn't know what it was and maybe he got it in time.
"Run!" he hissed. Rodney did and John followed. But his vision swam after ten yards and he fell face first into mud and ivy.
The light in the room was bright, obnoxiously so, but it was yellow. And it buzzed. And it made Rodney’s skin crawl. He sat in a lab of some sort, afraid to touch anything, because it had to be a trap. There were paper notebooks everywhere and rudimentary computers, some sixty years out of date, though he saw no sign of their processors. Maybe they were wired to another room. Or maybe they had a newer form of technology despite the archaic interface. Rodney wanted to investigate but he knew better.
So for a while he sat on a sofa bench along the one wall of the room that wasn't occupied by computers, microscopes, and other tech he didn't recognize. Keeping his back to the wall helped keep them from creeping in on him. There was a bank of windows on one wall but they were all sealed, mounted with metal brackets, and looked out on a shadowy warehouse too dark to see anything. Useless. It was all very Genii but it was all very unknown, too. He had seen Kolya. They weren't at the Genii planet location Teyla had known, but it was definitely a Genii outpost. And there was the matter of the broken stargate; specifically, who had blasted the ring apart? It didn't make sense why Kolya would destroy his own way back to his people just to trap AR-1. And the question of where the rest of AR-1 was being kept weighed heavy.
They had left his pack with him, and John's, but the only things useful in either were the MREs and water, and the basic travel toiletries were probably going to come in handy before long. He was locked up by the Genii, but at least he had a toothbrush. And he wasn't stuck in a cave, like the last time AR-1 was ambushed, with Aiden Ford poisoning the team to prove a point. Just Genii. Which meant radiation. And who the hell knew what they wanted this time. But he could still brush his teeth.
Rodney paced because he felt anxious despite being hungry, hating being hungry. He had to break into his pack for a PowerBar but it just made him angry at the weakness. Whatever. He couldn’t afford to get sick. He couldn’t help his team if he got sick.
Rodney startled when the door finally opened. He stood by the sofa, staring out the window until the metal door across the room clanked and allowed two soldiers inside. The door locked behind them again and one of the guards stationed himself in front of it. The other moved to one of the computer consoles in front of the window and started flipping switches and typing commands. Neither of them did more than look Rodney’s direction. Curiosity caught, Rodney moved to the young woman at the computer to snoop over her shoulder at a safe enough distance. They had apparently written him off as harmless because she shifted enough to allow him to see the computer.
"What is this?" Rodney asked. The soldier didn't reply. A few more keystrokes and one monitor showed a snowy, lined live-feed video of the room they were in. Rodney looked around to find a camera and found the bulky brown box just outside the window to the warehouse, off in an upper corner and angled to catch most of the room from what Rodney could see on the screen. Great.
Another monitor lit up with a grainy video feed of another room and Rodney squinted at the picture coming into focus. It looked like an open space, with barred cells along the back wall, with someone sitting in a high-backed metal chair a few feet in front of the camera. There was a heavy desk in front of him, paperwork and a desk blotter to suggest it was actually used periodically, and it looked like the camera was mounted just behind the desk. It was a close angle, and it auto-focused on John Sheppard after a moment.
Shit.
His face was more colorful than it had been the last time Rodney had seen him. His tac vest was gone. And he looked groggy, but whether that was from the beating or from the dart, Rodney had no way to know. He backed away from the soldier out of self-preservation and moved to sit on the bench. He didn't want to know.
"Dr. McKay, over here, please," said the lady soldier. Rodney blinked at her. John looked like that and she was saying please to him? It was disorienting. She pointed his attention to the screen as someone walked up to the Lt. Colonel and Rodney stayed where he was to stay away.
"Dr. McKay, may we have your undivided attention for a moment," said a voice from the speakers. And it sounded familiar enough that Rodney did stand up and move to better see the screens. He noticed it moved him closer to the camera on his end and he stood close enough now to see his own face on the room feed. Sheppard seemed to physically relax in the chair, sat forward to lean his arms on his knees as though he was looking at something to the side behind the camera he faced. His hands were shackled with thick metal cuffs and a short chain, but they were at least in front and he could move. Rodney took those to be good signs.
"Hey McKay," said Sheppard, sounding surprisingly chipper.
The man standing beside John caught him by the shoulder to make him sit back in the chair again. Sheppard cast a smug glare up at Acastus Kolya. The Commander pretended not to notice.
"Dr. McKay, thank you for joining us," Kolya said. He also seemed in a good mood. In Rodney's experience, that was usually a bad sign.
"I had nothing better to do, right?" Rodney replied, wary. Sheppard smiled at the camera until Kolya caught him at it and squeezed his shoulder. John went straight-faced but he still cringed slightly toward the correction.
"As it happens, we've got plenty for you to do, Doctor. Starting with correcting the specific errors you have previously identified with the Genii nuclear program, and eventually working toward the repair of this planet's stargate," said Kolya. "Which, I'm sure you'll realize, is in your personal best interests."
"I'm okay with working on the stargate," Sheppard offered up. "That's a great idea."
Rodney started to nod his agreement, but Kolya smiled again. "That, I assure you, is on the list. But it is last on the list. You will work your way to it."
"If the Genii want help, they can ask for it," Rodney said, angry but trying to be careful. "Politely, like allies-"
Kolya brought his fist up and back suddenly to club Sheppard’s jaw with it. John dodged to the side belatedly, brought his hands up to guard against the follow up. But Kolya stood still, hands clasped in front of him as John recovered.
"What the hell was that?" Rodney demanded, startled by the unexpected blow. "Atlantis is at a truce with the Genii! You can't-"
Kolya grabbed Sheppard by the shoulder again and dragged him to his feet. There had to be something wrong with John's shoulder because he was moving away from the touch more than just annoyance at the handling. Kolya didn't seem to mind. "This says I can. I promise you, Dr. McKay, if you cooperate then the Lt. Colonel will come to no more harm. And if you refuse, if you argue and whine and work an angle? Question an order? I promise you I will not kill him."
Sheppard rolled his eyes at the Commander's dramatic promise, but it took effort. "Situation normal, McKay," the Lt. Colonel said. "You know the policy."
"Yeah, it's all fucked up. Sheppard, shut it," Rodney snapped at him. He wasn't helping.
"Rodney-"
"I remind you, this is not your command, Sheppard," said Kolya.
"And it's not yours either," said Rodney, angry and glaring at the grainy image of Kolya on the screen. He pointed uselessly at the screen like he could shake a finger in the man's face. "You want something from me, here. Not from Atlantis. You want my help with your projects. This is not how that works."
Kolya and Sheppard both stared at the screen on their end, and Sheppard's boneless effort to avoid further injury to his shoulder stiffened, like he had to brace for a blow.
"He means that," Sheppard said, quiet. "He's saying his brain doesn't work when he's... scared."
"Yes," replied Kolya with a disturbing calm. "I've seen. That's what you're for."
Before Sheppard seemed to fully realize what was happening, Kolya shoved him hard into the desk that sat between them and the camera. John tried to catch himself and papers went flying. Another soldier showed up in the corner and caught Sheppard’s hands by the short shackles and he was stretched and pinned over the desktop.
There was a grunted ohshit and Rodney jumped back as Kolya took something to John's back that tore stripes right through the black shirt. It looked silver, like wire, some kind of metal stick or a pointer or something similar, but Rodney couldn’t tell through the feed. He saw blood, though, and he saw the tightly cringed pain on John's face as the Colonel clenched his jaw and bit his lip until there was blood there too. Rodney backed off another step, tucked his face into his shoulder rather than watch the screen. He missed count of how many stripes Sheppard ended up with for it.
"Okay! Stop!" Rodney finally blurted out. He felt nauseous. Kolya passed the silver weapon off to one of his soldiers and moved to stand behind John again, the soldier jerking on their hold on John's shackles when he tried to move. Kolya leaned over Sheppard enough to shove his shirt up off his back, and John did shout at him for that, because he wasn't careful about the stinging injuries as he went. Kolya just kneed him in the back of the thigh and caught him by the belt to pin him down, the same way he had by the shoulder. Red lines angled across his back in diamond-shaped, messy Xs that were already bleeding badly.
"Dr. McKay, this is how this works. You apply your supposed genius to the projects you are assigned. Without argument, protest, or sabotage. And John Sheppard's blood remains on the inside of his body, as I'm sure he would appreciate," Kolya said. Again, unnaturally calm and comfortable, leaned on John's hip just close enough to some of the stripes that the Colonel was having trouble breathing.
"I said okay! Let him up!" Rodney said. On the screen, Kolya raised an eyebrow and dug heavier into John's side. "Oh come on! I can't talk- What, Please, then? Please let him up?"
Kolya smiled as Sheppard made a pained noise. The man had gone still on the table, aside from the ragged rise and fall of his ribs that Rodney could see clearly since he was so close to the camera over the desk. Rodney wanted to rage, but he couldn't. He was suddenly afraid to talk at all. The blood from the cuts was dripping and pooling onto the desktop without John's shirt to soak it up and Rodney paced further from the screen a few steps, arms crossed to shore himself up. He didn't know what to do. He couldn't watch this happen. But he couldn't put Atlantis at risk by working for the Genii.
The stargate was closed, maybe permanently, so Atlantis was safe. Sheppard wasn't. Rodney wasn’t, either, but he was safer than John. So he stayed quiet, tried to stand still, and he waited, afraid to talk.
It seemed to be the right answer and Kolya caught John by the back of his shirt collar to pull him off the desk. Sheppard swayed on his feet and caught the front of the desk with his hands to keep himself away from the sharp edge.
"Look, can I see him?" Rodney asked, putting all of his effort into swallowing his anger. "I don't know this isn't just another trick. He should be here. I'll need help."
"You will need scientists, not soldiers," said Kolya. Rodney scoffed.
"Shows what you know. I'd put that man's brain against any five of your scientists," said Rodney. He bit nervously at his thumb. "I'll need someone to check my math. That's his area."
"Rodney..." Sheppard said, anxious and in pain. Rodney waved his hands. He could feel the panic setting in.
"I made the request! Okay? If I can't talk, things are gonna take ten times longer, at least," he said. "I'm not arguing. Just... putting that out there."
Kolya was staring at Sheppard, reassessing the hostage apparently. Then he looked to the camera, at Rodney. "No. You manage without him today. And check in tomorrow."
"If he's here with me, there's no slow-down for a check-in," Rodney pointed out. "Look, I'm about five seconds from a meltdown and he's the only one I know who can talk me through them. Now would kind of be better. I might not be breathing in ten minutes."
"What’s he talking about?" Kolya asked Sheppard. John squinted and closed his eyes like he was trying to focus.
"Uh, panic attacks. They can shut him down if he doesn't have somebody to talk him through it," said John, apparently resigned to the truth as he reigned in his own anger at the man still touching him.
"Huh," said Kolya. He stepped aside enough to pull Sheppard back to the metal chair and shove him into it. "I guess we'll find out what that looks like then."
Sheppard crumpled forward over his knees when Kolya pushed him in the chair, only for Kolya to pull him back to sitting up. "Tell him to get to work, Sheppard."
John was laughing for some reason, and squirming to get his back away from the chair. It didn't work well with Kolya hanging on to his shoulder. He finally looked up at the camera, the pained, lopsided, smug smile on his face. "Get to work, Sheppard."
Rodney was confused by the good humor, but he had to bite his tongue to keep from a small, tiny, confused, enough-to-get-John-killed huff of a laugh escaping. Kolya shoved John's chair backwards and he disappeared behind the desk as he fell to the floor and rolled to his side. It was maybe a rough landing but it was probably where John wanted to go anyway.
Kolya looked to the camera again. "What you achieve today determines what happens tomorrow, Dr. McKay. You'll find the project list in your new office. I suggest you start by looking for that."
There was no more audio after that, though the video stayed on. The two soldiers behind Rodney left the room, the door clanking loudly behind them. Rodney didn't move, just stared at the screen. Kolya had gone away and more soldiers had half carried Sheppard into one of the cells at the back of the room. They just left him there. They did nothing to care for his back.
Rodney watched, worried, as Sheppard tugged his shirt off and tossed it. He couldn't lift his arms very well from the pull on his bleeding back, so it didn't get far. Then the Lt. Colonel curled up on his side in the middle of the cell floor, and carefully hugged his knees. He probably thought he was alone.
Rodney had to work at turning away. He was supposed to be doing something that wasn't staring at a screen to make sure John was still breathing. He had to find a list. And he had to make sense of what was apparently his office. At least until he could get John out of the cells. He had to figure out how to break out of locked offices and be ready to run when he got John back.