SGA FIC: Dog Tags Chapter 5
Dec. 5th, 2007 03:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
x_erikah_xDOG TAGS
By ErikaHK
Title: Dog Tags
Chapter: 5/9
Word count: ~1.940
Rating: PG13 (language and graphic violent scenes)
Characters: mainly John Sheppard, but also features some Rodney McKay near the end, with appearances of Evan Lorne, Ronon Dex, Teyla Emmagan and Elizabeth Weir.
Genre: Drama, Angst, H/C, Gen
Spoilers: for Sunday and Phantoms
Disclaimer: Stargate and all related characters are the property of MGM Television Entertainment. Not done for profit, just for fun.
Summary: After a team fails to return from a mission, Sheppard goes to find out why and ends up alone lost on an unknown planet with no means to return home. Shep Whump. Set in Season 3 somewhere after Sunday.
Is anyone still reading? Sorry for being so late, and sorry about the mistakes. Do I have to do a "Previously on Dog Tags"?
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Chapter 5
This really sucked. Where had his luck gone? For the next off-world missions he should really try to remember to pack some good fortune and leave the jinxes behind. Maybe he should start carrying rabbit feet and horseshoes every time he crossed the event horizon.
John limped heavily on his way up the hill, dragging his leg behind him. He was sweating profusely, shaking and the world was starting to twirl around him. Severe burning pain climbed up his limb and the light headedness was getting worse. He held on the rock to breathe and looked down at his ankle. The lizard was growing weaker from its wounds, and so was he. He sat down to try to take the thing away one more time and finally he was successful. The reptilian let go and went limp immediately after. John hoped it was dead, but he knew that it wasn’t the end of his problems. His symptoms suggested that it was actually poisonous.
He gasped as he stood up once more. Swallowing and holding the wall he waited until the world slowed down before proceeding. Taking one step at a time he pushed himself up feeling increasingly tired and weak, but considered his case as an exception on the rules of no exercising after bitten by a poisonous creature. He didn’t want to spend another minute vulnerable outside.
His bad leg concentrated his agony and shot the pain all the way up to his thigh. On another step the leg gave in and he fell on his hands, unable to move. He tried his best to fight the pain, but it overwhelmed him. He stubbornly tried to put weight on it, but it buckled on an excruciating explosion of pain that had him yelling all his frustration and anger. John took another look at it, but what he saw made his stomach twirl and his nausea increase. His ankle was a mess of blood and broken skin with several deep punctures that were more like giant holes and slashes and was already starting to get swollen.
His trembling hands took his canteen and poured water on the wounds. He needed to clean it to prevent infection. If it wasn’t already too late. By the way it looked and considering that he was bitten by a lizard-like animal he would say that it was. Stupid. That what it was, John. Very, very stupid. He shouldn’t have used all his antibiotics on the cuts. He rubbed the skin and groaned as he did so. It stung like shit. It was like having a dozen knives carving into his leg and twisting inside, but still he rubbed the wound to eliminate the pathogens and dirt. He knew that because of the swelling he couldn’t wrap the wound with a field dressing. At least not yet, because when the swelling increased the dressing would cut his circulation. He would just cover it when he got back. If he made it back.
He dragged his body pushing himself up with his good leg on a sitting position. He tried not to think of the fact that it was a humiliating position for the military commander of Atlantis, especially because he felt weak even for that. He was completely damp with sweat and breathing was difficult, but he focused on only one thing. Keep going up.
Just a few minutes afterwards he was leaning his back on the cave wall and out of the hot midday sun of the rain forest. He closed his eyes trying to relax.
“What kind of mess did you get yourself into this time, Colonel?” John turned his head abruptly at the source of the voice only to see Colonel Caldwell standing right beside him.
John narrowed his eyes confused with what he was seeing. “Colonel Caldwell?” he spoke weakly between hard breaths.
“I must be to be starting to see things.”
“Yes, that’s right.” The Colonel kept a smile on his face that really annoyed John.
“So you admit that you aren’t real?”
“Why not? I’m not the screw up in here.”
John could not believe that he was this bad. He refused to fall for the delusional trap and simply complied with the false image before him. “Right.” He rolled his eyes. Not even the delusion
“Yes, feel sorry for yourself. That will help.”
John just glared back. “Why?”
“Because I’m a superior officer and I’m ordering you.”
John shook his head and chuckled. “You can’t order me. You’re not even real.”
“I’m real enough.”
“Oh really?”
“Yes, Colonel. I’m a real part of you.”
John lifted a finger. “You are a freakin’ delusion probably from the damn poison of that lizard.” John turned his face refusing to continue with this.
“Why would I want that?” John rolled his eyes. Hallucinations. Just what he needed.
“So you can be faced with the truth.”
“What truth?” John asked still unbelieving.
“That you screwed up.”
There was a long pause.
“I don’t even know what happened,” John finally spoke meeting his gaze.
“Nevertheless, still your fault. Who else’s would be?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the freaking moron that exploded everyone. I know that it wasn’t me, because I was unconscious fallen from a ravine!” John’s voice raised.
“How would you know that?” John now preferred the smiles than the death glares that the not-Caldwell was giving him. “You can’t remember shit of what happened. Maybe you failed and chose to forget.”
“I’m not dismissing the responsibility of the lives of my men. I’m just saying that I don’t know what caused their deaths.”
“But you led them. You were leading them to their deaths and didn’t even know. That’s why it’s your fault.”
John licked his lips in doubt and swallowed. He turned and avoided the stare of the hallucination.
“You screwed up and it’s eating you the fact that you have no idea why.”
John’s breathing increased. “Yes, okay, I screwed up! Because of some damn unknown mistake ten good men are now dead! Is that what you wanted to hear?”
“That’s what you have to accept. That they keep going down under your responsibility.”
John closed his eyes. He didn’t need a reminder of all those lives that were lost.
“Don’t beat yourself up, man.” John snapped his eyes open by hearing the Scot accent. Carson Beckett was knelt right in front of him, smiling.
John hesitated.
The doctor’s smile faded and was replaced by a contorted face as he was enveloped in flames. John stared at the scene in shock.
At that moment it didn’t matter if he knew it was a hallucination. It looked and felt real. His throat constricted as the flames continued to burn and
“No,” John spoke between clenched teeth. “It is not real!”
“It was real.” It was
John heard the flames fading and opened his eyes.
“Go away,” John said bitterly.
“He’s not the only one you failed.”
“Sheppard,” a voice called.
John turned his head and saw Captain Holland looking down at him. Suddenly blood started leaking down from a wound in his leg and he fell on his knees. In horror and shock,
“You could have been faster.”
“Why?” a woman’s voice spoke.
John looked at the source of the voice. A beautiful blond woman was weeping over a dead man’s body. The man was Mitchell and the woman his wife. She sobbed hard and took Mitchell’s hand on her own with tears dripping from her eyes. She raised her head and looked directly at John.
“Why did you let him die?” she cried. “It was your job to protect him. I trusted his life to you.” She lowered her face until it touched her husband’s body sobbing.
“WHY DID YOU LET US DIE?”
The faces danced in his vision bleeding, contorting and aging. The echoes faded and screams of agony took their place. Dozens of screams, yelling, pleading and crying. For several minutes John’s entire world was filled with hurt, pain and trauma. His leg’s throb was ignored and he forgot all about his injuries and his abandonment. Gray smoke covered his vision and only memories of failure remained clear before him. He closed his eyes, but it didn’t make the images go away.
It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real… He repeated for himself over and over but they continued to overwhelm him.
“It is real, Colonel,”
John didn’t want to see. He didn’t want to remember any of it.
“They are dead because you didn’t reach them in time.”
His face covered in sweat and air came to his lungs in sudden shallow breaths. His heart pounded faster and harder every passing minute. The poison pumped continuously in his veins and burned inside his body. Fog covered his brain. Fear, horror and shock clouded his mind and became his only reality. The voices were loud and pierced his ears. The images became so real that he felt he could touch them if he reached his hand, but he simply watched immobile.
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TBC…
