Jo Graham - Secrets

“You don’t have to worry about that right now,” Ronon said. He couldn’t help grinning at the look McKay gave him, offended and appalled in equal measure. Jennifer smiled too, and began to pick her way carefully down the rocky slope. Ronon watched long enough to feel confident that she was going to be all right, then looked back at Rodney.

“Come on, McKay.”

“This isn’t —” Rodney’s heel slipped as he spoke, and he flailed for balance. Ronon reached without thinking, caught him by the upper arm and held him steady. Rodney grabbed at his sleeve, and they stood frozen for an instant, Rodney’s handmouth against the coarse fabric. It took all Ronon’s willpower to hold still, not to shove him away. Rodney looked stricken, eyes wide and golden as if with shock.

“I’m good,” he said, in a strangled voice, and Ronon nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He let go, and Rodney scrambled down the slope in Jennifer’s wake. Ronon could feel himself shivering, as though he’d been out on Atlantis’s balconies unprotected. He stiffened his shoulders and made himself follow.

Jennifer was waiting for them by the water’s edge. She’d found a long stick — probably the trunk of a sapling — among the debris, and held it up at their approach. “I thought — you know how people rope together for things like this? Maybe this would work.”

“Good idea,” Ronon said. He was amazed that his voice sounded even close to normal. He tapped the wood against the nearest rock, decided it felt solid enough. “Let’s go.”

They edged into the river, holding tight to the sapling. Ronon took the lead, feeling for unseen potholes, the water rushing up past his knees, numbing his skin. Jennifer clung with determination to the middle of the pole, and Rodney brought up the rear, yelping as the cold hit him.

“Ow! Isn’t this likely to give us all hypothermia or something?”

“Suck it up, McKay,” Ronon said without thinking, and that felt strange and normal at the same time.

The riverbed was treacherous underfoot, stones the size of a man’s fist shifting uneasily in the current. No potholes, though, at least not in this relatively smooth stretch, and, though the current was strong, it was at least steady. Then Jennifer cried out, and Ronon whipped around to see her falling, her hands peeling away from the wood. She was light enough that the current took her instantly, rolling her over in the waist-deep water, and it took all Ronon’s control to keep from diving after her. Rodney lunged toward her, black coat billowing, ready to tangle them both. Ronon curbed the impulse to join him, instead kept tight hold of the stick, let the current take it toward them. Then Rodney had reached her, had her by the jacket and then her hand, and his other hand closed firmly on the sapling. Ronon braced himself to take their joined weight, held firm as first Rodney, then Jennifer dragged themselves to their feet and resumed their careful progress. On the far side, Jennifer collapsed onto the nearest rock, and Ronon gave her a worried look.

“Are you all right?”

She nodded, her wet hair straggling over her face, then grimaced and began to bind it back again.

“What happened?” Rodney asked.

“A stone turned under my foot,” Jennifer answered. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” Rodney asked. “Because that’s the way people break ankles, not that I’m staying I told you so —”

“I’m fine,” Jennifer said again. “I’m a doctor, remember? I’m not hurt.” She stood up as though to prove it, and Ronon, watching carefully, saw no sign of injury. She might be sore in the morning, but for now she’d be better off if she kept moving.

“OK,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“Wait,” Rodney said. “Just wait a minute.” He was just as wet as Jennifer, the white hair plastered to his skull, water pooling at his feet. “We’re both soaked through. We should stop, dry out — maybe we could even camp here overnight, there’s lots of wood, and plenty of room.”

“It’s not safe to camp in a streambed,” Ronon said.

“Oh, come on, you can’t seriously be worried about flash floods,” Rodney said. “The sky’s completely clear.”

“Ronon’s right,” Jennifer said. “We need to keep going.”

Get as close to the Stargate as they could, Ronon thought. That effort would have taken it out of McKay. He said, “Not much further.” He pointed downstream to a spot where dirt and gravel spread in a fan from the collapsed cliffside. “Just there. Once we get to the top, we’ll see about going on.”

Rodney was profoundly grateful for the steel rod he’d salvaged from the lifepod, leaned heavily on its support as he followed the others down the streambed. They were going back the way they’d come — not that it made any real difference, and there’d been no way to get down the cliff on that side anyway, but it was somehow even more discouraging to have to retrace their steps. At least Jennifer was all right. She was limping a little, but she was going to be fine. A night’s rest was all she needed. He could feel his own body shifting, the bruises from where he’d banged against the rocks healing as he walked. It was a complete waste of energy, and he had no idea how to stop it, wondered if any Wraith did. Probably not — as far as he could tell, they had no compunctions about feeding, a Wraith in his situation would already have drained both the others, and be well on his way to the Stargate by now.

And that, of course, he couldn’t do, no matter what Jennifer said about this retrovirus. It was too much of a risk, she’d already said the first version hadn’t worked, and there was no way to test this one safely. And besides, she was Jennifer. He couldn’t think of her like that, any more than he could think it of Ronon. Though perhaps just a taste — just a sip, just enough to keep him steady on his feet, to get him to the Stargate so that they could bring him back to Atlantis. Ronon was strong, nearly as strong as two men, he could spare just a little —

Rodney stopped, appalled by his own thoughts. This was Ronon, Ronon and Jennifer; he couldn’t let his mind wander in those directions, not if he wanted to stay sane. No wonder Michael had gone crazy, he thought. It was simply too confusing to keep track of who one was.

“Come on, McKay,” Ronon called.

They were almost to the break in the cliff — Ronon was there, in fact, stopped with his feet in the red spill of dirt. Jennifer wasn’t far behind him, her hair loosening as it dried.

“Hurry up,” Ronon called again. Rodney bared teeth at him and dragged himself forward.

He wasn’t sure quite how he got up the last few meters — off-hand and stick bracing himself and Ronon shouting at him to keep going — but he knew when he reached the top that he wasn’t going any further. He staggered a meter from the cliff’s edge and sank down onto the grass, still warm from the sun. He saw Jennifer and Ronon exchange a look, and then Ronon said, gruffly, “OK. We stop for the night.”

“We need to talk,” Jennifer said, and Ronon shook his head, his hair flying.

“Nope.”

He busied himself collecting stones and wood, built a perfect stack of branches, kindling tucked neatly into the gaps, as though the right, the correct method, would keep them from having to have this conversation. Rodney watched him, feeling some of the weakness ease as his body finished healing his bruises and he stopped exerting himself.

“Yes, we do,” Jennifer said. “Rodney —” She stopped, bit her lip. “Rodney, you have to feed.”

“I’m fine,” he said, and knew nobody believed him.

“You’re out of your mind,” Ronon said. “He’ll kill — whichever one of us he feeds on, and if he doesn’t kill us, he’ll take years out of our lives. You remember what Sheppard looked like —”