Stargate Atlantis: Summer Rain

Chapter 3

The light was fading so that beneath the canopy of evergreens, it was already hard to see.  Fallen branches, pits and ridges slowed John's progress, roots tripped him and mud and half-decomposed vegetation brought him skidding to the ground.  He picked himself up once more, at least feeling less cold from the exertion, although his face, fingertips and toes were still numb.  John looked up between the branches and tried to orient himself in the dim light.  The sun would soon sink below the horizon and in this pathless wilderness it would be easy to become lost, to miss the Stargate altogether.

He was confident he was still heading in the right direction, because he could still hear the roar of the river on his left.  The Gate was about five klicks from the river crossing; that would be nothing with a clear path and plenty of energy, but a hard task in the dark, trackless forest, already battered and freezing cold.

Another obstacle loomed; a fallen tree, roots splaying into the air, ripped from the ground, leaving a deep pit in the earth, filled with a tangle of thorny creepers which stretched away to either side.  John squinted, trying to see a path through.  His knife would be no use; a machete would have done the job, but John would just have to find a way around.

The ground sloped down steeply to the left, a jungle of small saplings and large, dark green tangled shrubs which had sprung up in the light and space created by the fallen tree.  John began to force his way through, pushing branches aside with his arms, ducking low to find a passage beneath the close-woven thicket.  He stepped forward, expecting solid earth beneath his foot, but felt only space; a rift in the ground hidden by the undergrowth.  He wavered, tried to regain his balance, grabbed at the branches around him, began sliding on the slick surface of leaves and mud, pitched forward and crashed down into the hidden fold in the earth, caught briefly in the woody clasp of a shrub, which broke beneath his weight to send him tumbling further down.  He skidded and bounced down the nearly vertical slope, momentum forcing him through the smaller branches, larger branches snapping on impact, clothes snagging on a protruding root holding for a second to then tear and release him to fall, straight down, the last six feet.

He landed, half on the soft, rotting undergrowth of the forest floor, half in a stagnant pool of dark, marshy water.  He lay, still.  The fall itself had only taken a few seconds; a few short moments of noise and pain and rushing, hurtling descent.  Now, John was grateful for the stillness and, though the moisture was once again seeping into his clothes, the soft surface he was lying on felt like a safe haven after the sharp, jagged roughness of his fall.

John, face down in the mud, raised his head; and blinked.  More shallow, muddy pools stretched out in the gloom before him, presumably a marshy area bordering the river.  He let his head fall again and groaned.  Get out of the water, John, he thought to himself, without moving.  He raised his head once more, vision obscured by a clump of tough grasses.  Through the stalks he saw something bobbing erratically; a small, flickering, white light, wavering from side to side.  Marshlight, werelight, he thought, his frozen, confused mind struggling to make sense, drawing in unwary travellers.  The light moved closer and he could hear the soft, uneven squelch of something moving over the muddy ground with an odd, limping gait.

John slid his arms beneath him, feeling the mirey slime forcing its way between his fingers.  He slowly pushed his body up, peeling away from the saturated earth with a soft sucking sound.  He raised his head further and squinted, feeling muddy water running out of his hair, and down his face and back. 

John, having lost or abandoned his teammates, having gone on alone in the dark and cold, having fallen to lie dazed and in pain, looked up into the light.  And the light that shone on his face illuminated not just the mud and dirt and bloody scratches, but a strange expression; a mixture of astonishment, joy and not a little embarrassment.

"Hello, Teyla," croaked John, with a lop-sided smile.

oOo

The stretcher had saved her, Teyla told him.  She had clung to it and though she had been flung down the rapids with all the force and raw, freezing power of a glacial river in spate, she had kept her head and kept hold of the stretcher, managing to bring both of its poles together in front of her so that when they had been brought up short against some protruding rocks, they were strong enough to halt Teyla's progress.  She had pulled herself out of the water onto a rock, dragged the stretcher along and wedged it between more rocks closer to the shore, lowered herself once more into the water and, clinging to the poles, had made her way to another rock.  Teyla had needed all her strength and determination to make her way to the shore, but she had a lot of both of those things and she had made it, to lie, exhausted but triumphant, safely on the damp earth beneath the trees.

Teyla knew the business of survival very well, in a whole range of circumstances.  She had assessed her situation quickly; she was soaking wet and freezing cold, she was bruised, but the main pain came from her right ankle.  She had on her tac vest and P90.  She still had the stretcher.  Within ten minutes Teyla had a fire lit, had taken off her clothes, wrung them out as hard as she could and put them back on again.  The next ten minutes had seen her dismantle the stretcher, use part of it to splint her ankle, which was either badly sprained or broken, she wasn't sure, set aside the other pole for a crutch and eat two power bars which she knew would warm her up and give her energy.  Her immediate needs met, Teyla had tried her radio, which she was unsurprised to find dead.  She had looked at the sky; not long til nightfall.  It would be foolish to wander off into the wilderness alone when she was safe here for now.  There were no paths through the ancient forest and it was a treacherous place with two sound ankles.  The best thing was to stay and wait for rescue.  She had decided to allow herself a little more time by the fire and then gather some pine branches to make a small shelter.  Teyla had hoped her teammates were making good progress back to the Stargate; she had hoped that Rodney was not too badly hurt and would get help soon.  But for herself, she had been quite content to wait, with the almost casual stoicism expected of any Athosian.

Pine branches gathered and layered with efficiency, Teyla had sat by her fire, eyes closed, attuning herself to the sounds and scents of the darkening forest.  She had smelt the damp earth, the evening mist rising, the muddy turmoil of the churning river.  She had heard the rush and splash of the water, a rattling stone, a leaping fish; and in the forest the subtler sounds, the flit of a disturbed bird, the soft tread and pause of a predator on the scent.  Teyla had felt as if her senses were expanding to fill her surroundings so that she had almost lost her sense of self in the vastness and wildness of the forest.

Something had jarred and her eyes had flown open to see that darkness had fallen.  A sudden splintering and snapping, uncontrolled, alien to the scene that had built up in Teyla's inner eye.  Teyla had taken up her P90, on with the light and off with the safety, she had fastened it onto its sling.  Weapon in one hand, makeshift crutch under her other arm, she had stood, facing the forest, scanning an area of shallow marshy pools that extended from the margin of the river.

So, Teyla, limping through the mud, the light from her P90 a beacon in the night, had found her team leader.  She had almost laughed to find him so very filthy and waterlogged.  Almost, but not quite, because he had undoubtedly been having a harsh time in the wild wood and, to find him alone had been an unpleasant surprise.

John, watching the rivulets of clear, mild rainwater making their way over the curve of the Athosian tent, recalled Teyla's encouraging words as they limped together back to her fire by the riverside.  How he had once more wrung out his sodden and now filthy and torn clothes, how they had cleaned the worst of the mud from his injuries, how he had forced down a power bar and some water and how they had decided what to do.