At The Sign Of The Happy Helg

Chapter 7

John felt warm breath on his face and opened his eyes to see two golden orbs staring back at him. He felt someone holding his wrist and then heard Teyla's relieved voice.

"I can feel his pulse. John is alive."

"We need to get this thing off him!" Rodney was there too.

"Each grab a limb. Watch the claws!" An unfamiliar voice, and where was Ronon?

John felt the pressure on his body disappear as the grenza was lifted away over his legs, and then he could see all three of his teammates. His breathing eased, and not just because of his freedom from the beast's crushing weight. But why was the other man here? The quiet man from the bar, whose name John couldn't, for the moment, recall? And why, when they dropped the body did Ronon sink to the ground, one hand to his head?

John thought about moving, but wasn't sure if he could, and then Teyla and Rodney were there and he managed a smile and a croaky, "Thanks, guys."

oOo

John lay on the ground, pale and unmoving and Rodney was glad to see his eyes open and hear his whispered thanks. Teyla lost no time in checking his injuries and Boudicca also nudged him with her nose and patted him here and there with her paws.

"Ronon?"

"He has a concussion. He will be fine." Teyla moved aside the pieces of John's tac vest that had been slashed and he flinched as she examined the wound on his upper right arm.

"This is quite deep, but the wound on your chest is shallow. Are you hurt anywhere else?"

"Don't think so," he said. "Just kinda... squashed."

"Lucky," grunted Gard. "Those things can gut you in a heartbeat."

At John's puzzled look, Teyla and Rodney chorused: "Gard's a bounty hunter."

"Oh." He closed his eyes and swallowed, grimacing. The rain, that the grenza's body had at least protected him from, seemed to intensify its assault and the wind whipped away any residual warmth. Teyla took a bandage from her vest and bound his upper arm.

"There was another one!" John's eyes had flown open and he began to struggle to sit up, one hand pressed to his ribs.

"Another of those things?" asked Rodney, peering through the driving rain, over his shoulder and around at the trees.

"It'll be back," commented Gard. "But it's not around now. Look at the priss."

Boudicca was sitting close up to Rodney, looking unimpressed with the weather but otherwise the picture of unconcern.

"No sense waiting for one, though," continued Gard.

"I don't think any of us are hanging around for fun and laughs," said Rodney, with some asperity. "Let's get you up," he said to John, "before Boba Fett here blows his rocket."

John smirked and sniggered which was a better sign, to Rodney, that John was basically okay, than anything he might say.

oOo

Lillaina Holden had taken a bucket of scraps out to the helg, Franca, and was returning to the kitchen, her shawl held over her head. A movement drew her eye to the treeline and she saw the bedraggled party of her guests emerging from the woods, with that man, Gard, who spent most days propping up the bar, subsisting on one pint of ale. Lillaina squinted against the rain; there was the priss, too, bad-tempered thing, although, she had to admit, it seemed to get along with this group pretty well. Her eyes narrowed further; they had some injuries, unless she was much mistaken, and if she hadn't known, Lil could easily have guessed who would be most likely to suffer a mishap. Some men just can't stay out of trouble, she thought, and felt grateful for Tam who, though he did occasionally sink one too many tankards, had no yen for adventure and was quite happy running their efficient establishment.