Ronon nodded thoughtfully. “And I don’t see any indication of big animals. Just little ones. I think it’s safe to set up camp and see what we can do for Jennifer.”
“You’re sure you don’t know what happened to her?”
“I told you what happened,” Ronon said. “I don’t know why.”
Rodney made a face, and turned back to the lifepod.
“McKay.” Ronon fixed him with a look. “I’ll carry Jennifer. You see what’s in there that we can use.”
Rodney bit back his first response, and stood aside as Ronon climbed back into the pod. He reappeared a moment later, Jennifer cradled in his arms. Her hair had come down from its severe ponytail, fell in a curve across her cheek. Her head was tucked against Ronon’s chest, as though she slept, and her arms were folded at her waist. Rodney looked away as Ronon jumped lightly down — Jennifer never moved — and pulled himself back into the cooling pod.
There were no emergency rations, of course, or a first aid kit: a stranded Wraith would either heal himself and feed, or die. He rummaged in the storage compartments beneath and beside the niche, found a set of empty clips that should have held a stunner. The Old One will hear about that, he thought, and only then remembered he was no longer Quicksilver.
In the next compartment, though, he found a folded shelter, an all-purpose carrier that was probably watertight, and a thick metal rod that could be extended to form a walking stick, with prongs that folded out to make a trident, and a narrow shovel-like blade concealed in the opposite end. He refolded it, and climbed back out of the pod.
Ronon had laid Jennifer down in the shade of one of the sweet-smelling pines, propping her back against the smooth bark, and was busy gathering stones to surround the bare circle he’d made in the grass. He straightened at Rodney’s approach, and Rodney held up the shelter.
“It’s a tent,” he said. “Well, sort of. See, there are pockets in the corner —”
“I know how it works,” Ronon said. “We need wood. For a fire. And something to carry water in.”
“I’ve got that,” Rodney said, and flourished the carrier.
“Good.” Ronon reached for his knife, began sawing at a nearby sapling.
“You want me to find water?” Rodney asked. “I mean, I kind of failed completely at the whole Boy Scout thing.”
“You can hear it,” Ronon said. “There’s a stream, that way.”
Rodney tilted his head to listen. Sure enough, once he paid attention, he could hear the sound of water running over stones. “How do you know it’s safe?” Ronon gave him a look, and he lifted his hands in surrender. “OK, OK, but don’t blame me if you get some Pegasus Galaxy version of giardia.”
He made his way into the trees, over ground carpeted in years of fallen needles. They were springy underfoot, and gave off a fainter sweetness; something fluttered past, vivid blue against the green, a large insect, or a tiny bird. It was all very quiet, except for the sound of the water.
Ronon was not going to leave him alone with Jennifer. That was obvious, and not entirely unexpected, and it hurt more than he would have believed. For God’s sake, I’m Rodney McKay. I’m the man you’ve been looking for, at least I assume you’ve been looking for me, for the last three months. And now that you’ve found me, you’re going to treat me like a Wraith?
He reached the edge of the stream, the water loud over a bed of fist-sized pebbles. He flipped the carrier to its spherical form, and knelt on the bank, the skirts of his coat spreading around him. He dipped the carrier into the water, and his distorted reflection looked back at him: white hair, too short for beauty, Quicksilver’s despair; yellow eyes and pale green skin and the long sensor pits outside each nostril. Ronon of all people wouldn’t be able to see past that. Probably nobody would, except maybe Jennifer and Carson. They understood what had been done to him, they’d have an answer. His feeding hand throbbed again, the first pangs of serious hunger, and he flattened it against his coat. They would be back to the Stargate in a day or two or three, and everything would be all right.
By the time he made it back to the clearing, Ronon had put up the Wraith shelter, twisting and staking the multi-pocketed fabric to make a three-sided lean-to, and started a small fire in the ring of stones. He had collected grass and leaves for a cushion, too, and Jennifer lay curled on her side, still apparently asleep. He looked up sharply at Rodney’s approach, one hand starting toward his blaster, but then controlled himself.
“I got water,” Rodney said. “And the stream looked clear enough, though of course that’s not something you can tell by looking.”
There was a sound from the shelter, the familiar snort and whuffle that Jennifer made on waking. Rodney caught his breath, shocked by the relief that flooded through him, and Ronon slid toward her.
“Jennifer?” he said. “Easy.”
Jennifer’s eyes opened, gaze vague and unfocussed, and then sharpening as she came fully to herself. “What — where?” She sat up, shaking her head, and Rodney cringed as she met his eyes. He saw her face change, shock, fear, and last of all recognition. “Rodney?”
“It’s me,” he said. He wanted desperately to take her hand, but he knew Ronon would stop him. “It’s really me.”
“Rodney,” she said, relief and acceptance in her voice, and started to push herself to her knees.
“Easy,” Ronon said again, and she fell back, shaking her head.
“OK, that’s — weird, but I think I’m OK. But we got Rodney back, right? That’s the main thing.”
Ronon gave a sideways smile, and sat back on his heels.
Rodney said, “It’s a start. And, believe me, I’m grateful! But we have crash-landed — well, lifepod-landed, which isn’t exactly the same thing — on an uninhabited planet, so we’re not, and I say this with a painful awareness of the pun, out of the woods just yet.”
Jennifer looked at Ronon. “Really?”
“You know McKay,” Ronon began. He paused. “Yeah, pretty much.”
Jennifer leaned back against the nearest tree, watching as Ronon tended the fire and Rodney — yes, Rodney, despite the green skin and claws and the feeding hand he was trying to keep out of sight — grumbled and complained. Her head wasn’t spinning any more, and there was none of the weird tunnel vision she had experienced on the hive ship. She pressed her fingers against her neck, her pulse steady to the touch; her skin was dry and cool, no hint of fever and none of the cold sweat of nausea. In fact, she felt entirely normal.
“What happened?” she asked, and Ronon sat back on his heels.
“Don’t ask me,” Rodney said. “Chewbacca there knocked me out before whatever it was happened to you.”
“You passed out,” Ronon said. “I don’t know why.”
Jennifer shook her head, trying to remember. OK, the last thing she was sure of was being on the hive, following Ronon down the dark organic corridors, her head swimming, stomach roiling. Nerves, she’d thought at first, and then she hadn’t known what it was. Ronon had waved her back, broken through into the labs — and then she remembered Rodney, sprawled on the floor. She’d injected him with the sedative, that had been the plan, and then — She shook her head again. After that, nothing, until she woke here, feeling only as though she’d slept badly.
“OK,” she said. “Yes. I remember the hive. And feeling bad.”
“How are you feeling now?” Rodney asked. He was sitting on the opposite side of the fire, his hands resting on his knees. She could see the heavy claws, the thick vein that wound around the forefinger of his left hand, and knew without having to see it that the palm was crossed by the handmouth, his fingers curved to hide the fleshy ridges of the feeding organ. She shuddered in spite of herself, and hoped he hadn’t seen.