Rodney checked his watch. Five hours to fix it, about two am local time. Did Rodney ever sleep? Never. Rodney was up all one night and up all the next, because no one else could possibly do what Rodney did.
He went to the back of the jumper and looked out at the cool desert night, leaning on the doorframe tiredly. Right. Just a minute, and then he’d wake up Lorne and tell him they were ready to go.
“Are you ok?” Cadman asked softly, her P90 slung against her.
“Yes,” Rodney said.
“You look really tired,” Cadman said.
“Yes, of course I look really tired! I’ve been up for nearly 48 hours!” he snapped.
“I know,” she said. “You’re really persistent. I have to say that I respect that a lot, the way you stand by your friends.” Cadman shrugged. “Like they stood by you when you and me… When we had that problem.”
Rodney looked at her, wondering for a moment if she was making fun of him, but her eyes were entirely honest. “Thanks,” he said. It wasn’t like he got many compliments. Not from military and not from women. He expected her to be making fun of him, but she didn’t look like it at all.
Cadman glanced at him sideways. “I guess we kind of got off to a bad start, huh?”
“You could call that a bad start,” Rodney said. “But it might be the understatement of the year.”
“I was actually trying to help you with Katie Brown,” she said. “I mean, I know you really like her and it’s not that you’re a jerk. It’s just that you’re shy and you expect rejection.”
Rodney blinked. “Did I ask you for psychoanalysis?” he managed.
“I bet you were the kind of guy who could never get a date in high school and college, which is a shame. You’ve got a lot going for you, under the surface.” Cadman gave him an encouraging smile while Rodney stood there speechless. “Thinking about it now, maybe you thought I was trying to embarrass you or pick on you, and I just wanted you to know that I wasn’t. I think you and Katie would make a great couple. And if you’d ever like any advice or anything, I’d be happy to.”
“You’re crazy,” Rodney sputtered.
“Maybe it would help if I told Katie what happened and apologized?” Cadman said. “It’s the least I can do. I’m really sorry if I screwed it up for you, Rodney.”
“What, because she thinks I’m a mental case?” Rodney demanded. “Yes, that might screw it up just a little!”
“That was totally my fault,” Cadman said. “I tell you what. When we get back, I’ll go find Katie and explain. That way she’ll know you’re not schizophrenic or something.”
She was probably making fun of him. She’d say she was going to do that, but it would turn out to be a big joke, and he’d think she was being nice but really she and Katie would be laughing at him behind his back. That’s what always happened. You think a woman likes you, but she’s really telling her friends what a fool you are, passing notes in the back of class and rolling her eyes.
But Cadman looked serious. If she was playing that game, she was really good at it.
“Sure,” Rodney said shortly. “Whatever. When we get back. If we get back. I think I’ve got the jumper working again, but if we run into the cruiser we’re screwed anyhow. It’s got a lot more firepower than we do. But at least we can die in the air.”
Cadman gave him a little smile. “Then I guess we’re ready, huh?”
“Yes,” Rodney said. “We’re ready.”
“Maybe you could take a little nap in the back of the jumper while we’re on the way,” she suggested.
“It’s not that long a flight,” Rodney said, but he had to admit it sounded appealing. While Cadman went outside to tell Lorne the repairs were finished, he sat down in the chair behind the pilot’s seat. Maybe he could just close his eyes for a minute while Lorne herded cats.
He was asleep in thirty seconds.
Chapter Twelve
In the cold hours before dawn, Teyla woke. She thought she heard the quiet sound of the jumper’s engine, but when she jolted to wakefulness it wasn’t there. It was a long moment before she remembered where she was, and why there was not the breathing quiet of Atlantis’ ventilation systems.
She was in Pelagia in the palace, and Atlantis was far away. The night was silent. There was the distant sound of a dog barking in the city, the rustling of the palm leaves in the garden below. Other than that, there was no sound.
John Sheppard stood beside the window, the moonlight gleaming off the white bandage on his brow, though his black shirt blended with the shadows. Whatever had wakened him, he did not perceive it as a threat. A threat would have showed in tension in every line of his body, in that questing expression he got, like a hound on a scent. Instead, he looked almost relaxed, leaning against the window frame, looking out into the night.
Teyla sat up, running her hands over her face to banish sleep from her eyes.
He looked around sheepishly. “I couldn’t sleep,” he said. His hair was mussed and the back was sticking up even more than usual. “For some reason it’s kind of hard to settle down when you’re not sure if you’re a prisoner or not.”
“You are worrying about Rodney and the rescue team,” Teyla said.
“They would have been here by now if they weren’t in trouble themselves,” John said, shaking his head. “It’s been thirty six hours. There’s no way Elizabeth hasn’t long since sent a team, whether Rodney dialed Atlantis or not.”
“You think they ran into the Wraith cruiser?”
He replied, tight lipped. “It makes sense. I think they’re in trouble.”
Teyla nodded gravely. Of course he was imagining his people in terrible danger, perhaps dying, while he was helpless to save them. While he did not even know where they were.
“We’re going to have to get ourselves out of this, and that’s going to involve making friends with these people,” John said. “There’s no way we can get from here to the gate, a couple of hundred miles of desert, with locals hunting us. And if the others ran into the cruiser, we’re going to have to get some local help finding them. When we see this king, I’m going to talk Atlantis up big.”
“Make Elizabeth proud,” Teyla said with a small smile.
“Yeah, that. I’ve seen men down in hostile country before.” He did not look at her, only out across the sleeping city. “If the locals are against you, you’re screwed. If they give you a hand, you’ve got a chance of getting your people back.”
Bits of things clicked together for Teyla. “And that is why you love a good cup of tea.”
“What?” he glanced around at her.
“You said it at our first meeting.” Teyla sat crosslegged on the bed. “When you came into our tents with Colonel Sumner. He thought we were a waste of time, we Athosians. Too primitive to be of any use to him. And not worth the effort when I said we did not trade with strangers. And you said that you were not a stranger, that you liked Ferris wheels and things that went very fast. So I asked if you would join us in a cup of tea. I could see Sumner’s disdain written all over him. And you gave me a very strained smile and said you loved a good cup of tea.”
“Did I say that?” John turned around, leaning back on the window. “I don’t remember.”
“You said that,” she said.
“I guess I did.” He shrugged. “Guys like Sumner, they don’t get it. They can’t imagine that anyone would want to live differently than they do.”
“There is one way, and that is the way of your people,” she said.
“Nah. They’re the same way to people at home.” John sat down on the windowsill. “There’s one way, and it’s the way of God and the United States Marine Corps. There are four kinds of people in the world — Marines, families of Marines, people not good enough to be Marines, and people who are too stupid to want to be Marines. I’m not saying all the Marines are like this. They’re not. Ford wasn’t. But you get these guys and they don’t see anything else. They literally can’t imagine any other kind of life. They don’t know anything else they might do or be that would be worth anything. If you took away being a Marine they wouldn’t be worth anything to themselves.”