stringertheory: (SGA Team)
stringertheory ([personal profile] stringertheory) wrote2022-10-01 12:44 pm

Practical Dendrology

Title: Practical Dendrology
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters: John Sheppard, Rodney McKay, Ronon Dex, Teyla Emmagen
Word Count: 13,685
Categories: gen, action/adventure
Spoilers: none; set mid-S2
Warnings: none
Summary: While exploring a world from the Ancient Database, Sheppard and the team discover that in some places, fairytales become nightmares.


Sheppard was used to the worlds they went to being covered by forests; it seemed to be a universal constant to find trees everywhere that life was. But the forest on M33-481 would have been considered unusual by any measure. In fact, the whole moon seemed to be unusual. Starting with the fact that, when they’d come out of the Gate, the team had found themselves underground.

“Well, this is different.”

About ten meters ahead of where they’d exited the Gate, an oblong of light indicated the way out into the open. Sheppard flicked on the flashlight at the end of his P90 and directed its beam around the tunnel they were in. Looking behind him, he saw that the Gate was positioned at the deepest point of the shallow tunnel, with nothing but a solid wall of soil behind it. The tunnel itself looked like it could have been dug out by an animal, some long-abandoned burrow that had since been appropriated as a makeshift Gate room. If that was the case, Sheppard really hoped they wouldn’t run into whatever could have done the digging.

“It looks like a deliberately constructed space,” Rodney was muttering, shining his own light around. “The opening’s too far away for it to have been blasted clear by the wormhole establishing.”

“Would the Ancestors have built such a place?” Teyla asked, sounding doubtful.

“Construction doesn’t have to be complicated to be deliberate,” Rodney pointed out. “Hollowing out a hole in the ground for your sub-space travel device makes as much sense as, say, dropping it into orbit above a planet.”

“So you think the Ancients did this?” Sheppard asked as he started toward the mouth of the tunnel. It was certainly possible, but it did seem a little out of character from what they’d seen of Stargate placement in Pegasus so far.

Rodney huffed. “I mean, the database didn’t specify ‘Put Gate in Hole,’ but I’d say it’s a safe bet that’s what they did. I doubt anyone else moved the thing; it weighs several literal tons.”

The Ancient database hadn’t specified anything about the moon at all, actually. The only entry on M33-481 was its Gate address paired with the word “Unsuitable.” There’d been some debate as to whether they should even bother sending anyone to the world at all, if the Ancients themselves had found it unsuitable. But Rodney had argued that they didn’t even know what the Ancients had considered it unsuitable for. For all they knew, it hadn’t met the Ancients’ definition of suitability for a planned ski resort. And given how long ago the Ancients had actually conducted their survey, the moon could have completely changed in the meantime and was now a perfectly suitable place for any number of purposes. The only way they could know for sure was to go there themselves.

Elizabeth had still been a bit skeptical, but Sheppard had agreed that Rodney had a point. And since they were still light on both allies and off-world locations they could consider safe retreats, she’d eventually come around and agreed to an exploratory mission.

So it was that Sheppard led the team out of the unexpected Gate burrow and into the dappled light of an arguably even more unexpected forest. Once he was on level ground and had turned his flashlight back off, he just stood there for a few minutes, processing the sight around him.

“Wow.”

The team had emerged into a forest unlike any Sheppard had ever seen before, much less been in. They were surrounded by trees, but at first it didn’t quite feel like it, because they were huge. The redwoods Sheppard had walked through in California were dwarfs compared to the trees he was now looking at. The trunks were enormous gray-brown things that stretched so high that crooked limbs only started appearing on them some hundred-plus meters above the ground. The leaves were long and arrow-shaped, if the ones on the ground were any indication; the ones still on the trees were a little too high to provide Sheppard with clear details. From the fallen ones, he could see that they were dark green on top, with a mint green underside, and slightly glossy.

Massive, gnarled roots snaked their way across the forest floor, which was covered in emerald green moss studded with tiny white flowers. The roots were large enough that even Ronon could easily walk under some of them, where they had bent and lifted from the ground, creating passages beneath. The air was heavy with the scent of rich, dark soil and something that was three steps to the left of pine: treacle and mint.

It was stunning, and a little unsettling in a way Sheppard couldn’t quite pin down. “I’d say this is otherworldly,” he quipped, “but that seems a bit redundant.”

“Just a bit,” Rodney drolly replied.

“It is beautiful.”

Sheppard could hear the awe in Teyla’s voice, and he turned to see her staring around with an expression that matched.

“I have never seen trees like these before,” she continued, turning a slow circuit with her eyes on the canopy above. “They are incredible.”

“It’s old,” Ronon added, in a matter-of-fact tone that was tinged with something else Sheppard didn’t recognize.

When he glanced over, he saw Ronon studying the surrounding forest with an intense gaze, clearly uneasy about something. Sheppard felt his own wariness grow in response.

“For trees this big?” Rodney was saying. “Yeah, it’s no doubt ancient. By which I mean very old, not ‘Ancient’ as in ‘from the Ancients.’” He paused, looking thoughtful. “Though I suppose in this case it could be both. The Ancients could have seeded this planet, and they would’ve done it a very, very long time ago.”

“And it turned out ‘unsuitable’?” Sheppard skeptically asked.

Rodney gave him a dry look. “Need I remind you about the planet where the Ancients decided to grow people, only it already had some nasty bugs on it?”

Sheppard cringed. “Point taken.”

“What now?” Ronon asked, voice a bit tight.

That tightness made Sheppard look him over again, this time registering the tension in his shoulders. The big guy was definitely not comfortable, for whatever reason. It was unusual enough for him that Sheppard decided to ask about it.

“You okay, buddy? Something you want to share with the class?”

“Fine,” came the short reply.

Sheppard just continued staring at him, and after a second Ronon shrugged, a sharp jerk of one shoulder. Sheppard noticed that he hadn’t taken his hand off his blaster since they’d come out of the Gate tunnel.

“I just don’t like it here,” he added.

“What’s not to love?” Rodney griped. “Enormous trees, the Gate in a dirty hole, and a whole moon that the Ancients found unsuitable for unknown reasons. I’m sure everything’s gonna go great.”

“Loving the positive attitude, McKay,” Sheppard sarcastically drawled. “You’re the one who said we should check it out, despite the fact that the Ancients abandoned it.”

“And I stand by that. But until we know for sure that the Ancients didn’t dust their hands of this place for a very good reason, I’m going to assume it was a very bad one.”

“The eternal pessimist.”

Rodney sniffed disdainfully. “Given what we’ve experienced so far in Pegasus, I think anticipating that the unknown might be dangerous and/or deadly would actually be considered realism.”

“Fair point,” Sheppard conceded. Stumbling into not-great situations seemed to be their forte. Or Pegasus was just Like That; he hadn’t decided which yet. But he’d started to have suspicions it might be both.

“Where should we go?” Teyla asked, glancing around.

Sheppard did the same. There wasn’t really anything that he could see from their current vantage point that indicated a particular direction to follow. Aside from the gap in the ground behind them where the Gate was, everything else looked pretty much the same: giant tree trunks, moss, and the little white flowers. He paused, listening for any signs of water; if there was life on this world, it would be near a water source. But he didn’t hear any, so he mentally flipped a coin.

“This way,” he said, pointing to their left and moving in that direction. He felt Teyla fall into step behind him and a quick glance over his shoulder showed Rodney behind her with Ronon, still looking around them with a suspicious gaze, at the rear.

He led the team through the trees, trying to spot anything that looked remotely of interest. As far as he could see, it was just more and more forest, a sea of the same trunks appearing behind every new one they rounded. Though he could hear birds now and then, Sheppard didn’t see any animals on the ground. He was just beginning to wonder whether a lack of the same was what had led to the world being unsuitable for Ancient purposes when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye.

It was only a flash, but he whipped his head in that direction and squinted through the trees, trying to catch it again.

“Anybody else see that?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“What did you see?”

“I’m not sure; movement, I thought.”

“Where?” Rodney had his gun up and was looking around anxiously.

“That way,” Sheppard advised, lifting his chin to gesture to his left. “Ten o’clock.”

He cautiously moved in that direction, his own gun held at the ready. He crept around a few more trees, acknowledging how their size made them excellent cover for his team, but also for whatever else might be out there with them. Edging around one, he saw the movement again, this time coming into his line of sight instead of heading out of it. But even though the thing that was moving was directly in front of him now, his brain wouldn’t accept what he was seeing. He stood, frozen, while the rest of his team came to stand beside him. Rodney, directly on his left, was the first to speak.

“Are those—Sheppard, are those Ents?”

Rodney’s whispered tone was a mix of disbelief and delight, and Sheppard glanced over to see him staring, wide-eyed, at the things in front of them. Moving through a slightly larger open space between the trunks were what looked like trees; not the same as the enormous ones that made up the forest, but regular-sized trees of different varieties. The tallest was only about eighteen feet tall at the most, while the smallest was only a bit taller than Ronon. But unlike actual trees, they were moving, kind of strolling back and forth in the clearing.

Sheppard looked back to Rodney, dumbfounded. “They can’t be,” he whispered back. For some reason, it seemed right to whisper.

“They are trees that are walking around,” Rodney shot back. “What else could they be?”

“Ents aren’t real, Rodney.”

“Aren’t they?”

Rodney made a short gesture toward what Sheppard couldn’t deny definitely looked like Ents. Sheppard looked from them—still moving around and apparently none the wiser to being watched—back to Rodney, a smile spreading across his face.

“We found Ents,” he breathed.

Rodney was grinning back. “We found Fangorn.”

On Rodney’s other side, Teyla was watching them both with bemusement, her gaze moving between them and the tree creatures. But behind them all, Sheppard could see that Ronon was standing at rigid attention, his eyes never leaving the creatures walking around just a few dozen meters away. Sheppard felt his excitement dissipate as he studied Ronon’s face; his jaw was clenched and the look in his eyes was pure fear. Sheppard could swear that he was vibrating slightly, his knuckles white on the grip of the blaster.

“Ronon?” he quietly called.

Ronon’s gaze shot toward him for a split second before darting back to the creatures. “We need to leave,” he tightly replied.

“What is wrong?” Teyla asked.

“We need to leave right now,” Ronon repeated. He began backing away, eyes never wavering from the Ent-like beings.

Sheppard felt a tremor of unease, but lifted a hand in a placating gesture. “Ronon, it’s okay. I know it’s a little weird, but I don’t think they’re dangerous.”

“At least, they shouldn’t be to us,” Rodney added. “Just don’t hurt any of the trees and we’ll be fine. Y’know, the big ones.” He pointed a finger toward the canopy.

Ronon shook his head once, sharply, a denial. “We need to leave,” he ground out again, still backing up.

“Uh, Sheppard?”

Sheppard registered the uncertainty in Rodney’s voice even as he felt the tap on his shoulder. He turned to him, only to follow his unblinking gaze to the tree creatures. Which had all stopped moving and were now looking directly at the team. Or at least their body language—trunk language?—seemed to indicate they were; Sheppard couldn’t actually make out any eyes anywhere, but it certainly felt like they were being watched. And the scrutiny didn’t feel friendly.

“Perhaps we should leave, as Ronon has suggested,” Teyla said, already beginning to back away as well.

“I second that,” Rodney agreed, his previous excitement entirely replaced by nervousness.

Sheppard nodded. “Agreed.”

As he and Rodney followed Ronon and Teyla’s lead and began to slowly back up, a sudden, loud crack silenced the birdsong. Everyone froze, and Sheppard glanced over to see Rodney looking miserable. In sync, they both looked down at his foot, which was pressed into the middle of a surprisingly robust twig. Then they looked up, eyes meeting again for a brief moment before they turned to look back at the tree creatures.

For a few heartbeats, everyone and everything was still. Sheppard was just about to resume his backward walk when, as one, the trees began moving. Or, more accurately, they began sprinting. Directly toward his team.

“Run!” he yelled, pivoting on his heels and vaulting over a large root that lay in his path.

The directive was unnecessary, as the rest of the team was already retreating ahead of him, jumping over and weaving around any obstacles on the forest floor as they fled. Sheppard risked a glance back only to discover, to his horror, that the creatures had already made up ground and were nearly on him. In fact, as he returned his attention in front of him, he saw two run past him and toward Rodney and Ronon, who were out ahead.

“Behind you!” he called out.

He didn’t get to see if his warning had any effect, though, because at that moment one of the creatures appeared in front of him and he had to veer to his right to avoid it. Deciding that getting away was the current priority over staying together, he continued running in the direction of his dodge. He was surprised to spot Teyla still ahead of him, and the thought crossed his mind that the tree creatures seemed to be purposefully separating the team. There wasn’t any real proof that’s what they were doing, but that’s what it felt like, and the thought was unsettling.

Sheppard slid beneath an arched tree root, regaining his feet on the other side. As he hopped over another, smaller root, he spared a look Teyla’s way to see how she was faring. She was closer to him now, only about ten meters away, but as he watched, one of the creatures suddenly appeared in her path.

“Teyla!”

Even as he cried out her name, Teyla ducked and pivoted, attempting to avoid the creature. She managed to change her direction so that she was no longer moving directly toward it, but she was still too close to get out of its reach. As she ran past, it lashed out with a limb, catching her across the back. Sheppard saw her arch in pain and stumble to her knees momentarily, before she came up firing her P90 at the creature. It recoiled, letting out an indescribable noise that Sheppard was sure would be the soundtrack to his nightmares for the rest of his life.

He stopped and lifted his own gun, taking aim to drive the creature off. But he’d forgotten to check around him first, and before he could get off a shot, he felt a stabbing sensation in his side. And then he was in the air.

The smallest of the tree creatures had him. Grunting in pain, he looked down to see that he was in what, on an animal, would be considered its jaws. He could feel teeth—or teeth-like things—digging into him, and he quickly assessed what he could do. He still had a grip on his P90, and while it wasn’t the smartest idea to fire at the thing holding him while it was holding him, that was his only option. So trying to aim his shots where they hopefully wouldn’t directly hit or ricochet back into him, he fired.

The tree creature holding him roared, releasing the same noise the other one had made when Teyla shot it. The sound vibrated through Sheppard, and for a split second he thought that would be what killed him, the violent rumbling of the creature’s cry rattling him to pieces. But then it let him go, and he dropped hard on the ground, jarring his shoulder and hip. Not giving himself time to acknowledge that, or the fire in his side, or the way his eardrums ached, he popped to his feet as quickly as he could. Taking aim at the creature, he fired several more shots into it before turning and running.

He was pretty sure he was heading in the same direction he had last seen Teyla take, and was relieved when he saw her hiding behind a tree not far away. She startled at the sound of his approach, gun raised, only relaxing once she realized it was him.

“Are you okay?” she quietly asked, eyeing his side, which was showing its wounds through his torn shirt.

Sheppard let out a huff of mirthless laughter. “Apparently, they have teeth.”

“We should get moving,” Teyla said. “We need to find Ronon and Rodney, and relocate the Gate.”

“Yeah, and then we need to—”

Sheppard froze as he glimpsed the same kind of motion that had originally led him to discover the tree creatures. He waited, holding his breath, until another shadow crossed his line of sight and a creature appeared from behind a tree.

Shit.

Grabbing Teyla by the wrist, he turned and ran, jumping over and around the things in his path, just hoping to put distance between them and the creature. The way he had chosen was a bit more treacherous underfoot than where they’d been before, so he couldn’t look back at first. But once they got to a spot of open ground, he checked over his shoulder. There was nothing behind them that he could see, and he mentally took a breath. But just as he was about to slow down, the ground under his feet gave way and he fell into darkness, taking Teyla with him.


-000000-


Rodney did hear Sheppard’s cry of warning as the tree creatures closed in on him and Ronon. Having already known that it was unlikely he’d be able to outrun the threat, Rodney did what he’d planned to do upon being caught and instinctively dropped to the ground, curling into a ball in an effort to protect his vital organs. He sensed more than heard things rush past him, and he risked a peek through the arms that he’d wrapped around his head to see two of the creatures hurrying after Ronon, who was managing to sprint away while also periodically firing his blaster behind him.

Glancing around, Rodney didn’t find any more of the creatures nearby. He also didn’t see Teyla or Sheppard, so he scrambled back to his feet and, fighting every instinct that told him to do otherwise, ran in Ronon’s direction. Despite the fact that he didn’t want to go anywhere near the creatures, he also didn’t want to be left trying to evade them on his own. And even though he was absolutely sure that Ronon could take care of himself—would probably find Rodney’s presence an annoyance in this kind of situation, actually—he couldn’t just abandon him. So Rodney ran after him.

He’d only gone a few meters when he saw Ronon stop and turn to take better aim at one of the creatures that had gotten close. It looked like he hit it dead center of what was, ostensibly, its chest area, and the creature let out a cry that Rodney could only liken to an intense and concentrated roll of thunder. The force of the sound made his eyes water and he dropped his P90, letting it dangle from its clip, to clamp his hands over his ears, sure his brain would soon be leaking out of them.

Hunched over, ears covered and head rattling, Rodney watched as Ronon fired two more shots at the same creature. As Ronon turned to shoot at the second one, which had finally caught up to him, it lashed out with one of its limbs, hitting him across the left shoulder and sending him flying. He landed behind some shrubs, so Rodney couldn’t see how bad off he was. But the incident snapped Rodney out of his pain stupor and he took hold of his P90 again.

Taking a deep breath, he let out a strangled yell in an attempt to pump himself up. Then he began firing at the creatures, running toward and between them as he did so, in the direction where Ronon had landed. As some of his shots hit them, the creatures began roaring again, and Rodney had to grit his teeth against the vibrations the noise set off in his head. He felt the air move around him and knew at least one of the creatures had taken a swing at him and missed. He fired wildly behind him in a last-ditch protective measure as he reached his fallen teammate.

Ronon’s shoulder was a bloody mess, with three prominent slash marks across it from where the creature had hit him. He was just dragging himself back to his feet when Rodney appeared, and he looked at him with clear surprise on his face. Either he’d expected Rodney was already dead, or he hadn’t expected Rodney would come after him.

“McKay?”

“No time, gotta run,” Rodney responded.

He gave Ronon a gentle push in the back to get him moving away from the creatures, and Ronon obeyed, jogging in the indicated direction. He was moving slower now, though, and while Rodney could hear the creatures still roaring where he’d left them, he knew it wouldn’t be long before they were on the move again. There was no way he and Ronon would be able to put enough distance between them and the creatures to be safe, no matter how fast they ran. They needed to hide.

So when he spotted what he thought was a hole beneath one of the large, gnarled roots they passed, he didn’t hesitate. The creatures had gone quiet again, no doubt coming after them, but he didn’t bother to check. Instead, he shoved Ronon toward the hole.

“What’re you doing?” Ronon irritably asked, fighting against him.

“Trying to keep us from being mauled by really pissed off trees,” Rodney snapped back, pushing harder. “We need to hide and this is the first place I’ve seen.”

Ronon looked around them and then turned to frown at him. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about living to run from certain death another day,” Rodney told him, giving another heave. He knew Ronon was feeling the effects of his injury when the effort actually moved him a few inches toward the hole.

“McKay—”

Ronon cut himself off as they both whipped their heads back in the direction they had come, the sound of something rapidly approaching them unmistakable in the otherwise still forest. Then they faced each other again, Rodney staring at Ronon for a split second before giving him one more huge shove, essentially throwing his whole body at Ronon. Whether Ronon had been planning to give in anyway or if Rodney’d managed to take him off guard, the end result was that they tumbled into the tunnel in a tangle of limbs and eventually came to rest in a heap inside it.

Rodney heard Ronon grunt in pain, and carefully extricated himself from their jumble, trying not to hit Ronon’s injured shoulder. Then he cautiously crawled back toward the entrance to the tunnel, holding his breath as he listened for signs that the creatures were coming after them. The space they were in wasn’t built for humans—Rodney might be able to stand up in it if he bent over, and Ronon would probably only be able to easily move around on all fours—but Rodney didn’t trust that the size alone would protect them. His heart kicked up another gear as he heard movement outside, but it passed within seconds and the forest went still again.

Letting out a silent sigh of relief, he crawled back down to Ronon, who had pushed himself up to sit against the tunnel wall.

“Those were definitely not Ents!” Rodney muttered, as much to himself as for Ronon’s benefit.

There was no response, not that Rodney expected one, and he flipped on his flashlight to check Ronon over. The beam hit Ronon square in the face, and he scowled as Rodney swiftly lowered it to his shoulder instead.

On closer inspection, the damage didn’t look quite as bad as Rodney had originally thought. The slashes weren’t as deep nor as wide as they’d initially seemed to be, though they were all still leaking a fair amount of blood. His stomach threatened to turn over on him at the sight, but he took a few deep breaths and pushed it down.

Unclipping his P90, he set it on the ground near Ronon, angling it so that the light on its end was pointing as much toward his shoulder as it could be. Then he unclipped his pack and set it in front of him, unzipping the top and pulling out his first aid supplies. He found his back-up flashlight, too, and turned it on, propping it up it on its butt end so that the beam was hitting the tunnel ceiling, acting like a kind of lamp.

Makeshift infirmary prepared, Rodney braced himself to deal with Ronon’s injury. As he reached toward Ronon’s shoulder to pull the torn edges of his shirt away from the topmost wound, though, Ronon jerked away.

“What’re you doing?” he growled.

Rodney gaped at him. “What do you mean, what am I doing? I would think that’s obvious,” he said, waving the antiseptic he held in a hand that he tried to pretend wasn’t shaking.

Ronon glowered at him. “I’m fine.”

“No, you really aren’t.” Rodney reached toward him again, only for Ronon to actually push away his hands.

“I said I’m fine.”

“And I say I’m not going to sit here and watch you bleed out!”

Irritation pushing away the thoughts of blood, Rodney reached toward Ronon more purposefully this time, throwing out his own glare, only for Ronon to both push his hands away and shift away at the same time.

“Leave me alone, McKay,” Ronon told him in a tone of warning.

“The hell I will,” Rodney spat, getting angry himself. “Hold still, dammit.”

They continued like that for a few more seconds, Rodney trying to get hold of Ronon and Ronon trying to fend him off. Then Rodney lost what little patience he ever had. Sitting back on his heels, he glared daggers Ronon’s way.

“What it is with you and this ridiculous macho bullshit?” he snapped. “We get it: you’re big, you’re bad, you’re tough. You don’t need anyone, whatever. We all know how badass you are, but at the end of the day, you bleed just like everybody else. And at some point, I’m going to have to tend to that—” he jabbed a finger at Ronon’s shoulder “—and it would be a lot better if I could do it now, while we aren’t being pursued by giant killer trees and you aren’t on the brink of passing out from blood loss. So if you could just suck it up for five minutes and let somebody help you, that’d be great!”

Rodney was breathing a bit heavily by the end of his little tirade. He wanted to cross his arms over his chest, but he couldn’t do that with his hands full, so he just sat there, waiting for Ronon to respond. But Ronon just watched him with an unreadable expression, and after several seconds of silence, Rodney started to wonder whether he’d gone too far. He was about to toss down what he was holding and let Ronon to take care of his wound himself, when Ronon spoke.

“Sorry.”

All of the frustration drained from Rodney in an instant, replaced by surprise. He blinked at Ronon a few times, trying to process the fact that he’d heard an actual apology. Ronon wasn’t looking at him, instead staring back at the tunnel entrance, but Rodney nodded anyway.

“Accepted. Now just hold still.”

“Okay.”

Rodney set to work. The first order of business was Ronon’s shirt; in order for his wounds to be properly cleaned and bandaged, he would have to lose it. To Rodney’s surprise, Ronon let him help with the removal, despite the fact that Rodney knew he could have done it himself. The fact that he probably wanted to do it himself but let Rodney help anyway told Rodney he’d done it as another kind of apology.

After flushing the wounds with water, Rodney picked out what splinters he saw, cleaned the wounds with antiseptic, and then covered and bandaged them. It wasn’t the tidiest job, but it would at least keep the area protected. The bleeding had mostly stopped as he worked, so he was also far less concerned than he had been that he’d wind up with an unconscious Ronon to take care of. There wouldn’t be much he could do if that happened except to wait where they were; he couldn’t exactly carry Ronon anywhere.

Once Rodney finished, Ronon slipped his shirt back on—without help this time, and Rodney knew their moment of understanding had passed. Sighing, he shoved everything back in his pack, then let Ronon help him get it clipped back in. Handing Ronon his spare flashlight, he picked up his P90 and started investigating the tunnel they were in. It hadn’t occurred to him until just that moment—running for his life and then dealing with injuries had taken mental precedence—but there was every possibility that he and Ronon had sought refuge in the warren or den of a rather large animal. The thought had his pulse racing, so when he registered a change in the texture of the walls at the back of the tunnel, he actually jumped a little, half expecting some beast to lunge at him from the shadows.

But when he stopped his light on the area, he froze. For the second time that day, Rodney couldn’t believe what he was seeing. There, at the back of the tunnel, was a door. It was squared off at the bottom, rounded at the top, and had a very clear pull-style handle on the outside. And it was painted yellow.

Rodney felt his head spin. “Oh my god,” he whispered, “it’s a hobbit hole.”

“What?” Ronon asked, tone confused.

“A hobbit hole,” Rodney repeated. “I mean, not a real hobbit hole—hobbits aren’t real—but it’s a hobbit hole.”

“You know what this is?” Ronon asked, gesturing toward the door. He was up on his knees, his head just about brushing the ceiling of the tunnel.

“Well, no. But only something humanoid would build a door, and given the size of the tunnel, it would be a small humanoid, and the fact that it’s in the ground—I can’t help but think ‘hobbit.’” He pointed toward the tunnel entrance. “All of that out there just feeds the connection.”

“You said those tree things were ‘Ents’?” Ronon asked. “You and Sheppard have seen them before?”

“Uh, no. Not exactly.”

“Then what exactly, McKay?”

Rodney sighed. “Ents aren’t a real thing. Neither are hobbits.” He ran a hand over the door in front of them, feeling minute cracks in the paint. “They’re both creatures from a fantasy story that’s popular on Earth.” At Ronon’s expectant expression, he continued. “It’s an entire saga with stories that cover thousands of years. It began as a kind of ‘origin of the world’ tale, and there’s magic and power and good and evil and all that kind of stuff in it.”

“We had stuff like that back on Sateda,” Ronon told him.

Rodney raised his eyebrows in surprise, both at the idea, and at the fact that Ronon had shared something about his home with him. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I always liked the adventure ones.”

“This one is definitely an adventure, filled with epic journeys and lots of big battles for the fate of the world.” He paused, studying Ronon more closely. “You might like it, actually. I’ll have to see if they have a copy in the Atlantis library. Or we can do a movie night, though the films leave out so much detail…”

“Do you hear that?”

Ronon held his hand up, his body language indicating that he was listening intently. Rodney did the same, but couldn’t hear anything.

“No.”

Ronon inched back on his knees, putting some distance between himself and the door they’d been studying while simultaneously lifting his blaster. Throwing him a look, Rodney did the same, taking up position at his side.

“Something’s coming,” Ronon advised him.

“I figured as much,” Rodney mumbled. By then, he could hear a kind of rustling coming from behind the door, getting louder as whatever was making it approached. Despite his belief that the tunnel and the door had been made by some kind of humanoid being, and that whatever was approaching was most likely to be that being, he still felt nervous. The not-Ents had proven themselves to not be Ents in spectacular fashion; the not-hobbits might do the same.

There were a few more seconds of rustling, then the sound of a click indicated that the door was being unlatched. Rodney adjusted sweating hands on his gun, raising it defensively as the door popped open. Then, for the third time that day, his brain just gave up.

Standing in front of them was a four-foot tall human—or at least a human-like being. It appeared to be male, with short, ash-brown hair, and was clothed in a mossy-green tunic and dark gray pants. Rodney was a little bewildered to find that it was wearing shoes, and regularly proportioned ones, at that; no hobbit feet here. But the whatever-it-was did have one very prominent and less-than-human feature: its eyes. They were larger than a human’s, both by direct comparison and in proportion to its face. Rodney was sure the iris and pupil were also disproportionally larger. The combination gave the being a literal wide-eyed look, almost cartoonish in effect.

The not-hobbit looked between Rodney and Ronon a few times with a calm expression, overly-large eyes roaming over them and lingering for just a fraction of a second on their still raised weapons. Then it seemed to sigh, and slump a little, before waving them on.

“Well, I suppose you had better come in, then.”


-000000-


Sheppard landed on his back, the impact knocking the breath out of him in a grunt. Expecting more pain, he paused, waiting for it to tell him where he was injured. But no new agony arose, and he cautiously pushed himself into a seated position. His hands sank into what felt like moss as he did so, and he assumed that was what had helped cushion his fall. Still, his side was burning where the creature had bitten him, and his right shoulder and hip were throbbing from where it had dropped him on less cushy ground.

He could hear water, the constant murmuring trickle of it running close by. There was a faint amount of light making it down to where he was, enough to make out shapes without details. Fumbling with his P90, he once again turned on its light and looked around. He was in some kind of gully, the narrow opening at the top completely covered over by moss, which was what he had stepped through when he fell. A few few feet to his left was a stream, which ran off past his feet.

With some—completely necessary—moans of pain, he managed to get up onto his knees and checked behind him. Teyla was about two meters away from him, also on her back, and he crawled to her side, not ready to try his feet yet.

“You okay?” he asked her, a little worried that she hadn’t gotten up yet.

“Yes,” she replied with a nod, before continuing in a slightly weary tone. “I was just contemplating how we continuously wind up in these kinds of situations.”

“We do have a knack for having to run for our lives,” Sheppard agreed.

He held out a hand and helped pull Teyla upright. She winced, hissing out a breath and bracing her hands on the ground beside her as the motion aggravated her injuries. He put a steadying hand on her shoulder.

“Your back?” he asked, remembering the creature catching her there when they were running.

She nodded. “Yes, it is stinging quite a bit.”

“I can imagine.”

She gave him a look and gestured to his side with her chin. “And yours?”

“Feels a bit like fire,” he confessed. “Hope those things aren’t venomous.”

“Shall we start with yours or mine?”

“Yours,” he advised. “That way any moving I have to do while working on you doesn’t undo whatever work you have to do for me.”

“Very well.” Teyla wiped her hands on her pants and began unzipping her vest. “Will you unclip my pack for me?” she asked.

“Sure thing.”

Sheppard got her pack off—it was pretty badly slashed, but there were still some supplies in it worth salvaging—and then helped her remove her tac vest and her shirt. She then had to return the favor to get his pack off, but between the two of them they got their shared first aid supplies laid out and Sheppard could start work on Teyla’s back. It wasn’t too bad, thankfully; the pack and the vest had taken the brunt of the damage, and Teyla was only left with four fairly shallow cuts across her upper back.

“It’s too bad,” he joked as he delicately dabbed them with antiseptic. “You could have had some awesome scars to go with our crazy story.”

“Another day, perhaps,” Teyla returned in a dry tone.

Sheppard finished cleaning the wounds and bandaging her up, then helped her back into her shirt and vest. The pack was a lost cause, so he just took what of her supplies had survived and put them into his. Then they swapped roles, Teyla helping him out of his vest and him lifting his shirt so that she could tend to his bite.

In the flashlight beam, he got his first look at the damage. Despite the fact that he hadn’t been able to make out a face, much less a mouth specifically, on the creature, the wound did look very much like a bite mark. A roughly semi-circular pattern of puncture wounds curled across the left side of his stomach, and he knew that the pattern was mirrored on his back. None of the punctures were bleeding much, but he wasn’t sure that was necessarily a good thing. And since he had no idea how long the “teeth” had been, there was always the possibility that an internal organ or two had been punctured in the process.

Still, the best they could do at the moment was to clean and bandage it, and that’s what Teyla did. The dull fire in the wound flared white hot when she poured antiseptic on it, and it was all Sheppard could do to bite back a scream. By the time Teyla finished taping down the bandages she’d applied, he was sweating. He actually felt worse than when they’d started, but at least he wouldn’t have to worry about immediate infection or blood loss.

They had a quick debate about who should carry their remaining pack—a necessary one, since neither would be able to get the pack on by themselves, so one of them had to convince the other to clip it onto them. Sheppard had been adamant at first that he carry it, considering that Teyla’s wound was fully on her back. But when she’d pointed out that her injury was less severe than his, and that carrying a pack with his wound would actually add an impediment whereas it wouldn’t with hers (both pack and injury being in the same place), he conceded. He may have surreptitiously grabbed a few things out of the pack and shoved them in his vest pockets first, but he did clip the pack on for Teyla to carry.

Injuries treated and pack carrying sorted, they helped each other to their feet and made a closer study of the gully. Sheppard looked up and down it, hoping for an exit, but it was clear that he and Teyla had fallen in somewhere in the middle. And while they were only about ten to twelve feet from the top, given that everything was covered in moss, it was unlikely that they’d be able to climb out.

The best they could do was try to follow the stream and hope it eventually wound up back at surface level. Given that the water source for the stream might be underground, heading upstream didn’t seem the best option. So Sheppard turned and looked downstream, as far as his light would illuminate. It wasn’t far, but he also didn’t see anything that was immediately concerning, so he turned and raised an eyebrow at Teyla.

“It’s a nice day for a walk by the water, don’t you think?”

She gave him a questioning look. “Should we not stay here and wait for Rodney or Ronon to find us?”

“Normally I might say yes, but given how we all got separated running from those things, I doubt they have any idea where to even start looking for us.”

She nodded in response, then turned to look down the gully. “A walk by the water, you say?”

He stepped to her side, looking the same direction. “A bit of a walk, maybe a small climb, find our teammates, find the Gate, avoid the killer trees, everybody goes home.”

She sighed. “Easy enough.”

They began following the stream, cautiously picking their way over the moss-slick ground. At one point, Sheppard discovered that, oddly, walking in the stream was actually easier than outside it. The constant movement of the water seemed to keep the bed of the stream cleaner and therefore less slippery. So he took point walking through the stream, with Teyla close behind him.

“I guess we know why the Ancients found this place unsuitable,” he said after a while.

“Because of the ‘killer trees’?”

“I wonder how many of them there actually are?” he pondered out loud. “There were only about five or six in that clearing, but this moon is pretty big. There could be dozens. Or more.”

“Perhaps they are like pack animals,” Teyla suggested, “and there are groups of them that control different parts of the forest.”

It was a little odd to think of something that looked like a plant behaving like an animal, but then Sheppard recalled how he’d been sure the creatures had deliberately separated him and Teyla from Rodney and Ronon. “Yeah, I suppose.”

They continued walking in silence for several more minutes. Sheppard was keeping an eye out for any changes in the moss-canopy above them, and an ear out for any changes in the sound of the water up ahead of them. There was every chance the gully ended in a waterfall, or that it was slowly making its way further underground, and he didn’t want to risk them just getting further away from the surface.

“Do you think Ronon and Rodney managed to escape the creatures?” Teyla eventually asked in a quiet voice.

Sheppard contemplated the question. He would almost be willing to bet that, under ideal circumstances, Ronon would have been able to outrun the creatures. The forest definitely wasn’t the ideal circumstance, but he still leaned toward Ronon in any confrontation. Rodney’s fate was cloudier, and he tried not to think about it. All he knew was that Rodney and Ronon had been heading in the same direction the last time he saw them, and he had to hope that they’d managed to both escape the creatures and stay together. If that wasn’t the case—well, he’d deal with it once he knew for sure it wasn’t. Until then, he was going to stay positive.

“I’m sure they did,” he replied, trying for a casual tone he wasn’t sure he pulled off. “Ronon’s probably turned one of the things into kindling for a signal fire by now.”

He didn’t turn around, but he could still feel the doubtful look Teyla was giving his back. A little while later, she surprised him with a request.

“Tell me more about these ‘Ents’ that you and Rodney mentioned.”

Sheppard glanced over his shoulder, and Teyla met his eyes with a small smile. It hadn’t occurred to him at the time, but it was slightly embarrassing the way he and Rodney had been nerding out at the idea of finding Tolkien-esque creatures on a moon in Pegasus. Still, they were talking about a literary classic.

“Ents are these creatures from a book trilogy,” he explained. “They look a lot like trees, but they can move and talk.”

“Like the creatures here.”

“A little, yeah. The differences are pretty stark, though. For one, Ents can’t move quickly. At best, they can manage a swift lumber. And they also don’t attack people at random. They’re protectors of the trees and the forests, and only get violent when those are in danger.”

“Which is why Rodney told Ronon to simply leave the trees alone and we would have nothing to fear from the creatures.”

“It was a good theory,” Sheppard agreed, “if only what we’d encountered actually were Ents.” He sighed. “Too bad we didn’t just trust Ronon’s instincts; he didn’t like this place as soon as we stepped foot on it.”

“Perhaps we should assume, going forward, that any worlds the Ancients found unsuitable would be unsuitable for us as well.”

“That’s going to be my pitch to Elizabeth, when we get back.”

If they got back. Though, if they didn’t, Atlantis would probably still take that stance and no more “unsuitable” worlds would be investigated. There was a chance this one might claim additional victims, though, if they didn’t manage to return to the city on time. He checked his watch.

“We were due back at 2030, right?” They were about an hour out.

“Yes,” Teyla confirmed.

Sheppard looked up at their moss skylight. It was getting dimmer the farther they walked, and it wasn’t because they were going deeper underground.

“The sun is setting,” Teyla said, voicing his thoughts.

“Yeah, I know.”

And they weren’t prepared for it. They only had three flashlights between them, and there was only one set of back-up batteries in his pack. And he didn’t want to run into the creatures in the dark; given that he still wasn’t sure how (or even if) they could see, there was every chance they’d have, like, night vision or something. The odds were never in their favor when it came to things like that. Plus, a rescue team might be sent after them if they didn’t return, and so he had the added worry of more of his people rushing onto the moon, with no idea what was waiting for them.

They needed to get out of this gully, find Rodney and Ronon, and get off this world. And they needed to do it before it got dark.

He picked up the pace, and heard Teyla do the same behind him.


-000000-


The not-hobbit led Rodney and Ronon down the short tunnel behind the door and into a larger chamber. The ceiling there was higher, and Rodney could almost stand up all the way. For comfort’s sake, he settled for sitting cross-legged on the floor—Ronon choosing to stay on his knees beside him—and studied the room they were in.

Though the walls were still the same bare earth of both the hole and the tunnel, in the chamber it looked like it had been purposefully compacted and smoothed over. The overall visual effect was of plaster, and it made the space feel more polished than it really was. If the furnishings were any indication, they were in a kind of living room or parlor: there were a few chairs that, despite being a bit too small for Rodney or Ronon to use, otherwise looked comfortable; some side tables of varying sizes and shapes; and a large cabinet tucked into one corner. The floor had been laid with flattened stones resembling pavers, and was covered by a large rug, which Rodney happened to be sitting on. Several lanterns sat on the tables and hung from hooks driven into the walls, giving the space a warm illumination. Three additional tunnels led out of the room, no doubt connecting it to others.

The not-hobbit settled into one of the chairs with a long sigh, then looked over Rodney and Ronon with mild interest. Rodney saw him studying the bloody tears in Ronon’s shirt, and the bandages visible beneath them.

“Had a run-in with the virath, I see,” he nonchalantly commented, as though nearly getting mauled to death by a tree was nothing to be concerned about.

“If by ‘run-in’ you mean they tried to kill us, then yes,” Rodney sulkily replied.

“Well, they would not try to have a pleasant conversation with you.”

So far, Rodney’s entire experience on the moon had been nothing short of surreal. First there were trees just walking around as if they were meant to be ambulatory, and then those trees started running around and trying to kill him. Then he landed in an almost-hobbit hole with a not-hobbit who seemed to consider near-death experiences to be routine and was, honestly, a bit sassy. The oddity and stress of the situation finally got to Rodney, and he blurted out the foremost question in his mind.

“What are you?”

It was a slightly rude query, but the definitely-not-a-hobbit just stared at him with a blandly genial expression.

“I mean, you aren’t human, like us,” Rodney quickly clarified, waving a hand between himself and Ronon. “What are you called?”

“I am Elum, and I am a mogardi.”

“Are mogardi native to this moon?” Rodney inquired, glad to finally be getting answers after a day of nothing but mysteries.

“Yes. This is our home.” Elum paused, and gave Rodney a deadpan look. “And who are you ‘humans’ that find yourself in my burrow?”

“Oh, sorry,” Rodney replied, a little flustered. “I’m Rodney, and this is Ronon.”

“Why have you come to Oldnor, Rodney and Ronon?” Elum asked them.

“We’re explorers,” Rodney explained. “We travel through the Stargate to other worlds to learn about them and meet any people who may live on them.”

“Make friends, that kind of thing,” Ronon added in a rumble.

Elum’s eyes went to Ronon’s shoulder again, and he seemed amused. “It does not appear that you have succeeded in your attempts to make friends this time.”

“What are those things?” Rodney pointed upward, toward the surface and the deadly flora they’d left topside.

“The virath? They are the predators of the forest. They hunt and kill and everything else stays out of their way.” Elum gestured around them. “We reside underground and only go out in the dark in order to avoid them, because they cannot be outrun and they cannot be stopped.”

That explained the larger-than-usual eyes; the mogardi had adapted to low-light living. Rodney suspected that the wattage his and Ronon’s flashlights put out would be enough to blind them. He had no intention of testing that theory—so far Elum had been hospitable, if a little aloof—but it was information he tucked away just in case things went pear-shaped.

“So, what, the virath sleep at night?” Rodney was cycling through the possibilities, and how they might be able to get back to Atlantis without risking another encounter with the killer trees from space hell. “Or can they just not see that well in the dark?”

If the virath had poor night vision, that could be another reason for the mogardi adaptation: being able to out-see your predators.

“That is unclear,” Elum answered, with a shrug. “We are not sure where they go, but they disappear when the sun sets and do not reappear until the sun rises. So we tend to any of our outdoor needs at night.” He glanced up at the ceiling of the burrow, as though he could see through the soil above them and outside. “It will not be much longer until it is time for me to see to my garden.”

Rodney checked his watch and calculated how long they’d been on the moon. Though it felt like longer, only a couple of hours had passed. Based on where the sun had been in the sky when they’d arrived and the time that had elapsed, he suspected sunset was only about half an hour away, at most. He was about to ask Elum for his help in searching for Sheppard and Teyla, when Ronon spoke.

“Why don’t you just leave?” he asked, absentmindedly touching his wounded shoulder.

“Leave Oldnor?” Elum asked, tilting his head in consideration.

“Yeah.”

“Why would we?”

Ronon raised his uninjured shoulder in a shrug. “So you aren’t in danger.”

Elum studied him with a narrowed gaze for a few moments. Then he pointed at Ronon’s blaster.

“You came from elsewhere, but you arrived with weapons,” he pointed out. “Clearly you did not create those just for your travel to Oldnor, so you must encounter danger regularly. How, exactly, are you in less danger out there than we are here?”

“We aren’t,” Ronon admitted. “But you could always be safer.”

“There is danger everywhere,” Elum told him, with an almost pitying expression. “We choose the one we know. This is our home, and it is where we belong.”

It was an oddly comforting thought, the idea that you just had to choose your danger. A little naive, perhaps, but Rodney liked the idea. Unfortunately, Atlantis had half-inherited, half-stumbled into their own dangers before any choosing could take place, and needs must meant they kept finding more. But at least their adopted planet didn’t have vegetation that doubled as pursuit predators. The fact that Rodney actually preferred the Wraith to the virath was as disturbing as anything else that had happened so far that day. He shook the thought away.

“Well, before we can get back to the dangers we know,” he said, “we need to find our friends.” He gave Elum what he hoped came across as a pleading expression; he knew they definitely needed his assistance if they were going to get off the moon alive. “Could you help us look for them?”

“You lost them in the forest?”

“Yeah, when we got attacked,” Ronon advised.

“You are sure they survived?” Elum’s questioning tone was gentle, but there was a hint of resignation in it that Rodney didn’t like.

“No,” he bluntly replied. “But until we know that for certain, we’re going to look for them.”

Elum nodded, almost as if in approval, and rose from his chair. “My kin and I will help you.”

Without another world, he bustled off down one of the tunnels leading out of the room. Rodney shared a look with Ronon.

“You think they’re okay?” Ronon asked him.

Rodney shrugged. “I have no idea. But we’ve made it through everything else this galaxy has thrown at us so far, and I refuse to believe that Teyla or Sheppard could be taken down by what is essentially a rabid tree.”

He said the last part with a fierce conviction born out of the combination of a deep resentment of the odds and sheer desperation. Ronon nodded his agreement, and Rodney caught him watching him with an assessing gaze. They could hear Elum returning and soon he reappeared, followed by three others who, from the resemblance, were definitely relatives of his. He verified it by introducing them as his children, Berrut, Gedilli, and Ammon.

“We can begin the search now,” Elum advised. “By the time we get to the surface, the sun will almost have set. The virath will have already left the area.”

“After you,” Rodney replied, waving for him to guide them back out.

Elum nodded, and his three children grabbed unlit lanterns and led the way back down the tunnel to the front door. Rodney and Ronon crawled after them, Elum at the rear, and Rodney tried not to think about how bruised his knees were going to be after all this was over. He could hear the door opening ahead of him, but wasn’t sure exactly how close he was; with the sun having set, there was no longer a literal light at the end of the tunnel. Instead, the hole at the surface was just another kind of shadow.

Thinking about Elum’s eyes, Rodney was sure he and his kids could perfectly make out the details around them. But it wasn’t until fresh air hit his face and he felt moss under his hands that Rodney himself was completely sure he’d made it out of the tunnel. He cautiously got to his feet, not wanting to have misjudged the clearance and wind up braining himself on the tunnel ceiling. Even as he got to full height, his eyes had adjusted to the dusk beneath the trees and he could at least make out the general shapes of his surroundings.

Once they were all outside, the mogardi lit their lanterns, and Rodney took it as a sign that it would be okay for him to turn back on his flashlight. He did so, making sure to angle it away from the mogardi’s sensitive eyes, blinking against the brightness himself until his eyes accounted for it. Another beam crossed his, and he glanced over to see that Ronon had pulled out the flashlight Rodney had given him earlier. Rodney saw Elum and the others squinting against the light as they gave the devices a curious once over, but none of them asked about them.

Elum caught Rodney’s gaze and gestured around them. “Do you know which way you came from?” he asked in a quiet voice.

“I—” Rodney stopped and turned a slow circle, trying to remember the events right before he and Ronon had found themselves underground. He knew that the tunnel had been to their left when they stopped, so he put it on his right and pointed ahead of him. “We ran from that way.”

“More or less straight,” Ronon added, “aside from going around trees.”

As Elum’s children began walking in the direction Rodney had indicated, lantern lights bobbing above the forest floor like giant fireflies, Elum asked if they knew how far they had gone.

“A few hundred meters at most,” Rodney advised as they followed the lanterns. “We weren’t able to get that far before the virath caught up to us.”

“When did you lose sight of your friends?”

“I didn’t see them after I started running,” Ronon said.

His tone was off, and Rodney tried to pinpoint what he was hearing. It wasn’t exactly regret, and though it had the feel of sadness, that wasn’t quite right, either. He remembered how Ronon had been acting when they’d first encountered the killer trees, all skittish and on edge. And he remembered how he’d been running right behind—well, within sight of—Ronon and hadn’t seen him look back or turn around until he had to stop and stand his ground just before the trees attacked. Until then, he’d run with a single-minded possession, like someone who knew how to run. Like someone who knew how to Run.

Rodney remembered all of that, and thought what he’d heard might have been shame.

“I thought they were right behind me,” Ronon continued, “but I only saw McKay once we stopped.”

“They were behind us,” Rodney advised. “At least at first. They had to have been, because Sheppard yelled out to warn us that the trees were almost on us. Which means he had to have been moving in the same direction as us to see that.”

“So they will be somewhere along the path of your own travel, but most likely to one side of it,” Elum concluded.

Rodney stopped for a moment, and shined his light into the trees to his right, then to his left. The odd feel of the forest was heightened by the dark, and the shadows thrown by the tiny beam of his light hitting the massive trunks surrounding them only made the distances feel exaggerated. Somewhere out there—alive, because he wouldn’t accept that they weren’t—were Sheppard and Teyla.

They just had to find them before sunrise.


-000000-


While the moss above them had blocked the majority of sunlight from reaching the gully, Sheppard hadn’t realized how much was still getting through until the sun set and his field of vision was narrowed to just what the beam of his flashlight could cover. He and Teyla continued picking their way toward what he hoped would be an exit, moving a bit more slowly now that they had to directly follow the beam of their lights for safety.

Every dozen meters or so, he would stop and flash the light around the gully walls, hoping to find a way up or out. At one point, they’d come across a log that had fallen into the gully but was propped up against the wall at a steep, but not unclimbable, angle. An attempt had been made, but before Sheppard had gotten more than four feet up the log, it had practically disintegrated beneath him and he’d landed with a splash back in the stream.

He was just starting to get desperate when another check of the walls revealed a kind of void off to their right. Sheppard stopped and squinted at the darker patch of wall, wondering if he was seeing things.

“What is it?” Teyla asked.

“Does that look like a hole to you?” He waggled his P90, using the corresponding movement of the flashlight beam to indicate the area he was talking about. Glancing over at Teyla, he was just able to make out the frown she aimed in that direction in the cast-off glow from her own light.

“Perhaps? It is difficult to tell.”

“Gonna check it out,” Sheppard told her. “Stay here.”

Redirecting his light back to his feet to make sure he didn’t slip and bite it, he cautiously walked a few feet closer and then stopped, once again illuminating the wall. From the nearer vantage point, he could tell that there was definitely something going on with the wall, but not exactly what. So sending up a silent prayer that he wasn’t about to walk into the den of an even more vicious native life form, he made his way closer.

At what he estimated to be just a foot or two from the wall, he looked again. This time, he knew for sure what he was looking at.

“It’s a tunnel,” he called over his shoulder. “And it looks like it goes up.”

Behind him, he could hear Teyla making her way over. She appeared at his side, adding her light to his. With them combined, it was even clearer that the tunnel definitely angled up, and—best surprise of all—it looked to be free of moss. The floor of the tunnel was bare dirt and it seemed to be compacted instead of loose, like it was used frequently. Sheppard didn’t immediately see any signs of prints that would indicate animal usage, but the hardness of the soil might just mean that there was no way for prints to be formed. But even if he had seen signs of animals, he didn’t think he would care. The tunnel was the first way out they’d seen, and might possibly be the only one. So they were going to take it.

Putting aside his fears about the tree creatures in favor of his fears about being lost forever in the gully and dying from starvation, Sheppard walked into the tunnel. He kept his light pointed at his feet, not wanting to broadcast his and Teyla’s ascent to anyone or anything that might be lurking near the tunnel entrance. Even with the nod toward caution, his heart started to race, the wounds on his side throbbing in time with his pulse.

Soon, he could feel a change in the air and knew he was reaching the top of the tunnel. Pausing, he took a deep breath and slowly brought his light up. The ground leveled out in front of him at about knee height, so he knew that the top part of his body—including the light—was already above ground. So he cautiously turned a slow circle, checking the forest directly around the tunnel entrance.

There was nothing: no movement, no noise. No incredibly angry trees that had somehow managed to track them like bloodhounds. If it weren’t for what he knew lurked in the shadows, he would have thought the forest felt peaceful.

He wasn’t sure whether they should try to navigate the forest in the dark or risk the lights out in the open. Weighing the two options, he turned back to Teyla.

“Turn off your light for a second,” he told her.

She did so, and he did them same with his own. He gave his eyes a minute or two to adjust, hoping that there might be more light to see by than it appeared at first blink. But either the moon didn’t have its own moon, or the tree canopy was too thick for any starlight or moonlight to get to the ground. There was no way they would be able to find a way back to the Gate without lights, so he turned his back on, advising Teyla to do the same.

Sighing, he finished his climb back up to level ground. Teyla joined him, and they both turned to look back in the direction they had traveled down the gully. In the dark, spotting it was actually a little easier, since for some reason the moss that grew over it shimmered in the light, while that on the forest floor didn’t. Fascinated, Sheppard slowly waved his light back and forth over the two areas for a solid minute.

“That is so weird,” he muttered.

“I have never seen moss do that before,” Teyla agreed in a whisper.

“We aren’t going to tell anybody in the biology departments about this,” he only half joked. “While I’m sure some of them would be more than willing to make the sacrifice necessary to be able to study it, we can’t lose any of them. And keeping them away from the enormous old-growth forest will be hard enough.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Teyla shake her head at him, but she was smiling.

“So we keep this to our right and we should be able to follow it back to where we fell in, yes?” she asked.

Sheppard nodded. “And then we’ll just have to try to figure out which way we saw Rodney and Ronon go.”

“And then find the Stargate.”

“Which is underground somewhere.”

He and Teyla shared a somber look. Then he squared his shoulders and, sweeping the light in front of him, began following the gully back the way they had come.

They walked in silence, nothing really needing to be said and concerns about making too much noise forefront in both their minds. Every now and then, Sheppard would pause and just listen. He wasn’t sure he’d actually be able to hear the trees coming, should they attack again, but he figured he might hear other things moving around, and those things might be Rodney and Ronon. Or Rodney, at least. Sheppard would probably never hear Ronon coming, either.

As it was, Sheppard didn’t hear anything; instead, he saw something.

He and Teyla had been walking for about half an hour, maybe a bit more, when he thought he saw light up ahead of them. He stopped and waited for Teyla to reach him, and then pointed.

“Did you see that?”

“No. What did you see?”

“I thought I saw—”

He cut off as he saw the light again. It was only for a few seconds, no doubt as it moved into an open space between tree trunks, but there was clearly a light. It had a warm, flickering glow, and if it had been stationary, Sheppard would have thought it was a campfire. But unless they had ventured into the “encounter actual fire spirits” portion of the day’s insanity, it was fire that someone was moving.

Even as Sheppard thought that, the light appeared again. And this time, he could tell it was actually heading is his and Teyla’s general direction. He didn’t want to get his hopes up, and he didn’t want to risk being wrong, so he didn’t call out. But he did start walking again, keeping the light in view. Soon he realized that there were multiple lights, his own movement giving him different viewpoints to them through the trees. There were three, at least, and he wondered what they could be.

Then he saw a light that changed everything.

Beyond the warm ones that he had first seen—but clearly following close behind them—shot a bright, cool beam of light that Sheppard would have recognized anywhere. He was pretty sure that the floating fire lights were lanterns, but the other one was a government-issued flashlight. They’d found either Rodney or Ronon, and they were closing in on one another.

Sheppard glanced over his shoulder to give Teyla a broad smile, which she returned with a weary but relieved one of her own. Then her eyes darted over his shoulder, and Sheppard turned back around. It took a second for him to pick up on what had drawn her attention, but then a second beam of light cut through the dark, and he knew: they’d found both Rodney and Ronon.

They were off to the left of the gully, so Sheppard abandoned its path, moving more quickly now that he didn’t have to worry about staying clear of it. He still didn’t feel safe calling out to Rodney or Ronon, but he could feel their names stuck in the back of his throat, pushed there by the desperate relief he felt that they were okay. There was always a chance that they weren’t, and that someone or something else had their lights, but somehow he knew that wasn’t the case.

He had to keep himself from breaking into a trot, given all the roots and rocks that he could trip on in the dark. But once he felt he was close enough, he did purposefully wave his own light back and forth in front of him in a slow arc. One of the two other beams almost immediately cut his way, its own swaying motion stilled. A beat later, the other one did the same.

Not long after that, he and Teyla stumbled into a small clearing between the trunks just as Rodney and Ronon did the same on the other side. A quick study showed that they looked more or less okay, and Sheppard could see them both giving him and Teyla the same kind of once-over. They met in the middle of the clearing.

“Where the hell have you been?” Rodney quietly snapped.

Sheppard could tell his tone was stress more than annoyance, and he couldn’t help but smile. “Fell into a hole,” he said. “Had to walk a bit to find a way back out.”

“Funny you should mention a hole…” Rodney replied, before glancing off to the side.

Sheppard had been so happy to find the rest of his team alive and okay that he’d forgotten about the other lights he’d seen and whoever had to have been carrying them. He looked in the direction Rodney had indicated, and then just blinked in amazement.

Four small human-like beings stood there, watching him and his team with huge eyes that were currently conveying mild curiosity. Sheppard wasn’t sure whether it was stress or exhaustion, or whether the tree creature actually had been venomous, but he felt like he was losing his mind. It was one crazy coincidence too many.

“Rodney—”

“Yeah, I know.”

“But they’re—”

“Trust me, I know.”

“I—what the hell.”

“I know.”

One of the beings—they were not hobbits, Sheppard was definitely losing it—stepped forward.

“I am Elum,” he said, before gestured to the three others, “And these are my children. I am glad that we have found you safe. Your friends were worried the virath had claimed you.”

“The—?”

“The evil not-Ents,” Rodney clarified.

“Right,” Sheppard confirmed with a nod. “Of course.”

“Are we not still in danger from them?” Teyla asked. Sheppard glanced over to see her throwing worried looks at the darkness around them.

“The virath will not return until sunrise,” Elum assured them. “We should be safe until then.”

“They just disappear when it’s dark?” Sheppard asked, slightly incredulous.

“So Elum says,” Rodney said. “We’re actually interrupting his night gardening time.”

“I will survive,” Elum dryly replied.

“You, uh, you wouldn’t happen to know where the Stargate is, would you?” Sheppard asked him.

“Yes, we do. We can lead you there now.” Elum paused, giving Sheppard an amused stare. “Unless you wish to explore more of Oldnor first?”

Elum might not actually be a hobbit, but he definitely had the attitude of one. Sheppard gave him a sharp look and a weary shake of the head.

“I think we’ve had about all of your world’s hospitality that we can survive,” he shot back.

Elum smiled knowingly. “Then let us return you to your own world,” he said. “We are not far away; I might get to do my ‘night gardening’ after all.”

He threw the last bit Rodney’s way, and Sheppard saw Rodney roll his eyes. Elum took the lead, his kids clustered around him with their lanterns. Sheppard nodded for Ronon to take point after them, then directed Teyla to follow next. Trusting that Elum was right about the virath, Sheppard walked with Rodney at the rear, letting himself relax slightly for the first time since they’d had to run for their lives. He wouldn’t actually feel safe until they were back in Atlantis, but for the moment he could reflect on everything that had happened. And there was one thing that was louder than all the rest in his brain.

“Hey, Rodney?”

“Hmm?”

“You don’t think Tolkien was, y’know?” He waved a hand in a vague gesture.

“An Ancient?” Rodney seemed to contemplate the possibility.

“Yeah.”

“It’s an intriguing idea, but no, I don’t. I think that when nature decides to create a humanoid, there are only so many forms it comes in.”

Sheppard looked at the figures leading them through the trees, just visible in the light from their lanterns. “And one of those is ‘hobbit’?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“And killer trees?”

Rodney scowled. “That I can’t explain, nor do I care to.”

“I forgot you don’t like botany,” Sheppard said, with a faint grin.

“Well if I didn’t before, I have every reason not to now,” he groused. “Trees shouldn’t move, Sheppard. It’s unnatural.”

“No, they shouldn’t.” And he was pretty sure he would have nightmares about being chased by sentient and very angry trees for a while.

They made it back to the Gate without any further incidents of note, aside from Elum showing them one of his gardens. It didn’t look like what Sheppard would have expected; in fact, if Elum hadn’t pointed it out, he would never have known it was a garden at all. Instead of neat rows, Elum’s plantings were randomly scattered in irregularly beds. Sheppard wondered if it had been done purposefully, to mask what the area was used for, but he was too tired to care enough to ask.

When they got back to the Gate hole, Elum and his children stopped at the entrance to make their farewells.

“I suspect we will not meet again,” Elum told them in a wry tone, “but if you were ever to return to Oldnor, you would find welcome in my burrow.”

“And I doubt we’ll ever find you on our planet, but you’d be welcome there, too,” Sheppard returned.

“Thanks for helping us,” Ronon added in a rumble.

“You are welcome,” Elum said, with a nod. “I hope that your future travels are safer.”

Sheppard highly doubted that would be the case, given the team’s track record, but he appreciated the thought. Elum raised a hand in farewell, then he and his children turned and walked away. The faint glow of their lanterns was visible for another minute before it faded into the gloom.

Sheppard sighed and walked into the tunnel. “Let’s go home.”

“Hey, Sheppard?”

He turned to find Ronon watching him with a hesitant expression. “Yeah?”

“Next mission, can we go somewhere that doesn’t have trees?”

To Sheppard’s surprise, Rodney patted Ronon on the arm as he slid past him to get to the DHD.

“I promise that I will find us a nice desert for our next mission,” Rodney told him. “Or something on a plain. Or maybe snow; we haven’t done enough snow.”

“I know of a world that only has short bushes,” Teyla advised, holding a hand at chest height. “No trees, but lots of flowers.”

“I’ll pack my antihistamines,” Rodney mumbled as he dialed the Gate.

“We’ll add ‘em all to the list,” Sheppard agreed, taking note of the faint but unmistakable relief in Ronon’s eyes. “But first, we’re getting at least three days—no, four—of downtime.”

“Is that allowed?” Ronon asked.

Rodney snorted as the Gate connected. “Allowed? Yes. Approved? Rarely.”

“Pretty sure when I show Elizabeth the giant bite mark I got from an ambulatory tree, we’ll get the time.”

As they lined up in front of the Gate, Rodney shot his bandaged side an assessing look. He ran the same gaze over Teyla and Ronon, before turning back to Sheppard. “You think we should play up the injuries a bit, make sure we sell the need for time off?”

Sheppard shrugged and gave him a crooked smile. “Wouldn’t hurt.”

“Fine. Ronon, hold your arm against your side; it’s really painful,” Rodney said, giving him a pointed look as he did so.

“It isn’t that bad,” Ronon grumbled, seemingly not all that pleased at being given directions.

“Yes, yes, you’re He-Man, you feel no pain. Work with me here.”

Ronon sighed very begrudgingly, but obligingly tucked his elbow against his side and laid his forearm across his stomach. He even put on the faint frown that Sheppard recognized as his “I’m injured enough that I’ll actually admit to it, but I’m not at the point of death yet” face.

Rodney gave him and approving nod then turned back to Sheppard. Sighing, he held out his arm. “Alright, come here.”

Sheppard gave him a bewildered look. “What?”

“I’m going to help you walk through the Gate, obviously,” Rodney said, stepping over and pulling Sheppard’s arm over his shoulder. “You’ve got the worst injury of us all and you need help—get with the story we’re telling here, Sheppard. We have at least three days of R&R to earn.”

Suspicions forming, Sheppard narrowed his eyes at Rodney, who had averted his gaze. “You never care about R&R; what’s going on?”

“I have a project I’ve been wanting to work on for months now and I haven’t had time because we keep getting sent on missions, but if we can get three to four glorious days of downtime I can actually get started on it.”

Sheppard gave him an exasperated look. “You do know that the Rs in R&R stand for ‘rest’ and ‘relaxation,’ right? Working doesn’t count.”

“It’s not work if you want to do it,” Rodney argued as he started for the open Gate, shuffling Sheppard along with him. “Now look more injured; you’re getting us those days off.”

Sheppard rolled his eyes, but did as he was told; getting the R&R had been his idea after all. With a glance over his shoulder at Ronon and Teyla—who looked annoyed and amused, respectively—he half-slumped against Rodney and let him carry him into the wormhole.




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