Blood & Water - Part III

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Title: Blood & Water
Rating: R
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters: John Sheppard, Ronon Dex, Teyla Emmagen, Rodney McKay
Word Count: 9,442
Categories: gen, action/adventure, drama, hurt/comfort, team
Spoilers: none
Warnings: graphic depictions of violence/injuries, mild language
Summary: On a world isolated from the rest of the galaxy, Sheppard and team encounter a society with a unique view of the Wraith. Captured and forced to participate in the local practice of ritualistic combat, they have to literally fight for their lives—and no one escapes unscathed.

Part I
Part II


For the first few days after they returned, Sheppard noticed people looking at his hands.

It was only noticeable because people usually looked at his face. Or his hair. He wasn’t someone who talked with his hands, like Rodney did, so they weren’t typically the thing people focused on around him. But he knew they were a point of interest now. He saw Teyla and Ronon getting the same attention, Ronon perhaps the most out of all of them given that he’d broken the first two fingers on his left hand. Keller had splinted them and it was only her promised wrath—and, Sheppard thought, the fact that they were on Ronon’s non-dominant hand—that had kept Ronon from ripping the splints off as soon as he’d gotten out of her sight.

The splints made Ronon’s hands stand out as more obviously injured than Sheppard’s or Teyla’s, but all three of them were walking around with bruised and split knuckles. And since the story of what they’d been through had made it all the way around Atlantis before they’d even left the infirmary, everyone knew the reason for the damage.

They’d had to fight to the death, and their hands told the story. For all four of them.

Rodney’s fight hadn’t involved any bare-knuckle brawling, so he returned to Atlantis with hands unmarred. In fact, the only injuries of his that most of Atlantis got to actually see were the welt on his cheek and the thin red line across his throat. The welt disappeared within a couple of days, with no indication it had ever been there. And while the cut hadn’t required any intervention by Keller—too shallow and two narrow for stitches or even a butterfly—she did have Rodney keep it covered for the first day or two while the antibiotics she’d given him had time to do their work and the skin could form a protective scab.

At first people had stared at the bandage, stark white even against Rodney’s pale skin. Then they had stared at the scabbed-over cut, which Sheppard knew for a fact was the least severe of Rodney’s injuries by far; even the blow to his face had been more painful. Still, given its location, it was understandable how everyone would find it morbidly fascinating. For most people, the mere idea of being cut across the throat was horrifying.

Sheppard understood the sentiment. His mind had flashed through all the possible outcomes in the split second between Rodney getting slashed and him realizing it was only a superficial wound. The knife could have hit a major blood vessel and Rodney would have bled to death in seconds while they watched helplessly from between the bars. His windpipe could have been damaged, and he would have suffocated on his feet. Or he could have survived but lost his ability to speak, which would have been like a living death for him—which was probably why it was, against all reason, the most painful scenario for Sheppard to consider.

After the visible injuries, Rodney’s sling was the next thing people noticed. Given how much Rodney talked with his hands, wearing the sling was an endless frustration for him. But Keller had known what she was facing, trying to keep him from exacerbating his injury or ripping the stitches she’d used to close up the deep wound in his shoulder. So she’d forced him to wear the sling whenever he was awake, to limit how much he moved the arm around. She’d also had to close up the much less serious slash on his forearm, so as an added benefit the sling kept him from accidentally knocking that about as well.

The sling got a lot of stares, a lot of speculation. There’d been rumors that Rodney’s arm had been broken by the man he’d had to fight, or that Rodney had dislocated his shoulder when he’d put his opponent in a headlock. Sheppard found the latter one to be a little amusing; he thought it a real possibility that Rodney would dislocate his own shoulder trying to choke out someone, should he ever try.

Overall, though, the whispers and the stares he witnessed being thrown Rodney’s way bothered him. The exact details of their fights hadn’t been made public—probably never would be, given the circumstances—but everyone knew that Sheppard and his team had had to fight to the death on Bellus. Everyone knew they’d had to kill. And while surviving in Pegasus meant having to fight for your life on a regular basis, the Mortal Kombat-esque bullshit Bellus had served them was different.

People stared at Rodney’s neck and at his sling. They whispered behind their hands—some positive, some negative—always making sure Rodney couldn’t hear them. Sheppard caught people watching Rodney with admiration or fear or distrust, and the feelings of protectiveness hit him with the force of pulling Gs.

Because while everyone had been a bit fascinated by Sheppard and Teyla and Ronon after they returned from Bellus, no one had treated them any differently. No one had been surprised that any of them had been able to kill when it was required of them. Of course they’d survived fights to the death. Of course.

But then there was Rodney.

It shouldn’t have made a difference, not really. By this point, Rodney had been involved in enough fights that he had a higher body count than any of the new recruits the SGC shipped to Sheppard. Rodney was a seasoned soldier; long gone was the man who had unsteadily emptied his gun into a Wraith and then fearfully begged Sheppard for what to do next. And if all the destruction Rodney had wrought with his brain instead of his hands was taken into account, he undoubtedly bested everyone on Atlantis for kills with no competition.

But the majority of those kills had been Wraith. Now everyone was talking about how Rodney had killed just a regular man with nothing but a knife. And while they tried to figure out how they felt about it, while they stared at Rodney’s neck and his arm and his limp, while they swapped rumors and shared observations—Sheppard was watching Rodney’s hands.

About a week and a half after they’d returned from Bellus, he came to the lab to fetch Rodney for lunch. By then the most blatant of the stares had stopped. In fact, everyone who worked under Rodney had mostly reverted to their normal behavior, no doubt due to him storming about as per usual, spitting out rapid-fire instructions and scathing reprimands as if nothing had changed. Well, almost nothing.

Rodney was snapping his fingers in the face of a young man Sheppard hadn’t seen before when Sheppard entered the room.

“My face is up here,” Rodney bit out, pointing a finger at the same.

Sheppard saw the young man flush, his gaze darting from Rodney’s sling to his eyes.

“S-sorry, Dr. McKay.”

He fumbled over the words, looking mortified and a little bit afraid, and Sheppard started making mental calculations on when he would crack and which department he would request a transfer to. The timid did not survive long in the labs of Dr. Rodney McKay. Sheppard even spotted some of the more hardened assistants shooting the young man looks of mingled pity and amusement.

“You should be sorry about the frankly deplorable job you did on these calculations,” Rodney told him. “I’d be embarrassed to have such shoddy work associated with me. And since you work in my lab, it is associated with me. Go. Get out of my sight.” Rodney flapped his hand in dismissal before turning to yell across the lab as the cowed young man retreated. “Sanchez! Fix his screw up! I don’t have the time.”

“Yes, sir, Dr. McKay.”

Rodney heaved a sigh of the truly weary as he turned back to his own laptop. Sheppard caught Zelenka’s eye and they had a quick, silent exchange wherein Sheppard raised his eyebrows in question and Zelenka gave a small shrug and shake of the head. So Rodney was doing okay, but something was bothering him and he wasn’t talking to Zelenka about it. Sheppard had figured as much.

Rodney hadn’t noticed him yet and had returned to typing on his computer, glaring at the keyboard as he awkwardly attempted to use both hands to type without removing his left arm from its sling. His fingers still flew across the keys, but there was a lot more backspacing than Sheppard was used to seeing from him. Frustration was all but radiating off of Rodney as he sat there, but for the moment Sheppard focused on his hands.

They were pink and looked ever so slightly raw, as if the skin had been rubbed excessively. Sheppard cringed internally at the sight, his stomach tightening. He recalled the almost frantic way Rodney had washed his hands in the bucket after his fight, and how he had only stopped at Teyla’s prompting. Despite his self-professed germaphobia, Rodney had never washed his hands with such fervor before, with such a lack of regard for his own pain. Because it was clear to Sheppard that Rodney’s hands had to be painful, as much as it was clear that Rodney didn’t seem to notice.

Sheppard cleared his throat to announce his presence. “What’re you up to, McKay?”

Rodney glanced up at him before returning his eyes to his screen. “Updating the Ancient database.”

“Discover some new theoretical craziness?” Sheppard half joked.

“No. I’m updating the entry on Bellus.”

Sheppard stared at him in surprise. He hadn’t expected that. He almost protested, telling Rodney someone else could handle it, that they had an anthropology department for a reason, let it go. But he knew that Rodney was only doing it because he needed to, because he had to. Putting all of the details into carefully organized order was Rodney’s way of dealing with trauma. Well, one way. The other was to ignore it. Looked like he was doing both at the moment.

Sheppard tapped the top of the laptop screen. “C’mon, you can finish that later. It’s lunchtime.”

“In a minute.”

“Rodney, the database isn’t going anywhere, but the food might be. Ronon and Teyla are waiting for us.”

Rodney grumbled but made a few motions to save his progress and lock his computer before standing. “Fine. Let’s go before Ronon eats us out of house and home.”

Sheppard smiled to himself as he led the way out into the hall. So long as Rodney stayed generally grumpy, he knew things weren’t too bad. Still, there was some healing that needed to be done, and he, Ronon, and Teyla had prepared for it.

It took Rodney a little while to realize that they weren’t heading toward the commissary. He seemed to be distracted, which was probably the only reason he hadn’t immediately noticed that Sheppard had taken them in the opposite direction of the commissary as soon as they’d exited the lab corridor. They were almost to their destination when his eyes cleared and he frowned around him.

“Sheppard, where the hell are we? I thought we were getting lunch.”

“We are,” Sheppard replied, turning down the final hallway that led to where Teyla and Ronon were waiting. “We’re having a picnic.”

“A what?”

“A picnic. Y’know, where you eat outdoors on a blanket with friends who band together to fend off the ants that are determined to steal your food. We won’t have to contend with ants this time though.” He paused thoughtfully. “I don’t even know if there are ants on this planet.”

“I know what a picnic is. Why are we having one?”

Sheppard gave him a look as they stopped in front of the door that led out onto the balcony Teyla and Ronon had commandeered. “Why not?”

Rodney didn’t have an answer to that, and silently watched as Sheppard opened the door. The salt-tinged breeze—not quite the same as the sea air back on Earth, but similar enough to evoke familiar feelings—rushed through it to surround them even as they stepped outside.

The balcony Sheppard had picked was a less frequently used one, being more distant from the central locations of the city, and therefore less likely to attract any intruders. It was also fully shaded from the sun, which would continue to drop behind the tower it was attached to as the afternoon wore on. There actually was a picnic blanket, along with some cushions for them to sit on, courtesy of Teyla. Ronon had handled collecting the food, and there was enough there to feed six people—or four that included Ronon and Rodney.

There was also beer, pulled from Sheppard’s own stash, and Rodney eyed it as he plopped down.

“Beer, Sheppard? It’s the middle of the day.”

“And you’re off for the rest of it,” Sheppard told him, popping the top on a can and holding it out to him.

“Wha—I have things to do!” Rodney protested. “I can’t just take off whenever I like!”

“Actually, you can. You’re the head of your department,” Sheppard reminded him.

“And I have to set a good example!”

“Like by berating your subordinates until they crawl away?”

“I do not berate,” Rodney replied with dignity. “I loudly correct.”

Sheppard set the open beer by Rodney’s leg and turned to open one for himself. “Sure you do. But you won’t be doing it this afternoon; we’re all off duty.”

“What for?”

“Team bonding,” Ronon replied.

“Is it possible for us to get any more bonded?” Rodney grumpily wondered. “Outside of legally?”

“We could try that.” Ronon’s expression was contemplative, but there was a joking twinkle in his eye. “Would there be a party?”

“It would be a ‘the whole of Atlantis shuts down’ size party,” Sheppard advised.

Ronon scratched his chin. “Could be worth it.”

“My people would also wish to hold a celebration,” Teyla added, with an amused smile in Rodney’s direction.

“Two parties?” Ronon seemed sold. “We should do it.”

Rodney rolled his eyes. “Well, we’d have to forget about the legal part, anyway. Bigamy is illegal where we’re from.” He waggled a finger between himself and Sheppard before picking up his beer and taking a drink.

Ronon gave a unbothered shrug. “Just ceremonial, then.”

Teyla’s expression had turned pensive. “There is an old Athosian tradition…”

She trailed off, and Sheppard used his outstretched leg to nudge the bottom of her shoe with his foot. “What tradition?”

“It is nothing.” She shook her head, smiling to herself. “I had not thought about it in years; it is not something that has been practiced in my lifetime.”

“What?” Ronon pushed. “C’mon, you have to tell us now.”

Rodney nodded. “Yeah. You can’t pique our curiosity like that and then just drop it.”

Teyla sighed, almost as if she were self-conscious about having mentioned it. “There is a very old tradition among the Athosians, a ceremony that symbolically bound multiple people together.” She paused to glance around at them. “It made them family.”

Everyone fell quiet. Nobody was looking at each other.

“We’re already family,” Ronon finally rumbled.

Sheppard was nodding. “Yeah, we are.”

“Would going through the ceremony get Ronon his party?”

Rodney’s tone was nonchalant, and they all turned to stare at him. His gaze was fixed out on the water, though, and he missed their respective looks of surprise, affection, and understanding.

“There is a very large celebration associated with the ceremony, yes,” Teyla told him with a smile. “It lasts three days.”

Sheppard rubbed the back of his neck. It wasn’t exactly what he’d planned on, but it wasn’t a bad idea, either. “We could use the R&R…”

“Speak for yourself,” Rodney shot back. “I have enough work to keep me busy from now until next year. And that’s if I don’t take any breaks.”

“You need the break more than any of us.”

Rodney scoffed. “Everybody on Atlantis could use a break, Colonel, some of us just don’t have the time.”

“Rodney, look at your hands.”

Sheppard’s tone was quiet, and he thought it was that more than anything that made Rodney listen. He frowned at Sheppard for a second before obediently turning his gaze to his hands. Sheppard saw him freeze, saw the look of confusion come into his eyes as he stared at them as if they belonged to a stranger. It was as Sheppard had expected: Rodney hadn’t even realized he’d been scrubbing his hands to the point of pain every time he washed them. This was the part of the trauma he’d hidden from himself, even though it was obvious to anyone who paid attention.

“I—” Rodney’s mouth opened and closed as he visibly struggled to find the words. His eyes darted from his own hands to Ronon’s, with their splinted fingers; to Teyla’s, and the scrapes on her knuckles; and to Sheppard’s, whose bruising was starting to turn from dark purple to sickly yellow. He didn’t look back down at his own hands, staring blindly at the balcony wall instead as he curled them into fists.

“Rodney—”

“I didn’t realize, I hadn’t noticed.”

“We know.”

“I thought I was fine,” Rodney said, confusion evident in his tone. “I am fine,” he said more firmly.

“Are you?” Sheppard asked quietly.

“Yes, I—” Rodney paused, took a breath. “I’ve had nightmares, am having nightmares. But I always have nightmares.” He said the last part with a sardonic laugh.

“About the fight?” Teyla gently probed.

Rodney nodded sharply. “I keep reliving how it happened, but also all the ways it didn’t and the million different things that could have happened instead. The different opponents I might’ve had to face: there were a few people in the crowd who looked like they could’ve bench-pressed me. Or who were a lot taller and would have been a lot more difficult to avoid with their longer reach.”

Sheppard felt a ridiculous surge of pride at how Rodney’s mind—stressed and terrified as it had been—had still managed to run a risk assessment on people in the crowd that he wasn’t facing.

“Even with the man I did fight, everything could have gone wrong,” Rodney continued. “He could’ve caught my femoral artery when he got me in the leg.” His lightly placed his right hand there, still staring at the wall. His eyes were distant, back in the circle. “Or my carotid,” he added, hand now fluttering at his throat. “When he stabbed me in the back, he could’ve popped a lung. Any of those, I’d be dead.” He paused before adding in a small voice. “Instead, I killed him.”

Rodney looked so distraught that Sheppard had the overwhelming urge to hug him. But he knew if he did it would break the moment, and there was more Rodney needed to get out. And more that he needed to hear, too. So he just reached over and gave his shoulder a comforting squeeze instead.

“There was so much blood.”

Rodney was staring at his hands now, and Sheppard knew he was seeing them as they had been, covered in the blood of the man he’d been forced to kill. Sheppard had similar memories to contend with.

“I know.”

“I didn’t want to, I didn’t mean to—”

“We know.”

“He would’ve killed me. I had to.”

“Yeah, you did,” Ronon agreed.

“We all did, Rodney,” Sheppard added.

Teyla was watching Rodney with kind eyes. “Even if we wish we did not.”

Finally Rodney made eye contact again, meeting Teyla’s understanding gaze. “I have nightmares about all of you, too,” he said. “About your fights going wrong. About watching you being beaten to death or slashed up or trampled by the damn crowd because you didn’t fight honorably enough. I’m trapped in the prison cell, screaming through the bars and all I can do is watch you all die, over and over.”

His voice cut off suddenly, as if he’d revealed more than he’d wanted to. His eyes were lowered, his gaze on the mostly untouched food between them. The guilt was coming off of him in waves, though, and Sheppard fought the urge to swear. For all the grumpy misanthropy Rodney liked to project, he cared deeply when he cared at all, and when he felt like he was actually responsible for something, the guilt ate him alive.

It was guilt that had made Rodney throw himself into the circle, knowing he would either have to kill or die, because he hadn’t wanted the rest of them to get hurt any further trying to protect him. And now he was being haunted by the fallout from that decision. Sheppard knew he needed to say something, was steeling himself to admit his own nightmares, when Ronon of all people beat him to it.

“Me, too.”

It took Rodney a second to process who’d said it, but then his head snapped up and Sheppard could see the surprise in his eyes as he studied Ronon’s face. “Really?”

“Yeah. I dream about all of you dying all the time.” Ronon shrugged, as if it should have been expected. “It’s not like we live safe lives.”

“Occupational hazard,” Sheppard drolly commented.

“My recent dreams are all centered on the events on Bellus, too.” Teyla’s face was calm, but they could all see the residual pain in her eyes. “I have had the same nightmare three times now, where when the man stabs you in the back, Rodney, he hits your spine.”

Rodney blanched, that particular scenario clearly not having occurred to him during his own worst-case hypothesizing. It hadn’t occurred to Sheppard, either, and he momentarily felt lightheaded at the thought. He took a breath, knowing it was his turn to share.

“When he caught you across the throat, I thought he’d actually killed you,” he admitted. “Only for a split second, but that’s what my nightmares are about. You with your throat cut.”

Sometimes it’s Ronon with a knife buried in his chest. Sometimes it’s Teyla bruised and broken. But mostly it’s Rodney collapsing to his knees in the circle, blood gushing from between the fingers he has pressed against his neck as Sheppard screams himself hoarse.

“We really need a team therapist.”

Rodney’s tone was wry, and Sheppard let out a snort of laughter. He was pleased to see the gloomy mood had been cut, Ronon looking amused and Teyla even smiling.

“We could try the new base psychiatrist,” she offered.

Sheppard glanced her way to see that though she was still smiling, there was grief in her eyes. He hadn’t yet talked to the new doctor they’d been sent—Jeffries or Jenkins, something like that—and he knew none of the rest of them had, either. None of them were quite ready for that transition.

“Don’t think he’s ready for us,” Ronon mused.

Teyla nodded sagely. “He will need to get broken in first.”

“We all show up at his door right now, we’d either break him completely, or he’d lock us up.” Sheppard shook his head. “Not a good outcome either way.”

Rodney huffed. “Atlantis wouldn’t last a day without us.”

“Well, it’s going to have to,” Sheppard said, reaching over to grab a cookie. “Because Teyla’s going to set up that bonding ceremony.”

Rodney gave him an incredulous look. “You can’t be serious.”

“We deserve a party, McKay.”

“Well, we can throw one. We don’t have to have a ceremony for it.”

“My people would be very happy for the excuse to celebrate as well, Rodney.”

“Wait, would this ceremony make us Athosians?” Sheppard asked.

“You are already honorary Athosians,” Teyla replied.

“Yeah, but—”

“What exactly does this ceremony entail anyway?” Rodney asked, eyeing Teyla with some suspicion.

Sheppard felt his own wariness awaken. They’d been burned in the past by agreeing to alien rituals without knowing everything that would occur during them. In fact, explicit rules around off-world interactions had been implemented as a direct result of some of the things his team had been through. He suppressed a shudder at the memory of their visit to M77-351.

He didn’t think Teyla would set them up that way, but there was always the possibility. She could be unexpectedly devious when she had a mind to be. Her current expression didn’t give anything away, though.

“I do not recall all of the specifics,” she admitted, “though I do remember there being an actual binding involved, a tying together of the wrists, I believe.” Her brow furrowed a bit. “And a blood vow?”

Rodney did a double-take. “A what now?”

“The joining of bloodlines as part of becoming family; just a symbolic gesture,” Teyla explained, “needing only a prick of the finger, nothing more.”

“Worth it for a party,” Ronon said, completely unbothered by the idea. He picked out two sandwiches from the pile before grabbing himself a beer.

“Would we need to bring anything for the festivities?” Sheppard asked.

He was warming up to the idea the more he thought about. Ceremony or no, it really would be nice to just relax for a while. And he liked the idea of giving the Athosians something to celebrate as well; they’d had a rough time of it recently. Everyone had, really, and they hadn’t taken the time—hadn’t been able to take the time—to recuperate from it all.

“Yes, it is expected that everyone contribute to the festivities in some way.” Teyla paused, tilting her head thoughtfully. “It is also tradition that those involved in the binding ceremony exchange gifts afterwards, in private. I recall it being said that the exchange took place directly after the ceremony, while everyone else set things up for the feast.”

Sheppard took a drink of his beer. “I’ll add buying some gifts to my to do list.” He’d try to bring some of the Atlantis folks along for the ceremony, too. They might not be able to actually shut down the city, but they could spare some of the team’s closest friends for a day or two. Maybe even rotate people through, if that was the way they had to work it; Rodney hadn’t been wrong about everybody needing some R&R. “And I’ll talk to the kitchen staff about providing some cakes, maybe some brownies? The kids would love those.”

“Yes, they would.” Teyla gave him a smile.

“So we’re really going to do this?” Rodney asked, still seemingly skeptical about the idea but less worried about it than before. Maybe the lure of a feast was winning him over. “And there won’t be any weird drugs involved, or a step that requires us to get naked, or ritualistic wrestling or anything?”

“Well, if Ronon gets drunk, I can’t make promises about any of that.”

“I’ll behave.”

“It is a very simple ceremony, Rodney,” Teyla reassured him. “And very much symbolic. All the defining events happen long before. They are what prompt the ceremony, not what completes it.”

Sheppard poked Rodney in the arm. “What Teyla’s saying is that we’re already family; we’re just going to have a party about it.”

Teyla smiled. “Basically, yes.”

“Okay, fine,” Rodney agreed. “But I’m not dancing and I’m not kissing anybody and I’m not getting any tattoos.”

“Again, if Ronon’s drunk…”

“But I wanted us to get matching tattoos, McKay,” Ronon said, a bit of whine in his voice.

Sheppard met Teyla’s eyes and they both had to quickly look away, suppressing laughter.

“Why in the world would you think that I would get a tattoo?” Rodney asked, seemingly unsure if Ronon was pulling his leg or not.

“So we could be twins.” This time, the humor in Ronon’s tone was clear.

“Oh, yes. Of course,” Rodney replied with dripping sarcasm. “Why didn’t I think of that? Because when people look at us, they definitely think to themselves, ‘Wow, those guys must be twins! I bet they have matching tattoos, too.’”

“Because we’re family.”

Ronon had completely dropped the joking tone. Sheppard could see faint surprise on his face, as though the thought hadn’t occurred to him until just now, in jest, but once contemplated, it might be something he actually wanted. He glanced around at all of them, expression guarded.

“We’re family, right? Family shares a mark.” He lifted a hand, almost absentmindedly, halfway toward the tattoo on his throat, the shadows of betrayal in his eyes. “We could have one of our own.”

Sheppard stared at him, stunned. How did they all keep going from teasing each other to baring their souls? And why was it so easy? He felt like he had emotional whiplash, like he’d been punched in his feelings. Ronon was sitting there, not looking at any of them, giving off the impression of a little kid who’d asked for something he knew he’d never get. How in the hell could Sheppard say no to that? He wasn’t a monster.

So he shrugged. “Sure.”

Ronon lifted his eyes but not his head and stared Sheppard down. “Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, nothing too big or elaborate, please, but sure. Let’s get family tattoos.” And that was a sentence he never would have expected to say.

But Ronon’s face lit up, as much as his face ever did, and he gave Teyla and Rodney hopeful glances. Teyla only pondered her answer for a moment, and Sheppard wondered if she’d had the same thoughts he had. Because when she met Ronon’s eyes, she give him a warm smile.

“I am open to it, yes.”

“I am not getting a neck tattoo.” Rodney’s tone was firm, but it wasn’t a straight no.

“It doesn’t have to be on your neck,” Ronon quickly clarified. “You can get this one wherever you want. It doesn’t have to be visible to everyone else; it’s not for them.”

Rodney relaxed a bit. “And it won’t be big? I mean, I don’t have the highest pain tolerance, so it would have to be, like, really small.”

Ronon was nodding, as enthusiastic as Sheppard had ever seen him. “Sure. I’ll sketch out some ideas, we can decide together.”

“It can be our binding ceremony gift to you,” Teyla suggested.

“Yeah,” Ronon said, with a smile that Sheppard would have called bashful if anyone else had been wearing it. “Yeah, I like that.”

“Fantastic.” Sheppard clapped his hands together. “One gift down, two to go.”

“I want my own naquadah generator.”

“One: there is no way I can get my hands on one of those, and two: there is no way I’m getting you anything that can blow up.” Sheppard shook his head at Rodney in disbelief. “And, honestly, three: why?”

“All the ones we have are kept busy with sanctioned projects, so I can’t use them for my own experiments.”

Sheppard was going to ignore the implication that Rodney’s personal experiments would inherently be unsanctioned. “And you really think I could get you one?”

“I don’t know, you’re the military commander of Atlantis.”

“That’s Colonel Carter.”

“You know what I mean. Maybe you have friends in high places.” At Sheppard’s look, Rodney corrected himself. “Okay, in low places.”

“Pretty sure a naquadah generator going missing would constitute an international crisis, McKay, but you keep wishing really hard and maybe the Stargate fairy will look kindly on you for your next birthday.”

“Stargate fairy?” Ronon questioningly echoed.

“Don’t listen to him,” Rodney said. “He’s being an ass.”

“A naquadah generator, seriously.”


-000000-


They spent the rest of the afternoon on the balcony, bantering while they drank Sheppard’s beers and worked through the pile of food Ronon had brought. At one point Sheppard even went back to his quarters to retrieve the last six-pack he had stored away. It would take several weeks for him to replenish the stash, but it was a worthy sacrifice.

A few days later, Ronon came to them with his tattoo sketches. They were of various geometric designs, all small and simple like he’d promised. They all wound up liking the same one best, and hadn’t even need to vote on it. It was square in shape and would cover about half an inch of skin. Small circles, unshaded, formed the four corners of the square, with short lines between—but not connecting to—them providing the outline of the shape. It was symbolic enough while being vague about it; it would mean something to them without being obvious to anyone else.

A week before the binding ceremony, they met up for Ronon to give them the tattoo.

Sheppard went first, with the belated and slightly absurd realization that he was doing what he always did, taking on the pain before the rest of his team. He’d decided to get his on the inside of his left wrist. It wasn’t exactly acceptable under Air Force regulations to have a tattoo there, where it was theoretically always visible. But since it could be easily covered by his watch band—which he wore almost all of the time—he felt he could get away with it. None of the Atlantis military contingent would say anything about it, anyway. Not even Colonel Carter.

The tattooing wasn’t all that painful, though the traditional method Ronon used did take a lot longer than a modern one would have. The team kept each other company during the procedure without needing to actually keep each other entertained. Teyla meditated during Sheppard’s session, while Rodney sat in a corner with his laptop, clearly nervous about his own turn but distracting himself with work.

When it was Teyla’s turn, she got hers on the inside of her left ankle. Sheppard had noted the ease with which Ronon had worked on his own tattoo, and he watched with sleepy interest while he started on Teyla’s. Ronon and Teyla were chatting quietly, their expressions indicating a serious, though not somber, topic of conversation. Sheppard dozed off to the indistinct sound of their voices and the clicking of Rodney’s typing, only waking up when it was Rodney’s time.

After lots of questions about the process and the least painful areas to choose and how long it would take to heal, Rodney had finally decided to get his tattoo on his left shoulder blade, just inside where he’d been stabbed.

“You’re using a clean needle right? And fresh ink? I read up on tattooing and, y’know, the risk of infection is really high with this, I just want to be sure—”

“We’re going to be swapping blood in a week, McKay,” Ronon reminded him.

“Yeah, but that’s not the same.”

“You will be fine, Rodney,” Teyla said in a reassuring tone. “It’s perfectly safe.”

“Yeah, if it weren’t, Ronon would definitely be dead by now,” Sheppard said, nodding to the sleeve covering Ronon’s forearm.

“As if a bad tattoo alone could kill him,” Rodney grumbled, but he pulled his arm out of his shirt to bare his shoulder.

Taking a seat beside him, Teyla took one of his hands—which were no longer pink and chafed—and held it in both of her own. Rodney glanced in her direction but didn’t say anything, instead taking a breath and bracing himself. Then Ronon touched his back and he jumped. With an amused chuckle, Ronon laid a steadying hand on the back of his neck.

“I’m just drawing it on first, McKay. I’ll let you know before I start.”

“Right. Of course. It’s fine, I’m fine. Carry on.”

“Maybe you should have gotten it where you could see what was happening,” Sheppard suggested.

“I absolutely do not need to see what is happening, thank you very much,” Rodney said. “I would never make it through.”

“You’re tougher than you think, McKay,” Ronon told him.

“I still don’t want to watch you poke holes in me.”

“Fair enough.” Ronon laid his hand across Rodney’s back again—a settling and comforting gesture—and leaned around him so that he could meet Rodney’s eyes. “You ready?”

Rodney took a deep breath. “Yes.”

He only flinched a bit during the first few minutes, and Sheppard thought that was more from nerves than from actual pain. They only had to stop once, and Rodney claimed it was because his leg was going to sleep. He stood up and shook it out, walking back and forth across the small room they’d set up shop in, before sitting back down. He took Teyla’s hand again—Sheppard saw her lips twitch, like she was holding back a smile—then nodded that he was ready to resume.

Once Rodney was finished, Teyla bandaged him up while Ronon started on his own tattoo. Like Teyla, he’d picked the inside of his left ankle, telling the others that he’d chosen that spot because he was having to do the tattoo himself, and therefore needed it to be somewhere he could easily reach, and where he could use both hands. Still, it wasn’t lost on Sheppard that they had all gotten their ink on the same side of their bodies. It may have been coincidence, but it felt right.

Even though Ronon was doing his own tattoo, he’d insisted that each of them help. He said it was because, traditionally, a Satedan family mark would have been made by each of the other members of the family who shared it. Since Sheppard, Teyla, and Rodney didn’t have experience tattooing via any method, they couldn’t just be let loose on Ronon’s skin—though Sheppard got the feeling Ronon had seriously considered it anyway—but they could do a little bit in a concentrated spot, and in that way fulfill the tradition for him.

Sheppard had gone first again, following Ronon’s instructions after he set the needle apparatus in the right spot and directed Sheppard on how to tap the top with his index and middle fingers to set the ink. Though he was nervous, Sheppard did as he was told, Ronon moving the needle by millimeters between each set of his taps. Then Teyla took his place, doing the same, working on one of the lines on the outside of the square.

“Are you sure you want me to do this?” Rodney anxiously asked when Ronon gestured him over. “I don’t have the steadiest of hands.”

Ronon gave him a deadpan look. “I’ve seen you rewire bombs, McKay. Just tap the needle.”

Rodney swallowed hard, looking more frightened than he had been when he was having his own tattoo done, but squared his shoulders and did what Ronon asked of him. As he did, Sheppard realized that Ronon had had each of them work on a different line in the design, as though they were each filling in their place in the tattoo. Whether he’d done it on purpose or not, Sheppard liked the sentiment.

Their wounds—battle and inking—weren’t completely healed by the time they had the binding ceremony, but all their hands had at least recovered. All of the bruising to Teyla’s and Sheppard’s faces had disappeared, too, and Sheppard’s own stab wound had closed up nicely. Rodney was only lightly limping by that point, and he’d been completely free of the sling for days. Still, Keller had warned him to be careful—yelled it at him from the sidelines, actually, as a very drunk Ronon led Rodney around a dance floor only he could see.

“I’m not exactly in control here, Doctor,” Rodney had retorted as Ronon spun them both in a circle.

Ronon tended to display strong dichotomies when he was drinking: he was either angry or happy, restless or lethargic, standoffish or highly sociable. They appeared to have gotten happy, restless, sociable Ronon that night, and he was in fine form.

Athosians and Lanteans were ranged around the clearing on New Athos, sitting in small groups and enjoying the food, the company, and the current spectacle. Sheppard, nicely buzzed off a very prudent amount of Athosian wine, didn’t bother to hide his laughter as Ronon and Rodney glided past where he was sitting with Teyla, Keller, and a few others. Rodney’s feet weren’t even touching the ground, the arm Ronon had around his waist holding him a good three or so inches in the air. Rodney had caught Sheppard’s laugh and gave him a scathing look as soon as Ronon turned him back around to where he could.

“You really aren’t helping,” he snapped. “Do something.”

“I told you I made no promises if Ronon got drunk,” Sheppard reminded him.

Teyla was sitting beside Sheppard, giggling quietly, her face flushed from the wine. Still, she seemed to take pity on Rodney, or at least read the concern for his still-healing injuries in Keller’s face.

“John,” she said imploringly, casting a glance to where Ronon, Rodney still in tow, was now striding back and forth, like some kind of Satedan version of a tango.

Sheppard sighed. “Hey, Chewie, take it easy,” he called out. “You’re carrying injured goods.”

Ronon pivoted back to them—way faster and more smoothly than anyone as drunk as he was should’ve been able to—and blinked in Sheppard’s direction. Rodney, who was not drunk but was sufficiently tipsy, looked dizzied by the sudden movement. Ronon stared down into his red and frowning face, and nodded.

“Right.” He set Rodney back on his feet, but didn’t let him go. “Sorry, McKay.”

Ronon started swaying them back and forth instead, and the image of a middle school dance floated into Sheppard’s mind. He started sniggering, tears forming in his eyes. Meanwhile, Rodney looked forlornly up at Ronon, who was wearing an expression of happy oblivion, and then gave up. He dropped his forehead onto Ronon’s chest with a defeated sigh, and Ronon fondly patted the back of his head. By now, even Keller was laughing, her doctor side soothed and her friend side free to embrace the hilarity of the scene.

This time, Teyla definitely took pity on Rodney, because she hauled herself to her feet and walked over to the swaying couple. She placed a hand on Ronon’s arm and said something to him that made him finally release his hold on Rodney, receiving a grateful hug from Rodney in return. Laughing, Teyla took Rodney’s face in her hands and kissed him on the cheek. Then she allowed Ronon to sweep her up to resume his more enthusiastic dance moves around the clearing. They could hear her laughter as Rodney hobbled back to them.

He lowered himself into Teyla’s vacated spot, and watched her and Ronon for a few minutes. He looked troubled, and he turned to stare at Sheppard with the solemnity of the inebriated.

“John, I’ve danced, been kissed, gotten a tattoo, and had weird drugs.” He pointed to the bottle of Athosian wine sitting between them. He was still wearing the bandage Keller had put over the finger prick each of them had gotten during the binding ceremony. “Please don’t let me wind up naked, or wrestling anyone.” He paused, looking slightly horrified. “Or naked wrestling anyone.”

Sheppard blinked at him, wondering what the hell he was talking about. Then he realized all the things Rodney had listed were things he’d said he wouldn’t do for the ceremony. Ignoring the confused and slightly worried look Keller was throwing him, Sheppard put a hand on Rodney’s shoulder and gave him a grave look.

“I’ll do my best, Rodney.”

Rodney nodded and relaxed, Sheppard offering his best efforts at protection clearly enough to provide him some comfort.

“But I’m not making any promises.”

Rodney groaned and dropped his head into his hands. Keller—who had no way of knowing exactly what was going on but had extrapolated enough to find it amusing—gave him a comforting pat on the back.

In the end, Sheppard didn’t have to give even his least effort. The evening concluded without a single person getting naked, Rodney included. And the only wrestling that occurred was between Ronon and Rodney as they fought in their sleep over the blanket they’d both wound up under.

The weather was nice enough that a lot of party attendees simply fell asleep wherever they found themselves, camping out under the stars. Enough blankets had been laid out for sitting that there were more than enough makeshift beds to go around.

Ronon had been sitting beside Rodney on one of those blankets near Sheppard and Teyla’s when he went from upright and talking to passed out and snoring in the blink of an eye. Keller had scrambled up to check on him, afraid he’d fallen victim to alcohol poisoning or something, but that was just the way Ronon worked when it came to drinking: he was fine, and then he was unconscious. They’d have to wait until morning to see whether he’d have a hangover—it always seemed like a flip of the coin with him— but until then he would sleep like the dead.

Rodney had given up the fight next, slowly slumping lower and lower against the pillows that had been propping him up until he was fully horizontal. One of the Athosians, passing by on their way back to their own tent, had stopped to spread a blanket over the two.

Sheppard, drowsy with sleep himself, had just smiled fondly at the sight. Then frowned as a few minutes later there was the sound of tussling. He looked over to see Ronon and Rodney, both still asleep, tugging on opposite sides of the blanket. Well, Rodney was tugging. Ronon had his edge of the blanket tucked under his side from where he’d rolled over onto it. Rodney, partially uncovered by Ronon’s movement, wore a frown as he weakly pulled at the blanket, trying to get it back over him.

Finally, Rodney’s struggles seem to stir Ronon. He rolled over toward Rodney just as Rodney gave another tug and the blanket, now free, floated over to cover him. But so did Ronon. In rolling over, Ronon had wound up right against Rodney’s side, instinctively throwing an arm over him as they came together. Blanket recovered, Rodney didn’t seem to notice, the frown melting from his face as he settled back into stillness.

Sheppard snorted a laugh and then yawned. He was fading fast. He absentmindedly rubbed at the bandage on his wrist. His healing tattoo was itchy, and his finger ached faintly where he’d been pricked for the ceremony.

It had been as simple as Teyla had said it would be. After drawing blood, they had pressed their fingertips together, one to the next, until all their blood was mingled. Then their wrists had been loosely bound together with twine while a short blessing had been recited. It had been in Athosian, but Teyla had translated for them, relaying words about blood and family and sacred ties that could never be broken.

Later, Sheppard had asked her if this made them all Emmagens, and she said she supposed it did.

“Given that the ritual originated as a way to make outsiders into Athosians, and that Athosians take their mothers’ names, then yes, you would all be Emmagens now.” She’d said it with a warm smile. “John, Rodney, and Ronon, family of Teyla.”

Sheppard had returned the smile. “Guess I’ll have to update my stationary.”

“You don’t have stationary.”

“My email signature, then, McKay.”

“Wait—is this actually legally binding? Like, does the SGC recognize off-world—what would this be, an adoption? Have we been officially adopted?” McKay had sighed. “Do you know how much paperwork that’s gonna require?”

Lying in the dark, idly poking his sore finger, Sheppard smiled at the memory. He hadn’t actually considered that there might be legal ramifications from the ceremony, but he’d ask Colonel Carter about it later. She would know.

She’d come to New Athos for the ceremony, though she had only stayed for a while afterward to enjoy the party before returning to Atlantis; she and Sheppard couldn’t both be out of the city for non-emergency reasons for longer than a few hours at most. He’d read enough of her own files and SG-1’s mission reports to believe that if there were any potential repercussions for the team going through with the binding, she would have warned him. Then again, she might have thought they were already aware of the consequences and had just let them get on with it.

Sheppard sighed. If they did have to file paperwork, he’d do it, however much of it there was. It’d be worth it for the way his team had been able to truly relax and enjoy themselves for the first time in far too long. Even within just the one day, he could see how much the time off was helping heal the last of their wounds, physical and mental. And they had two more days to go.

That thought pinged a memory, and he was suddenly back in the prison on Bellus, knowing that they couldn’t make it through two more nights. He’d been fully prepared for them to fight their way back to the Gate, tooth and nail if they’d had to, but he was glad it hadn’t come to that.

Lorne had found them just in time, and Sheppard had done what he could to express gratitude for it. He’d started with the promise of beer once the next supply shipment arrived, along with an invitation to the binding ceremony. Sheppard had personally extended the invitation to Lorne and his team, having cleared two days off with Carter so they could get some R&R, too. It was a reward for being the team that was always sent to rescue Sheppard’s, and an apology for being the team that always needed rescuing.

Sheppard shifted, staring up at the stars he could see above the clearing. Teyla’s soft voice came from beside him.

“John, are you still awake?”

He turned his head to find her on her side facing him. She had one hand tucked under her head and her blanket pulled up to her chin. She looked tired, but not sleepy, the previous wine-warmth gone from her eyes and replaced by shadows.

“Yeah,” he whispered back. “What is it?”

“I have been thinking about Bellus, about the people there.”

Sheppard sighed again, returning his gaze to the sky. “Don’t do that to yourself, Teyla,” he quietly said.

“We should try to help them.”

“They don’t need our help.”

“They are brutally killing each other because of their false beliefs, because of what they think the Wraith are. We could prove to them that what they believe is wrong, stop them from battling. We could save them.”

“We can’t.”

He felt Teyla raise herself up on her arm and he looked back over at her. Her expression was full of mingled sorrow and anger.

“How many times have we fought to save other peoples from the Wraith? How many?”

“They aren’t in danger from the Wraith,” Sheppard bluntly replied. “They’re probably the only people in the galaxy who aren’t, and do you really want to run the risk that we might change that? Look at what meeting us did to your own people.” He swept a hand through the air. “You had to move planets.”

“We chose to move planets; it is not the same,” came Teyla’s dignified reply. “And the people of Bellus might not be in danger from the Wraith, but they are in danger because of the Wraith, and we can help them. There is very little risk if we were to go now. We know Notari is finished, and if it only occurs twice a year there would be plenty of time before the next one occurred.”

Sheppard rolled up onto his own elbow so that he could face her. If they were going to have this conversation, they needed to see each other’s eyes. “What if they just imprisoned us again and kept us there until the next festival?”

“Then we would have time to try to convince them of the truth before we were rescued again.”

“So you want me to endanger you, Rodney, and Ronon again, as well as whoever would be sent after us, on the off chance that we aren’t just murdered outright and can convince those people to renounce the beliefs that have been in place on their planet for thousands of years, and appear to form the entirety of their religion?”

She didn’t answer, dropping her gaze with a small frown.

“We can’t save people from themselves, Teyla,” Sheppard simply responded, before adding, “And I don’t think we have the right to.”

Her gaze snapped back to his at that, confusion and irritation in her eyes. “What do you mean?”

“People have a right to believe what they want to believe.”

“But—”

“Aside from those of us who were dumb enough to go to their planet, the people on Bellus aren’t hurting anyone.” Sheppard held up his hand as Teyla began to protest. “Hurting each other—or themselves—because they want to doesn’t count. There are lots of religions that have aspects of that in their rituals. Religious practices on Earth have the same kind of thing, with stuff varying from temporary starvation to regular flogging.”

Teyla stared at him, shocked. “What?”

“You know Earth has a lot of people; just imagine the number of different religions you’ve encountered here, but triple it. At least.” He paused, a memory drifting forward in his mind. “And it’s not just religions, either. There’s a place in one of the countries back home where, on the first day of the year, the entire town has a brawl in the city center.”

“They what?” she said with an incredulous huff of laughter.

“It’s an ancient tradition in that particular culture,” Sheppard explained, “but now it’s isolated to just that one village. As a way of airing grievances and putting the previous year behind them, they all come out in the streets and fight whoever they have unresolved issues with.”

Teyla was smiling faintly, though she still looked bemused. “It is just a fight?”

“Oh, yeah, nobody dies. They just hit on each other for a while until everyone feels better, then they all go celebrate the new year together.”

“Ronon would enjoy that.”

Sheppard gave her a pointed look. “Which is why we are never going to tell him about that particular tradition. He’ll try to implement an Atlantis version.”

They both chuckled quietly at the thought. Sheppard watched as Teyla’s smile faded back into a troubled expression.

“They will continue killing each other.”

“I know.”

“I wish we could save them from themselves.”

And Sheppard wished he could save her from her own guilt. Sensible Teyla, the first to see the most logical path, who always knew what had to be done, wishing for impractical miracles. He felt tired in new ways.

“I know what they’re doing seems barbaric to us, but it’s what gives their lives meaning. Even more, it’s what gives their deaths meaning.” He shrugged and gave her a gentle, sad, smile. “Who are we to take that from them? And who’s to say we wouldn’t make things worse if we tried?”

She stared at him for a moment, emotions washing across her face, before she sighed and looked away. “You are right, of course. We shouldn’t interfere.”

She lowered herself back to the ground, turning to lie on her back, and Sheppard did the same. Their shoulders were touching, and he worked his hand through the blankets until it found hers. He gave it a squeeze, and after a second she squeezed back.

“I’m sorry we can’t save everyone,” he said softly.

“So am I.”

Teyla released his hand and shifted closer to him. He moved his arm out of the way, and she curled up against his side with her head on his shoulder. Sheppard blinked down at her in surprise for a moment before putting his arm around her shoulders and adjusting their blankets over them. He turned to check on Ronon and Rodney. They were spooning now, both snoring softly. He smirked, wishing he had a camera handy.

He glanced around the clearing, spotting other familiar figures asleep beneath the trees. He was warm and full and sleepy. His team was safe and healing, and they were surrounded by friends and—he looked at his bandaged finger again—family. His smirk softened into a contented smile and he closed his eyes, giving himself over to sleep.

They might not be able to save everyone in the galaxy, but as long as they kept managing to save each other, things would be okay.