Arrival
#14 of The
by Setcheti
Disclaimer: Don’t own them, never did, but the CD AU is mine all mine. And still haven’t watched the last few episodes of Season 1, or any of Season 2, for that matter - won’t let anyone tell me about them either, don’t want to spook the jackalope. ;)
I’ll admit to bein’ a bit put out right at this moment.
I mean, after all that, makin’ it out of the city, havin’ the pod automatically bring us to dry land, gettin’ Rodney here alive at all…you would know that after all that, he’d stop breathin’. It’s occurred to me that the suit might have been keepin’ him alive on the way here, so some of that upset I’m feelin’ is at myself for bein’ so quick to take him out of it. And the rest of it’s aimed at Rodney himself for never bein’ one to do anythin’ like you’d expect a normal person to – includin’ live and/or die, apparently.
This is the third time, you see. It’s why I suspect the suit factors into this somehow, because he stopped breathin’ the first time right after I peeled him out of it. I didn’t have anythin’ of what I’d brought with me ready at that point, so I got him goin’ again the old-fashioned way and yelled at him between breaths hopin’ he’d hear and come back. And he did, and I was able to get the oxygen on him.
And then a bit later, he stopped breathin’ again. I was ready with the bag that time, and more yellin’ for good measure even though I knew he didn’t deserve it. He was just so bloody tired and weak, you see, he didn’t have anythin’ left to keep goin’ with. But he came back that second time and breathed for me a bit longer, and the third time he gave out on me it only took two puffs before he was tryin’ to get out from under the mask. It was barely a twitch, to be truthful, but to me it might as well have been a full-out Rodney tantrum – and the look on his face told me quite plainly just what he thought of my mask, most likely because of the nasty rubbery smell the thing has. That sort of wrung a chuckle out of me, a watery one, and I patted his cheek and told him that if he’d just keep breathin’ I’d not have to use the mask again.
He kept breathin’. It’s not much, but it’s somethin’ – it’s enough to tell me he’s still in there, anyway. And that he can hear me, even if he’s too weak to open his eyes. He did try to open them right after I got him breathin’ again the first time, and after watchin’ him struggle for a bit I told him to give it up, there wasn’t anythin’ to see anyway.
Which wasn’t exactly true. It had been dark when we docked, but then the sun started comin’ up and that’s when I’d gotten my first inklin’ that we most likely weren’t on the mainland. There weren’t any trees, you see, just sand and short brush and the wide Atlantean sky.
And a path, overgrown but still visible, leadin’ uphill away from the dock. So just so soon as I’m feelin’ ready to move Rodney – and I’ve figured out the best way to do it – we’ll be seein’ just what the pod brought us here to find.