The Lost and the Forgotten

Chapter 5

It was dark, so it was late; no, it was always dark here, buried beneath the rock and the earth and the stifling weight of secrecy.  But again, no, the rock and earth were a solid, sheltering roof, far, far above his head and the stifling, smothering weight was some kind of satiny, quilted comforter.  John threw it off sharply and then tightened his jaw and breathed through the pain his movement had awoken.  He lay still, letting the throb even out and assessing his surroundings and his condition.

The room was dark, but was faintly illuminated by a narrow strip of light at ground level; presumably a door to a room with a wakeful occupant.  Zanta, John thought.  I'm in Zanta's bedroom, which explained the satiny bedding and the heavy-sweet amber scent that drifted up whenever he moved and made him want to sneeze.  He wouldn't sneeze, though, because it would hurt.  Which led John's wandering thoughts to his own condition.  Hot, he decided.  Naked, he worried?  No, thank God; underwear in place.  Thirsty, definitely.  Pain level?  Not brilliant, but he wouldn't put a number on it.  Medics always wanted a number, he mused, between zero and ten, when surely if you were cursing through gritted teeth, that was all they needed to know?  Anyway, it was his arm; he didn't think 'only his arm' exactly, because, well, arms were pretty essential, weren't they?  But it wasn't an internal, organs-doing-what-they-shouldn't kind of injury; or not-doing-what-they-should.  So, in that case, pain that he could safely ignore, he argued, determinedly.  And he was especially determined because his self-assessment had resulted in awareness of a need that was rapidly becoming acute: the bathroom.

John formulated a plan of campaign: he would grasp his left elbow firmly with his right hand, and then he would swing his legs over the side of the bed while simultaneously sitting up.  He would then stand and track the strip of light to its source, in the hopes that he would also find somebody with the appropriate local bathroom knowledge.  At this point, it occurred to John to wonder why he was in Zanta's bedroom, rather than the Atlantis infirmary, and then he remembered McKay telling him  that the DHD crystals were gone and nobody would admit to taking them, so that they were all stranded; and it was interesting that John couldn't seem to bring himself to care that much.  He cared a bit more when he got as far as the sitting-up part of his plan and his head began to swim, because he knew that coping with blood loss would have been much easier with Beckett and his IVs on hand.  He realised also that Zanta's painkillers were of the type that messed with your head so that you didn't notice the pain so much, rather than actually killing it.  His arm felt hot and tight and he knew that there would be bruising and swelling as the outraged tissues reacted to the bullet's shockwave.  The needs of his body pulling his mind back to his goal, John stood carefully, focussed on the line of light, and padded toward it across the soft floor covering.  He felt his balance waver, but was close enough to the door to lurch his right shoulder conveniently against the frame.  It was smooth and cool; he leant his forehead against it too and decided to give it a minute before he banged on the door with whichever part of his body seemed expedient.

An intermittent buzzing surprised John and he realised that his eyes had closed and he had dozed where he stood.  His eyelashes flicked against the doorframe as he blinked, drowsily.

"Hello?... Yes, they were, they're here... Yes, I thought... Yes, the Colonel was shot... No, it's not too bad."

John frowned, his mind slow to make sense of the one-sided conversation.  It continued.

"Yes, I'm afraid it does.  And also they have an eyewitness who says that Makers carried off two of their lost team!"

Zanta was speaking to someone, passing information.  She had a radio?  No, radio wouldn't work here; too much conductive metal in this maze of streets, McKay had said.  A telephone?  She was still speaking.