The Fall of the Leaf – part one of three

by Eildon Rhymer

Rating: T (some swearing, and much angst)

Spoilers: Season five up to Remnants. This is essentially a Remnants tag, with some Broken Ties thrown in.

Summary: It is four days since his experience on the mainland, and Sheppard hasn't talked. But something is lurking at the heart of a decaying ruin – something that will not only push Sheppard and his team into a new nightmare, but which will force Sheppard to confront the old one.

Warning: This is not a suicide story. No-one commits suicide (except for a made-up acquaintance from a character's College days, mentioned briefly in dialogue.) No-one even considers it. However, for plot-related reasons, there are some visuals related to an apparent attempted suicide, and related issues are discussed.

Note: Thanks to ValleyA for beta-reading. This story is complete, though I'm posting it serially on this site (one part a day) since I know that many people prefer to read stories that way. I've already posted the entire thing to my LJ, though, and within the hour it will be on my website, should anyone prefer to read it in one go. The addresses of these are on my profile page.

The ruin smelled of earth and petals. "Like Sleeping Beauty's castle," Sheppard murmured. Ronon carried on ahead of him without turning round. "We told you that story?"

Ronon ducked under an overhanging tendril. "Don't think so."

Was that movement beyond the trees? Sheppard lifted a springy branch, careful to avoid the thorns. Of course it wasn't, or if it was, it was only a bird. You're spooked, he told himself. It wasn't real. None of it was real.

"She was a princess," Sheppard said. A bird rose up screaming from further in. "Her parents pissed off some bad fairy, who cursed her so she pricked her finger and fell asleep for a hundred years." A tree was growing out of the top of a pile of tumbled stone. He remembered the smell of bark and moss; remembered how his face had slammed into it again and again and again. Not real. A thorn drew blood on the back of his hand. "And every living thing in the castle fell asleep and it got overgrown with thorns and covered with spider webs."

"How did the spiders make webs if they were asleep?" Ronon stooped to get under a half-fallen arch.

"They were probably in league with the bad fairy. You know… bugs." Sheppard felt the damp stone against the palm of his left hand. "But then," he said, "a prince came to the castle and hacked through the trees and found the princess. He kissed her, and she woke up, and so did everyone else. And they all lived happily ever after." Ronon offered no opinion. "Hey," Sheppard said. "I don't write 'em. It's just a kids' story."

Something moved; he was sure of it. But Ronon showed no sign of noticing it. The ruin was growing darker. "Have you found anything yet?" Rodney asked over the radio, and Sheppard let out a breath and then another, and told him no. "Well, neither have we," Rodney said, "but the energy readings…"

"I know, I know," Sheppard said.

Water dripped slowly from somewhere ahead of them. "Doesn't sound like a children's story," Ronon said. "Sleeping for a hundred years…"

"Hey, I slept for eight hundred years." Sheppard chuckled. A thorn grabbed his sleeve, pulling his arm back. "That's the thing about fairy stories," he said. "When you think about them, they're… well, dark."

"I meant, there wasn't any shooting in it." Ronon passed under another arch, dark red flowers brushing his hair.

The thorn refused to let go. Use your other hand. Sheppard tugged at the branch with his left hand, but as he pulled it away, another thorn impaled the heel of his hand. He swore under his breath, and wiped the blood away with his right thumb.

When he looked up again, Ronon had turned to face him, his expression strange. "What's up, buddy?" Sheppard asked.

Ronon said nothing, but slowly, ever so slowly, he raised his gun until it was pointing at Sheppard's heart.

"Whoa, buddy." Sheppard raised his hands. "What's this?"

Ronon's jaw clenched, then unclenched again. The muscles around his eyes were twitching. The tendons were standing out on his neck. His finger tightened minutely on the trigger.

"Put the gun down, buddy," Sheppard urged him. "You don't want to do this."

"Don't I?" Ronon's voice was harsh.

Not real, Sheppard thought. Not real. Kolya came back from the dead. Your buddy turned on you and… No. No. "Something's wrong," he said. "You're not yourself."

"I'm more myself than I've ever been," Ronon rasped, the words sounding as if they had been ripped from him, "since I met you."

Not real! his mind was telling him, its voice shrill. He was still on the mainland. The hallucination had never ended, he'd just imagined that it had. When crazy, impossible things happened, then…

"No," he said out loud. He saw Ronon's face framed between the fingers of his outstretched, real left hand. "Something's influencing you, buddy," he said. Could it be the pollen? It was thick and sickly, falling onto Ronon from the arch above him. "Put the gun down."

"You've made an alliance with the Wraith!" Ronon screamed. "You're soft. You're pathetic. You're…" He grimaced, his hand trembling. "Soft," he spat. "Making me soft. I should never… never have joined you. I'm better without you, The tribunal was right."

"You don't mean that." He edged forward. "Put the gun down, buddy, before you do something you'll regret."

"Won't regret it." Ronon's eyes were blazing down the barrel of his gun. "You strapped me to a bed!" He brought up his other hand, smashing it into the stone arch. Leaves and red petals fell down like blood. "You wouldn't give me what I… what I… what I needed. I needed it, Sheppard, damn it, I…"

He thought he heard laughter in the woods behind him. Last chance, Johnny boy. "Ronon…" he said, as Ronon fired.

Sheppard was ready, though. He threw himself sideways, his shoulder striking the stone arch, and rolled. Thorns tugged at him as he pushed himself up again. Ronon was dragging the gun around, his arm moving as if through treacle, and Sheppard tackled him. They fell together, Sheppard slightly on top, and he saw a clump of flowers burning, the smell sweet, like burning flesh.

"I'll kill you for that," Ronon rasped, words hissing out through his teeth. Sheppard clawed at his hand, dragging the gun away from his resisting fingers, and threw it away as hard as he could. As he did so, Ronon's fist drove slowly and heavily into his body, sending him backwards. He struck a slab of stone, his feet sliding away, his body slipping sideways. The flowers were burning, thorns shrivelling into smoke.

Not real, his mind still wanted to say. Ronon looked dazed, moving towards him, his steps slow and stiff. Sheppard flexed his hand, fingers brushing his pistol, but this was Ronon. "It's me," Sheppard urged him. "Snap out of it, buddy."

Ronon lunged. Sheppard twisted, lashed out, grabbed Ronon by the leg. Ronon's response seemed off. His fist went slowly over Sheppard's head, and then he was falling. Sheppard straddled him. "Normally you kick my ass," Sheppard gasped, "in training. Remember?" His nostrils were flooded with the scent of burning petals. "We aren't enemies," he said.

Ronon glared up at him, his chest heaving. His mouth opened, then closed again.

"Are we done?" Sheppard held Ronon down, one hand at his throat.

Ronon's eyes slid closed. Sheppard let out a breath. As he did so, Ronon bucked, bellowing. Sheppard felt himself hurled backwards into a patch of thorns, but the pain was only distant for now. He grasped a handful, found his feet, and barrelled into Ronon. He swung at Ronon's side, but missed. Ronon's fist found his stomach, his shoulder, his chest. His feet slid beneath him, and suddenly there was stone behind him, driving the breath from his lungs. Ronon's face was pressed into his own. "Ronon," Sheppard breathed. "You don't want to do this. This isn't you. This isn't--"

"Be quiet!" Ronon screamed. His eyes were rimmed with red, and were darting all over the place. The pulse at his throat was racing impossibly fast.

"Buddy." Sheppard tried to meet his eyes. The pain of his scratched hands began to make itself known, throbbing in time with his heartbeat. "It's me."

"I know," Ronon said, his voice cold. The faintest whisper of metal was Sheppard's only warning before the knife drove into him, sinking into his side just below the armpit, where the vest left him unprotected. "That's why I'm killing you." Ronon pulled the knife out slowly, twisting it.

Sheppard screamed hoarsely. The pain was a blaze of fire, making his knees sag, and for a moment that blade held all his weight. Everything blurred. He saw Kolya, but then he was gone. Light gleamed on a machete…

His left fist clenched, smashing into Ronon's arm, making the last inch of the knife tear free. He followed it up with a smash with the right, then he wrapped his arms around Ronon's body and hauled and pulled, his breath making horrible noises, almost like sobbing.

He saw a blood-drenched knife arc free. "No," he gasped. "No," and he managed to twist the two of them around so that Ronon was now the one with his back to the wall. He grabbed Ronon's face, and as Ronon punched and tore at him, as Ronon's hand found the knife wound and dug in with grasping fingers, he smashed Ronon's head back against the stone again and again and again.

Ronon slumped unconscious after the fifth blow.

Sheppard sank to his knees, his head drooping, his chest heaving. With every hammer-beat of his heart, the pain surged higher. He brought his hand up, fingers brushing the edge of his vest at his armpit. The fabric was soaked with blood.

He curled those fingers. He remembered looking at the stump of his left hand, and knowing that this would mean the end of his career, of his life on Atlantis, of everything that had ever mattered. That hadn't hurt like this did, though. Because this is real. Blinking, he looked down at Ronon, who lay still, blood matting his hair.

He activated his radio. "I think you should come get us."

"What? What's happened?" McKay squawked. Sheppard realised that he could envisage exactly how he looked as he said those words.

"Just come." Sheppard brought his blood-stained hand up to his brow. "But… no. Be careful. Ronon went crazy. I'll come… No. Meet you outside." Words didn't seem to want to shape themselves properly. He reached out behind him, finding the edge of the stone arch, and pushed himself to his feet. A wad of charred petals fell to the ground in front of him. "Wait."

"What's happened?"

McKay's words were an anchor. On the mainland, it had just been Kolya and him, with no-one there at the other end of a radio. There'd been no-one to rescue him. How could there be? You couldn't rescue someone from a hell of their own creation.

"Just…" He coughed, and a moan escaped him at the pain that tore through him at the sudden movement. Something shimmered ahead of him. He paused, hand on stone. He hadn't noticed the terrain they'd been fighting in. On the far side of the arch, the ruin opened out into a small courtyard. There was a raised segment in the centre, almost overgrown with leaves and red flowers, and the corner of something shiny was just visible, silver and glass.

"Sheppard? Sheppard?" McKay was shouting.

Sheppard found himself half way across the courtyard, his feet moving despite himself. He stopped; blinked. Got to get out, he thought. Ronon…

His hand moved towards his side-arm. Inch by slow inch, he went down to his knees.

Rodney tried his radio for at least the twentieth time. "Sheppard? Sheppard!" He struggled along behind Teyla, his breath tearing in his chest. "Damn it, Sheppard."

Teyla held a springy branch out of his way. "The quicker we get there…"

"I know. I know." The life-signs' detector lurched with the rhythm of his running. Neither dot had moved.

Their path snaked through heaps of dark stone. He tried to forget the size of the animal tracks he had seen in the mud. He tried not to notice the size of the holes he had seen in the overgrown banks. In one place, the whole corner of a room was still standing, complete with overhanging ceiling.

"The energy readings are…" He struggled to get the device out of his pocket. "Still there. Nothing's changed."

Teyla said nothing. Rodney heard a faint sound, like an animal in pain. His head snapped round before he realised that it had come over the radio. "Sheppard?"

Nothing. He caught up with Teyla, pushing past the burning pain in both his calves, because, yes, he worked out and was quite fit, really, but he'd been busy lately, what with… important things, and… saving the city, and…

Teyla stopped in front of an almost-intact doorway, a hole in a sheer dark wall that went up over twenty feet. When Rodney looked up, he saw a stone face peering down at him, its teeth bared and its three eyes gleaming. "I believe that this is where John intended to meet us," she said.

"But he isn't here, is he?" Rodney pressed his hand to his pounding chest. "He…" He bit his lip, then found himself saying it. "Have you noticed anything… well, off about him…? I mean, far be it from me to say that Sheppard's normal at the best of times but…" Something screamed above him. He looked up; saw a bird rise up from behind the gargoyle. "Since that thing with the Sekari…" He let it trail off, gesturing with his open hand.

Teyla nodded. "He appears not to be sleeping well."

Rodney frowned. The ruin was covered so thickly with red flowers that parts of it looked as if it was bleeding. And where did that come from? he thought. He scraped his hand over his brow, wiping away sweat. Seriously, I can do without thoughts like that. "What's the big deal?" he said. "I mean, Woolsey didn't say, but you could tell that she was hot."

"But you got Radek," Teyla said quietly, heading for the darkness beyond the doorway.

"Huh," Rodney agreed. "Who told me that I was brilliant. And Woolsey got a hot girl who was interested in him. Ego strokes all round." He followed her; swallowed hard. "Not that my ego needs stroking. Not that it's an ego at all. It can't be when it's true." He looked at the dots on the life-signs detector, not far ahead of him now, still not moving. He bit his lip. "So I don't know why he's acting strange about it. It was no big deal."

Teyla held up a hand, but Rodney's voice had already been getting quieter and quieter, ending on little more than a whisper. "Sheppard?" he tried into the radio, the whisper cracking. "Ronon?"

The red-flowered plant had thorns, and its branches trailed right across the path. "They came this way," Teyla whispered, pointing to a trail of crushed blossoms and bruised leaves.

The dots said as much. Rodney almost told her so, but bit the words back. "He told us it was dangerous," he whispered. "He said we shouldn't go in." Teyla didn't hesitate, and he hadn't expected her to. "Yes, yes, of course," he said. "I know." He pulled his gun out, though, holding it ready.

A line of pollen landed on the back of his hand. He blew it off, and it itched ever so slightly. The smell was like decaying perfume, and, "Mrs Butler," he said. "My first piano teacher." He remembered her rapping his fingers with a ruler. Then he pressed his lips together; forced himself not to speak.

They saw Ronon first, lying crumpled in the shadow of an archway. Teyla ran forward, wading through flowers and leaves, and Rodney opened his mouth, closed it again, then decided to say it, after all. "Uh, we need to be careful. Sheppard said Ronon had gone crazy, and now Sheppard's…" He moved forward, though, until he, too, stood beneath the arch.

He saw Teyla's reaction before he saw Sheppard – saw her face freeze in horror, and knew in that moment that this was a whole new level of being screwed. Teyla reached out a slow hand, palm upwards. "John," she said, just that.

Sheppard was on his knees in the middle of a small courtyard, holding his gun to his own head.

"Sheppard. God!" Rodney almost dropped his own weapon. "What're you doing?"

"They… keep… dying." Sheppard's voice was hoarse, as if torn from his throat with hooks. "Ford. Elizabeth. Holland. Sumner. Do you know…?" He moved his head desperately slowly, until his gaze looked with Rodney's. "Do you know how many men I lost on Midway? Do you know how many… how many died in Michael's lab?"

Rodney's mouth was dry. "No." It came out as a croak.

"I know," Sheppard said. "Know their names." He started to recite them.

"John." Teyla's hand was still frozen there, reaching out. "Give me the gun. Please give me the gun."

Sheppard reached the fourth name, and broke off. "I fail everyone." Sheppard looked up at something above Rodney's head. Rodney turned to see what it was, but saw nothing, only flowers. "I tried… Wanted to protect. Said I'd do anything. He said I've got a death wish. Keep… keep flying suicide missions. Better just to get it over with."

It couldn't be real. Rodney blinked, scraped his eyes, but the sight remained. Sheppard on his knees with a gun at his head. Sheppard on his knees… Sheppard, who was so strong that it scared Rodney, because he knew that he would never be anything like as strong. Sheppard always shook off all the bad stuff that happened. Sheppard had repeatedly had his life drained by a Wraith, for crying out loud, and had walked away, and never once talked about what had happened, never once felt a moment of… Never… once… felt…

Crap, he thought. This is not good. This is not good at all. You read about people cracking, didn't you? You read about people who pushed everything inside, so you never realised that anything was wrong, not until you found them with their brains scattered all over the room. You'd known somebody like that once, but you never expected it to happen to Sheppard.

"John," Teyla said gently – God, how could she keep her voice so calm, so steady? "Put the gun down."

"He said I was running from something," Sheppard said. His hand was trembling, and tears started to trickle down his cheeks. "He said. Kolya. Me. He was me. Said I was running… Can't run any more. I'm tired. Teyla, Rodney, I'm tired. Can't… protect…"

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!" Rodney burst out. He'd never met anyone like Sheppard – never met anyone so willing to risk his life for others, someone who utterly refused to give up.

"Stupid?" Sheppard looked at him. "Yes. Yes." His head dropped slightly, and he listed a little to one side. "Stupid is hallucinating a torture session at the hands of Kolya. Guess my subconscious knows that I deserve punishment."

"You are not thinking clearly," Teyla said. "Please, give me the gun…"

Not thinking clearly… Yes! Yes! Rodney snapped his fingers. "He said that Ronon went crazy. He…" He edged backwards until he bumped into a stone wall. "What if it's going to happen to us? What if…?" Something skittered at his feet, and he looked down to see a blood-stained knife, one of Ronon's.

Teyla took a step towards Sheppard, reaching for the gun, her hand nearer and nearer…

Sheppard smiled. "Ah," he said, "I see how it is." The smile vanished. He wrenched the gun away from his head, and Rodney let out a breath of relief, then froze as Sheppard instead turned the gun on him.

"John." Teyla's voice cracked. Her eyes sought Rodney's, but Rodney was frozen, seeing her only through the edges of his peripheral vision. Behind his back, his hand scraped on the stone. "You are being influenced by something," she said.

Oh, God, influence. Pollen burning on his hand. The eyes of the gargoyle looking down. The barrel of a gun, and Sheppard… Is that what it looked like when you were one of the dozens, the hundreds that Sheppard had killed? His eyes were blazing, merciless, and Rodney wanted to babble, to plead, but his throat felt clogged up and he couldn't get any words out, just a croak.

"You…" Sheppard rasped, his voice rusty. His finger tightened on the trigger. "You're…" The tears were back again, and his eyes were red-rimmed, but his skin was pale. "You…" His throat was working convulsively. His knuckles were white on the gun. His face twisted as if in agony.

I'm going to die, Rodney thought. Shot by Sheppard. Ronon stirred slightly, moaning. The bird returned, landing on the tower beyond.

Teyla took another step. "No!" Sheppard screamed. He lurched to his feet, whirled around, and shot the tall heap of undergrowth at the centre of the courtyard. Something shattered. Broken glass poured out from leaves. Sheppard shot again and again, and the plants stirred, rising up into a pillar of red petals and dark leaves, then parting to reveal an outstretched hand. Someone screamed, their voice shrill and chilling and unearthly.

Rodney's hand rose to his ear. The scream continued, longer than anyone could ever last without breathing.

At length it faded. In the sudden silence, Rodney was very aware of his own breathing, shuddering and fast. He opened his mouth to say something – what, he didn't know, but sometimes you just had to speak – but before he could do so, Sheppard let the gun fall from his hand, managed two faltering steps towards them, then collapsed very slowly to the ground.

end of part one