Preview
A Glass Half Empty
By Valleya
I'm too young to die!
The panicked thought kept repeating over and over inside Rodney McKay's mind as he struggled to keep his head above the rushing waters. He was being swept along in the rapid river current faster than he could grab anything to hold onto.
Damn that flower for making me sneeze and damn that riverbank for collapsing under my feet!
Rodney's arms flailed helplessly, battling for some modicum of control in the white waters. He was having trouble breathing, but that seemed minor compared to the notion of drowning.
He thought he heard someone call his name, but it was distant and his ears were full of water anyway. Nonetheless, he craned his head around and caught a glimpse of Teyla running along the edge of the stream, trying to keep up with him. She shouted something to someone ahead of them and Rodney prayed it was Sheppard or Ronon preparing to pull his soggy ass out of the water from some upcoming vantage point.
At least, they damn well better be getting ready to save him. It wasn't his fault he had a wide variety of allergies to plants, trees, and a potpourri of other things – and it wasn't his fault that flower spewed pollen in his face and that his sneezing reaction caused him to stumble backward and into the water. It was their fault for making him come along to this godforsaken world that had no redeeming value whatsoever.
He'd tried to talk them into exploring M27-PX3 instead, but, no, they had to come here, because of an Ancient reference to an abundance of certain rare metals Atlantis was currently in need of. Well, damn the metals and damn the Ancients, too!
Rodney went to take a breath and inhaled water instead. Great, now he was choking and coughing, along with being swept to his doom. He could see Ronon and Sheppard on an outcropping extending over the river like a bridge that had stopped construction halfway through. Ronon had Sheppard by the ankles and Sheppard was dangling upside down over the water facing Rodney.