"Yeah, so I'll see you later." Sheppard turned, hand raised for a farewell clap on the shoulder, only to find McKay gone and Kavanagh standing there, with the oddest expression on his face. He had a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other.

"Colonel Sheppard."

"Dr...Kavanagh...ah..." Sheppard forced a smile and looked at his hand, poised in mid-air.

"Ah..."

Kavanagh looked down quickly.

"It's all right. You don't have to pretend to like me, Colonel."

He pushed his glasses a little further up his nose, snapped open a control panel beside Sheppard and examined the contents.

"I wasn't...uh..." Sheppard searched for an explanation.

"See, I was talking to McKay, you know, he's one of the team...so then, when he left, I was going to..."

Kavanagh just looked at him and Sheppard realized he was digging himself in deeper with every word. He scratched his head and looked at Kavanagh with exasperation.

"Well, you know...maybe if you'd try a little harder to get along with people..."

Kavanagh's mouth set itself in the thin, unhappy line that was so familiar to Sheppard and the rest of the base.

"Oh, and me doing my best to keep you all from destroying yourselves in hideously painful ways, and mopping up your messes when you're done being the heroes? I guess that doesn't count for anything."

"Well..."

Kavanagh met his eyes deliberately and mouthed the word "jumper".

Sheppard's lips tightened.

"Yeah, ok, so you saved our asses with that one. We all save each other's asses on a regular basis. It's what we do around here, if you haven't noticed. Doesn't make you some kind of special cookie. You were also completely out of line to be giving Elizabeth that crap about being mistreated while the jumper was still in jeopardy."

"Whatever. Look, if you don't mind, I have work to do. The power conduits don't keep themselves in working order, you know." He turned back to the panel beside Sheppard.

"Fine." Sheppard half-turned, glanced at him one more time, thoughtfully, then clapped a hand on his shoulder, twice, firmly, and turned on his heel.

Kavanagh threw a sour look after him, his cheeks reddening, and fixed his attention on the panel, grumbling to himself as the sound of Sheppard's footsteps retreated down the hall.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sheppard sat there, across from Dr. Keller, his head in his hands. This was all his fault. If he hadn't touched that flower and released the alien entity that was now roaming the corridors of Atlantis...Sheppard wished suddenly, fervently, that he had never set foot on M3X-387.

One by one his teammates had suffered the entity's malicious attack on their minds. Including the doctor. He couldn't bring himself to look at her. The past several days had been hell for them all. Heightmeyer's funeral would be held in two days and there were still people in the city who didn't know. It had all happened that fast. Carter hadn't been able to manage more than the briefest of announcements. Sheppard could still hear it in the back of his mind, the tinny sound of the intercom, crackling through eroded wires and 10,000 year old systems.

"This is Colonel Carter...I'm very sorry to have to tell you that we have lost a valuable member of the expedition today..."

Dr. Keller's voice broke into his thoughts.

"Colonel Sheppard, we're trying to figure out where the entity is now. It's been using the power conduits to travel. McKay says that it could be in anyone. We're working on getting a city-wide scan, but for now we can only scan small areas one at a time. Anything you can think of might help narrow it down."

"Anyone? Damn." Sheppard ran both hands through his hair.

"Think carefully. Do you remember anyone acting strangely toward you lately? Trying to avoid contact with you? Especially just the last few days."

Sheppard remembered suddenly that Kavanagh had been studiously avoiding him the past week. He hadn't thought much of it, taking it as a sign that the moody and perpetually irritable scientist was still in a tiff over their little interaction, but now...He grimaced. Of all the people to have cursed with this plague, it had to be him.

"Yeah, actually. I think I may have an idea where our entity's gone. Run a sensor sweep of the science labs."

He slumped a little, watching the screen as Zelenka's hands ran lightly over the keyboard.

"Pray I'm wrong, while you're at it." he muttered. Kavanagh would never him forget something like this. He'd never let any of them forget it.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"It's him all right. Good guess, Colonel." Carter turned to Lorne.

"Let's get him down to the isolation room."

"What's this about?" Kavanagh frowned down at the shorter man as they walked into the empty isolation room.

"Take it easy, Doctor, everything'll be all right." Lorne stepped back, leaving Kavanagh alone in the isolation room. The sound of a force field sliding into place made the hairs stand up on the back of Kavanagh's neck. He spun around.

"What the–what are you doing? What is this?" His frightened eyes took in the padded walls, the lack of furniture, the camera's red eye watching him from the corner of the room.

"What's going on?" His voice rose slightly, a note of fear creeping in under the annoyance. He hadn't believed they'd torture him, not really, until the tall alien walked into the room, his eyes intent and purposeful. Now he wasn't sure of much at all.

"You can't do this!" He realized how completely wrong he was even as the words echoed around the empty room. They were light-years away from any civilization that even knew who he was. They could do whatever they wanted to him, and no-one would so much as blink an eye. He backed against the wall, his eyes wide, his arms coming up to cross over his chest.

"McKay? Sheppard?" He wouldn't count on Carter for anything, she was military and would probably hate him as much as Weir had, once he'd disagreed with her a few times. After his near-torture, he'd made sure to stay well under the radar. He'd learned a lot during his time here, enough to turn his noisy bravado into reluctant compliance and resentful murmuring, enough to keep him watching his back in dark corridors and making sure he was first out of the way when dangerous situations threatened. It wouldn't keep him from thinking the way he did, or doing whatever he thought was best, but he'd learned to be more careful and less vocal about it.

Sheppard reached forward and pressed the button that raised the screen between the observation room and the patient room. Kavanagh stepped foward, his arms dropping from around himself, relief and anger struggling for control of his face.

"What are you trying to pin on me now? Look, whatever it is, I swear I didn't do it."

"Take it easy, Kavanagh, you're going to be just fine–"

Kavanagh cut him off.

"You all thought I was a spy, remember, till you found out it was Caldwell. Remember that? You thought I was guilty. All of you. Well, you were wrong. And you're wrong this time." He wiped sweaty palms on his BDU's. Sudden suspicion leapt into his eyes, fear following quickly behind it.

"Wait a minute. Why–why wouldn't I be just fine? Why are you telling me I'm going to be fine?"

Sheppard looked down at him.

"You been having any weird dreams lately?"

Kavanagh swallowed and looked down.

"M-maybe. So?"

"So...we're pretty sure you've got a potentially life-threatening alien organism inside your body." McKay said it all with one short breath.

"What?" Kavanagh's eyes widened with panic. McKay raised a hand quickly.

"Look, just–just...calm down. We're working on a way to get it out of you, but for now the only safe way to keep it isolated is for you to be in there and for us to be out here."

Kavanagh stared at him in disbelief.

"This is great. This is just great. I'm going to die, aren't I?" He felt of himself.

"Where is it? It doesn't hurt. What does that mean? That's bad, isn't it?"

Sheppard stepped up to the microphone.

"We think it lives in your subconscious, as a form of energy. Just take it easy, we're going to get it out of you. Trust me. McKay'll figure something out."

"Yeah, right. Sure. I can trust you. You really care about what happens to me. That's why you sent your alien executioner to carve me up with that knife of his. That's why you've got me locked up in here like some animal. I really feel better now, Sheppard, knowing I can trust you. That's a good–"

"Ok, just hold it right there." Sheppard's voice stopped Kavanagh in mid-rant. He stared foolishly up at Sheppard, his mouth hanging open slightly, then shut it.

"I–" His voice was quieter but still determined. Sheppard cut him off again.

"You're pretty thick-headed not to have figured it out by now, Kavanagh, but that mouth and that attitude are what got you where you are. No-one's proud of what we did. But it was a desperate situation. And if you'd been co-operating instead of shooting off your mouth, it might never have happened. Now, for the record, we are doing our very best to figure this out, in spite of the fact that you're not giving us much incentive to want to."

Kavanagh opened his mouth, then closed it.

"All right. Fine." His voice was still high and tinged with panic, and his lower lip quivered a little as he drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, but the spite was gone, along with most of the hysteria. Sheppard leaned toward the microphone again.

"That's better. Keep that up."

Kavanagh gave a short, jerky little nod.

"Just...tell McKay to hurry up, all right? I'm...not good with confined spaces."

"We're doing our best. Hang in there."

Kavanagh shot him a quick, searching glance that Sheppard met squarely, then glanced at McKay, who was still hovering beside him. McKay returned his look briefly, real sympathy on his face, made a gesture indicating haste, and headed out of the room.

Kavanagh looked away quickly, his mouth working slightly.

"Yeah, ok," he muttered.