Disclaimer: I in no way own the characters and places depicted in this story.
RUN
Run. Run fast and into eternity because if you stop, if you pause just for a moment you are dead. If you stop the visions with catch up, the torturing pain and anguish that comes with them will overwhelm you until you loose all sense of reality. If you stop, everything that happened will engulf you and never leave you a nanosecond of peace. If you stop, your world will end and everything that you care about will die with you. So run, run when you can't run anymore…and keep running after that.
H
With a snap the light cast from Atlantis' Stargate went out leaving Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard standing in the middle of the of the gate room. He had been missing for two weeks leaving his unexpected arrival a surprise. The marines surrounding the gate had their weapons at the ready and moving quickly down the stairs from the control room Richard Woolsey silently signaled them to stand down. He approached Sheppard's quivering form noting the blank stare written on his face as he neared.
"Colonel Sheppard?" Sheppard jerked his head, a silent reflex to the sound of his name, but did not lose the blank stare that hinted at the shock of a serious trauma. Richard moved closer to him noting his unfocussed and glassy eyes as he carefully maneuvered him into a sitting position. Reaching to his ear he toggled his radio.
"Dr. Beckett, we have a medical emergency on the control room."
Down at the base of the control tower in the infirmary, Carson Beckett was in his old office speaking to a nurse when he stopped suddenly and adopted the look that so many of the Atlantis crew got when reacting to a message coming through their ear piece. After a moment Carson's forehead bunched into a worried frown, his eyes darting to the nurse in front of him, and said "Aye, I'm on my way."
Signaling a team to follow him with a gurney, he grabbed his medical bag and ran to the nearest transport.
When he arrived he stopped in shock to discover Colonel Sheppard sitting on the floor of the gate room with a team of marines loosely circled around him. Mr. Woolsey was crouched next to him with a worried look on his face and recovering his surprise at seeing John back he moved with a calm assurance and purpose to crouch next to his friend. He took one look at John's face before turning to Woolsey with a question in his eyes.
Richard gave a small shrug before saying "He just showed up like this."
Turning back to John, Carson quickly gave him a cursory exam. Finding no obvious injuries he pulled out his penlight, gently lifted the Colonel's eyelids and flicked the light back and forth across his eyes looking for a reaction…there was none.
"Colonel?" Carson shifted "Colonel Sheppard, can ye hear me?" He received no answer.
Turning to Woolsey he said, "Right, well, it's clear that he has suffered some kind of shock and I'd like to get him down to the infirmary and run some tests."
Richard looked at Carson and nodded. They both stood as John was moved to the awaiting gurney with the help of the awaiting medical team. Taking advantage of the activity IOA rep. and current head of the Atlantis expedition pulled the doctor to the side speaking quietly.
"Dr. Beckett, Sheppard has been missing for two weeks. He has just now stumbled through the gate, seemingly unharmed, and I need you to find out if he is…" He looked at the doctor uncomfortably for a moment before the Doctor rescued him from his obvious discomfort.
"…if he's the real John Sheppard and not a clone?" Carson sighed "Aye, that will be on the top of my list when I run the tests." Richard's shoulders dropped a fraction in relief as he smiled ruefully up at him. Carson nodded quickly before turning to follow his patient to the infirmary.
…run
Locked away in his tortured mind, he was forced to watch over and over the terrible scenes that danced before him. A ballet of unparalleled horror played out in an unending loop. All awareness of time and place had long since disappeared, to be replaced with the images he was now forced to watch again and again.
For a brief moment the images had gone. In a deep and recessed part of his mind he remembered that while he was blindly running for the gate that would return him home to his life, to safety and to his family, the movie had stopped playing. It brought him a moment of blessed relief until he finally made it back to Atlantis and stopped running. The moment he stopped he could feel the terror edging around his mind, gaining ground and once again invading his senses. It wasn't long before they caught up completely and slammed into his consciousness with a force so powerful that it took his breath away in an almighty scream.
H
Dr. Beckett was preparing to draw some of John's blood for testing while the nursing staff eased the pilot out of his filthy t-shirt and cargo pants. They had just finished pulling on a set of scrubs when Carson approached. Turning to one of the nurses he inquired as to any change in the Colonel. Receiving a negative response he went about drawing the blood samples that he would need for his tests.
He had just finished and was pulling off his gloves when Sheppard jackknifed his back into an arch and let out a blood curdling scream of anguish. Before anyone could react he jumped from the bed and bolted out the door as though being chased by all the demons in hell.
Still stunned, it took Carson a moment to recover and give chase, although he had little hope of catching the very fit and clearly terrified Colonel. Running, he radioed in to Woolsey to let him know what had just happened and to get help in tracking the wayward Sheppard down.
"Mr. Woolsey, we have a wee bit of a problem." He received an answer almost immediately.
"Yes Doctor, what is it?"
"It's Colonel Sheppard, I'm afraid; he has bolted from the infirmary. I'm trying to follow but it's no use, I canna keep up." With that Carson stopped his chase and leaned against the nearest wall to catch his breath. Panting he continued speaking "He just used a transporter and could be anywhere now, can you track him?"
"We're on it, Standby." After a moment Woolsey came back with positive news.
"We've got him, he is moving at a fast pace along the North pier and as long as he stays away from the more populated areas we should be able to keep tracking him. I am going to go ahead and send a team of marines to his location, you can meet them there." Marines? Carson felt that to be a little bit extreme.
"Mr. Woolsey, don't you think marines to be unnecessary?"
"Look, Doctor, I'm sure they are but I just can't take the chance that Sheppard has been compromised. He has to be put under guard until we can be certain that he is the man we think he is. You remember the situation with Dr. Keller?"
Carson adopted a grim look, "Aye, all too well." A few weeks ago, Dr. Keller's body had been taken over by a thief who had almost killed Dr. Zalenka before they realized what was going on. After the incident she had gone back to earth for a much needed vacation, leaving Carson to fill in for her until she returned. The incident had happened just before John had gone missing on a mission to deliver trade goods.
"Alright then, I will meet them down there." Carson went quickly back to the infirmary and grabbed his medical bag. Making sure that it contained a loaded syringe with a powerful sedative in it he jogged to a transporter and put his finger to the bright dot that indicated his destination.
…run
He ran from the demons that threatened to engulf him whole. He ran through hallways and down stairs, sometimes outside and sometimes indoors. He had no sense of time, just the need to sprint forward away from the haunting memories that chased him. For now his mind was at ease, when he was running calm settled where before there was torment, and as he moved he could feel the blessed relief of peace. With the absence of the tormenting visions that plagued him he was able to become aware of more around him, he noticed that he was no longer in the bad place but somewhere he could feel safe as long as he was moving. There was still panic, panic that the memories could catch up at any moment and that kept him moving even though he was distantly aware that his legs and lungs were burning with the effort of driving him forward.
In that distant place in his mind he was aware that he was no longer alone. Something was preventing him from moving forward so he changed directions and when he was brought up short again he changed directions again. He knew that he had to keep moving but everywhere he moved he was stopped short by a wall of people. One of them moved forward and started speaking to him, he knew he knew this person from before but couldn't focus long enough to fully identify him. The visions were catching up and he could feel them once again creeping into the edges of his consciousness.
With increasing panic John pushed the man aside and made to get moving again. The circle tightened around him preventing his escape and as the terrifying images came crashing into his consciousness he lashed out desperate to get away.
H
Major Lorne was heading up the team of marines sent to find Sheppard and met Carson when he stepped out of the transporter. Giving the doctor a nod in greeting Evan proceeded to update the situation to him.
"Hey Doc, we're picking him up moving along the East edge of the North pier." One of the marines turned a life signs detector Carson's way so that he could see the display.
"Right, well, let's go then shall we?" The Major gave another quick nod before turning to his team and signaling them to move out.
Keeping pace with the marines, Carson received a message from one of his staff informing him that Sheppard's blood tests came back. He was relieved to hear that the person he was chasing down was indeed the John Sheppard that had gone missing two weeks ago and not a clone but that relief soon turned to concern when he heard the rest of the report.
"Doctor, we found a very large amount of an unknown drug in the Colonels system." Carson let out a quiet breath of resignation. Why did everything always have to be so complicated? Just once he would like to have one of the gate teams come back in one piece and without complication. He took a moment to shake off his frustration before responding.
"Do ye have any idea yet as to what it might be doing to him?"
"Sorry Doctor, we have only received the preliminary results and without further tests and scans it will be extremely difficult to determine what, if anything, it's doing to him." Carson sighed again.
"Aye…I know. Have the scanner ready, we will be bringing the Colonel back shortly and I would like to know what is happening with him as soon as possible." Carson turned his focus back to the task at hand, chasing John down and getting him into a controlled environment where he could concentrate on fixing whatever may be wrong with the man.
They were approaching Sheppard from the opposite direction that he was moving and signaling his men to stop, Lorne quickly had them spread out into a loose circle. They weren't waiting long when they heard the fall of running feet. Sheppard soon rounded the corner and into the net they had set for him stopping short when he came up against a marine blocking his path. Rather than trying to dodge the large man he simply changed directions only to be stopped by another soldier.
Carson watched for a moment as John fruitlessly tried to move away from the tightening circle of men around him. He looked like a caged animal, causing Beckett to approach the increasingly distraught man carefully.
"John…John, it's Carson. Can ye hear me lad?" Receiving no answer he noticed the Colonel becoming increasingly agitated. "John, I need you to come with me to the infirmary so that we can get you checked out."
Carson had his hand on Sheppard's wrist and could feel his pulse go from already fast to racing. Looking into the Colonels face he could see his eyes darting around in panic and his breath start to hitch in quick gulps.
"John, son, you need to calm down. It's alright, you are in a safe place with –"
Sheppard suddenly jerked out of the Doctors grasp and tried to get past the marines again, this time frantically pushing to get by. Somehow realizing that he wasn't getting anywhere he lashed out and took down four of the big men before Lorne was able to pin him long enough for Carson to inject the heavy sedative he had thrown in his bag into his arm.
John's struggles slowed as the drug took effect and he finally looked at Carson with a terrified pleading in his face before his limbs grew heavy and he succumbed to the darkness forced upon him. The doctor knelt next to the subdued pilot, his eyes laced with heavy concern as he watched tiny tremors pass through his friend's body.
What have they done to you this time lad?
…run
He watched as they slowly cut the skin from her body leisurely, flaying her alive with methodical precision. They talked to each other in a casual manner as they worked, looking like they were chatting about the weather or how their favourite sports teams were coming along. Her screams echoed through the room in long drawn out expressions of extreme agony and went unacknowledged by the ones inflicting the pain.
He watched and screamed for them to stop, to let her go but either they did not hear him or his pleas were being casually ignored. He couldn't move, he couldn't help her, couldn't stop the insanity of what he was being forced to witness. There was nowhere he could turn without seeing the blood. He could do nothing to shut out her agonized cries and it was tearing him apart. He was a soldier damnit! It was his job to protect people, to protect the people under his command and to protect his friends. It should be him laying there not her. He should be the one enduring the pain so that she might live.
He didn't know how many times he could take watching this scene; it was slowly eroding his sense of reason. He wanted to run and get away from it all, to find the pause button for his mind but something was holding him down, preventing him from reaching the release that he so desperately needed. He struggled to move and as he fought against some unseen force, he yelled threats and obscenities while he watched as his friend was slowly pulled apart in front of him. Her screams died out and she turned her head to look at John, her eyes met his and projected a desperate pleading asking him to end her misery. Unable to break her gaze he looked back in impotent rage and helplessness.
"I'm so sorry." He wept.
Teyla suddenly gave a small smile as she closed her eyes, welcoming death and the release it would bring. Through his tears John saw her take her last breath and he howled in anguish so complete that it seared him through his core.
H
Richard Woolsey entered the infirmary and headed to Dr. Beckett's office only to be brought up short by the agonized fury that was being projected form a screened off section of the room. Entering the space he was startled to see the Doctor bent over Sheppard's writhing body, struggling to secure his last free arm in a restraint. Three nurses were helping to restrain the Colonel and with a monumental effort they were finally able to strap his flailing arm down.
Carson stepped back with a relived sigh and took a moment to regard his patient as he pulled against the restraints and continued to yell threats to someone only he could see. Woolsey cleared his throat and the doctor turned around, startled to see him standing there.
"Oh Mr. Woolsey, I didn't see you there." Richard nodded and looked toward the figure on the bed.
"Have you found out what's causing this? Why is he so agitated?" Carson ran a hand through his hair before lowering it and looked at Woolsey with frustration in his eyes.
"Near as I can tell this is the result of a nasty little drug that they pumped into his system before he managed to escape." Carson paced in agitation. "I gave him enough sedative to put down an elephant but we barely got him out from under the scanner before he started on like he is now. I had to put him in restraints to keep him in one place." He stopped his pacing to look at him, his deeply compassionate, blue eyes locking onto her face.
"Whatever they shot him up with; it's putting him through a remarkable amount of torment. It's somehow affecting his frontal and temporal lobes…specifically the areas in the brain that controls his short and long term memory and when we did an fMRI the picture we got back showed heightened activity. I am going to hook him up to an EEG machine so that we can monitor any changes in his brain activity." Carson looked back at his patient with a worried frown. "His heart rate is through the roof and since my medicine has been rendered useless by whatever is running through his veins I have no way to treat him."
Carson felt angered that there was nothing he could do to help the man laying in his infirmary. He was a Doctor and doctor's healed people, they made them better. Right now all he could do was watch as Sheppard fought some unseen foe in extreme mental pain. It wasn't right, John didn't deserve this after putting his life on the line time and time in order to make sure his friends, the people in Atlantis and sometimes complete strangers, were safe.
He looked to Woolsey with an expression of helplessness on his face which quickly turned to worry when John suddenly let out a howl unlike anything he had ever heard before. Rushing back to the bed he watched unable to do anything as the leader of Atlantis' military force tore at the restraints holding him back and screamed himself hoarse before finally falling back in an exhausted stupor.
"Get that EEG hooked up to him as well as heart monitor stat!" Carson leant over his patient once again, checking his eyes for any sign of awareness but was met with the look of a man focused somewhere inside himself. He checked the Colonel's pulse again and was not surprised to feel it racing beneath his fingers. John's brief moment of respite was short lived as he once again started to moan and twist on the bed.
Carson smacked the bed rail with the palm of his head in a rare show of anger, took a moment and turned back to Richard his face once again a mask of calm professionalism.
"The only thing that we can currently do is monitor him. He is going to have to ride this one out on his own until his system processes the drug." Richard shifted uncomfortably and nodded.
"Keep me appraised Doctor, we need to know what happened to him out there."
Briefly looking at John's thrashing body he turned on his heel and walked out the door to go back to his office. He needed to put a few important calls out to pull in some much needed support for the Colonel.
Carson walked back to his temporary office and wearily sat down. It hurt him deeply to know that he could do nothing but watch as one of his patients suffered horribly. He stared blankly at the wall for a moment before picking up John's chart to add to the already extensive notes he had written.
…run
He had barely stopped screaming when another of the horrific visions started again. John wept in desperation for it all to stop but no amount of begging, pleading or wishing was going to cease the horrific scene he had to watch again.
Once again he was held immobile in the grip of some unseen force, unable to tear his eyes away as he watched another one of his friends slowly being pulled apart. He had watched this particular moment so many times before and he didn't know how much longer he could continue seeing his friends suffer like this. He could feel his sanity slowly slipping away from his fragile grasp and it was only his steel will that held onto the thin thread that was left.
Paralyzed and defeated he witnessed, once again, the look of grim focus cross Ronon's face as he was cut into. This time it wasn't skin that they were after, this time it was bones. Ronon's face shook in quite pain as they pulled back the skin on his legs to reach the muscle and tendons underneath. When they had done that they started scraping the tissue still surrounding his shins and thigh bones to get at the gleaming white bones underneath.
Ronon's carefully controlled agony finally burst forth with a cry that shook John's entire being and as they moved up to start on his friend's torso, he was wracked with convulsions dry heaving over and over again.
The nightmare ended soon after that when Ronon's body silently shuddered as he finally succumbed to the relief that was death. Free of his bonds at last John curled in on himself and shook with dread at what he knew was coming next. Knowing that he could take no more he silently wept for his friends and ached with the knowledge that he couldn't help them.
H
Carson watched as tears flowed down John's cheeks from under tightly closed eyelids, wetting the pillow under his head. He watched as John's body went into shock and started to shake uncontrollably and he watched as his friend slowly started to give up.
…run
The blackness that surrounded him slowly faded away as the next terror crept into his sense of reality. He tried desperately not to look, tried to fight the bony hand that gripped his shoulder knowing full well the sight that would meet him if he turned around.
It was no use.
The skeletal hand that he couldn't bring himself to look at tightened on his as it spun him around. John turned in dreamlike trance as time slowed and as he was faced with the most horrible sight of all a scream tore out of his throat. The beast in front of him was made of what he knew to be Ronon's bones and had thin strips of bloody skin hanging from it. He screamed until his throat was raw, trying to ignore the golden brown skin that slowly moved back and forth with the movement of the beast.
The light in his eyes faded out at last and he let go of his sense of reason as the grisly being lowered its head, revealing the face it now wore. The last thing he saw before his mind shattered was Rodney's face staring at him, frozen in an expression of terror.
…run
The alarms pierced the hushed quiet of the infirmary with a suddenness that sent a quick thrum of dread through Carson's body. Knowing instinctively the source he ran for the Colonel's bed calling for a crash cart on the way.
Arriving mere seconds after the alarms had begun ringing he had John's bed lowered and a nurse working an Ambu bag over the prone man's face. As he forcefully pushed down on his patient's chest in measured thrusts a nurse had the defibrillator warming up, getting it ready for use. The minute it signaled its readiness Carson pulled John's shirt up, rubbed gel on the paddles and pushed them to the Colonel's chest releasing a charge that would hopefully start his heart again.
The heart monitor continued its frantic beeping, indicating that John was still in distress and just as Beckett was about to continue chest compressions the monitors beeping changed to a steady hum.
"He's asystolic!" a nurse yelled.
Carson reached to the crash cart next to him and grabbed syringe loaded with epinephrine. Sliding it home he pushed the plunger hoping that the adrenaline rush would kick start John's heart. The defibrillator once again signaled that it was charged and shocking his patient again Carson was relieved when his efforts were met with a slow but steady heart beat.
He let out a sigh of relief and stepped back to let the nurses get John settled again. He pulled in a breath and was preparing himself to take charge again when he noticed the EEG machine. John's readings had settled down and Carson hoped that this meant that he was finally over the worst and that he had found the road to recovery. He drew another blood sample to run so that he could be absolutely certain that the drug in the pilot's system had been processed and took it to his lab.
Half an hour later, he was happy to see that John's system was free and clear of the nasty little agent that had almost killed him. They now had to wait to see if there were any long term effects and whether or not he had come through this with no ill effects. With a cautious optimism he called Woolsey to let him know that medically speaking, Atlantis' military commander was coming out of the woods.