Disclaimer: I don't own it, blah, blah, blah. If I did, John Sheppard would be mine. ALL MINE!
Warning: Slight language and slightly Shweir (Though not as much as I would have liked, I kept it to a minimum for any anti-Shweirs that might be reading this)
:SPOILERS:
DO NOT read this if you haven't seen 'The Real World'! It won't make much sense and I don't want to ruin it for you. Also some spoilers for 'Progeny', but if you've seen TRW then I'd assume you've seen that too.
It's been a while since I've written for SGA, so please forgive the large, crumbling patches of rust that fall intermittently from the roof. We have hired some repair people, but unfortunately they're contract workers and you know how useless they can be, so for the mean time please mind your head. Without further ado –
Fighting for You (Sorry, couldn't think of a better title. My bad.)
SGASGASGA
Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard brushed a hand groggily through his constantly messy hair as he walked into the Atlantis Infirmary. Seeing where all the commotion was, John picked his way through the slow early morning crowd to where Doctor Beckett was waiting, absently noting as he went that the good doctor happened to be waiting near one of the isolation rooms frequently used for quarantine.
"What's happening, doc? I got here as quickly as possible, did you say something happened to Doctor Weir?" he asked the Scottish doctor.
"I'm 'fraid so, son. From what the gate room staff on duty at the time were able to tell us, Doctor Weir had been reading the report from your last mission when she collapsed in her office. Since then she has been completely unresponsive to all external stimuli, and although she has an extremely high level of neural activity I'm sorry to tell you, but Doctor Weir seems to have fallen into a coma." The doctor told Sheppard, his Scottish brogue thick, telling Sheppard that the doctor too had only recently woken up.
"Well do you know what's caused it? And how long ago did that happen?" Sheppard asked, brow creasing with worry for his friend and co-worker.
"About half an hour ago. I would have contacted you sooner, but we decided it was better to leave you be until we knew more. We did some scans, and the news isn't very promising. The ancient scanners here have detected that Doctor Weir is being attacked by nanites, which have centred themselves around the occipital and temporal lobes. They have been replicating at an extraordinary rate. At this point they've not quite overcome her brain, but at this rate it won't be long until they have."
"Isn't there anything you can do to stop them? Is there anything I can do to help?" Sheppard asked, his voice marked with worry.
"We're working on it. I have the best doctors in the city here to help. We're doing all we can, but all you can do for now is wait. Doctor McKay is helping us find away to disable the nanites, but if you ask me, we'd get a bloody lot more done if he'd just shut up!" Beckett said exasperatedly, peering around the corner to where McKay was harassing a doctor clad in a hazmat suit.
Sheppard clapped a hand on Beckett's shoulder comfortingly, before pulling a chair over to sit next to the quarantine tent that had been set up around Doctor Weir's bed.
Despite his worry for Elizabeth, John soon felt himself dozing lightly, making him consciously think back to when he had last slept.
The team had left for the Alterian outpost about midday the day before last. Then, the whole 'evil robots out to get us' thing happened. Though he had dozed in the cell, John didn't count that as rest. By the time they had escaped and arrived back at Atlantis, almost 34 hours had past since the mission had begun. Despite having not slept properly in almost a day and a half, Colonel Sheppard had been too wired to sleep. He blew up Atlantis, for Christ's sake! In his head! Eventually, at 1 am, he decided to use his sleepless time productively, and began to write him mission report. Three hours later, mission report concluded, he submitted it to Dr Weir's office and decided finally to try for some much needed rest. Now, an hour and a half later, he found himself up once again, sitting by the ailing Dr Weir's bedside, practically falling asleep where he sat.
Absently, in the back of his mind he felt something shift. Atlantis' song had changed, as though she was trying to tell him something.
Atlantis was sentient, he knew. She cared for all her children, not just the ones with the ATA gene, although she sometimes went a little bit out of her way to make them more comfortable. Atlantis sang, constantly, the gentle song of a city. Though the song changed, depending on what was going on, but the city never stopped singing. Everyone with the gene was, on some level, conscious of the song. Sheppard thought that at some times the people without the gene could hear it too, but they couldn't understand it and so they tended to ignore it.
The people with stronger ATA genes could hear and understand the song more fluently, and were generally more conscientious of it. Sheppard and Major Lorne, both having rather strong ATA genes, though Sheppard's more so, often knew of trouble around the city before they were notified. People never could work out how they did this, and never in a thousand years would they guess it was because of the beautiful singing of their fair city.
Pulling his drowsy mind back to the present, John concentrated on Atlantis' song. She wasn't just trying to tell him something, she was trying to show him. He could feel it in the various melodies and harmonies of the song. Grasping with his mind onto the tendril of thought that Atlantis had extended to him, John could swear he saw a flash of Elizabeth sitting before him in a clinically white room for a second. Shaking the vision off, he felt another shift in Atlantis' little tune. She was apologising. She hadn't been able to pick it up sooner, she was sorry, so she was trying to help make things better now.
John loved his city. She was always so kind and eager to help. Unfortunately, he sensed, there was nothing more she could do here. Whatever happened now, it would be up to the city's occupants.
Resuming his tent-side vigil, John cleared his mind once again and began to listen – tell, attempt to listen, anyway – to Dr's Beckett and McKay's ramblings as they explained the situation to Teyla, who had just arrived.
As they talked John stood and shifted his chair back out into the main part of the infirmary, opting to stand instead and hoping it would keep him from falling asleep so easily.
Unfortunately, that theory didn't seem to be as sure-fire as John had first thought it might have been, considering a minute or two later his eyes slipped shut for a moment. He saw two figures sitting in a room, one must have been in a suit and the other appeared to be sitting on a bed or some other large object, but everything he could see looked as though he was seeing it through foggy glass or something else, for he could only see very blurry, shadow-like images. Snapping his eyes open, John noted that the vision was still there, but not as clear as it had been. It was more transparent and blurry than with his eyes shut, and he could only really see it if he concentrated. If he concentrated really hard, he could get some sounds to filter through, though like the image they were blurry and distorted. He could hear a male voice, but he couldn't make out the words, and the voice of the speaker didn't seem familiar to him.
He cleared his head again. This is just getting ridiculous! Why can't I seem to concentrate today? Oh, wait, could it be the fact that one of your closest friends is lying in a nanites induced coma at the moment! John thought bitterly to himself.
Rocking backwards and forwards on the balls of his feet, John resumed his waiting game. This time, he managed to let almost half an hour pass before his mind drifted to the foggy image of a stark white room with a person inside. The distorted figure noticed him, he was sure of it, and began edging cautiously forward. As it drew nearer to the barrier that separated them, John recognised the silhouette. It was Elizabeth! Desperately, he mentally pushed against the barrier, testing it's strength, at the same time taking a step toward the quarantine tent that Elizabeth's body currently inhabited. He found the slightly malleable and a bit like very rubbery elastic. He pushed forward again, seeing if he could break through or if the barrier would hold. He could feel it stretching, moving for him, and if he could just keep going –
A sharp spike of pain through his skull drew away his attention and left his vision full of Atlantean Infirmary. Disappointed, he went to grab some Tylenol for the headache that was now banging pots against each other in his head.
After downing the pills with a glass of water, John made his way back to his post, standing beside the quarantine tent. He tested the barrier again, this time in a different place. It bent, but wouldn't give, so he moved around the barrier a bit more, testing for weakness. He came to what seemed like a door. Could he really be this lucky? Unlike the rest of the barrier, the door seemed more solid and was not entirely foggy glass, like the rest was. He twisted the handle cautiously. Locked. After trying the handle a few more times for good measure, a frustrated and tired John Sheppard began mentally banging on the door, trying to bust it open. He could see Elizabeth on the far side of the room. From what the Doc had been saying, her condition had been worse with every update. John knew he had to find a way to get through that barrier and get her out, before something happened to make things even worse than they already were. He needed to help Elizabeth, and as much as he knew the only way she would get better was if she did it herself, he also knew that she would need a helping hand. A shove in the right direction.
Just a few minutes of banging on the door left John mentally exhausted. The barrier was definitely becoming weaker, as though something was gnawing at it from the inside, but it was clear to him that the barrier still wasn't going to budge. Not yet. So, with his headache raging worse than before and nothing to show for it, the Colonel once again resorted to the waiting game.
Feeling his headache ease a little, John noticed that Ronon had now joined them, and was about to receive Beckett's little introduction to the situation, as soon as the good doctor noticed he was there.
"What'ya got, Doc?" Sheppard asked, watching the Atlantean scanner run over Dr Weir's comatose body, once again.
"It's getting worse," came Beckett's reply, "It's not just her brain anymore. It's spreading throughout her body. We're losing her."
No! John's mind screamed, she's still with us, I know, I've seen her! She's just on the other side, all she needs to do is unlock the door and she'll be fine! But the others didn't know that. None of them listened, not even McKay. Beckett, scared as he was, at least had a reason – albeit a stupid one – to ignore the song. Obviously Ronon and Teyla couldn't here it, not without the gene, but surely McKay would have paid more heed to these things?
John zoned out the conversation as Ronon was brought up to date, instead his mind was whirring along at a two hundred miles an hour – just the speed he liked – trying to think of other possibilities, other ways of the freeing Elizabeth, seeing as the barrier was obviously highly impregnable.
"How much time does she have?" he asked.
"I don't think their intention's to kill her. If that were the case they could have easily done it already." There was definite worry evident in Beckett's voice, which in turn worried John even more. If Beckett was worried, then there was definitely something to get worried about. "I don't there's enough of them to survive on their own," he proceeded, "They need Elizabeth's body as raw material."
"So they're attempting to assimilate her? To transform her into one of them?" McKay clarified.
"Until they can reach sufficient numbers to form a viable independent entity, I'd say so, yes." The Scotsman answered.
As the talking continued, so did the ticking of Sheppard's mind.
"EMP. Maybe we can him them with the electro-magnetic pulse like we did last time?" he asked. It was simple, probably too simple, but it was worth a shot. Beckett shot down the idea almost as soon as he had voiced it though, which, although it had been expected, was still disappointing. Beckett's tediously complicated explanation concluded with him telling them that Weir's white blood cells attacked the nanites in a petrie dish, but the nanites in her body had somehow convinced her immune system that they weren't a threat.
"How do they do that?" he asked. Maybe he could find a was to stop that from happening, with Atlantis' help…
"I have no idea." Damn. If Beckett had no idea, then Sheppard knew he wouldn't even know where to begin looking for an off switch. "I've begun administering drugs to help boost her immunities."
"Doesn't seem to be working." He knew it was rude, but he couldn't change the facts.
"Not yet. I just increased the dosage." The doctor seemed willing to let his rudeness slide. They were all tired and stressed, a little rudeness was understandable. Expected, even. "For the moment, we're losing this battle."
And thus, the vigil continued. After some times, Teyla and Ronon left to get some food from the mess hall, but John remained oblivious. Just standing there, staring at the unconscious form of the friend he was becoming increasingly…worried – yes, that was what that feeling must be, worry – about.
"You think she's aware we're here?" McKay and Beckett looked over from the screen they had been analysing, slightly surprised at the seemingly random outburst from the Lieutenant Colonel, who had been standing silently for just over and hour now.
"How can she be, she's unconscious?" Came McKay's tired, incredulous reply. Beckett, however, walked over to the Colonel's side.
"You may be right. Try talking to her, tell her to keep fighting."
"And that will help exactly how?" McKay questioned the doctor.
"In a coma the sense of hearing is the last thing to go and the first thing to return. There are many cases where patients were actually able to hear others talking to them in their rooms."
"And were these comas also cause by nanites invading people's bodies, hmm?"
"No Rodney, but there are indications that she's thinking."
"You mean dreaming?" Sheppard spoke up, having stayed silent through the pervious exchange.
"More than that. Her mind is extremely active for someone in a coma. Her EEG reads almost as if she were going about her daily life." For some reason, that struck John as something to put on the 'highly important and relevant' list. "Which suggests she may well be able to hear us."
"What the hell are they doing to her?" A stupid question, he knew, but he had to ask.
"I wish I knew," Beckett all but sighed, turning back to the screen, mumbling something about the drugs being ineffective.
"Aggressive little bastards." It was just a passing comment, but it seemed to have some sort of effect. Beckett got a rather strange look on his face, which McKay began antagonising him about. Something about it being 'the same look he got when he got a brilliant idea'. That bit peaked Sheppard's curiosity.
"How would you know how you looked?" he asked.
"Because it's happened more than once in front of a mirror, okay. Carson, what is it?"
Beckett excused himself and ran off to do something, McKay chasing after him and demanding to know what was going on. Sheppard just glanced after them and stayed. He decided to use his time alone with her productively, by talking just as Carson had advised him to.
"You know, if Carson's right and you can hear me, I supposed I should say something profound…Okay, I'm not so good at profound. But you should know..." We care about you. I miss you. I need you! I don't want to run a damn city! We can't do this without you… "We're doing everything we can to get you through this." His only answer was the steady beep of a heart monitor and the gentle hum of the machine that was busily scanning her body for any changes. In addition to the gentle, soothing, apologetic song of Atlantis, of course.
"These-these nanites, I don't know what they're putting you through, I don't know what they're doing to you…" he continued vehemently, but sensing a little shiver run along the barrier he continued to press against subconsciously, he paused for a few seconds as the scanner moved back for another pass, "Don't let 'em get to you. We're doing everything we can to bring you back, but you've got to do your part. You've gotta fight this!" Once again he felt a small tremor in the barrier, but he felt it become just a little bit weaker as a result. She was fighting it. He knew she was.
His headache was feeling a little better now. He closed his eyes and began to seek a hole in the barrier. He found a place where he could see through clearly, even if it was a little shadowy. The scene on the other side had changed, though. Now it was a comfortable little bedroom with a few pictures and various other nick-knacks scattered around the place.
"Elizabeth," he tested, watching her wake gently and sit up, clutching her sheets to herself tightly.
"What do you want?" He heard her voice echo through his mind, but his head was pounding again, far too much for him to make a verbal reply. Instead, he mentally moved toward a weakness he had found in the barrier, showing her the way out. He felt her follow for a moment, but when he looked back she was being restrained by two people who looked like orderlies of some sort. To make a physical form – well, at east a physical as a mental form could be – on the other side of a barrier was simply too taxing. Even just being there for a moment had worn him out almost to the point of exhaustion. All he could do for now was go grab some more Tylenol and gather his strength for another try later.
When John returned from another Tylenol mission, Ronon and Teyla were by Elizabeth's quarantine cell. With nothing better to do, they made some idle small talk for a few minutes until McKay and Beckett came barging back in with an apparently brilliant idea, to which John listened with an almost detached interest. Apparently they wanted to give Elizabeth a 'tumour' of wraith tissue for the nanites to attack, which would hopefully extract them from Dr Weir's cells and render the vulnerable to an EM pulse.
"Okay," he said, once McKay had finished interrupting Beckett's explanation and trying to steal his glory. The plan sounded viable. It was better than anything else they had, at least. "Let's do it."
While they worked, John continued his testing. There had to be something he could do…wait, at least if he couldn't get across the barrier, maybe he could send some other kind of help, a message maybe? Across to try and give Elizabeth some hope. From what he had seen, she was in an illusion, similar to the ones they had all been in during their interrogation by the replicator-people-things. If that was the case, no matter where she was or what had been happening to her, he knew that she needed a little bit of hope, something to push her in the right direction, let her know they were there and they were coming, keep her fighting the good fight.
He concentrated again, looking through the barrier, but trying to leave any physical form behind. From what he could see, Elizabeth was in a social room full of people in scrubs and dressing gowns. A mental institute? Some people were conversing, others just staring around blankly, but Elizabeth – PERFECT!
Elizabeth was just starting to lay out card. Knowing the amount of solitaire she played in her free time, John only had to look at the deck of cards to know what she was doing. Focussing his mind, he changed the ink staining the card, moving it to the shape he desired. The reaction was instant. He had caught her attention. She looked at the next card, but he didn't change that one. She was laying out solitaire, so that one would be face down. He needed his work to be seen.
Once again, the reaction was immediate. Hurriedly, she proceeded to lay out the rest of the cards. As she did, he chose the cards he wanted and moulded their faces to form the desired images. Though there were only seven rows, one row too short for what he needed, he had confidence that Elizabeth would pick up on it and draw out an extra card. To his relief, she did. For that one, he made sure to put the one that he put the symbol he knew would have the most impact. The point of origin symbol – for Earth. Now, decorating the table in front of his Lizzie – wait, when did she become 'his Lizzie' he thought with slight alarm – was a neat little solitaire game…depicting the gate address to none other than the lost city of Atlantis.
Sheppard's mind was brought back to the present by the sound of McKay setting up the EMP generator, just as Beckett concluded the surgery to introduce the tumour to Elizabeth's body.
"Wait a minute; aren't we supposed to turn off all Earth-based equipment in the room before we do this?"
"The EM pulse will be directed through the scanner, so the other equipment should be fine," prattled the annoying, though admittedly useful, scientist. John bit his lip, just hoping that either Beckett's idea or his hints would be enough to save the leader of their city. While he watched the Rodney and Carson put the finishing touches on their…whatever it was that they were doing, he focussed his hearing on the barrier, listening to whatever was going on in Elizabeth's little…World? Fantasy? Illusion?
"I keep seeing these symbols. Eight of them." That was Lizzie's voice, and she sounded rather excited. Good.
"Do they mean something to you?" It was the male voice he'd heard before when he first listened to the illusion.
"This is the dialling sequence for the Stargate. From Earth, to Atlantis." Yup, she was definitely excited.
"Dialling sequence, like a phone number?" A new voice questioned. This voice, though, was familiar to John, unlike the other one. This voice belonged to none other than one Brigadier General Jack O'Neil. How could he not know what a dialling sequence was? Or maybe the other person they were with just didn't have security clearance…
"Look, I know you think I'm delusional," John's thoughts of a mental institute had been correct, "but I can't shake the overpowering feeling that something or-or someone is trying to communicate with me.
"And what are they trying to say?" That other man again. John had never met him, but he already didn't like him. Whoever he was.
"That Atlantis is real. And that I have to get back there."
Way to go Lizzie! John had to fight very, very hard to keep a smile from his face when he heard that. His Lizzie, his beautiful smart Lizzie had been listening to him! She'd connected the dots and she was fighting with all she had. A good thing, too, because John had just about passed his maximum level of energy expenditure, and he was fairly sure that if he had to stay longer that the next two setting on his energy chart were 'overload' and 'collapse'. The last thing he needed was to be shipped away from her, right when she could need him the most.
"-And it's working," Beckett's voice broke through his concentration. "Get ready with EM pulse."
"Ready on your mark," Rodney replied.
"And…now!"
There was a small shockwave visible in the quarantine tent before all the monitors in the room flickered off, briefly, then on again. They were almost confident of the pulse's success, but the only thing John could think was, 'well why hasn't she woken up then!'.
His thought was confirmed when Carson uttered a small, "Oh no."
"We didn't get them all," the doctor continued, analysing one of the screens with the utmost scrutiny. Damn. Damn, damn, damn!
They continued to send electro-magnetic pulses through the scanner, but it only proved to make the nanites act more aggressively. Finally Beckett began suggesting something about rendering her brain dead, whatever good that would do. Now or never, Sheppard decided, might as well be now.
"Unless she's fighting it," he spoke up. They all turned and stared, obviously waiting for an explanation. A very brief explanation will do for now, he figured, they don't need to know the full story. "It's the only thing that makes sense," he continued. "The replicators see us as organic machines, they're trying to take control of the machine they're in."
"You mean, replace Elizabeth's consciousness?" Carson clarified.
"Maybe when we zapped her with the EMP we killed enough of them to even out the odds, gave he a fighting chance to stop 'em."
"Uh, reality check. There are microscopic robots in her brain, how does she fight that?" McKay burst in rudely. Instead of addressing the annoying physicist, Sheppard ignored him and turned back to Carson.
"You said it yourself her mind was active, like she was thinking, reacting, living her life. What if this was the only way to get to her? What if they were trying to force her to give up?"
"A battle of wills," stated Teyla.
"Exactly." It worked. They were going act on his theory and let her try and get herself out. He knew she could do it. He could point her in the right direction, if need be, but he didn't doubt for a second that Elizabeth had the strength inside her to break whatever hold the nanites had on her.
"So what, we can't do anything?" Rodney whined, though his concern was showing through.
"I can increase the oxygen levels in her blood, give her a little more time, but…Yes, she's on her own."
"No, she's not," John stated forcefully. He moved back over to his post by the bed, standing his ground and focussing his energy. "You're not alone Elizabeth, we're right here with you," he put as much conviction as he could behind his words, pushing against the barrier again as he did. "You have to fight this!"
The image was blurring again, the machines must have fixed the clear patch he had found, but no matter. He was determined to get Elizabeth through, blurriness of no.
Someone pushed against the barrier from the inside. Yes! He could feel her struggling, could feel the nanites fighting back. He had to get in there, he had to show her the exit, but how?
"Elizabeth!" he called. She had to know that he was there. He forced a projection of himself through, using as much strength as he could muster. "Don't listen to them. This way," even as his little hologram-thing turned to show her the way out, he could feel the nanites scrambling to get between her and him. Between her and the way out.
"They've begun to spread faster. We're losing her," Beckett sighed sadly.
"Not yet, we're not!" John ground out forcefully. He needed to get through the barrier to sustain a proper form to guide he out. He needed to get in there, to get closer-closer! – That was the key! He acted before any of them could notice what he was doing to be able to react to it. Quickly as he could, he went to the opening of the tent, unzipped it and stepped inside. McKay was yelling at him almost hysterically, but he ignored it, focussing all he had on breaking through that damn barrier. He marched over to Elizabeth's bed and placed his hands on her arms, determination sizzling through every fibre of his being. I'll be damned if I'm gonna lose my Lizzie to a bunch of microscopic, alien robots!
He closed his eyes and concentrated as hard as he could. "Elizabeth!" he called in his mind. In her illusion.
"John." He couldn't believe how much relief he felt from that simple look of concerned recognition she sent him. He couldn't afford to stall, though. Despite their close proximity, his energy was failing and he wouldn't be able to stay here for much longer.
"You've been infected by nanites," straight to the point. "They're trying to take control of your mind and body. Don't let them do it. You have to fight them. So fight!" The nanites were working against him again, trying to force him out, trying to force him away from their prize.
"Elizabeth," called General O'Neil, walking up to them. Only now did John realise that they were standing in the middle of a hallway of the SGC on Earth. Crouched in front of him and pointing guns at Elizabeth were two marines, the another two marines were facing towards him, also point guns at Elizabeth, with her standing dead centre. Approaching from the opposite end of the hall was the illusion of General O'Neil. "You have to come with us," it continued, "I'm sorry."
"You know which way you have to go," John stated simply, flicking his eyebrows up. "Run."
That was all John could do before he was forcibly ripped from the illusion by men in hazmat suits, dragging him out of the quarantine tent and taking him to an isolation room, as Doctor Beckett barked orders at them to run a scan immediately.
He wasn't nearly close enough to access the illusion with waning energy, but even if he had been right next to her he doubted he'd have enough energy to get in there again. As much as he wanted to be able to see everything that was happening, John had every confidence in Elizabeth and knew she's be able to get out of there, more or less intact.
SGASGASGA
Well, what do you think? Should I continue this to include the conversation that Sheppard and Weird had after he left quarantine, and possibly a bit more, or should I just leave it as a one shot? I really had fun writing this (teeheehee, I had to sit and watch SG:A repeatedly to get all the timing exactly right, why wouldn't I enjoy it?) and I hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I did. If you did, leave a review and tell me so! If you didn't, leave a review anyway to snark at me:-D I should just point out that this hasn't been beta-read, so all mistakes were mine, and it hasn't been proof-read either, so all mistakes are the result of my laziness. So, have a nice day! Please leave a review in the little blue box by the door on your way out! ;-P