Ferris Wheels
The girl was situated in the far corner of the infirmary. John Sheppard, Major of the Atlantis expedition, made his way over to her bedside, alarmed at the sound of the coughing coming from deep within her throat.
A frown crossed over his features. The girl could have only been six or seven years of age, and she was here. Here in the Hoffan infirmary, one of the fifty-percent of people inoculated with the serum of which was about to take their lives. A flare of anger rose in his heart and mind at the thought of this little girl dying for a lost cause.
He observed the upright yet shaking body of the child, with her long hair that fell almost to her waist in a stream of golden curls and troubled, closed eyes as the fit of coughs shook her. Without hesitation, he found a place on the end of her bed.
She looked up with blue eyes so clear; that Sheppard could decipher every thought and emotion she was feeling in that moment.
She stuttered, more surprised by his approach than gasping from the sickness. 'H-Hi.' His heart went out to her immediately. Her and her sad little eyes. A small smile crossed over him when he formulated a short introduction that would suit the occasion.
'Hi, there.' He said, curving inwards to her. 'Are you alright?' He asked, when he had noticed her figure beginning to shake once more. She nodded, coughing twice before managing to regain herself.
A smile surpassed her features, despite herself. 'I'm ok.' She said, for good measure, before putting two and two together and realising his attire was different to that of the others. 'Are you from Atlantis?' Her blue eyes became bulbous and curious. Sheppard couldn't stop the smile in his eyes from widening as well as the expression on his face.
'Yeah. How did you know?' He asked, with an easy yet not patronising tone. He ran a hand through his short, dark hair while awaiting for her reply.
She paused, 'Your clothes are different. And the patch on the side of your shirt says Atlantis. And you have a really, really big weapon thing on your chest.' She pointed to his gun. 'And you speak funny.'
He cocked an eyebrow at her. 'Do I really?' She giggled, bringing a shed of light into the conversation for a brief window of time.
'Yes.' He had never realised he really had much of an accent before. However, he was from a totally different planet, so he let the comment slide. Instead, he asked a simple question.
'I'm John. John Sheppard. What's your name?' He asked.
She smiled again and grabbed a handful of the thin, white sheets spread over her legs with slender, pale hands. 'My name is Lilly.' He returned her expression.
'Lilly? That's a nice name.' She nodded, smiling.
'John Sheppard is a nice name too.'
They both chuckled. He liked the girl already. Yet his mind moved back to the real reason he was here.
'Are you here because of the inoculation or are you sick?' He asked softly, with caution as to not harm her feelings. He didn't know in what way, but he kept the caution still the same.
Lilly shook her head. 'I was given the drug our people are calling the Cure.' She paused, looking up at him with bulbous blue eyes. 'They say it will stop the Wraith from hurting us.' She pulled her knees up to her chest in slight fear, as if even speaking the name of the Wraith would alert them to their presence.
'But it didn't work.' Sheppard said, voice and expression deadpan. He could feel the tendrils of rage rising up to his heart with every word of the conversation. She was here because of the drug – this cure. A six year old was dying in a hospital because of the stupid mistakes of the Hoffans.
She shot him a concerned look and he forced down the rage that was shaking him to his very core. 'It's not their fault.' She said. He was surprised that she was able to read what he was thinking so easily. 'The doctors, I mean. I know they were only trying to help me, and everyone else. I'm just not good enough, I guess.'
Sheppard felt himself getting angry again, but for a total different reason. 'No! Don't you ever say that! Don't you ever blame yourself for what they have done.' Lilly looked up at him in mild shock at his outburst and the emotion on his face. 'They got you into this mess. They blindly followed the orders of the Council and you and everyone else here have to pay for their mistakes. It is not your fault.' He took one of her hands in his own and squeezed it for a brief second.
Lilly nodded, eyes looking dark with sorrow. 'I don't want to be sick.' She said, voice almost cracking from the burden of the sadness in her heart. Sheppard choked back his own feelings, keeping himself almost emotionless. Almost.
'Hey, lighten up. You're not going to get better if you think like that, are you?' He said, trying to make her feel better. It seemed to work for a brief moment, and she nodded.
He continued. 'You remind me of a girl from a story I once read.'
Lilly brightened at the thought of hearing a story from another world. 'Could you please tell me the story?'
Sheppard thought for a moment. 'Well…'
She looked up at him with her own sad, pleading eyes. 'Please?'
He shrugged. 'Ok.' Then he proceeded to tell her the story of Obernewtyn and Elspeth Gordie. 'She had her friends were different from everyone else and that made them sad, so one of her friends used to always call her "Little Sad Eyes."' Minutes passed, which seemed to move on to hours, albeit he was only giving her a very basic summary of the story.
Before long, he found himself finishing up with the conclusion. 'But in the end she found out that she was where she belonged, despite what anyone else said. So her eyes weren't all that sad anymore.' Lilly seemed content with the ending. Of course he wasn't about to tell her that the author had seemingly left the series unfinished, before moving to other projects. So he spun up a short summary of the end for her, something that would be desirable to someone her age – happiness.
'So,' She began, upon his finishing of the story, 'Is that what you like to do when you don't have to work?'
'Read?' A nod.
He paused, thinking. 'Hmm, I don't get much time off work in Atlantis. But when we were back home on Earth, I liked to go to parks and ride on Ferris Wheels.' Lilly blinked.
'Do you have two homes?' She asked. Sheppard nodded. 'Wow, you're so lucky!' Lilly realised something right then.
'Wait,' she asked, confused. 'What's a Ferris Wheel?'
Sheppard grinned right then, enjoying her confusion and the chance to awe her with the awesomeness that was the Ferris Wheel. 'It's a large, circular object with all these carriages on it that you can get into. It's very, very big and goes very, very high up, so you can see almost the whole park.' She nodded, intrigued. 'What happens when you get into one of the carriages, is that a man on the ground pulls a lever which operates the Ferris Wheel and it begins to spin around, because its on the circle.' He showed her the clockwise motion of the Ferris Wheel and her eyes widened.
'How big is it?' Lilly asked, completely awed by the ideas Sheppard was preaching.
'It's twenty of my height. Maybe more.' He said, and stood to show her his tall, straightened posture. If possible, her eyes grew even more excited at the prospect of such an oddity existing somewhere in the world.
'So it's bigger than the Stargate?' She asked. He was slightly surprised that she knew about the Stargate when so many of her age on Earth had no idea it existed.
'Much bigger than the Stargate.' She grinned at him and he grinned back. The mood hung for moments on end before she began to cough. Concerned, Sheppard ebbed closer to her position on the bed. 'Are you alright?' Lilly didn't move, just continued to cough.
He continued, desperately. 'Lilly? Lilly are you ok?' For a moment she wasn't responsive, but then the coughing subsided and she began to nod her head, coming to. Sheppard felt the relief come crashing down on him, and he was awed by how much he seemed to care for this girl when they had known each other for barely an hour.
'I feel really sleepy now.' She said, yawning for good measure. Sheppard couldn't help a small smile despite himself. Inside, he was confused. He had gotten so worked up about her a moment before, in fear that she would die in the hospital bed she was sitting in. The thought of this actually occurring in less than a day struck him as inhumanly wrong.
He put his head in his hands, closing his dark eyes against the palm of his hand. Lilly seemed concerned for him, despite her weakened state. 'Are you ok?' She asked, worry in her small, gentle voice.
He lifted his head and turned to her. 'Yeah.' After a moment, he reinforced his words, 'Yeah, I'm fine.' Then he picked up the thin, white sheets surrounding the young girl and cocooned her in it. 'You should get some sleep.' She nodded weakly and yawned again.
In a rush of emotion, he placed a gossamer kiss on her forehead, which made her giggle somewhat, and left her bedside, ready to address the pure and unadulterated rage that faced him.
Complete and utter anger overtook John Sheppard's mind as he stalked across the threshold into the room.
He addressed the Chancellor standing there with neither curtesy nor concern to his status or wealth. 'Do you have any idea what's going on out there?' His voice shook in rage. As, he was sure, his dark eyes portrayed just as well.
'I do, Major.' He replied after holding back a guard and telling him to leave them. He placed his wine glass on the table to the right of him. Sheppard watched with animosity.
His mind flickered back to Lilly, sleeping painfully in her hospital bed. 'Half the people you gave that drug to are dying.' He said, danger laced through his words.
The Chancellor held no surprise at the statistics Sheppard spoke of. In fact, he seemed quite proud of them. 'Half of them, Major. Half.'
If he wasn't concerned for the rest of his team's treatment in the midst of the Hoffan people and guards, Sheppard would have decked him right then and there.
He continued, oblivious of the rage that had a stronghold on the man that he was facing. 'The statistics are clear and the numbers that are holding at that level have just been confirmed, which means the other fifty-percent of those we inoculated will live! And destroy any Wraith who try to defeat them.'
Screw decking him one. Sheppard thought. I'll shoot him.
Somehow, against all odds, he managed to keep his cool. Hail Mary, he thought. 'I don't believe this.' Was all he could manage to speak without resulting to some sort of very painful physical torture of the Chancellor standing before him.
All he received was a frown and a conceited stare. 'Now the Wraith will know the full conviction of the Hoffan people.'
Sheppard couldn't believe what he was hearing. 'Conviction?'
He cocked an eyebrow. 'Do you realise that if we could spread this drug to every human in the galaxy, future generations would never know the horror of a culling?' Sheppard could see the path their conversation was going down, and he decided that the man might not exactly be all so cunning as he was idiotic.
'You're deliberately sacrificing millions of lives.'
The Chancellor didn't seem to get the point at all. 'An end to the Wraith! You can't comprehend the bargain in that.' At that moment, Sheppard would rather be talking to a Wraith, Steve even – if he wasn't dead – than the man he was speaking to right then.
'You can't make a bargain like that for your entire people!' He almost screamed, thinking of Lilly, of course.
'You think I'm alone in this conviction?' A stray thought entered his mind; you sure don't have my vote.
Oh, you want to know what I think? 'I think you're delusional!'
'You shall see.' Sheppard was in awe at how stupid one person really could be. Was he stupid or just blind to the fact that he was killing millions of his people? 'We are putting it to a vote as we speak. I will stand by the decision of the majority. Does that satisfy you?'
'Do they have any idea what they're voting on?' He asked, knowing from many a time in Earth history that politicians had a way of bending the truth. Propaganda, in a way.
'Yes. I promise you.'
He scoffed. 'Then you'll back off if it doesn't go your way?' Sheppard felt the ice in his voice growing to an all time high.
'You have my word.'
Like your word means anything to them, he felt like saying, but he managed to catch his tongue. Instead, he got the hell out of there before he found his hands around the Chancellors throat.
Like your word means anything to Lilly.
Sheppard made his way back to the infirmary, to check up on his newfound friend. However, when he made his way towards the corner he had sat next to her in, he was alarmed to see it empty.
No.
It can't be.
The feeling of complete and utter dread arose in his body as he ran over to the place where Dr. Carson Beckett was checking a patient's vital signs. 'Beckett.' He said, trying to keep his emotions under control but failing miserably. His voice came out with desperation.
The good doctor turned to him. 'Yes, Major Sheppard?' He was surprised to see that Carson's eyes were bloodshot.
'Are you alright?' The moment of concern came across him. He shook it off.
Carson nodded. 'Yeah, I'm fine.' Sheppard felt once again stressed for time right then.
'Do you know what happened to a girl, around six years old who was being treated in the bed of that corner over there?' He pointed to the other side of the room.
Please, don't let her be dead. Please.
Carson looked up at him, confusion clouding his judgement. 'Uh, may I ask why you want to know?'
Sheppard lowered his head slightly, as to not let the Doctor see the emotion in his eyes. 'I was talking to her before. Her name was Lilly.' He looked back up at him. 'Please, I need to know. Is she ok?'
'I-I'm sorry, Major.'
He need not say anymore. Sheppard turned on his heel and, without another word to anyone else in the room, ran as fast and hard as he could out of the infirmary.
Beckett cocked his head towards the small, crouched figure next to him. 'Are you happy now?' He asked, feeling the weight of the Major's sadness. She nodded.
'I didn't want you to do it…' She started.
'But it had to be done. I know.' He finished.
A pause. 'I just don't understand why.'
Lilly sent a small, sad smile towards him. 'I don't want him to be there when it happens.' She said, voice small. 'It would be better on the both of us.' She looked up with spherical blue eyes, brimming with tears.
Carson stared down at the small, gold-haired girl, amazed at her intelligence and care. She truly was innocence captured in a single individual.
Like Perna. He thought.
Doctor Beckett pushed the beautiful, blonde-haired scientist to the back of his mind as he directed Lilly back to her bed. 'Come.' He said, his voice a whisper. 'I need to hook you back up to the monitors.' Lilly nodded.
Carson grasped her hand in his, feeling the warmth radiating off the small, twitching fingers. It was no wonder that Sheppard had seen the good in this little girl. Her aura of good-will and purity seemed to radiate throughout the entire infirmary.
As he placed her back onto her bed, his small, child patient asked a question that surprised him immensely. 'Doctor Beckett?' She asked; her voice small and polite.
'Yes, love?' He smiled back, not expecting the reply from the little girl that came.
'Have you ever been on a Ferris Wheel?'
End Note: I thought I would end it there. I have no idea where the inspiration from this came from, but I can take an educated guess that it had something to do with ripping the Atlantis episode 'Poisoning the Well' onto my computer this morning. I hope you like it, because it was all randomness, really. I'm not sure how it would fit in or why I made the ending the way it was, but I hope it wasn't too predictable.
Oh, and I hope you liked it. If you have time, please tell me your thoughts.
Love,
Exangeline