Title: Division
Author: Obsessed1
Character(s); John and Rodney
Genre(s); Stargate Atlantis; Hurt/comfort, Humour
Rating; Pg
Warnings; Spoilers for season four.
Summary; Another bad day.
"So, tell me why you dragged me out of bed again?"
McKay tuned back in to hear Sheppard still griping about being woken at five in the morning. It wasn't as if he didn't get up around that time anyway. Okay, so he'd only got back to Atlantis three hours ago from the mission from hell but still that wasn't his fault.
"Exciting reading. Ring any bells?" McKay sighed dramatically and continued to negotiate the abandoned sections of Atlantis.
"And this couldn't wait for an hour or two?"
"No," McKay snorted, "It couldn't wait."
He stopped suddenly when he realised that Sheppard had just asked him that question, obviously with a mouthful of food.
"What are you eating?"
He turned to see Sheppard stop mid bite of what looked like a muffin.
"What?"
"I'm starving. Do know when I last ate?"
Sheppard shrugged and continued to eat.
"Well……what is it?"
"Dunno, I grabbed the first thing I saw…some kind of bread. It's okay."
"Well….give me some," McKay asked, holding out his hand and tapping his foot impatiently.
Sheppard gave his bread/muffin thing a longing look and then took a step backwards; answering with a mouthful again, "No, get your own."
"Colonel, we are thirty minutes away from a transporter and as you might remember, there is no radio communication down here, so it's not like I can order myself something to go. Come on,"
"No," Sheppard said with a smug smile.
"I could go into hypoglycaemic shock."
"I could be in bed, asleep."
"Very childish Colonel."
"McKay, I've hardly slept, before that I hardly ate. You're not having my muffin."
Sheppard shoved the rest of the muffin into his mouth, "Oh look, it's all gone."
"I hope you choke on it."
"Place nice McKay."
"Just…." Mckay waved a dismissive hand at him, "Let's just find this energy source."
After wandering around for a while longer, they finally located the lab, but frustratingly the door controls refused to work.
"We need to open it manually."
Sheppard popped his mag light into his mouth, pushed his P90 behind his back and started to prise the door open. He stopped after a few minutes and McKay realised that he wanted him to help.
Together they managed to get it open a crack and McKay was already pushing Sheppard out of the way to peer inside.
"Ladies first."
"Oh hardy ha Colonel."
But he went in first anyway. It wasn't until Sheppard stepped over the threshold that the room responded and the lights automatically came on.
"Sometimes I really hate you!" McKay groused.
There were tables with abandoned beakers and broken equipment everywhere. McKay danced around the debris on the floor and managed to locate a console in the centre of the room.
Sheppard was wandering around lazily, checking every corner for potential nasties, moving things around with his feet and poking various objects as he came across them. Satisfied that it was safe, he bumped into McKay's side and peered over his shoulder.
"Well?"
"Well what?"
"Have you found anything yet?"
With the lights up, McKay could now see how tired the Colonel looked. There were dark circles under his eyes and he was days unshaven. Also, he was in dire need of a shower.
"You realise you reek?"
Sheppard backed away from him and rubbed at his face, "Well I was going to shower this morning but I was harassed out of my bed. As I recall, you said I didn't have time to get clean."
"Well, I take it back!" McKay moaned, "Just stay away from me!"
Sheppard took another step backwards, "This far enough?"
"Grow up Colonel."
Sheppard continued, "Or maybe I sh-"
He was interrupted by an alarm that started to blare and before either of them could react a glass partition was sliding down from the ceiling and separating them where they stood. McKay had the option to leave. Sheppard was trapped behind the glass with no escape.
"What the hell?" he said smacking the window with a fist.
McKay couldn't help but smile.
"This isn't funny Rodney. Get me out of here!"
McKay crossed his arms. This was too good.
"Rodney!" Sheppard leaned against the glass, "If you don't get me-"
"Hang on, hang on. You must have activated something."
"I didn't touch anything. You were the one with his hands on a console. I just stepped back and-" he hit the glass again in frustration, "Just get this thing back up."
"I didn't know you were claustrophobic."
"You're confusing me with you. Count yourself lucky that it's not you in here."
"You must have activated something when you backed up. Give me a minute."
He could sense that Sheppard was pacing like a caged animal. Each step was punctuated by him knocking on the glass.
"There was an automatic over-ride…." And before Sheppard could ask, "I don't know why it triggered."
"I don't care why it triggered. Just fix it."
Sheppard was obviously more exhausted than he thought because he only really snapped at McKay when he was sleep deprived. He'd actually thought it would be quite fun for them to roam the abandoned parts of Atlantis. Just like the old times. But evidently, today was not that day.
"Rodney."
"I'm trying. Why don't you just-"
He turned to see Sheppard was leaning against the wall of glass; two hands planted either of his head. He was staring down at his feet. When he realised he was being watched and fixed eyes with McKay he straightened up but there was no mistaking how pale and sweaty he looked.
"Are you okay?"
Sheppard blinked dizzily and responded with his trademark phrase, "I'm fine."
"You look-"
Sheppard waved him off and started to pace again, one hand trailing against the glass in what McKay figured was for support than a need to connect with his barricade.
"Sheppard!"
Sheppard stared him down, "I told you I was fine."
"You're sweating," and now McKay was pressed up against the glass and trying to study Sheppard.
"I'm hot," Sheppard said, "I don't think there's any ventilation in here….."and then he scratched his arm.
"What's that?"
"Rodney…just fix the damn problem."
McKay didn't miss the distinct slur in his voice. He scanned the inside of Sheppard's glass cell and spotted busted beakers and test-tubes on the floor. Nothing else. Nothing of use.
"Sheppard?"
"Just…"
Sheppard slid to his knees in one ungainly motion and McKay was crouching down to join him on the floor.
"What's wrong?"
Sheppard looked up at him, "Feeling a little off," he admitted, "Probably just exhausted."
McKay suddenly felt panic well up within him and he backed up, "Oh my god!"
Sheppard snapped his head up, "What?"
Broken beakers. Test-tubes. Lab equipment. The glass partition.
"What if…" and then he was up at the console and trying to search through the database for something, anything, of use.
"Rodney!"
"This was a research lab. What if this wasn't an accident. What if this partition has come down because of something we released in here and you're getting sick all of a sudden and-"
"Rodney, you're not making much sense."
"This was a research lab and we know from the nanovirus incident that the ancients were conducting all kinds of…well idiotic experiments. We also know they have fail safes in the event of contamination. What if…….. you've been exposed to something down here and Atlantis has closed you off to protect me from whatever it is you've been infected with."
Sheppard smiled weakly, "I haven't been exposed to anything Rodney. I'm just tired."
McKay pressed himself against the glass. Sheppard looked up at him from where he was sitting.
"You're sick and…what's that on your neck?"
Sheppard felt around his neck.
"What?"
"You have a welt…oh my god! You have been infected and what if I have?"
"Then you'd be behind this?"
"No no no, maybe the door hadn't malfunctioned. It was keeping us out from whatever was in here. I could be infected too. I just managed to avoid getting trapped……"
Sheppard tried to straighten up for his benefit but it wasn't a success. He doubled over and started to cough.
"We need to get help!"
"Radios don't work. Remember?" Sheppard informed him.
"Then I need to get help then…"
"Okay." Sheppard pressed his shoulder into the glass, "What if there was an infectious disease down here. Wouldn't Atlantis have sensed it by now and shut off the connecting corridors?"
"This area of Atlantis is still storm damaged. The sensors don't work. Atlantis wouldn't pick it up."
"You mean to tell me that for all this time this has been a black spot and…" Sheppard waved a hand, "Never mind. If there is a contagion down here then you going up there could spread it."
"Not if I go far enough to set the fail safes off."
"We can't risk it."
"Okay, maybe I could create some kind of power overload that would alert somebody to our position."
"Again. Contagion, you'd risk infecting whoever came down here…but Rodney. I'm not sick…I'm just-"
And he paused and took in a steadying breath, wobbling on his feet.
"You're sick."
Sheppard scratched at his arm and McKay could see that his arm was now red, covered in little pin prick welts.
"What is that?"
Sheppard shook his head and examined the marks closer, "Okay," he conceded, "Okay….maybe……maybe you could try and get within radio contact. "
McKay snapped his fingers, "I have a better idea. I could try and boost the radio signal down here. If I could divert enough power I might be able to link to the gateroom and alert the others."
Sheppard hacked out another cough and seemed to be having problems breathing. He was also ridiculously flushed.
"How you doing?" he looked over his shoulder to see Sheppard sitting on the floor and loosening his tac vest.
"Sheppard?"
He could hear him rasping, even through the glass. He almost wished it was soundproof so he didn't have to listen to Sheppard die what would probably be a very long and painful death. He scratched his arm and tried to convince himself that it was just psychosomatic. He was fine. Sheppard's condition seemed to have deteriorated rapidly and he was…fine. Just fine.
"Sheppard?"
"Finding it hard to breathe.."
"Okay, okay….." McKay tried to work as fast as he could.
With his shaking hands and uncoordinated fingers he thought he was probably doing more harm than good.
He managed to get the mass of wires under the console free and started chopping and stripping and connecting in the hope he could make his idea work.
"Why aren't you talking?" McKay shouted as he worked, too afraid to look over his shoulder.
"Trying to….breathe," Sheppard replied.
"Tap on the glass as I work…….just so I know you haven't keeled over in there from the plague."
"Don't have…the plague."
"Just-"
"Fine."
And the tapping began. At another time it would have been annoying but the repetitive beat of a fist against glass was actually quite soothing because it meant that Sheppard was still alive and with him.
Finally the jumbled wires were starting to make sense and McKay had an idea of how he could make this work.
Tap, tap,tap,tap,tap.
"You know……this is just typical! I don't know why the ancients couldn't just label things like normal people. No, they have to leave their deadly contagions just lying around for anyone to stumble upon. "
Tap, tap, tap.
"This is the second….no,no….. maybe fifth time this has happened to me now! I can only avoid certain death for so long you know."
Tap, tap, tap.
"My cat has less lives than I do!"
Tap…tap…tap…..tap.
"Nearly there. If I can reroute the power going to-" the lights dimmed, "-and connect this like this…..Ha! I think this might actually work."
Tap……….tap………tap…………tap.
"You know, when this is all over you're going to owe me big time! You might even have to give me every Muffin you eat ever again!"
Tap……………………………tap………………………………………tap………………..tap.
"One more twist and-"
An electrical discharge had him staggering back onto his ass and he groaned.
"That wasn't supposed to happen," he groaned, "Ow, ow….my back!"
Tap…………………………………………………………………tap………………………………………..
He dove back in, pin pointed the error, removed a crystal…replaced another……twisted, clipped, snapped and- "Okay this should work!" and he activated his radio, "Hello? Hello?"
Tap…………………………………………………………………………………………………tap………………
"Hello?"
The line was filled with static.
"Hello? McKay to the Gateroom!"
He made one more adjustment and then.
"Doctor McKay?"
"Oh thank god! We have a situation in the east sector of five G."
"Five G?"
"East five G. We have a contagion….I repeat…a con-ta-gi-on. Sheppard has already been infected and I'm next…you need to send people in hazmat suits and-"
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
The connection died.
"Dammit!"
He sat down and sighed heavily, "I think they got my message but I don't know……we're going to have to wait and…."
Something was wrong.
"They're probably still trying to figure out where we are. What's the point in drawing a map and labelling it if no-one ever-"
The room was silent.
The tapping had stopped.
McKay twisted around and saw that Sheppard was slumped down against the glass.
"Sheppard!" he thwacked the glass with his fist, "Sheppard!"
He didn't budge.
"Oh god! You're going to die and I can't……. because this …….stupid glass and you had to activate something and-"
He stood and started pacing. He couldn't think! Tried the radio again! Paced! Finally he crouched and watched Sheppard's condition worsen. He thought the others had heard him over the radio, but what if they hadn't?
"I don't feel well…." He half whispered.
The probability that he was infected was high. He was feeling a little peaky himself and itchy and now come to think of it he was having a hard time breathing. Or was he just hyperventilating?
"If I'm going in to hypoglycaemic shock because of you I'll kill you!"
Sheppard didn't move. It was expected.
"Please wake up! I'm sorry I dragged you out of bed!! Sheppard!"
And then Sheppard's chest stilled.
"Are you breathing? Sheppard?"
Pressed against the glass, his nose flattened and each breath steaming up the window, he couldn't tell if Sheppard was still with him.
There was nothing more he could do. Not on this side of the glass anyway.
He could stand there and watch his friend die or he could help him.
Damn it!
He pulled out his 9.mil and fired at the glass once, twice, three times before it even made a dent. It took a whole magazine to make the glass weak enough and then he was doing the unimaginable. He, Doctor Meredith Rodney McKay was jumping through the glass and into certain agonising death.
He skidded to a stop next to Sheppard, could feel that his face was cut, and knew that his contamination was certain.
He reached for Sheppard's wrist and could feel a pulse. It was weak but still there. Sheppard stirred a little but stil seemed to be in distress.
"You're alive?"
Sheppard nodded.
"I thought……I can't believe you're alive! And now I'm infected too!"
Sheppard tried to speak.
"Sorry," McKay snapped, "I didn't mean……I just react to impending death a certain way."
Sheppard shifted, legs squirming on the glass covered floor and he reached out for McKay's arm. McKay knew he couldn't breathe but he didn't know what he could do for him. He couldn't give him CPR, they didn't have oxygen; all he could do was be of comfort to him in his last moments.
"Oh god!" McKay said to fill the silence.
He pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. He felt awful. He was hot and cold at the same time, his hands were shaking, his arms were itchy, his throat felt constricted.
"It's happening to me too," he remarked and found his eyes wandering over the lab equipment lying on the floor.
He briefly wondered what it was they had been trying to achieve. Something to combat the wraith?
Sheppard was taking shorter breathes and disturbingly, his lips were turning blue.
"Just take slow…deep breathes."
Sheppard's eyes were drifting closed and then-
---------------------------------------
There were the sounds of people down the corridor. Lots of people! McKay tried to move but felt too weak from the contagion to move.
"In here!" he rasped out.
Radek was the first to enter the room and the first thing Mckay noticed was that he wasn't wearing a HazMat suit.
"No, no….get out!" McKay shouted, "You'll be infected! In fact………you probably are by now!"
"Rodney," and Radek was gripping him by the arm as more people spilled into the room.
Doctor Keller bounded in with her medical bag.
"No! You're all going to die!"
"Rodney," and Radek was gripping him firmly by the arms, "There is no contagion."
McKay blinked and spoke to Radek while watching Keller assess the Colonel, "What?"
"We were re-installing the fail-safes in this area of the city. We tried to reach you by radio….." he paused, "Didn't you notice that the doors were closed?"
McKay drifted back into the conversation and suddenly felt sick. The door they had un-jammed.
"I thought……..but the glass barrier?"
Radek removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose, "You must have activated it when you opened door. It's a secondary precaution to-"
"Why were you doing that today?" McKay felt so incensed he almost felt better, "You knew I was down here."
"I thought you were resting."
"No I was…." McKay pushed himself up onto his knees, "Well, what's wrong with him then?"
Keller was studying the marks on Sheppard's arms. She'd already placed an oxygen mask over his face and he at least had a little more colour.
"Was the Colonel eating anything earlier?" she asked.
McKay narrowed his eyes.
"Rodney?"
"I don't know….a muffin thing. He wouldn't give me any of it."
"It's a good job too," Keller said as she looked through her bag, "The cooks used a batch of un-tested off-world seeds in their dough yesterday. Nearly seventy five percent of Atlantis's population are allergic to them. Some have been affected worse than others…"
"What? He's allergic to…a muffin?"
"The seed Doctor McKay."
"But still……a muffin?" he stifled a laugh.
Keller nodded, "This would have been fatal if he'd been here much longer."
Sheppard's eyes rolled back in his head and he tried to pull the mask off his face, "Muffin?"
Keller patted him on the shoulder, "It's okay Colonel. I just need to give you some epinephrine and-"
McKay retracted his EpiPen from his pocket and realised that Sheppard had managed to do the same. They both shared a look and McKay started to laugh.
"What is it Doctor?"
"Oh nothing," he said sitting back on his heels.
Keller pulled down the waistband of Sheppard's pants and injected the EpiPen into his thigh. She rubbed the area to promote a quick release and then they sat and waited for him to wake.
------------------------------
Ronon had been on the mainland all day when he arrived back on Atlantis. He was walking towards his quarters, accompanied by Teyla, when Sheppard was whisked by on a gurney, flanked by a medical team. Sheppard had an oxygen mask over his mouth and looked a little shaky but he gave Ronon a little wave as he went by that meant, "I'm fine."
McKay was dragging his heels behind the commotion.
"What's going on?" Ronon asked, tone already accusing.
McKay gave him a weary smile and waved his hand, "Don't ask."
"Is John okay?" Teyla asked, hand reaching out to squeeze McKay's arm.
"What did you do?"
"Ronon…..this time? Nothing."
And then he took off after Sheppard.
"Are they okay?"
"Think so. You know those two."
Teyla gave him a look to say, unfortunately I do.
"What have you got there?"
Ronon shrugged, "Dunno. Some kind of bread thing. Took it to the mainland today, forgot to eat it."
Teyla rubbed her burgeoning belly, "It looks……tasty."
Ronon smiled and took a step back, "I don't think so."
She may have been pregnant but it didn't mean she got to eat everything. He'd spotted this earlier. He was hungry. No way was he sharing.
"Perhaps…you would be willing to share?"
Ronon wrapped one arm around her shoulder, "Nice try Teyla."
Teyla nudged him affectionately with her elbow, "I'm going to check on John and Rodney. Enjoy."
"I will."
Ronon watched her waddle off, momentarily wondered what the hell kind of trouble Sheppard and McKay had gotten into this time and then took a bite into his muffin.
A/N- Another silly bit of fluff. Please review. I'd love to hear what you think.