Missing scene tag fic to episode 5x02 - The Seed, exploring the lovely Shep whump in more detail! Medical stuff is based on my rough knowledge and what I can research on the internet so please forgive any inaccuracies. :) All comments and feedback, as ever, gratefully received.

A/N: This fic is 3 chapters in total, with the 3rd chapter almost complete. Will be posting one chapter a day for next 3 days.

"Destroy the seed of evil, or it will grow up to your ruin."

"I don't feel anything. I don't even think that…"

He never got to finish the sentence because right then a strange shiver ran through him and his muscles tensed involuntarily, making him grimace and hunch forward. It was an odd feeling, not quite painful but definitely uncomfortable, and the sensation of not being able to control his own body was downright disconcerting.

He was aware of Ronon calling for Beckett as a second, stronger tremor tightened his muscles and okay, that one did rather hurt a bit. The sensation eased for a second and he relaxed back against the pillow with a gasp. He felt kinda flushed and his voice came out a little rough as he told Beckett, "I think these restraints are a good idea." His body was still flexing and tensing minutely as he spoke and he set his jaw with a pained grunt, struggling for control of his own body… but it was a losing battle.

He scrunched his eyes shut as a painful spasm abruptly made his body try to fold in half. His jaw clenched so hard that his teeth ached and he was aware of his body arching uncontrollably, muscles flexing and straining, the restraints the only thing holding him in place.

"It's working," he heard Beckett say and he wanted to ask if this was what Beckett had expected, if this was normal, but he couldn't loosen his jaw, couldn't make a sound other than a strangled grunt as his body writhed and twisted helplessly. He was burning up suddenly, a flush of heat washing over his entire body, making his skin itch. The restraints dug into his wrists as he pulled helplessly against them.

He was absurdly aware of the bulky shape of the pulse-ox meter digging into his palm as his hands clenched involuntarily and he could hear an odd rattling noise as his entire body began to shake helplessly. It was getting harder to breathe and he found himself panting rapidly through gritted teeth, his chest feeling tight and painful. He could feel his face pulling into a grimace as every muscle in his body tensed uncontrollably. Dark flashes were going off behind his eyes and a distant roaring in his ears threatened to drown out the steadily increasing beep of the heart monitor.

"Colonel Sheppard?" A far-off voice was calling his name but he couldn't answer, couldn't think beyond the pain and the awful feeling of his body jerking and shaking, out of his control. The spasming became more violent, forcing a muffled groan out between his tightly gritted teeth, and his arms and legs tensed viciously, straining against the restraints, pulling his shoulders up from the bed.

Somewhere very far away someone murmured, "Jesus!" in a shocked voice. The beeps and rattling noises picked up their pace.

The thick leather straps were digging painfully into his flesh but he couldn't stop, couldn't control the shaking and jerking of his body. His stomach muscles tensed painfully, pulling his legs up, restraints pulling even tighter against the tops of his boots, and then strong hands were gripping one arm and one leg, pressing them down against the bed, holding him in place as he shook helplessly.

His heart was hammering in his chest, racing uncontrollably, and his head was beginning to swim dizzily. He was vaguely aware of voices nearby but they were muffled and distorted. The hands pressed him down almost painfully hard onto the bed but they couldn't hold him still; his entire body was shaking with tension, his head pushing back against the pillow as he struggled to hang on. The heat was burning through him and he felt like his veins were on fire, like his brain was melting.

His muscles were trembling and aching with exhaustion but still they kept twitching and spasming, making his whole body shake and tremble. He was beginning to feel light-headed, black edges crowding in at the back of his eyes and threatening to swallow him whole. His pulse was thundering in his ears and he was vaguely aware of a shrill noise echoing in counterpoint, getting faster and faster. He didn't know how much longer he could…

The next thing he was aware of was overwhelming exhaustion and a lingering ache in the centre of his chest; it felt like someone had punched him, hard. He felt utterly limp and wrung-out, every muscle in his body aching and sore. The feverish heat was gone though and he felt surprisingly okay… just really, really, really tired. Did that mean it was over? Had the cure worked? He felt a hand on his shoulder and he really wanted to open his eyes and sit up and find out exactly what was happening but his body was feeling stubbornly uncooperative. Just trying to turn his head on the pillow required a huge effort and his voice came out as little more than a sigh as he breathed roughly, "How'd I do?"

He thought about opening his eyes but simply couldn't dredge up the required energy. The hand patted his shoulder reassuringly and Carson's voice, sounding oddly rough and breathless, told him, "You did fine, son."

His head felt incredibly heavy on the pillow and the exhausted lethargy of his body was rapidly turning into drowsiness. He wanted to stay awake, to find out what was happening with Keller, with the virus, but it seemed his body had other ideas. He was distantly aware of hands unfastening the restraints and gently rearranging his limbs; he felt oddly embarrassed at that but couldn't summon up the energy to protest.

Voices were murmuring somewhere and he could hear Carson's voice and Rodney's and maybe Ronon's but he couldn't pick out the words. Something was beeping nearby, a slow, regular beat, and he let the rhythm lull him into sleep.

The beeping was gone when he woke up. He surfaced slowly from dreams of deserts and earthquakes and lay for a moment without moving, just taking stock. He still ached comprehensively but the heavy lethargy was gone, as was the pulse-ox monitor on his finger. He wondered how long he'd been out. And what he'd missed… had Beckett's treatment worked?

He became aware of movement off to his left and he opened his eyes and lifted his head from the pillow, asking roughly, "What happened?"

It was McKay, pacing anxiously. "It worked," he answered tightly. "They just sent Ronon in to give her the shot."

He sat up abruptly, the generalised full-body ache sharpening painfully as stiff and aching muscles protested the movement. He took a moment, perched on the edge of the infirmary bed, and asked, "When?"

"He's just got there." He pushed himself to his feet as Rodney held out a radio earpiece. "Look, I'm tapped into the intercom."

He hooked the device around his ear and listened in as Ronon and Woolsey debated their options. He felt his stomach clench. He had a bad feeling about this. Ronon was still a good way from the isolation room and if what it did to Zelenka was any indication, as soon as that thing had any reason to perceive him as being a threat…

There was a hypo of Carson's cure on the table near the bed. He grabbed it and made sure it was properly loaded before stuffing it in his shirt pocket.

McKay was predictably freaked. "What are you doing?!"

"If I'm right, this is about to go very, very wrong." And they'd end up losing Ronon as well as Jennifer. Well, not if he could help it. There was only one way he could think of to get close enough to Keller without that thing attacking but it was risky as hell and he was the only one that realistically had even a chance of pulling it off.

"Yeah but.. you can't!" Rodney fretted. "We're quarantined!"

"I'm cured, remember?"

He left the infirmary at a run.

He was kinda surprised that Woolsey didn't immediately call him on the quarantine issue but he guessed the man had bigger issues to worry about right then. His brief conversation with the thing that was taking over Keller was enough to reassure him that Ronon was still alive, that there was still a chance of them all getting out of this, and it served as a distraction – both for the creature and for everyone else. He was pretty sure he wouldn't have gotten the jumper out of the bay if Woolsey had realised what he was planning, at least not without lengthy discussion and they really didn't have time for that.

He wasn't surprised when the radio crackled to life before he'd even cleared the tower.

"Sheppard, what are you doing?"

"I'm taking a little shortcut," he explained briefly. "Sorry I didn't have time to fill out the paperwork."

The city whipped past beneath him, a blur of towers and spires, as he curved the jumper around and approached the outlying tower where they'd isolated Doctor Keller. Even from a distance he could see the vine-like growths that had spread and wrapped themselves around a large area of the outer walls.

"Okay, I see it now. That stuff is growing all over the place."

The jumper responded as much to his thoughts as to his hands on the controls and he had a clear idea in his mind of where he wanted to be; he trusted the complex system of sensors and navigation controls to aim him at exactly the right place, the right floor of the tower. The small craft sped up and he braced himself as he felt the engine pods retract.

"This may hurt…" He wasn't entirely sure who he was warning, himself, Woolsey or the jumper itself.

The impact of the jumper punching through the wall was stunning, throwing him forward against the console. He hung on as best he could as the little craft shuddered its way into the building, its momentum slewing it along the floor in a screech of grinding metal.

When it finally rattled to a halt, he was half surprised to find the ship, and himself, still in one piece. He pushed back from the console, feeling more than a little shaken, and let out a relieved huff of breath as he turned the pilot seat around. There was a dull throb of pain from his midriff as he pushed to his feet and he guessed he'd smacked into the console pretty good. Another bruise to add to his collection; he'd worry about it later.

Sparks were fizzling and popping from the jumper's damaged systems as he grabbed a 9mm from its protective case and quickly loaded it. It occurred to him distantly that, if they survived this, McKay was gonna be really pissed at him for trashing another jumper. He pulled the hypo from his pocket and held it and the gun ready as he palmed the rear hatch control.

The scene revealed was like something out of a horror movie. He could see a patch of bright sunny sky through the gaping hole the jumper had smashed through the outer wall. Inside the building everything was dark and musty, every surface smothered in the organic Wraith growth, twisting tendrils hanging from the walls and ceilings, coiling across the floors. The air felt moist and there was a familiar sour smell that he associated with Wraith ships.

He stepped out carefully into the path of destruction the jumper had ploughed through the tower, ducking around the tendrils that were already wrapping themselves around the intrusive foreign object. For the time being they seemed to be ignoring him and he did his damnedest to avoid treading on or brushing against anything or in any way seeming threatening as he crept further into the musty interior, heading for the isolation room.

He was relieved the find the doors to the isolation room open; from the look of it they'd been forced apart as the thickening ropes of Wraith growth had pushed and swelled their way out of the room. He'd had a niggling worry that he'd have to cut or shoot his way into the room, most likely with the same results that Ronon had experienced. He squeezed through the narrow gap between the doors, his skin crawling as the living tendrils pulsed and squirmed as he pressed briefly against them. And then he was inside.

The room was dark, the city powered down except for certain key areas. The walls, ceiling and floor, the IV stand and monitors, every single surface in the room was covered in thick, fleshy growths, tendrils as thick as his wrist looping down from the ceiling and walls, coiling and twisting across the floor. Some of them slithered lazily as he moved gingerly into the room. In the centre of the floor, Dr Keller's bed was a solid block of Wraith growth, the nexus of the spreading infection that radiated outwards into the city. Jennifer was almost completely lost under the organic cocoon, only her face visible.

As he approached he could see that her eyes were closed. She looked young and innocent, relaxed as though she were simply asleep… except for the tracery of thin red lines that had spread vein-like up her cheeks and forehead. Moving slowly and carefully, expecting that at any moment the creature, the sentience that was using Jennifer's body and brain, would wake up recognise him as a threat, he reached out and pressed the hypo to her neck, holding it in place as a small hiss signalled the delivery of the drug.

For a tense moment nothing happened and he stepped back from the bed, a sick fear welling in his stomach that it had all been in vain, that the cure wouldn't work and she – they – couldn't be saved. And then all hell broke lose. Jennifer's eyes snapped open with a gasp, her head lifting from the pillow with a surge of tension. At the same moment, the entire room sprang to agitated life, the mass of tendrils beginning to writhe and thrash in fury, an ugly hissing, screaming sound filling the room. Thick coils slithered and roiled around his feet as he backed away from the bed, they lashed out from the walls to wave threateningly in the air. He backed up, gun in hand, looking around warily, unhappily aware that there was nowhere for him to go; he was surrounded.

There was nothing he could do to avoid the tendril that rose up from the floor and lashed out at him. It moved so quickly that he didn't even have time to aim his gun at it before searing pain ripped through his gut, doubling him over. He'd instinctively clutched at the damn thing as it had speared him and he could feel it pulsing and squirming in his grip as his legs shook and his knees gave way, dropping him heavily to the floor.

He was amazed he'd somehow had the presence of mind to keep hold of his gun; the pain was incredible, whiting out conscious thought and leaving him breathless and stunned. The room was still writhing furiously, Wraith tendrils whipping angrily in the air, the spreading organism still very much alive and dangerous, and he had to accept that maybe this wasn't going to work. There was only one more thing he could do to try and save the city, to save his friends. He'd hoped it wouldn't come to this but the possibility had been there in the back of his mind when he'd brought the 9mm with him. Gritting his teeth and fighting the growing weakness in his limbs, he struggled to raise the gun and aim it at Jennifer. His arm shook and black spots were beginning to dance at the edges of his eyes but he took careful aim and… with a soft sigh, Jennifer's eyes closed and her head fell limply back again the pillow.

Instantly the roaring, hissing noise died away and all around the room the lashing tendrils abruptly sagged, drooping lifelessly as the Wraith organism shuddered and died. The pulsing, fleshy rope in his hand softened and went limp and he felt a sticky wetness against his skin as blood began to ooze around the edges of the thing where it had ripped through his flesh. He let his arm drop heavily, the gun slipping from nerveless fingers.

It was hard to breathe, the pain squeezing his chest like a vice, and moving was out of the question; he held himself stiffly, huddled on his knees, hunched awkwardly to one side, trying desperately to just not move, to just breathe. The pain was unceasing, a constant sharp agony that didn't let up for a second, didn't give him chance to even catch his breath. Oh god. He… Oh, this was bad. This was… really bad.

"Colonel Sheppard. What's your status?" Woolsey's voice crackled in his ear, his tone at once peremptory and fearful.

"Colonel Sheppard?"

It took him a moment to even get enough breath to try and answer. He tried to speak and all that came out was a wordless noise, pain tightening his throat and stealing his breath. He panted shallowly, each breath a separate torture, and managed to gasp out, "I've been better…"

"What happened?" Woolsey demanded anxiously.

His breathing was getting ragged and he could feel his heart racing in his chest. He didn't have time for explanations, he… he needed help. He could feel moisture welling in his eyes, the pain bringing him to tears. He tried to glance down at where he still clutched the damn tendril but even such a small movement brought a fresh wave of agony. He couldn't do this… he couldn't hang on much longer.

"You better come get us," he gritted tightly.

"Colonel?"

He was panting harshly now, struggling for control. "Please…" It was barely a whisper; he doubted the mic had even picked it up.

"Colonel Sheppard?" Carson's voice replaced Woolsey's and he could have cried with relief as his friend assured him, "Hold on, son. We'll be there right away."

TBC...