Part 2

As Rodney sat by the major's bedside, his thoughts returned to what had happened on the planet.

John had wondered off down a hallway somewhere while Rodney, himself, was studying the various nooks and crannies he found in the main room. Then his com came to life with John's voice, "Rodney, I might have found something."

The scientist headed down the corridor he thought he had seen John go down, just in time to see a brilliant light and a body – presumably John's – fly across the hall, pound into the wall and fall apparently lifelessly to the floor.

Rodney rushed to his friend's side and checked for a pulse. Thankfully, there was one, but it seemed to be getting slower by the second, and one look at John's chest told Rodney that his team-leader was barely breathing.

"Help!" The scientist felt himself succumbing to panic. "Ronon, Teyla!" John was the one that handled these kinds of situations well. Rodney was at a loss since it was John who had been hurt.

The rest of Sheppard's team arrived almost instantaneously. Ronon took one look at John, scooped the man up and headed out of the building – presumably toward the gate – leaving Teyla to take charge of the situation with everyone else.

Ronon knew, intellectually, that he shouldn't have picked up his friend until he was sure there wasn't any back injury; but he also knew that there was no help to be had on the planet. John's breathing seemed to be slowing by the moment and Ronon's only thought was to get him back to Atlantis. He didn't worry about the rest of the team. He knew they would follow. As he left the corridor, he had heard Teyla call the two security guards who had been stationed at the gate and tell them to radio ahead to call for a med team. The gate was open when Ronon got there and he stepped through, knowing without looking that Teyla had gathered Rodney and the two guards who had been in the building with them and was approaching the gate, not that far behind Ronon.

Carson and his med team met Ronon and John in the gate-room. Elizabeth and other personnel looked on as Ronon quickly placed John on the gurney and stepped back – though he refused to go too far – to allow the team to work on his friend.

Carson took John's pulse and immediately ordered the paddles. Ronon watched, dumbfounded, while Carson's team worked to get his friend's heart to beat again. After what seemed like an eternity, Carson told his team to move out, and one of the nurses ran alongside the gurney forcing oxygen into John's lungs.

By the time John and the med team had disappeared from view, Rodney, Teyla and the four guards hurried through the gate.

"How's John?" Rodney tried to catch his breath. He had undoubtedly run to the gate.

"They took him to the infirmary," Ronon couldn't bear to tell the man that Sheppard's heart had actually stopped. They had it started again now, and he was under Carson's care. The former runner didn't feel Rodney had any need to know.

Carson performed test after test, trying to find out what happened to the major. So far, no test yielded anything useful. John was still unconscious, and as of now, vent dependant. He hadn't been breathing when they first brought him back and he showed no signs of wanting to start again anytime soon. There was nothing obviously wrong with his lungs; they just didn't work. Carson was hoping that they'd take over from the ventilator at some point. Examining John further, Carson had found that there were no obvious signs of brain damage, in fact, electrical activity in the brain was actually accelerated everywhere, which worried Carson, but he had no idea what it might mean for John in the long run. There was nothing physically wrong with Sheppard's heart, but it hadn't been beating by the time the patient got to Atlantis. Now that they'd restarted it, it seemed to be keeping an acceptable rhythm on its own. Carson passed on these facts to all interested parties, but he really had no idea of what a long term prognosis might be.

For John's team, the next several hours were spent in – or just outside of – the infirmary. Ronon stayed at John's bed-side until he couldn't sit any longer, and he went to the gym to try to work off some of the frustration. Rodney had been torn between wanting to be at John's bedside, and wanting to be on the planet figuring out what the artifact was and what it had done to his friend. Judging from the quick look that Rodney had gotten of it as they rushed out behind Ronon , it looked like a normal ZedPM. He couldn't for the life of him figure out why it acted the way it did, let alone what it actually did to his friend. Ultimately, Elizabeth made the decision for him. She told him that she thought he was far too distracted right now to do his best job on the planet, so she wanted him to stay with John, for now, so that he wouldn't wake up alone.

The rest of the daylight hours ticked by and John had finally begun breathing on his own again, though still not as strongly as Carson would like. The ventilator tube had been removed and an oxygen mask had been placed over the patient's face. The doctor kept a close eye on John's oxygen saturations, and stood ready to replace the tube if necessary. The fact that John's lungs were responding on their own again gave him hope that the rest of the problems this artifact had caused, might clear up on their own, even though they wouldn't really know the extent of the problems until the patient woke up.

Ronon had come back to the infirmary sometime around dusk and Teyla had been in and out, trying to keep abreast of any news from the planet. Rodney hadn't left, much to Carson's consternation. He had questioned every test Carson had done, every procedure performed, and asked over and over when John would wake up. Carson had no answers, and being asked the same questions repeatedly was getting on his nerves. So, both the doctor and the scientist were relieved when John showed signs of waking up. The relief was short-lived since it didn't take long to find out that the major was still quite unresponsive. Carson took off to start more tests suggested by this latest development; they needed to find out if the patient was able to hear, see, feel. Carson knew there were two possible truths here. Either the major was completely brain damaged and didn't know what was going on well enough to even follow simple commands or reflexively squeeze a hand that was squeezing his, or the man was aware inside a body that would just not respond. For an active man like the major, the last scenario would have to be utter hell. The doctor didn't know if it would be worse or better if Sheppard's brain was somehow affected and he just wasn't aware at all. Beckett hoped against hope that whatever the case, it might just be temporary and would improve on its own as the lungs seemed to have. He knew that was a long shot, but he just had to hope.

Rodney was brought out of his ruminations when the sound John had been making seemed to get louder and sound even more desperate and miserable than it had before.

"John," Rodney squeezed his friend's hand, "I'm here. You're in the infirmary. You're going to be alright." There was no response.

John tried even harder to be heard. He couldn't tell if he was making any noise or not. He couldn't tell if he was alone, or if someone was there and he just couldn't tell. He was becoming terrified. What if he was like this forever…trapped inside his own body with no way to communicate, no way to tell where he was or what was being done to him, no way to tell who might be with him or if he was alone. Somewhere along the line, sleep thankfully claimed him again.

TBC