Thanks to everyone who commented! For those of you I can't reply to:
JJK: I feel terribly predictable now. Hope you enjoy it anyway.
Carter1994: You're awesome. Ha, I'm glad to see you hanging around again! This story will be considerably different than my others, but it's something I really wanted to do, so, I just hope at least a few people like it too.
In Between - II
John slowly moved towards the curtain and pulled it back, just so he could see for himself..
He stepped closer to the infirmary bed, then turned back around to discover that the curtain had already closed itself back without anyone noticing, but this concept didn't surprise him anymore.
Looking at himself on an infirmary bed did, however. Despite the mounds of white dressings and countless bruises, John recognized himself, and knew that he was in terrible shape. He was on a ventilator, something that he had been on before, but he had never been conscious to witness it. But was he really conscious now? The person on the bed most certainly wasn't, but John was. This John…? This was all starting to confuse him…
He continued to view his own body laid out on the infirmary bed. Apart from his face being swollen to the point it was almost unrecognizable, he saw a small cast around his right wrist and the pressure bandages wrapped tightly around his chest, of which he knew was for some broken and/or cracked ribs. There was also numerous pieces of gauze placed on various parts of his body, his head in particular, and his skin was discolored in many areas. On the whole, John's body had been through hell.
John stared at his body on the bed, then looked at his hands. There were two of him, he had already decided that, but only one of them was visible to other people. Judging by the state of his body, the real Sheppard was not doing good at all. The real Sheppard? If the 'real' Sheppard was on the bed, then what was he? Was he a spirit, or a soul? That was the only logical explanation he could think of, although none of this was logical in the least. So, to make things a little easier, he decided that John Sheppard, he, was split between body and soul.
He looked down at his body and suddenly felt angry and sick. Why was he looking at himself? Why was this happening? How did this happen?
But it wasn't really happening, John reminded himself. It was a dream. A very real dream, but a dream nonetheless. In fact, he would be waking up at some point to find himself in his bed once again, maybe awakened by Ronon pounding on the door. The way it was supposed to be.
He decided he didn't want to be looking at his body anymore. It was an unsettling sight and he didn't care to linger on it any longer. He opened the curtain and stepped away from his body and was once again with his team members. They looked so sad and scared. Well, Ronon appeared to be wild with anger, but John knew it was the Satedan's way of displaying concern. Either way, it pained John to see his team - his friends - like that.
"It's just a dream, you guys," John explained to them. Of course, no one acknowledged him. "A very real dream, but I'm fine. Really…"
He turned his attention to Rodney, who was now sitting with his hands awkwardly placed over his ears. The scientist looked worn out and disheveled, as though he hadn't slept or bathed for days. John frowned and took a few steps closer to where Rodney sat, and squatted beside him.
"You smell," John said, his eyes not leaving Rodney's lowered head. "McKay, this is fake; a dream. Go take a shower and get some sleep."
Rodney looked up then, making John's heart skip a beat at Rodney's acknowledgement. John stood up now and stared at McKay expectantly but McKay looked around for a second, not as though he was looking for someone, but as though he was just weary and concerned. As though he hadn't heard anyone speaking to him at all. Disappointment washed over John.
"I'm gonna go," McKay said suddenly, rising from his chair and looking at Ronon and Teyla. "I can't sit here and… just let me know if anything changes." Teyla opened her mouth to say something, but McKay was already walking out the infirmary door before she was able to speak.
"He is going to lock himself in his lab once more," Teyla said quietly.
"Yep," John and Ronon said in unison, though Teyla could only hear Ronon.
"Took three days to get him to come here," Ronon added, "Wonder how long it'll take this time."
Three days? Has it been that long? John wondered, but his questions were interrupted by the sound of a curtain being pulled back. Two nurses were walking away now, holding small bags of what appeared to be bloodied gauze. The sight made John's stomach turn uneasily.
"You can sit with him now," Dr. Keller said quietly, motioning towards some empty seats by Sheppard's bed. John looked at his team, then at his body, and finally closed his eyes. Why was this happening? Minute by minute, John was finding it harder and harder to remind himself that all of this was just a dream. That it wasn't real.
"How is he?"
Keller sighed in the way medical doctors do when they don't have any good news. "He's still in a coma," she said, the words penetrating John's mind like ice. "People have come out of them, and others haven't. All we can do right now is care for his wounds and… have hope," Keller finished, placing her hand on Teyla's shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze. John watched Teyla nod somberly before turning back to her chair and easing down in it. John turned his gaze to Ronon now, who stood at the foot of Sheppard's bed, his arms crossed and his face screwed up in anger.
"It's okay, big guy," John tried to say, knowing that Ronon's anger was reaching a dangerous level. "It's not real," John repeated so quietly, he barely heard it himself.
Do I still believe that?
Over the last few minutes, John's certainty of the situation being a dream was slipping away. Nothing had changed, really, but it was almost as if John was finally seeing it for what it was, even if he wasn't sure exactly what that meant. He wanted so badly to believe this was all going on in his head, but a part of him was screaming and chastising this naivety.
He couldn't take it anymore. Half of him was pushing the idea that this was fake, while the other was telling him to accept it. He looked at Teyla with her sad eyes and hurt expression, then to Ronon and his dangerous anger, and finally, his eyes fell upon his own body, tattered and torn and inert. If it hadn't been for the horrible discoloration of his skin, John might have mistaken the stillness of his body as peaceful, but he knew better.
John began backing away; away from his distraught team, away from his own mangled body and away from the confusion. He wanted out. He wanted out of this dream and he wanted it now. The wet blanket was wrapping itself tighter around him and he was finding it harder to breathe.
He turned suddenly, and started running. He needed to prove something to himself, and there was no way he was going to do it in the infirmary. He ran, bumping into a few people along the way, but they didn't seem to mind at all. He ran, skipping all of the transporters, fearing the idea of having to stop long enough to get inside and tell it where to go.
John kept running until he reached his destination. The place where his day had began, and hopefully the place where it would end. He had already tried to 'wake' himself up, but that proved to be futile. So really, he only had one option; go back to bed. That made sense, right? Maybe not, but he was going to try anyway.
John entered his room, and found himself pacing as he thought. He wasn't tired at all. In fact, his mind was racing with the events of the morning. Dream or not, it had been a horrible one. It made no sense. But if it wasn't a dream, then who was to say the scenario of body splitting from soul was impossible? Of course, he had never heard of anything like that, but since coming to the Pegasus Galaxy, he learned to keep an open mind.
So if it was real, - which is wasn't, John added - then his soul or spirit had separated from his body which was currently in a coma. What did that mean? He obviously wasn't dead, but was he so far gone that he could never come back? Would he have to walk around like this forever, having no one ever see him or touch him, until they pulled the plug? Was that his future?
John lashed out and picked up the nearest thing to him - the lamp sitting innocently on his bedside table - and threw it at the opposite wall, shattering it into hundreds of pieces. But when Sheppard looked back at his bedside table, he saw the lamp sitting there, mocking him and his inability to interact with his surroundings. John shouted in anger and threw himself on the bed.
He tried to even out his breathing, pressing his hands to his eyes with a significant amount of pressure. He did his best to clear his mind, knowing that would be his only chance of falling asleep, and he succeeded… sort of. It would have to be good enough. He took a very deep breath, released it, and shut his eyes. He waited for a couple of minutes and tried his best to relax. He kept telling himself that everything he had seen that day was just a dream. That's all.
He wasn't sure how long he stayed there, but absolutely nothing was happening.
"Dammit!" John growled as he sat up.
"What the hell am I supposed to do?!" he screamed at his ceiling. "I know this is a dream!"
He rolled out of his bed and began pacing again. It couldn't be real. It just couldn't. It had to be a nightmare, and in nightmares, he would always wake up right before something bad happened. Whether it be falling, getting shot, or being exploded, he would always wake up before it took place.
With that thought, he made his bedroom door open and stopped for a moment on the outside of it. People were walking around in the hall, his own men in fact. As they walked by, he caught a part of their conversation.
"Have you heard how he is?" Lieutenant Masters asked a new soldier whose name John had forgotten.
"No," the soldier answered, "just that he's in bad shape."
Masters sighed and looked at John, though John knew the man was actually looking right through him and at the door to his quarters.
"I don't want to be under anyone else. Colonel Sheppard has been here since the beginning and he's willing to break the rules when it's needed. You can't find CO's like that, you know? One who cares more about protecting people than getting themselves promoted."
The other soldier nodded and they walked on. Despite John's current position, it was kind of nice to hear his men talking so well about him.
Focus John! he reminded himself.
He glanced around the hall and did the first thing that came to mind. He sprinted forward and the next thing he knew, he was slamming into the wall, and was promptly thrown back.
He was lying on his back now, staring up at the ceiling. There had been pain from the impact. It had only lasted for a split second, but he had felt a considerable amount of pain before it disappeared completely. He stayed on the floor for a while. It wasn't a dream; you didn't feel pain in dreams. That was always the tell-tale sign.
"Damn," John sighed, still on his back.
All of this was real, which meant that he, the combination of John Sheppard's body and soul, was teetering on the edge of life and death. It also meant that what he had seen in the infirmary was the current state of his physical body, and that he was in a coma.
It meant that there was life, there was death, and then there was something in between.
And John Sheppard was stuck in it.
TBC...
