WARNING! SPOILERS FOR PLOT DETAILS OF DOPPELGANGER!!

The continuation of the events of the ep follwing my AU version of the scene with Lorne... this fic has refused to be wrapped up in this chapter so there'll be one more to come...


"I'm not going to let this thing kill anyone else. I'm not going to let it kill Rodney!"

"Colonel…" Carter's voice was weary, tinged with exasperation.

"I have to do this." He was almost pleading now, trying desperately to make her understand. "You know Rodney. He won't be able to…"

"Colonel," she interrupted him, her brisk tone tempered by a regretful sympathy that telegraphed her intentions better than any words. "You got shot barely a day ago. You were in surgery for five hours. You're in no condition to…"

"No condition to what? Lie on a gurney with electrodes on my head?" John argued, working hard to keep his voice calm, his tone reasonable, despite the constant, angry pain in his stomach. Trying to negotiate from an infirmary bed was a tough enough sell as it was – scrubs and IVs didn't exactly lend an air of authority - and if Colonel Carter thought for a second he was getting too worked up over this, she'd take it as further proof that he wasn't fit enough to do what he was suggesting.

She stood beside his infirmary bed, her hands clasped in front of her, and he saw a flicker of grudging uncertainty pass over her face. He hurried to press his advantage, pointing out reasonably, "All we're talking about here is offering some moral support, being there to talk Rodney through his fears so he can beat this thing, convince it to leave us alone." He looked up at her hopefully, watching the indecision on her face. "If we don't do this… it'll kill him."

"I'm well aware of the risks, John," she chided gently, "and I agree that this technology is our best chance of finding a way to remove the entity. But it doesn't have to be you…"

"It's my responsibility," he argued, just a little sharply. "I'm the one that touched the crystal in the first place and brought this thing back to Atlantis." His voice cracked a little as he spoke and he swallowed thickly, frowning as he looked away from his commanding officer, not wanting her to see, to have to acknowledge, the guilt that gnawed at his soul. Heightmeyer was dead. Rodney would be next if he didn't do something. A jolt of pain shuddered through him and he couldn't hold back a muffled grunt as he tensed, breathing out slow and deliberate as the spasm eased and he let his muscles relax.

"Colonel?" Dr Keller, hovering at the other side of his bed, stepped forward, leaning over him in concern.

"I'm fine," he insisted shortly, deliberately ignoring the doctor's look of frustration as he kept his attention on Colonel Carter.

"Rodney trusts me," he pointed out mildly, forcing a calm that he didn't feel. "And given the options, I think I'm the one he'd feel most comfortable about letting get inside his head."

"He trusts Teyla. She could…"

John grimaced, a mixture of frustration and increasing pain, and asked Carter roughly, "Have you read the mission report from a couple of years back when McKay got trapped in a downed Wraith dart with a marine called Laura Cadman?" He watched as Carter frowned slightly, obviously searching her memory, and saw her wince as comprehension dawned. "Trust me," he told her wryly, "Rodney's not going to feel comfortable with letting a woman inside his head any time soon."

Carter's grimace signalled her reluctant acknowledgement but she wasn't going to give up that easily. "What about Ronon…"

John laugh was kinda choked because the motion pulled at his aching gut, making his voice a little tight and breathy as he asked her in disbelief, "You have met Ronon, right?"

Carter's answering smile was rueful. "Okay, so maybe he's not exactly the caring, sharing type," she admitted, "but he is a pretty fearsome guy. Wouldn't it help Rodney to have a strong, capable fighter there to support him?"

She was reaching, trying to find excuses why someone, anyone, else could do this in John's place and he could see her resolve weakening. "Rodney's not going to be physically fighting this thing," he pointed out. "It control's people's dreams, their subconscious; it's going to drag out Rodney's worst fears and try and scare him to death. Ronon can't fight that. McKay needs someone to talk him through it, keep him thinking straight and not let him get scared. I can do that, Sam!"

Carter was still reluctant, her gaze considering as she looked down at him; he returned her look steadily, focusing on keeping his breathing calm and regular, and just hoped he didn't look half as bad as he felt.

"What do you think, Doctor? Is it safe for him to do this?" Carter turned to Keller, deferring a decision.

Dr Keller's youthful face pulled into an uncertain frown. "I'm not sure about safe," she qualified cautiously and John fought to stifle a sigh of frustration.

"Theoretically there's no danger to his health from using the VR technology; he would be in a controlled environment with his vitals being monitored and medical staff on hand and, as the Colonel said, the process wouldn't require him to do anything physical…"

John could hear the "but" coming.

"…but we know next to nothing about how the entity works, the effect it has on the body, how it actually kills people. And if this technology works the way you hope it will, Colonel Sheppard will be experiencing Dr McKay's dreams – his nightmares – and there's simply no way to tell how this might affect him too…"

"So if there's any sign of a problem, you can unhook me," John interrupted. "Like you said, I'll be being monitored and you'll have staff on hand. If I so much as hiccup, you can disconnect me." He turned his attention back to Carter, "But you've got to let me at least try."

He lay there, frustrated and immobile in an infirmary bed, fear for his friend outweighing the burning pain in his gut, while Colonel Carter and Dr Keller shared uncertain looks across his bed, McKay's life hanging on their decision.


"You have got to be kidding me!"

John could hear McKay's furious voice even through the rubber-lined walls of the isolation room. The volume increased as the doors hushed open and the medical team wheeled his bed into the room. He rolled his head to the side to see Rodney in the center of the room, a chaos of gurneys and equipment being set up around him by hazmat-suited technicians, his head tilted back as he directed his tirade at the occupants of the viewing gallery above. He didn't even look at John as he raised a hand to point at him.

"I know he's insane but what's your excuse?!"

"Rodney…"

McKay simply talked over Colonel Carter's attempt to placate him. "The man has a bullet hole in him! He spent half of yesterday bleeding all over an operating theatre! What on earth made you think this was even close to a good idea?!!"

McKay turned suddenly to glare at John; his face was red and flushed, his hair dishevelled as though he'd been running his hands through it, and the naked anger and fear on his friend's face took John by surprise. "Seriously, what in god's name are you thinking?!!" Rodney snapped at him.

"You know me, Rodney," John offered McKay an annoying grin, "I prefer to leave the thinking to you…"

Rodney's lips were pressed thinly together, his expression mutinous. "This isn't funny!" he hissed. "You should be in the infirmary!"

John scowled; the pain in his gut was ratcheting back up again and he was not in the mood to go through this argument a third time after what it had taken him to get both Carter and Keller to sign off on this. "I can lie on a gurney just as well here as I can in the infirmary, McKay," he griped testily.

"Oh really? And what if something goes wrong, huh?" Rodney fretted angrily. "What are you gonna do then Mr-I-think-I'm-invincible?"

"Rodney!" John's voice was lower than usual, the effort of pushing through the constant growling pain making his throat tight, his words harsh, and it stopped Rodney in his tracks. "I'll be fine. And you need to calm down. I can do this. You can do this. We're gonna get through this – together." He held Rodney's gaze in a rare moment of seriousness and watched his friend's mouth slant unhappily downwards as, after a long moment of hesitation, he nodded a reluctant acquiescence.

"I'm blaming you when this all goes horribly wrong," he grumbled acidly as he clambered onto the waiting gurney, aiming an evil eye at Colonel Carter in the observation gallery. "He may be a self-sacrificing fool but you should know better." John saw Carter's mouth twist in a grimace even as she gave McKay a half-hearted wave of acknowledgement.

He let himself relax a little bit, some of the tension easing from his body, his head feeling heavy on the soft pillow. He stared unseeingly at the ceiling as technicians fussed around the two gurneys, hooking up leads and cables to monitors and complex pieces of machinery. The pain in his stomach was a constant, growling ache interspersed with unexpected jolts of hot, spiking pain that made his breath hitch in his throat, his body tensing instinctively as he rode out the wave. Dr Keller, her face oddly smooth and plastic-looking in the blue glow of the hazmat helmet lights, peered closely into his face, her hands stilling in the task of attaching electrodes to his temples.

"Colonel Sheppard? Are you alright?"

He made an effort to smooth out his breathing, exhaling carefully through the slowly easing flare of pain. "I'm good."

She frowned. "I don't think so, Colonel." She leaned back from the gurney, looking around to attract a nurse's attention. "Let me get you something for the pain…"

"No!" John wrapped a shaky hand around her wrist, ignoring the startled look on her face. "I need to be able to think straight, doc." The word slipped out without him realising it, tagging itself onto the end of his sentence like it belonged there, a remnant of many a similar argument with Dr Beckett. Carson. Someone else he hadn't been able to save. He'd be damned if he was going to add Rodney to that list.

Keller looked shocked, uncertain. She was a good doctor but she didn't know him the way Carson had, didn't know how to gauge his condition in a glance, regardless of what he said, and John took advantage of that shamelessly. He forced a smile, reassuring her, "It's fine. It just aches a bit." He let his hand drop from her wrist. "Painkillers are just gonna make me drowsy – and I'm no good to McKay asleep."

Her answering smile was hesitant, a little doubtful, but she seemed to accept his assurances and moved her attention back to the sticky little pads on either side of his head. He made sure to keep breathing slow and even until she leant back and moved away.

He looked over to his right to find McKay stretched out on a gurney, looking anything but relaxed; his legs were held stiffly and he didn't seem to know what to do with his arms, settling finally for resting them gingerly across his midriff as he looked across and met John's gaze. Despite his previous bravado, the fear was easily read in McKay's eyes and his voice was unusually quiet, uncertainty robbing the confidence from his speech as he asked, "You sure about this?"

John took a moment to think about that, to assess the heavy lethargy of his body, the generalised ache that spoke of all too recent trauma, the still grumbling pain in his belly, the disturbing, frustrating weakness of his damaged body. His eyes never left McKay's as he murmured, "Not really."

McKay didn't smile. "I'm pretty screwed up," he warned, his voice catching a little.

John had never heard his friend sound so lost and uncertain… afraid, yes. Panicked, certainly. Despairing, sure. But never frail, never… He met Rodney's hollow gaze evenly and answered blandly, calmly, "You're telling me."

McKay looked at him for a long moment before settling his head back on the pillow. John did the same, wincing a little as he wriggled his shoulders slightly, trying to get as comfortable as he could.

"Thanks."

He didn't look over at McKay, keeping his gaze firmly on the ceiling as he took a slow breath and pointed out calmly, "I haven't done anything yet."

"For trying," McKay clarified shortly, some of the usual bite returning to his voice. "And don't say I didn't warn you!"

"Administering sedative." Keller's announcement was quiet, solemn, and John found himself almost holding his breath as McKay slipped into sleep and he waited for something to happen. Staring at the ceiling, he tried to concentrate, willing the wires attached to his head to flow with thoughts and images, to forge a connection.

He shook his head minutely on the pillow, frustration pulling at his aching gut. "Nothing's happening," he complained.

Keller's voice was eerily calm. "He's not dreaming yet."

John closed his eyes, shutting out the distractions of the brightly lit room, trying to block out his awareness of the beeping of machines, the rustle of hazmat suits. He ignored the burn of pain in his belly, the ache of tension in his chest, focusing on clearing his mind, on opening himself up to the machine, waiting for the sudden, intangible connection to forge. The bright lights of the isolation room glared redly through his eyelids as he took a deep breath.

And then there was only blackness.


TBC...