John woke later that night to the sound of grunting and heavy breathing. He sat up and looked around to find Ford wide awake and pulling at the restraints.

"Whoa, hey," he said, as he got up and walked over to Ford's bed hoping to calm him down before someone overheard him or he hurt himself. "Ford, you need to calm down," he said and tried to sound reassuring. "Everything's going to be all right."

"Get away from me," Ford growled back angrily and pulled at the restraints again. "Did you just come by to gloat? Rub it in that you're better than me?"

John was at a loss as to how to respond. This was a side of Ford he'd never seen before. The normally happy-go-lucky young man he knew had been replaced with someone bitter, angry, and suspicious and he had no idea why he was the target.

"You're all the same," Ford continued. "I may be young but I'm not stupid. You think I'm just some dumb jarhead. Well, I'm not. You're not pinning this on me."

"What?" Sheppard asked, now completely confused. "Ford, I've never had any doubts about how good of an officer, how good of a person, you are. Where is this coming from?" He backed away from the bed as he realised he was just making Ford more agitated.

"Major?" Sharon said in a low voice. "It's not you, you know. It's the bacteria. You're just a convenient target."

John turned to the curtained-off entrance to their corner as Sharon walked in, a tray of syringes in her hands. He watched as she injected a dose of the antibiotics into Rodney's IV and then walked over to Ford.

"You leave me alone," Ford said in a low voice. "You can't give me anything I don't want and I don't want your so-called cure. I know what it really is …" His voice started to falter as she finished injecting the second syringe into his IV port.

"Everything will look much better in the morning, Lieutenant," Sharon said in a calm voice. "I promise."

Ford just glared at her until the sedative took affect and he slowly stopped fighting the restraints as he closed his eyes.

"I'm sorry about …" Sheppard waved at Ford with one hand once the Lieutenant was asleep.

"There's no need to apologise, Major," Sharon said as she gave Teyla her dose of antibiotics. "I've heard worse over the last few days." He realised just how tired Teyla must be since she didn't so much as stir from the injection in her arm.

Then his brain caught up with what Sharon has said and he ducked his head and rubbed at the faint bruising on his arms from his own time tied down. She stopped next to his bed and gave him his shot as well. "Yeah, well, I apologise for that, too," he said with a sincere smile.

"Major, you were very sick. I don't blame you for the things you said," she reassured him.

"Thanks, but that still didn't mean it was easy to hear." He glanced over at the now sleeping Ford and wondered what the real reason was for his paranoia.

Sharon smiled down at him. "Then I thank you for the apology, Major." She stepped around his bed and back to the curtain. "Try to get some sleep."

It was only a couple of hours later that Rodney started to wake. John woke to the sound of soft whimpering and knew from past experience the sound heralded a nightmare. He slid out of bed and pulled a chair over to the side of Rodney's bed as the soft moans turned into words as Rodney's head started to twist on the pillow.

"Shep'rd hurt … gotta find them … It got Shep'rd …"

What the hell? he wondered even as he laid a hand on Rodney's arm and started to talk. "Hey, calm down," he said softly. "I'm right here, Rodney. Nothing got me, I'm fine. You're fine. The city is safe."

"It got him. Need to find them," Rodney continued to mutter and shake his head, and John took a better hold on his arm before Rodney managed to hurt himself. He wasn't sure how much of the reactions were due to the bacteria versus the concussion.

"Rodney, I'm right here, buddy. Nothing got me, I'm fine."

Rodney stopped moving and slowly opened his eyes. John could tell he wasn't really awake or really seeing him, but he spoke anyway. "See," he said and tried to smile. "I'm right here."

"Shep'rd?" Rodney slurred. "Thought you'wer dead."

As with Ford's delusion that he thought John considered him a bad officer, he had no idea why Rodney would have latched onto the idea of his demise, but put that aside for the moment. "Nope, still here," he replied and patted the hand with the cast.

"Do'n hate me?"

John squeezed his eyes shut. He'd be paying for that comment for a long time. "No, Rodney, I don't hate you and I'm not mad at you." He squeezed the fingers poking out from the cast "Go back to sleep and we'll talk about it when you're more awake."

Rodney sighed and closed his eyes and John rested his head on the mattress next to the fingers he still held.

"I told you the bond was strong," Teyla's voice said from behind him and John raised his head enough to see her standing at the end of his bed.

"Yeah, you did," he said and slowly stood and made his way back to his bed. "I just hope it's still true when he's really awake and can fight back."

Teyla smiled and headed back to her own bed. "I do not think you have anything to worry about, Major."

John watched as Teyla resettled on her bed and was soon asleep. He glanced over at Ford and Rodney to see they were resting as well. He sighed and slowly let himself drift to sleep.

~*~*~*~ SGA ~*~*~*~

John stopped by the infirmary two days later to check on his remaining teammates. He and Teyla had been released the night before with orders to get some sleep, not push themselves, and a schedule for their remaining injections of antibiotics was set. Rodney and Ford still had at least another day to go before Beckett felt they were ready to resume light duties.

He entered the infirmary and headed for the far corner where two beds still sat end to end. The privacy curtains had been removed and Sheppard could tell Ford was awake but Rodney was asleep. He'd been sleeping a lot the last few days, Beckett didn't seem concerned so John tried not to worry about it either.

"Lieutenant," Sheppard greeted in a low voice so as not to wake Rodney. "How are you feeling?"

Ford gave him a sheepish smile. "Better, sir."

"Good," Sheppard replied and looked around for something else to say.

"Sir?" Ford said and twisted his hands in his lap. "I … umm … I wanted to say …"

"There's no need," John said. "It wasn't really you saying those things."

Ford looked up at him. "Still, I just wanted you to know, I don't think that way about you, sir."

Sheppard leant against the wall next to Ford's bed and considered his team's various reactions to the bacteria. Teyla had felt guilt, probably a left over from the whole mess with the necklace. Rodney's fears he was well acquainted with, so his reaction made sense as well. Ford, however …

"So who was it?" Sheppard asked and glanced down.

"Sir?"

"The CO, or drill sergeant, or whoever it was that made you think you were a worthless officer?"

Ford looked up at him, surprise clear on his face. "How did …"

"Not that hard to figure out," Sheppard replied with a wry smile. "So who was it?"

Ford looked down and fiddled with a loose string on the blanket. "Army captain," he finally said. "It was a joint mission in Iraq. He was ranking officer and screwed up an op. Tried to blame my unit for the mistake, claiming since I was in command of the Marine unit and so young, it had to be my fault three guys died."

John frowned in sympathy. He'd dealt with a few of those types over the years as well. "What happened?"

Ford shrugged. "Nothing. There was the usual post-mission debrief and eval. It was determined there was no clear evidence one way or the other who was at fault and it was just chalked up to fortunes of war. Never heard what happened to him. I finished my tour and was reassigned to the SGC."

"You know that won't happen here, don't you?" Sheppard asked. "You know I'd do whatever I needed to in order to back you up."

"Yes, sir. I know. Really." Ford smiled. "Like I said, I don't see you that way at all. I know you always have my back."

Sheppard shifted awkwardly as Ford spoke, slightly uncomfortable with the overt show of loyalty. He grinned suddenly and changed the subject, "You had quite the setup of booby-traps, I heard. I think there's still one Bates is afraid to touch. He wants to just block off the whole corridor and leave it."

Ford glanced guiltily over at the now empty beds around them in the infirmary and Sheppard stopped smiling. "I guess I can expect some pretty nasty payback for that," Ford said with a grimace. "Even as I was doing all of that, a part of me knew it was a bad idea, but I didn't seem to care. All that mattered was making sure …" He stopped and John read the embarrassment in his eyes.

"Making sure you got me before I got you?" he finished with a sardonic smile.

Ford ducked his head. "Something like that, I guess."

John nodded and wandered over to Rodney's bed. Like Ford, all of the extra monitoring equipment had been removed as well as the IV. He rubbed Rodney's arm and squeezed his fingers just to let him know he wasn't alone. He felt a slight pressure on his hand in return, but Rodney didn't wake up.

"I think we may need one of those team building sessions of yours, sir," Ford said quietly. "We're all kinda screwed up at the moment."

Sheppard looked over at Ford and smiled. "See, right there. That's the sign of a good officer." He squeezed Rodney's fingers in farewell and walked between the two beds. "I'm on my way to talk to Elizabeth and Carson about an excursion to the mainland. We can check how the Athosians are doing and maybe do a little camping on the beach."

Ford grinned, the first genuine smile John had seen on his face in days. "We never did get those s'mores the last time."

~*~*~*~ SGA ~*~*~*~

Rodney wandered the city unable to really settle or think. It was late, most everyone else was long asleep, but he couldn't get his mind to stop replaying what had happened over the past week. He'd spent three days under Beckett's watchful eye as the antibiotics did their job and another four in his quarters with shots every six hours. Now that he was back in his right mind so to speak, all he felt was embarrassment as to how he'd acted. He was supposed to be the intelligent one in the group, smartest man in two galaxies, and he'd acted like a complete idiot thinking Wraith had invaded Atlantis. He'd never be able to live that down with the scientists, nevermind the Marines. How was anyone supposed to take anything he said seriously after he'd been found in the bowels of the city preparing for a nonexistent attack.

He'd tried to rest like he promised Carson, but he quickly got bored in his quarters and with the cast on his hand he wasn't able to putter with any of his projects very easily, not that he wanted to spend much time in the lab lately, anyway. He half-expected Elizabeth to show up and ask, ever so politely because she was still Elizabeth after all, for his resignation as head of the science teams. He suspected Zelenka was running interference for him with the scientists and he was oddly grateful for the Czech's show of support and loyalty.

He wandered into what had quickly been adopted as the expedition's rec room where, by mutual consent, everyone had offered up their smuggled books, DVDs, games, and any other scraps of items with some entertainment value for others to use. He checked the shelves looking for a book, movie, anything to take his mind off what had happened and came up empty. He surveyed the rest of the room and did a double take when he spotted the portable keyboard pushed against the far wall half buried under some empty crates used as extra seats for movie nights.

"How did someone get that here?" he wondered out loud as he crossed the room and ran his hand along the keys. He'd always loved music, taking lessons had been one of the few happy, if brief, memories of his childhood. Right up to the point when his teacher told him he had no feel for it and would never be a musician.

He'd been devastated. His first teacher had been a kindly woman, told him he was a natural and encouraged him to try new pieces from classical to the pop music of the 1970s. Then she'd died suddenly and his next teacher, a rail-thin man whom Rodney was sure had never smiled in his life, had told his parents after three lessons, it was a waste of his time to teach someone like Rodney. He was too stiff, he had no soul for music. Even a normal twelve-year-old ego would have taken such a comment to heart. Rodney had taken it especially hard as the piano had been one of the few things that let him forget about his family, the bullies at school, and the teachers that saw him as a troublemaker for correcting them during class.

His parents hadn't even tried to change the teacher's mind. He was right, they'd decided, it was just one more thing proving their son was more trouble than he was worth and there were no more lessons. His only consolation was his parents had kept the piano, not for him of course, but because it looked good in the corner of the den and maybe Jeannie would be a better reflection on the family by becoming a pianist. He played any time he was alone in the house, he didn't want his parents to find out, afraid of what they would do if they knew. Once he left for university, there had been a beat-up piano in one of the common rooms and he'd spent many hours noodling around on it when he was sure he was alone. He'd even found one in a disused office in Russia and spent many cold nights playing that out-of-tune upright piano.

He glanced around the deserted room and even checked the hallway before moving back to the keyboard. He hauled it out of the corner and carefully set it up. The stand was flimsy, and he braced it with a few books to make sure it wouldn't collapse. He dug around, found the cord, and quickly hooked it up to one of the jerry-rigged outlets he'd designed to work with Earth electronics. He pulled up one of the empty crates to use as a bench, sat down, and looked for the power switch.

The keyboard hummed slightly as it powered on and he looked for a volume control and turned it down almost as far as it would go. This was not something he needed to advertise to anyone still awake at this hour. At best he'd be teased and at worst laughed at; as usual, it was just better for no one to know. He sat with his back to the door and pressed a few of the keys just to hear what the board sounded like, then ran his hands through a few scales. He fumbled more than once, he hadn't practised in years and the cast on his right hand wasn't helping, but his fingers soon remembered what they were supposed to do.

The scales turned into a tune and he smiled as he recognised Bach's "Prelude in C Major", one of the first pieces he'd learnt, and as a result, also one of his favorites. He played through the short piece a few times, just letting his mind wander and he finally felt himself start to relax. He stopped thinking about Wraith, how he'd acted, and weird alien bacteria, and just let his mind sink into the music.

"I didn't know you knew how to play," John's voice said from just behind him and he jumped, the keyboard jangled painfully as he missed the last few notes, and he jerked his hands away from the keyboard guiltily even as he glared up at John.

John took another one of the empty crates and sat next to him. "What was that you were playing?"

Rodney heard the genuine interest in the question and relaxed slightly. John hadn't laughed. "Bach," he replied and self-consciously moved his hands further away from the keys.

"You don't have to stop," John said and started to stand. "I can leave if you want me to."

"No, no," Rodney said with just a tiny hesitation and motioned John back onto his crate. "It's okay, really."

John settled with his back against the wall and his feet out in front of him as Rodney went back to softly playing scales.

"So how come you never said anything about playing the piano?" John asked as Rodney's hands moved up and down the keyboard.

Rodney shrugged as he started on "Prelude" again. "It's just one of those things I don't bother to mention to people, I guess. When you're told at twelve you need to do the music world a favor and never touch an instrument again, you kind of get a little shy about saying anything."

John's expression fell and it took Rodney a moment to realise he was angry on his behalf and not mad at him. "Your parents?" he asked, his voice flat.

Rodney shook his head. "Music teacher. Said I had no feel for music and should just give up." He looked over at John. "But I loved the music," he said with a shy smile. "Not just the mathematics of it which was cool, too, but the actual music itself."

"Sounds like you had a bad teacher to me," John said and nodded at the keyboard. "I liked it."

Rodney snorted. "You didn't even know what I was playing."

"Didn't matter. It sounded nice."

Rodney smiled and transitioned to another piece as John sat next to him and watched him play. He had to admit it looked like John was enjoying himself.

"Now that you and Ford are off the antibiotics," John said a few minutes later, "Elizabeth and Carson signed off on the field trip to the mainland."

"Because the last field trip we went on was so successful," Rodney said and glanced over at John. His fingers missed a chord and he winced, stopped playing, and flexed his hands. Debussy had always tripped up his fingers, some things never changed.

He started playing again and John sat up straight and smiled. "Hey, I know this one," he said, "it was at the end of that heist movie a few years ago."

Rodney paused and stared. "Seriously? That was "Clair de Lune" and you think it's the theme song from a movie? I suppose you think Rhapsody in Blue was written as the theme song for an airline, too."

"Which one was that?"

Rodney played the opening few bars of the Gershwin piece.

"Nah, I remember that one from the Disney movie. Went with someone who wanted to see it. That part was good, although I liked the bit with the flamingo and the yo-yos, more."

Rodney growled under his breath as John just grinned wider.

"Was there a reason you were prowling around the city in the middle of the night?" Rodney asked as he went back to the "Prelude".

"Yeah, actually," John said, and Rodney noted the change in his tone. "I wanted to talk to you. Make sure you … we … were okay."

Rodney stopped playing and turned to face John, his expression wary.

"I didn't mean what I said back in the village," John said as he sat forward on the crate, his arms braced on his knees. "You know I would never leave you behind or make you face something like the Wraith alone if I could help it, right?" He looked up and Rodney could see the guilt and the truth in his eyes.

John was not his parents, he reminded himself. They were brothers by choice; they had chosen to be family.

"Of course, I know that. Don't be an idiot," he snapped but there was no heat in the words. "You know I don't really remember much of what happened once we were back." He glanced over at John. "What I do remember was thinking, no knowing, a Wraith had somehow done something to you and I needed to stop it."

"That's not -" John started to say.

"Don't tell me it's not my job," Rodney interrupted, his temper flaring. "I thought it had hurt you, not to mention Teyla and what it could do to the city." He toyed with a few keys on the keyboard as the anger dissipated. "I thought it had killed you and I wasn't going to let it get away," he finished in a whisper.

Rodney's fingers nervously played up and down the keys for a moment until John placed his hand over the top his and stopped him. "Thank you," he said sincerely and stood.

Rodney looked up at him, confused.

"For the concert," John finished with a cocky smile, although Rodney thought he might have seen something else in his eyes.

"Oh. You're, umm, welcome," he replied and hoped John saw the look returned.

He must have because Rodney felt John give his shoulders quick squeeze as he walked back toward the door.

John stopped at the door. "Hey, you don't know the song from The Sting do you?"

Rodney shook his head and smiled even as he started to play. "It's called The Entertainer," he replied with a long-suffering sigh, and let the sound of ragtime fill the quiet of the city.

FIN