A/N: I take it my last chapter wasn't too great :P Ah well, I hope you like this one more! :D

Thank you as always to the people who've reviewed, alerted and favourited, it's really nice of you :)


"Sheppard!" Rodney called sharply, and John peeled open his eyelids, with a sense of aggravation that the rest he felt he deserved had been denied.

"What?"

Rodney looked relieved. "Good, you're awake. I've been calling your name for at ages."

"I…what?"

"You have a concussion," Rodney explained slowly, as if to a very small child. "You aren't allowed to go to sleep, it's too dangerous. And Beckett'll kill me if I let you." The effect of his speech was ruined by the fact that he was still lying in the same position on the floor, looking even paler, if that were possible.

"How're you feeling?" John asked, instantly concerned as he noticed the clamminess of Rodney's skin, and the unhealthy glassiness to his eyes.

"Perfect," Rodney said shortly. "Think you can give me another couple of Tylenol?"

"You've just taken some."

"No, that was hours ago. You've been asleep, remember? Try to keep up."

John obediently tossed the requested tablets over. "Did they help before?"

"No."

He lapsed into silence again. Whether it really was dangerous or not for him to fall asleep (he couldn't really remember what Beckett had said, but suspected that Rodney might be slightly mistaken), John was feeling rather better. For one thing, the Jumper seemed to be entirely more stable, and the pressure in his skull had begun to recede, allowing him to think more clearly. "Let me take a look at your hand."

"You've already seen it," Rodney said. And then, at John's raised eyebrows, "Oh, alright then. Knock yourself out."

It looked worse than he remembered. The skin at the darkened centre of the deep burn was lifting away from the tissues underneath, blackening. "Ouch," he said. Rodney gave him a look which said, You think?, which he ignored. "I'm going to wrap it up," he said firmly.

There was a pause.

"That'll hurt," Rodney said, in a very small voice.

"It's hurting right now."

"Well, yes, but you'll make it worse!"

"No, it'll protect it from you making it worse."

"Go on then," groaned Rodney, with the air of one who had just volunteered to have Carson shoot an apple off his head using a drone.

John retrieved a dressing and a length of bandage from the first aid kit and began wrapping Rodney's hand carefully, purposely ignoring the soft whimpering that Rodney was making at the back of his throat, and obviously trying to suppress. From past experience he knew all too well how painful burns could be, particularly deep ones, such as this was. Finally he had finished, and secured the end with a piece of tape. "How does that feel?" he asked tentatively.

"Worse," came the annoyed answer, as he had suspected it would.

"Where's the autopilot taking us?" John asked, partly to distract Rodney from the pain he was in, and partly because he really did want to know. He was surprised that it had taken him so long to remember to ask.

Rodney had closed his eyes, but jerked them open. "To the nearest planet with a Stargate. The one we just left wasn't really the best place to hang around and wait to be picked up."

"How long will that take?"

"Well, we're in a binary system, so the nearest one's actually not that far away. Around twenty hours or so altogether. I think we've already used up a few of them."

John nodded absently, but he was still examining Rodney carefully. He looked far worse than he should have just as a result of having his hand burnt. He trawled back through the things he had said just after his awakening. "You said your side hurt."

"I said everything hurt, Colonel. But yes, I'll add my side to that list."

"What did you do to it?"

"Oh, you mean apart from getting blown up twice?"

John slid closer to him across the floor. "You fell back down as soon as you tried to sit up and moved the right side of your body."

Rodney's arm was close against himself protectively, but whether it was because of his hand or something else John didn't know. He intended to find out. "Can you roll over a bit, so I can take a look?"

"You're a worse doctor than Carson is," Rodney huffed, but did as he was asked, biting back a gasp of pain which ended his complaining.

John ignored the barb, unzipping the scientist's jacket and pulling it back. Then he pulled his knife from his pocket and used it to cut through Rodney's shirt, parting the cloth back. He swore.

"What is it?" Rodney asked anxiously.

At John's silence, he twisted his neck, to peer at the massive dark reddish-purple discolouration wrapped around his side, beneath his skin. "Oh," he said, in a soft voice.

"That's…" John paused, and started again. "I'm no doctor, but that looks several hours old, which means you got that from the first explosion. You've been walking around like that all the time? Jesus, McKay!"

"I didn't know," Rodney explained weakly. "It must have been shock or something, but I've only been hurting badly since after the Cygnus. The homicidal Ancient ship, that is. Didn't know I was…" He took another look at it and twisted up his face as though he wanted to be sick. "I was feeling lightheaded and dizzy, but, uh, I thought there was something wrong with the inertial dampeners, and they weren't working properly to keep the internal gravity field constant…" He began to laugh quietly, and then louder.

John grasped his shoulder. "McKay, stop that." Then, as the scientist's laughter got louder and more hysterical, he raised his own voice. "Rodney! Shut up!"

That did it. As Rodney took in gulps of air, his body shaking still, John looked closer at the bruising.

"I'm not an exhibit," Rodney snapped, as soon as he had enough breath to do so.

"Sorry." John folded his shirt back, hiding the bruising from sight, and scooted back to the opposite wall.

"So how bad is it?" asked Rodney, after a few seconds.

He didn't think there was much to be gained by sugar-coating it. "I've seen men with worse internal bleeding. But yeah, it doesn't look too good."

Rodney groaned. "Great. That's just perfect. I'm going to die."

"McKay!" John would have shaken him if he wasn't wary of causing him further injury. "You aren't going to die!"

"Oh yes, easy for you to say, Colonel know-it-all!"

"You can't die on me and leave me to sit through god-knows how many hours drifting though space with just your rotting corpse to keep me company."

"Yes I can. It'll serve you right for insulting me so often." He still hadn't opened his eyes.

John tried again. "What'll I say to Jeannie?"

That seemed to elicit some real response, because Rodney took a moment to think about it. "It's not like she'd care. Just – tell her that I died doing something heroic."

"Rodney, look at me!" John waited until his eyes were open again, and resting on his face. "You aren't going to die. And when you next see Jeannie, you can tell her that you survived doing something heroic."

"She won't believe me."

"Ok then, I'll tell her that."

"What's heroic about lying in agony in a Jumper waiting to be rescued?"

John groaned. McKay really could be a stubborn son of a bitch when he wanted to. "You've just gone through two explosions, and saved my ass in both of them! What more do you want to do, end your day by eliminating all the Wraith in the galaxy in one sweep?"

"That'd be nice. Do you think they'd give me the Nobel prize for that?"

John rolled his eyes, and resisted the urge to smack his friend around the head. "Well, I've heard the Nobel can't be awarded posthumously, so it would be a bit pointless to die now, wouldn't it?"

"You may have a point there. But in any case, they're hardly going to award the Nobel for work which is classified, will they?"

"If it's so important to you, quit and get another job!"

"I might, you know."

John grinned. "I thought you were going to die."

Rodney huffed. "Yes, yes, very funny. Bait the dying man. Very mature of you, Colonel." But he looked slightly more animated than he had a few moments ago.

"So, given that you're dying, shall I presume that I shouldn't waste any water on you?" John asked, hoping that keeping Rodney talking, or at least doing something, would prevent him from slipping back into lethargy.

Rodney glared, and held out his good hand, clearly not seeing the need to bother verbalising his answer. John grinned. "Manners don't cost anything."

"Nor does messing with the heating controls in your room."

"Ok, ok." He tore open a rehydration sachet from the first aid kit, and poured the contents into one of the water bottles, shaking it to mix it, before removing the cap again and handing it carefully over.

Rodney took a sip, and screwed his face up. "This tastes disgusting."

"Tough. You need the stuff in it."

"Because all my blood's sloshing around under my skin instead of in my veins so I need the electrolytes, yes, I know. But would it be too much trouble to flavour those things so it's possible to drink them?"

It still surprised John how Rodney could manage to melodramatically insist he was dying at the same time as complain about everything which would actually help him. That reminded him of something else, as he took the bottle back again. "McKay, when did you last eat?"

Rodney shrugged, plainly showing that he wasn't too impressed with John's attempts at playing nursemaid. "At breakfast."

There were a couple of powerbars in the first aid kit. Rodney really did seem to stash them everywhere. John tore one open and threw it over. "Eat it," he ordered.

"Not hungry," Rodney muttered stubbornly.

John slapped him, although very lightly, on the shoulder. "Jesus, are you trying to be as irritating as possible? You aren't going to be much use if you slip into a hypoglycaemic coma, are you?"

"At least then I wouldn't have to listen to you anymore," Rodney snarked back, but he picked up the powerbar with his good hand and devoured it in very few bites. "You've been taking lessons from Beckett in nagging," he complained, with his mouth full.

"And in common sense. Which you seem to have a distinct lack of at the moment."

Rodney balled up the powerbar wrapper with his good hand and threw it at John. It didn't quite make it halfway across the small distance between them, and Rodney screwed up his face again, the action having obviously aggravated the pain he was in. "Yes, like you have any. Why am I here again, instead of nice and safe back in my lab in Atlantis? With coffee," he added, as an afterthought.

There wasn't really a response to that. Silence filled the Jumper.

John let himself lie down on the floor. His head was really beginning to hurt again, and now that they had stopped bickering, it seemed a herculean effort to keep his eyes open and his brain working.

"You aren't going to sleep, are you?" he heard Rodney ask anxiously. "Because you aren't allowed to. I've already told you that."

John's eyes were already closed. "Shut up, McKay," he mumbled. Rodney didn't, of course, but he tuned the words out. The sound was oddly comforting as he allowed himself to drift off.

"Sheppard?" Rodney asked again, but not very hopefully. He was trying to recall everything Beckett had said about looking after someone with a concussion, and wishing that he had paid more attention. Maybe it had been something about letting them sleep if they wanted to, as long as you woke them up every hour or so. Not that there was much letting going on here. John had just lain down on the floor, and since then had completely stopped responding to any attempt made to wake him up verbally. Rodney rather suspected that it could take him the complete hour John was allowed to sleep for him to make it across the floor to wake him up with a poke in the ribs.

He was wishing for unconsciousness himself, but he seemed to be in too much pain to let himself relax the required amount. God, his side hurt. He tried to bring his left hand over to explore it, but let it drop back down again, shaking. He couldn't bring himself to touch it.

Why couldn't he have stayed in blissful unawareness of it until he reached Atlantis?

It was so ridiculously unfair that he could hardly move, when Sheppard was currently enjoying a nice sleep. Well, that wasn't really true, he decided after a second's consideration. It probably wasn't a very nice sleep, and he didn't look particularly healthy either. Half of the man's face was beginning to disappear underneath heavy bruising, and there was coagulating blood oozing down from his hairline.

Rodney groaned. What the hell. He let his head too rest against the floor, and closed his eyes.

And then the Jumper began to again beep for his attention.

"Sheppard!" he said sharply. John didn't stir.

The beeping got louder. "What do you want now?" he asked the Jumper furiously. "Why can't you just give me a nice easy ride home?"

The crystal still on the floor caught his eye. Damn. "Sheppard, I said you needed to replace it!"

Of course, John didn't leap up and apologise, and replace the crystal. "Why do you need this?" he asked, again talking to the Jumper. "Can't you just work out for yourself what's safe and what isn't?"

He could guess what the problem was, of course. He hadn't slowed the Jumper's speed after the emergency action of removing the crystal preventing it from going dangerously fast. And now it was going dangerously fast. Fast enough that the autopilot wouldn't be able to handle navigating around any objects which might suddenly appear.

"I'm not enjoying this, you know," he said, more than a little angrily. "Why can't I have any good luck today? You know, just for a change."

Hopefully, he stared at the crystal, but it stubbornly refused to move of its own accord. "Don't be so selfish," he told it. "You aren't the one who's injured."

He thought about that for a moment. "You're a crystal." Another moment passed, while he considered the implications of that. "You can't hear me, can you?" Once again, it failed to respond. He groaned, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. "Oh God, I'm talking to a crystal. I'm losing my mind."

"You are," the crystal agreed.

Rodney opened his eyes again, to see if it had started moving, as well as talking, but it still lay innocently on the floor. "Huh. How about that."

"Why's the Jumper making that noise?" the crystal asked him.

"What?" Oh, right, the alarm. "It's an alarm," he said.

"Yes, I got that part." This crystal had a surprisingly sarcastic personality.

"Well, it means that something alarming is going to happen." An alarm. How alarming. He laughed a bit, because that struck him as quite funny.

"McKay, shut up!" The crystal apparently didn't have much of a sense of humour, either. "Focus!"

"Alright, alright," he told it sulkily. "The Jumper's going too fast."

"Why's it doing that?"

There didn't seem much point in trying to explain the finer points of Jumper engineering to a crystal. "A component's missing."

"What component?"

Well, that was a stupid question. "You should know that, considering I pulled you out!"

"McKay?"

"What?" He was getting a bit fed up of the crystal, actually, and wishing that it would just go back to being inanimate. Its personality was too similar to Sheppard's. Come to think of it, its voice was quite similar to Sheppard's, too.

"Are you talking to a crystal?"

"You're answering me!" he told it defensively. A talking crystal was one thing, but one which thought it couldn't talk? Something was clearly wrong with its sanity.

"McKay! I'm not a damn crystal!"

He looked around him, and to his surprise saw that John was awake again, and staring at him. "I was joking," he explained weakly, and a sardonic smile tugged the corners of John's mouth upwards. It was strangely reassuring.

"Yeah, sure you were." He paused a moment, letting Rodney know without a doubt that he hadn't been fooling anyone. "So. Crystal. Want to tell me where it goes?"

"Uh…" Why was it so goddamn hard to think? "Panel. In the ceiling. It's open."

John picked up the crystal and stood up slowly, his hand seeking support against the Jumper's wall. "Is it going to burn me when I put it back in?" he asked.

Rodney would have rolled his eyes, but it didn't seem worth the effort. "No. It burnt me because the power running through it heated it up. As there is currently no power running through it, I'd rate your chances of being burnt by it as quite slim."

"Are you sure?"

"Pretty much. Look, if you don't get on and replace it, burning your hand will be the least of our worries, believe me."

John raised his eyebrows, and looked pointedly unconvinced. But after a glance at it, he slotted it into place, pulling his hand back quickly before anything untoward could happen. The alarm shut off. "It worked," he said, sounding quite surprised.

Rodney felt slightly injured at the insinuation. "Well, of course it worked. I said it would."

"Yeah, that's not a reason to be filled with confidence, in my book."

He tried to think of a comeback, but couldn't. "Mmm," he said instead, which didn't sound quite as clever out loud as it had in his head.

That had John peering at him, with an odd expression on his face. "How long do you think it'll be now?"

Rodney looked at his watch, but it didn't make much sense. "What's the time?"

"Three."

"Am or pm?"

John shrugged. "Yes."

"Oh, very funny, Colonel."

"What can I say? That thing which you and Zelenka appear to think passes for humour has rubbed off on me."

Rodney ignored him, trying to think about the problem he'd been set. "It'll be… a long time."

"Is that the best answer you can come up with?"

"Yes," Rodney said shortly.

"Your so-called genius just pays for itself, doesn't it?"

He sighed. "I'm sure you think you're hilarious, but not – " He began to cough, trying to clear the tickle in his chest, but somehow couldn't stop, and he juddered, pain spasming through him as his whole body was wracked by the coughing, gasping for breath. He was dimly aware that John was holding his shoulder, shouting to him, but he couldn't make out the words.

He was pushed down, to lie on his uninjured side. Suddenly, with his chest less constricted, he found that he could take in air again. He felt the cold plastic of an oxygen mask pressed against his face, and tasted the sterile air with a sense of relief. But his lungs still burned, and he kept coughing between breaths, and there was the taste of iron now in his mouth.

"Crap," John was saying, his face scored with deep frown lines. He lifted away the mask and dabbed a piece of white cloth (where had it come from?) around his lips and chin. Rodney pushed it away impatiently, and saw the red stain spread across it. "Crap," John repeated.

Rodney had the vague idea that he had done something wrong, something John didn't like. "Sorry," he mumbled, as the mask was replaced.

"What're you sorry for?" John sounded confused, but he couldn't answer.

He felt John turn his arm over, and rest something cold against it. He struggled to ask what he was doing.

"Easy," he heard John's voice saying, from a long way away. "I've got something to help. Just keep breathing, ok?"

There was a momentary prick as the needle slid into his skin and the contents of the syringe were discharged into a vein. And then the relief it brought was swirling through him, his breathing easing and his eyes closing without him even noticing.

Somewhere, John still seemed to be talking to him. "McKay!" He felt pressure as his shoulder was jostled slightly.

Such a lot of noise. Here he was trying to sleep...