"I'm fine Beckett," said Sheppard from the infirmary bed. He swung his legs over the edge and as one foot touched the floor he felt a hand restrain him.

"You collapsed and I want to find out why," said Beckett, his frustration showing on his face.

"It's nice to see you too Beckett," said Sheppard as he pulled his leg back up.

"Its good to have you back son. Have you had all these cuts checked out?" he asked indicating to the ones he had on his cheekbone. That one had required stitches.

He also had a laceration on his neck and various bruising.

"Yes," said Sheppard like a recalcitrant child. He crossed his arms over his chest and winced.

"What's that?" asked Beckett as he took off the blood pressure cuff.

"Nothing," said Sheppard, "It's been looked at by-"

Too late. Beckett lifted up his t-shirt and he heard him make a cluck noise with his tongue.

Beckett could see that Sheppard's ribs were bound up tight, around which there was extensive, and obviously painful, bruising. "How did you do this?"

Sheppard avoided the question and carefully moved his hand back.

"And I noticed the taped fingers Colonel," said Beckett. He stood up straight and shook his head, "What have you been doing?"

Sheppard again averted his gaze, "So how has everyone been?"

Beckett grabbed his stethoscope and listened to Sheppard's breathing, "Breathe in. They've all been well. There was a nasty case of the flu going around a few weeks back."

"Nothing exciting? No discoveries?" Sheppard probed.

"Breathe out. Well I'm sure Mckay will be able to tell you about that."

"They discovered something?" said Sheppard, his tone slightly deflated.

"Your breathing sounds fine. Don't worry Colonel. Nothing exciting happened while you were gone."

Sheppard smiled again, "Good."

"You'll have to keep an eye on your ribs and av-"

"Avoid any strenuous activity. I know. I had the same spiel on earth."

"Are you in any pain?"

"No," said Sheppard pulling his t-shirt back down.

"Any idea why you collapsed?" asked Beckett watching him carefully.

Sheppard shook his head, "Exhaustion? They had some problems with the engines. I helped with some of the diagnostics and what not. Maybe I overdid it."

"Maybe you did. How's earth?"

"The same," said Sheppard wanting to get off the subject quickly.

Sheppard turned and watched as Mckay and Elizabeth entered the infirmary. Both of them were smiling from ear to ear and quite frankly, they were creeping him out a bit.

"Hey," he said getting up off the bed and giving Mckay a hand shake and Elizabeth a brief hug.

He could see that they were both checking out his bruises and cuts and he tried to tilt his head away.

"You look different," said Elizabeth.

Sheppard ran a hand through his hair, "The hair right?" he said, "Yeah it wasn't regulation so they had to cut some off." His hair was a lot shorter than usual and she could tell that he was bristling slightly at the fact he'd had to cut it.

"You guys looks well," said Sheppard.

"Which is more than I can say for you?" said Mckay craning his head to see the bruising on Sheppard's neck.

Sheppard tried to appear as if he hadn't noticed he was under scrutiny and asked, "Where's Teyla and Ronon?"

"Off-world," said Elizabeth, "They went to negotiate some trades on Parthos,"

"Oh," said Sheppard.

"They'll be back tonight for your party."

"Party?" Sheppard raised a quizzical eyebrow.

"We figured you're owed one night of unadulterated fun," said Mckay.

"So, why were you bought to the infirmary?" Elizabeth asked staring past Sheppard to look at Beckett.

"Exhaustion," said Beckett whilst Sheppard rolled his eyes theatrically.

"Maybe I just wanted a free ride into Atlantis," he said with a grin.

"Well, I'm glad you're okay," said Elizabeth, her eyes lingering on him for a moment.

Elizabeth reacted to her radio and then turned back to the two men, "That's Caldwell. I better go speak to him. John, it's really good to have you home."

"I'm glad to be back too."

She left and he and Mckay stood awkwardly for a minute.

Mckay finally smiled and slapped him on the back, "Glad to be back?"

Sheppard reacted to the thud on his ribs and grimaced, "Great. So Doc, can I go?"

Beckett was writing down something on his chart, "Yes, yes. If you're in any pain let me know. I can prescribe you something."

Sheppard smiled and walked over to Beckett and gave him a pat, "Thanks Doc."

As he and Mckay left the infirmary McKay turned to him and asked, "What was that about?"

"Broke my ribs," he said, "So you found anything exciting while I've been away?"

"Found a few strange devices down in the western wing. How did you break your ribs?"

"Cool, lets go touch them and see what they do." Sheppard continued to walk but Mckay stopped. The fact that Sheppard had avoided his question, hadn't been lost on him. There was also something different about him and it was almost imperceptible, but it was definitely there.

"Colonel, are you okay?"

Sheppard stopped walking and turned back, "Yeah."

"Its just you seem, a little -."

"A little," Sheppard prodded.

"A little……. strange." He swallowed and grimaced at his inability to convey what he really meant.

"I admit I'm a little wired," said Sheppard, "I missed this place."

"Really?"

"Yeah," he said with a genial smile, "Ah actually, forget the touching of devices. I'd better go find Lorne and congratulate him on a fine job." He started to walk off but stopped again, "He did do a good job didn't he?"

Mckay caught up with him, "Yeah, like I said it was pretty quiet around here."

---------------------

It had been a long day and he still had his welcome back party to attend. Sheppard entered his quarters and stopped in the middle of the room to look around. His belongings had been untouched, if a little dusty, and though they were familiar to him they felt strangely alien.

Being back was stirring up some unusual emotions for him. His little trip home had effected him more than he was willing to admit to himself. Even as he looked at his own belongings and his various paraphernalia from Atlantis, he felt dislocated. He had to mentally force himself to be there and not be back in Afghanistan where his brain seemed trapped.

He dropped his bag onto his bed and zipped it open solemnly, ignoring the tug on his ribs as he leant forwards.

He tipped it upside down and looked at the contents, before plucking out a beige T-shirt and fingering the hole in the shoulder. He dropped it back onto the bed with a long sigh.

All of a sudden a wave of nausea washed over him, he ran into his bathroom, skidding to a stop by the toilet and leant over as he waited for the inevitable. He retched once but produced nothing and sank back onto his heels whilst nausea rippled through him. When he realised he wasn't going to be sick, he got up and went over to the basin to wash his face. His hands were shaking as the water slicked over him and he caught his reflection in the mirror.

He hated his hair. It was too damn short. Stark had delighted in that being his first official duty as Sheppard's Commanding Officer again. He had instructed him to make it more regulation and regulation he had made it. It wouldn't take long for it grow out, but until it did he would have the vestiges of his time away following him around the base and he just wanted to forget about earth and his men and-

He swallowed against a lump in his throat and breathed out heavily to abate his nausea.

He checked his watch and saw that there was still an hour to go before he would be pushed into the social limelight and into forced composure.

He walked back into the main body of his room, pushed the contents of his bag onto the floor and flopped down backwards to stare at the ceiling for an hour.

-------------------

Loud chatter, music, clinking glasses and laughter greeted Sheppard as he walked towards the gate-room. He was still surprised that Elizabeth had sanctioned use of their most prized room for a party. He scanned over the crowd as he descended the steps and caught Elizabeth's eyes.

"What do you think?" she asked, passing him a beer.

"Beer?" he said with a raised eyebrow and took a sip, "Who's in charge whilst this goes on?"

"Me," she said, "I'm not drinking, and Lorne is continuing his activities as acting commanding officer."

"Ah, so you're the prom supervisor," he said with a glint in his eye.

"The others are over here," she said guiding him through the throngs of people.

Somebody pulled a party popper next to him and without thinking he crouched down, putting his hands over his head and closing his eyes. There was a brief ripple of laughter and Sheppard felt Elizabeth tugging on his arm, "Are you okay?" she asked looking him up and down.

Sheppard stood slowly, peeling some of the string from the popper off his t-shirt and smiled, "Yeah, just thought for a moment-" he paused not continuing to say he thought it was an explosion, "Just, caught me off guard."

She smiled, forehead creasing and then continued to pull him over to a food table where the others had gathered.

"Teyla," he said approaching her and giving her a hug.

"Colonel, It's good to have you back," she said repositioning the cake she had in her hand.

"Ronon" he said.

Ronon gave his trademark silent nod.

"Wow," he said turning in a circle and raising his beer to gesture, "This is some party. I just hope nobody comes through the gate."

"We have no team's off-world and we've put the gate on answer machine, so feel free to have a night of freedom," said Elizabeth picking up a plate and plucking through the food.

Beckett stood next to her and put some snacks onto a plastic plate.

Mckay came up beside Sheppard and gave him a nudge, "Well?"

"Impressive," said Sheppard letting his eyes dance around the room. He couldn't quite relax and found his methodical scans of the room were more out of concern for security than for social reasons. He was feeling uncomfortable with the amount of people crammed into this one area. If anything happened he wouldn't be able to get them out of here quickly enough. They'd probably be tripping over their own feet at the mercy of alcohol.

"Hey, relax. One night isn't going to kill you," he heard Mckay say and realised that he must have noticed his stiffened stance.

Sheppard turned to him, raised his bottle and then had a generous drink.

--------------------

As Ronon and Mckay staggered down the corridors supporting Sheppard's weight between them Mckay wondered how Sheppard had let himself get into this state. He never advocated drinking amongst his men even if they were off duty but tonight it seemed like all he wanted to do was blot out his surroundings.

Sheppard was mumbling incoherently between them, saying something about not feeling well, before going quiet and slipping back into unconsciousness.

Over the course of the night people had started to drift off and after most people had left, Sheppard had still been sitting on the bottom of the gate room steps drinking.

All night he had been silent and distant and Mckay had wondered if it was symptomatic of a deeper problem.

Mckay and Ronon had stayed back after the Colonel insisted but it had been getting late, even for Mckay.

"Well, I'm going to hit the sack," Mckay had said getting up slowly.

Sheppard had pulled a face and attempted to stand against a wave of booze related dizziness, "Nah, come on Rodney. It's not time for bed yet. It's still early." He'd been like that all night. He wanted everyone who left, even strangers, to stay back to drink and keep him company. It was as if he was avoiding his room and sleep.

"Correction, it is early," Mckay had said with a sigh, "And as you know I have important work to attend to in the morning," he'd had to correct himself, "Today."

Sheppard had raised the bottle he had in his hand and taken a drunken step back, "Oh come on, lets play some cards or something." He stood swaying slightly.

"You're drunk. When Elizabeth said enjoy yourself I don't think she meant get hammered," Mckay had informed him, stepping over to him and lowering his voice. He'd looked up to see that the morning relief staff were coming onto the clock. It would only be a matter of time before Elizabeth would be coming down for the morning.

It was time to get Sheppard to bed.

"Boring," slurred Sheppard before pitching backwards.

And here they were, attempting to keep him upright, his legs dangling ineffectually between them refusing to make solid contact with the ground.

Mckay had no doubts as to how ridiculous they looked carrying Atlantis' commanding officer between them.

Sheppard groaned again, "Get off," he said struggling for a moment before slouching back into their hold.

"Can't handle his drink," said Ronon in an emotionless voice.

"I don't know why he's doing this," said Mckay tripping when Sheppard's foot got tangled in his.

Sheppard raised his head, "Are you guys coming to play cards?"

"No," said Mckay in an irritated voice, "Definitely not."

Sheppard scowled and dropped his head, "I feel like I'm gonna puke."

"Not here and not on me," said Mckay.

"If he blows I'm leaving," said Ronon hauling Sheppard up.

"If he blows so will I, I can't stand-" he stopped and shook his head.

Sheppard was looking greener by the minute but it seemed his stomach contents were going to stay firmly in place. For now at least.

They eventually reached his quarters and carried him over to his bed where they laid him down on his back.

Mckay pulled off his shoes, tutting as he put them to the side of the bed.

Sheppard rolled over onto his side, his one arm dangling over the edge as he mumbled gently.

"Should we leave him?" asked Ronon.

"He just needs to sleep it off," said Mckay.

They watched as Sheppard rolled over again as he slept restlessly, forehead creasing in pain.

Mckay shared a look with Ronon, before shaking his head and leaving the room. He threw one last glance over his shoulder as Sheppard groaned.

"What the hell happened to you?" he said as the door closed behind him.

TBC

Updates will be less regular with this fic, but this story will definitely get finished.

Hope its reading well and conveying what I want to convey.

Please review.

Thanks.