OKAY so, this week has been crazy, the past two have been crazy. oh! and i saw We Will Rock You on wed. and can i just say it ROCKED lol if you get the chance to see it, GO! lol, i like Wicked better, but meh, to each their own. anywho, sorry for the long wait, but here's the next part!
sparklyshimmer2010 - thx for reviewing! and yep, soon the twist will come, no worries
JenniDinoRobot - lol it's ok Jenne, choir auditions are acceptable...srry to say neither of ur guesses, though in the future-hmm...
Savertin - good guess, thx for the review!
Charmed225 - here's the next bit! enjoy!
saphiretwin369 - here you go, thx for the review! much appreciated.
thx for all the support guys!
enjoy! Home to Me
Jennifer took in the ruins before her; the ground surrounding the earth was charred and black from the explosion, littered with the rubble of the city square. The trees were gone, or blown to pieces. There was no sound. Everything was quiet. She'd seen the pictures and video from the recon before them, but to see it in person was something more fascinatingly horrible than she could imagine.
And then she saw the bodies; there were about 9, 6 elder residents of the city and 3 young men between them. Jennifer felt tears well in her eyes as she conjured up images of the 3 men helping the old to safety, leading them from their crumbling city. She pushed them down as the team moved forward; she'd dealt with bodies before, she was a doctor.
Ronon squeezed her hand and Jennifer blinked, one fat tear rolling down her cheek. So she was a doctor, so she'd seen dead bodies before; didn't make it any easier.
They moved off to count the dead and assess the extent of the damage.
John knelt beside a dead woman; she was old, at least 80 with shock white hair and pale, colourless skin. He felt for a pulse, despite his knowledge she was dead. Her skin was cool, covered in dust and debris from his C4.
He stood and looked over at Rodney, who was standing in the middle of the square, looking around in almost shock.
"Let's look around; pair up," John called, moving off towards Rodney and steering him towards the nearest building where Formay was waiting, face grim.
Standing off to one side, just in front of the gate, was Kennyth and Edyn, gripping each other's hands. They were almost strangers, had seen each other only during the white season and even then only in passing on the streets. They squeezed each other's hands and watched as the team from Atlantis searched through the remains of the heart of their city.
Sam sat next to Elizabeth in the infirmary; the former leader had yet to awaken again, but the only wires coming off her were the smaller heart monitor that wasn't quite so annoying and the IV drip that Jennifer had changed before leaving for Terradyn.
Sam sifted through some reports on her lap before picking up her data pad to check some fact or another. On the bed next to her, Elizabeth remained unconscious.
"Colonel Carter, I just need to change the head dressing?" the young nurse spoke quietly from behind Sam.
Sam looked up, "Sure, go ahead,"
The nurse shifted over to the bed and began changing the bandage. "This is weird," she muttered.
Sam looked up wearily. "What's that?"
The nurse looked up with a puzzled frown. "The bandage is dry with blood, but there's not a scratch on her…"
Sam dropped her stack of reports on the floor beside her chair and set the data pad on top before moving closer to inspect the head wound.
There was no wound; no scar, no scratch, no blood. Nothing.
"That is weird," Sam muttered to herself, looking up at the nurse.
There was ringing; not too noticeable at first, but it was there, just at the edge of her senses. Why wouldn't it stop?
The sound grew in pitch and volume until it couldn't be ignored anymore; why wouldn't it stop?
It was grating on her nerves, racing along all her nerves until they twitched under the cruel noise, as if trying to escape the body itself.
Why wouldn't it stop?
"What's happening?" Sam asked, jumping back as Elizabeth started twitching and convulsing on the bed.
The nurse looked a little panicked but quickly recovered, yelling for Dr. Goh, the newest addition to the medical department.
Dr. Goh was at their side in a flash, injecting something into Elizabeth's IV and pushing the young nurse out of the way. Elizabeth's convulsion slowed to a small twitch and the doctor pushed another needle into Elizabeth's arm, holding her down as she jerked again.
"Hold her legs!" Dr. Goh ordered the nurse.
The nurse gripped Elizabeth's ankles and Sam bit down on a thumbnail, watching in tense fixation as the two held her down.
Elizabeth was still again, her limbs relaxing and laying limp against the other two women's hands.
"She's stable," Dr. Goh reported, checking Elizabeth's vitals.
"What's wrong?" Sam asked, moving forward again.
"Kat, go and grab a depressor would you?" the woman spoke calmly but firmly, sending the shaken young nurse to get the small bit of plastic.
"What's that for?" Sam asked, pulling her thumbnail away from her lips.
"To put in her mouth so she doesn't bite her tongue if she convulses again. To answer your earlier question, I don't know what caused it; it could be a number of things. She could be waking up, or having a reaction to the IV or just having nightmares. In any case, the mild sedatives should help her remain relaxed." Dr. Goh replied.
"So this could be a good thing?" Sam asked hopefully, catching what the other woman had said about Elizabeth waking up.
Dr. Goh looked uneasy, "It could be, but we should be prepared for every possibility."
Sam nodded tiredly, "Thank you doctor,"
Dr. Goh nodded and moved away, taking the depressor from the returned nurse, Kat.
"Please just be waking up. I don't think this city could handle it if anything else happened to you," Sam mumbled to the sleeping Elizabeth.
John and Rodney ascended the stairs carefully behind Formay. They were entering the last building they were to search and were more than ready to return to Atlantis and relative normalcy.
Formay stopped in his tracks at the top of the steps, frozen in place. "We should ensure that Edyn and Kennyth do not see them,"
John and Rodney joined in Formay's shock as the bodies of Edith and Tometh invaded their vision; the old woman lay next to the boy, an arm stretched out for his fingers.
"Crap," John muttered, moving forward and kneeling beside the two. Formay averted his eyes and moved deeper into the tower, stepping over broken glass and blood.
"In here," he called a moment later from a room down the long corridor.
John and Rodney jogged the short distance and stood behind him as they looked into the room. It was beyond trashed, herbs and vials, papers and folders and shelves and books strewn everywhere, some burned, some still intact.
"What the hell happened here?" Rodney asked to nobody in particular.
John's radio crackled to life as Jennifer spoke, her voice a little shaky over the connection. "Colonel, Ronon and I are taking Edyn and Kennyth back to Atlantis with the, uh, deceased from the square."
John motioned for the other two men to follow him out of the room. "Alright, we'll come with you."
They left the tower, pulling the door closed behind them. In the square, before the Stargate as Jennifer dialed, Kennyth turned to John, Edyn letting go of him to find her brother.
"Did you see Edith? Was she in the tower?" John could hear the fear in the man's voice and debated whether or not to lie.
"We have not seen her yet; there are more places to look still. We will find her," Formay spoke from behind John.
John thanked the other man silently as the gate whooshed open, leading them home.
"Dr. Keller, you're needed in the infirmary as soon as possible," Sam greeted the team grimly as soon as they came through the gate.
Jennifer moved off even as she called for stretchers to go back to the city and bring the dead through. Ronon followed her, carrying her pack as she shrugged out of her vest and jacket.
"What's wrong?" John asked as Edyn, Formay and Kennyth followed a pair of marines to get cleaned up.
"It's Elizabeth, John, she's fine, but there've been some," she searched for the right word, "Twists," she settled on.
"Twists? That doesn't sound 'fine' to me," John said tensely, walking away to dump his gear and then visit Elizabeth. Sam watched him go before returning to the control room to get the other medical personnel through to Terradyn.
It was back; the medication had helped before, numbing her senses until the ringing was nothing, but now it was back and it was louder than before.
It wouldn't stop, wouldn't cease. It was unrelenting and it felt like her limbs were being pulled and stretched and crushed all at the same time. Her head felt like it would implode if it didn't stop soon.
Why wouldn't it stop? Why wasn't anyone giving her more of whatever had stopped it last time?
"Do something!" John yelled as Dr. Goh pushed more sedative into Elizabeth's IV.
"That's all I can give her!" the doctor yelled back, stepping closer and pushing the depressor into Elizabeth's mouth, pulling her hand back before a finger got bitten.
A low moan rose from the bed and John reached out to touch her hand before pulling back.
"Make it stop," Elizabeth groaned out, feeling her fingers clench and twist in agony.
"Make it stop! Make it stop! Please, make it stop, John, please! It hurts so much, please make it stop!" Elizabeth spat out the chunk of plastic and John felt his stomach clench and twist as Elizabeth cried out in pain.
"What's wrong with her?" John demanded. The doctor held Elizabeth down, pulling off a cap of a needle as more nurses flooded the area, shoving John out of the way.
"Move it people," the doctor ordered, sticking the needle into the jumping IV as the team of nurses pulled up the bed rails and lowered the bed and dropped pillows around the metal.
John watched, helpless as Jennifer ran in, Ronon still behind her, and shift a nurse out of the way to help.
Ronon lead John away with a firm grip on his upper arm and John fought the whole way.
Later that night, John sat with Elizabeth, holding her hand and stroking his thumb over her skin. He'd seen the non-existent head wound, the healed scratches and bones and had heard the theory that the nanites were active again.
"What's going on in there, Lizzie?" he mumbled as he shifted in the chair.
"John," Elizabeth peeled open her eyes, clutching at John's hand.
"Elizabeth!" John moved to press the nurses' call button but a hand whipped out to grasp his wrist.
John removed his hands from hers and stared down at Elizabeth.
"Something's wrong," her voice was slurred and a little sluggish.
"What?" John asked, frowning and leaning closer.
"I can hear it, can't you hear it?" Elizabeth said, twisting her face up into a grimace.
"I don't hear anything."
"It's all I can hear; it won't stop. I think something's wrong." Elizabeth moaned lowly as a particularly loud pulse of sound ripped through her mind.
"There's no noise, Elizabeth, just you and me." John whispered, grabbing her hand again. Elizabeth jerked it back.
"No! Something's wrong! With me, something's wrong with me." Elizabeth whispered, a tear rolling down her cheek.
"There's nothing wrong, Liz, you're doing great!" John tried to be positive but Elizabeth just twisted her head away before turning back.
"You don't understand!" she cried, pulling her hands up to head, as if she could squeeze the sound out.
John grasped her hands and pulled them from her head, fearing she might hurt herself by accident. "You're fine, Elizabeth, it's okay; you're ribs are healed, your bones, the nanites are gon-,"
"No!" Elizabeth jerked her hands from his again. "Listen!"
John looked down at her helplessly, reaching for the nurse's button again.
"Stop!" Elizabeth knocked the little device from his hands and looked him in the eye. "When they took them out, the nanites, they had to take me apart,"
John wiped at the tears falling from her eyes, "What are you talking about?" he asked in confusion and desperation.
"They had to! They helped but they hurt and now, I'm wrong! I'm wrong, John."
"You're fine, stop talking like this! Let me call the doctor," John said, feeling so helpless he felt tears welling in his own eyes. He pushed them down.
"No! The doctors can't help, not here! Listen!"
John leaned closer as Elizabeth pulled on his hand.
"They helped, but they hurt. They helped me. But I died John; I died and I came back wrong."
"She's dying!" Edith yelled as the woman's monitor beeped its distress.
"She's not fully made of the enemy virus cells," Minhe spoke, shock and surprise coloring her face and voice.
"Use the charges," she continued.
"We used a machine I cannot begin to describe the meaning of and removed much of, well, you." Edith smiled reassuringly as Elizabeth paled.
"Not to worry, it's not nearly as bad as it sounds and everything is fine now. We removed the, nanites, and you were perfectly healthy."
"So, it was relatively simple?" Elizabeth asked, already thinking about how useful the technology could be.
"Relatively; if you know how to use it," Elizabeth smiled as Edith winked.
hmm, curious-er and curious-er...lol
plz review, as per usual, because they totally rock my world.
oh, points to anyone who can guess where the 'i came back wrong' part comes from... good luck and thx in advance!