oXo

Bleeding for a While

oXo

The first thing the two of them heard as they came down the dim hall was loud counting.

"Three, four..." One Marine was counting in time with his movements, pressing down onto Carter's chest before he bent over and breathed into her opened mouth. Her chest rose, fell and the other Marine pressed down harder on the wound at the side of her chest while the first one started all over again. The third marine, who Rodney dimly recalled to be named Lt. Potter or something, stood outside in the hall, securing the area.

"Oh god..." Rodney couldn't believe how big the puddle of blood already was.

"What the hell happened here?" Sheppard asked as he came to halt by Potter's side.

The young man seemed a bit shocked. "Colonel Carter was shot, we... we found her as we came past the open door."

"Have you seen who it was?" Sheppard asked next, worried, sure he had wanted to get Elizabeth back as soon as possible, but not this way.

"Sorry sir, we didn't see anyone as we arrived," The Marine shook his head. " we don't even know how long she laid there before we came..." He added a little shocked.

The man was still quite young, just flown in with the last shipment because of his gene, so no wonder he looked a little pale.

Sheppard pushed Rodney against the wall and out of the way as Keller raced around the corner in the next moment, two orderlies with a stretcher hot on her heels. She nearly tumbled over Carter's feet, crashing to her knees by her patient.

The two other marines moved back, thrown out of the room by the medical personnel and ended up outside in the hall by the time Major Lorne arrived.

He had several men from the security detail with him, heavily armed and ready.

"Sir?" Lorne was panting and still sleep rumpled.

"Colonel Carter was ambushed, we don't know who it was. Double the security..." Sheppard commanded and Lorne took one look at the three bloody Marines and gestured for them to follow him again.

Rodney peeked into the door, grimacing at the amount of people and blood involved; he didn't need to understand what Keller was yelling to know Carter was in trouble.

"We should take a look at the security feed." Rodney suggested and Sheppard nodded.

"I'm going to the control room,"

Keller emerged with Carter on the stretcher. She was kneeling over the other woman's hips, continuing the CPR the marines had started as she got wheeled down the hall.

The men looked after them for a couple of shocked seconds, before Sheppard pointed at a Marine to follow Rodney down the hall in the other direction.

"This is Colonel Sheppard speaking," Sheppard's voice came over the city wide by the time Rodney was back in his laboratory. "We have a security lock down situation. Everyone has to remain inside their quarters until further notice."

Rodney drummed his fingers nervously on the surface of the desk, waiting for the security tape to move to the right moment. There were several short interferences and the picture blurred more and more the closer it got to the pertinent time frame, and then it cleared.

Carter walked down the hall and a second later Sheppard appeared, stopping her by her door. Rodney turned grim and narrowed his eyes at the picture, they were talking animatedly with each other for a few seconds and he fast forwarded over it, unable to deal with the whole Sheppard debacle for the moment and stopped as Sheppard left.

Carter went to her quarters. The Marines patrolled the hall, up and down, and then the hall was empty again for a very long sequence. The light flickered a few times and then the time code finally was reached.

The interferences got stronger about 21 minutes prior to the Alarm. And a figure walked around the half dark corner of the corridor and into the lighted passage near Colonel Carter's door.

"...but I..." Rodney's eyes turned as wide as possible, and his heart jumped into his throat. He had been asleep at that time...How the hell?

The McKay on the screen stepped up to the door, waited for Sam to open it and then the hall was very quiet again for several moments after McKay left.

18 minutes later, the marines passed again and saw the door standing open, they requested assistance and the rest was history.

It wasn't him, he knew it wasn't him, he had been in his laboratory, had slept bowed over the keys until perhaps 5 minutes before Sheppard had come in, but with the transporters and the remaining time left to come back... Oh, god he couldn't show this tape to anyone!

Nobody would believe that he wasn't there; the evidence was to clear. He had a motive, they would say, maybe that the excessive stress had made him loose his mind or something, or post traumatic stress disorder from being kidnapped and held thirsty and starving or the fact that she had replaced Elizabeth although Rodney hadn't been happy about it... something like that.

God, even Sheppard would be able to vouch for the version with the stress, because he had reacted so strangely in his presence just minutes after the attack. Oh god, he was so screwed.

Rodney hastily started erasing evidence, wiping as much of the time code as possible before Sheppard walked in just seconds later. "And?"

"I am almost at the correct time, nothing so far..." Rodney said fast, twitching slightly as the other man appeared behind his shoulder.

Sheppard looked at him oddly, Rodney knew, could feel it in the back of his head.

"Are you okay?" He asked after a while.

"Yeah, just," Rodney fumbled with his hands and waved awkwardly. "... this is a shock."

Sheppard nodded slowly, laying a hand on Rodney's shoulder with a caring squeeze. "She'll survive Rodney, I know Dr. Keller isn't Carson, but she's good at what she does or she wouldn't have the job."

Rodney nodded fast and wished so much he could tell Sheppard, just say something, but right now it would endanger him, too.

"I know." He croaked.

Sheppard squeezed one last time before letting go of Rodney's shoulder. "Alright, I am in the control room, keep me posted..."

Rodney nodded fast. "I will tell you as soon as I find something."

Sheppard nodded again and left the room, the door closing behind him. Rodney buried his face in his hands as soon as the other man was out of earshot, whimpering miserably.

"Rodney..."

"Go away." He whined muffled through his hands.

"I can't." Carson said. "You have to finally listen to me."

"Can't you just shut up for five minutes?" Rodney sighed and pressed the heels of his hands into the sockets of his eyes until it hurt.

"Just for a bit." He begged.

Carson sighed deeply and moved to look out of the small window. The sky was of a dark grass green with only the red and orange flashes illuminating the sky.

"I hate to force you into this,"

Rodney whined from behind his hands. "No, you don't..."

"Rodney I have just a bit of time before nothing of me is left in the city..." Carson sighed. "You have to face the problem She is not who she says she is!"

"I am facing the problem, that's why I am here!" Rodney mumbled. "And hallucinating doesn't help, by the way."

Carson glared into the corner where Meredith stood. "I am not the hallucination here, you know that."

"Oh you aren't?" Rodney stood up fast, spluttering. "Then it's her, huh? That's great, I mean, I either hallucinate my dead friend or a girl I promised to rescue and left alone on a bad rip off of Dune."

He waved a hand at Meredith who stood there and smiled at him in return. "And as if that isn't enough, no, Sheppard thinks I am crazy... and perhaps he isn't even so wrong about it, because hey, it's me and I don't deserve any better, do I!"

"That's not true, you know it Rodney. But now is really not the time for this ." Carson turned and stared at the child. "I am not the hallucination, and the little lass isn't one either." He said darkly staring at the innocent child.

She looked at Carson, smiling friendly but with cold eyes.

"Why don't you go away," Meredith asked. "Rodney hurts."

"I can't go away." Carson answered. "Not as long as you are here!"

"Then I have to do something against you, too." She said with a determined face and balled little fists.

Rodney looked up and from one to the other. "Can't you both shut up?!"

"You are a bad man," Meredith stepped closer to Carson, and narrowed her brows at him. "...and you must go away!"

"That's not going to happen..." Carson growled.

He didn't exactly sound like the Carson Rodney had once known, but on the other hand he exactly was the man he'd called almost something like his best friend. Even if he had been a coward most of the time he'd been brave too, when it mattered and he always protected his patients, in the end, even with his life.

Meredith crossed her little arms very Rodney like. "You must go away!"

"I am not leaving my city, forget it." Carson growled back and mirrored the stance.

"Then I must make you..." Meredith stepped forward and threw her arms around Carson, causing both of them to disappear and leave the lights flickering from one second to the other.

Rodney blinked for a couple of moments, and suddenly it made sense. God, how stupid had he been.

"Meredith..." He hissed. Meredith was the cause, it made all sense now. Carson had told him she wasn't the hallucination, apparently neither was Carson, but that was another thing to solve later on, and now she was Rodney's problem not the doctor.

She'd been there in his dreams, had been there as he had felt angry about Sam and how she had replaced Elizabeth and then his dream had turned to a awful scene that came back to him in exactly the moment all facts fell into place to make space for clarity.

Of course, she was a program, now it made sense, she'd never seen other people because no Pirian had the gene, probably was a damaged or unfinished experimental AI or something. Oh crap, and she had given him the ZPM, probably used it as her way in.

He had held his promise and had taken her with him, he just hadn't known until now.

And she had shot Sam.

He had to stop her!

But how?

Okay, alright, the old ZPM still wasn't depleted and it was offline now, but had worked before the new ZPM had been initiated, and, although Carter and Zelenka hadn't found any sign for anything as they checked it through, it still could have transported Meredith. And Carson had known all the time.

He frowned, he had no clue what Carson had to do with it, or why he had appeared, but he had no time to wonder about that now, he had to pull the plug on Meredith and reboot the system with the back up and the old ZPM.