A SHOW OF TRUST

CHAPTER ELEVEN: A MOMENT OF CALM

For once, the infirmary was fairly quiet. No one had managed to get burned, broken, beaten or bumped this week badly enough to warrant an overnight stay, so the room was abnormally empty…and quiet.

Sheppard sat by the bedside, watching his friend for any signs of animation. He'd been sitting here for close to ten minutes and, so far, McKay hadn't even twitched.

Beckett had closed Rodney's eyes, to give him more of the impression of sleep than death, but it did not help much. He still looked….

Dead.

The major heaved a shaky sigh.

McKay was comatose, minimal brain activity, just enough to keep him alive. His body was functioning fine, acting on auto-pilot, but there was nothing going on upstairs.

And, according to Beckett, there was nothing he or anyone could do about it.

The major lifted a hand, wanting to reach over and touch McKay's arm, to grasp it and shake him awake. To see those eyes open, to hear the impatient voice challenging him, and to answer back, make a joke…and tell him…tell him….

What exactly?

The hand lowered, never reaching its destination.

Over in another room, Beckett gave a small sigh of disappointment, watching the major fighting with himself. The doctor uncrossed his arms, dropping them to his sides before turning away and retuning to the research he had called up on treating coma patients.

Sheppard lowered his eyes, glancing at his watch. Fifteen minutes now. For fifteen minutes he'd listened to the monitors steady beeping, watched McKay's chest rise and fall, thought about what had happened to Rodney and….

About Straein.

Back in the lab, he knew Doctor Simpson and her team were very carefully trying to retrieve every piece of the Renzite stone, to try and get a better sense of what it had done.

And over in the living quarters, he knew that Sergeant Bates, Corporal Recillos and Teyla were moving to confine and interrogate Straein.

Part of him still couldn't believe it had been her.

Sheppard looked down at his hands, at the digital voice recorder he was now rolling back and forth between this palms. He and the others had all already listened to it, several times. Hearing was believing, in this case. They had sent out a general call to see if anyone else had been unaffected by Straein's now obvious abilities, and those people were now going after the woman.

McKay, Kavenaugh, Recillos, Zelenka, Bates…..

Why had they all seen through her? Why hadn't she conned them as she had most of the expedition?

All right, that wasn't what was bothering him.

What was bothering him was…why hadn't he seen through her?

He thought about the people who had volunteered. A handful of the scientists, all engineers, the razor sharp tongued female corporal that all the marines were in love with, the deadly serious Sergeant Bates….What did they have in common?

Nothing that he could see.

And now those people were going to trap and take Straein to the brig. To where they'd kept Steve. It had somehow inhibited Steve's ability to affect minds…it should work with her as well.

To trap the girl who just a few hours ago he'd been hopelessly in love with.

The girl he'd kissed. Deeply.

And part of him wanted to do it again. To do anything she asked of him.

His body shuddered.

He'd never felt so out of control as when he'd realized just how easily she had been using him. And had McKay not taken that orange ball away from him….He tried not to think about the power she would have had over him if he'd held on to the Renzite.

How far could she have pushed him? Who would he have hurt?

Well…he had hurt someone, hadn't he?

He looked up, finding Rodney's profile again, eyes trailing along the smooth brow, the slightly upturned nose, the line of his mouth…all disconcertingly still.

McKay was his friend. An obnoxious, rude, arrogant, often frustrating friend…but one of the closest he had. Someone he'd come to even think of…as his best friend….

And two hours ago he'd wanted to kill him.

He had stormed into the man's lab full of a rage he couldn't even imagine now. He had hit him square in the chest—nearly hard enough to break something, though Rodney probably didn't know that. And he had thought of using his gun. Only what must have been left of his self-restraint had held him from doing so. It was amazing that he hadn't.

A huge black hole felt like it had formed in his chest, as his own self hatred grew.

He went over all the conversations in his mind, those with her, with Weir and of course….

He opened his eyes again, and lifted them to look at Rodney.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

Quietly, he stood and looked down at the still form, dropping the DVR onto the chair behind him. Reaching forward, he placed both hands on Rodney's forearm, pressing just hard enough to feel the steady pulse. Of course, he could hear it monitored, but, for some reason, he felt better for feeling it.

"I didn't mean it," he promised the man softly, not looking up from his grip on the man's arm. "What I said. You're not a coward, and you're not a liability. I just…." He closed his eyes, "Christ, what a mess. What a god damned mess. It's no wonder you don't trust me." One hand reached up to press at the bridge of his nose, pinching it between his thumb and forefinger, "After this…I don't trust myself."

He stayed that way for a few moments, just listening to himself breathe, consciously letting it match the rhythm of Rodney's own breathing, until, eventually, he was only listening to Rodney breathe.

He opened his eyes, and let the hand touching his face fall lightly on Rodney's cool brow. The scientist's hair was matted down, stuck to his forehead. With a gentle motion, he pushed the man's short, shaggy hair away from his brow, spiking it up, the way he knew Rodney liked it.

And then it occurred to him.

This wasn't just about how he'd failed. This was about Rodney. And Straein. And everyone else on Atlantis.

The career soldier opened his eyes, pushing the self doubt deep inside, forcing himself to freeze out his heart…again…in order to respond to Straein's threat and protect the expedition. He couldn't let her win. She would tell them how to cure his friend, and then they would send her back to Saroku. In pieces, if possible. As shattered as her little orange ball.

The hatred he felt for himself was channeled in a new direction, and a colder, harder major looked out from behind the hazel eyes.

She would pay for this.

His radio chirped suddenly, and, with a sharper tone than he intended, he answered.

"Sheppard here."

"Sir?" Bates' voice was soft, even over the radio, "we have a problem."

"Oh?"

"Yes. The Sarokun woman, Straein…appears to be in the same state as Doctor McKay."

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Despite her obviously comatose state, they still put Straein in the brig. Beckett hooked her up to monitors, but his diagnosis was the same. Nothing they could do but watch and wait.

Back in McKay's lab, Simpson and her team started trying to reconstruct the Renzite from the pieces they found, but it was like putting a million piece puzzle together where all the pieces were the same color and basically the same shape. The software engineers worked through the night to create an effective program to guide them through the process, attaching numbers to the pieces, while the chemists and physicists just tried to figure out from Rodney's data what the hell the Renzite really was.

And Sheppard, Weir, Teyla, Ford and Zelenka, head scientist in McKay's absence, sat down to come up with a plan.

One thing was certain…they would have to go back to Saroku.

To a planet of people who apparently could kill other human beings with their minds.

It somewhat limited their negotiating position.

So Sheppard suggested some creative lying.

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TBC - sorry for the delay...and thank you all again for the wonderful reviews! Those little"bots" keep me going in the wee hours! LOL!