A/N: I know, it's been a while. And updates will indeed be coming way more slowly for the time being. I just started a new job on Friday and moved about 600km away from home on top of it, without a permanent place to stay yet (that's hopefully going to change in the course of next week. And don't worry, I still do have a place in my hometown, I'm not completely homeless. I just need to find a permanent place to stay in the new city, for the duration of the contract. It'll work out. I hope.), so yeah... updates will probably have to wait until I'm a little more settled in.

I'd also like to thank the friends who helped me with this story because it's medical stuff, and I still have to rely heavily on the expertise of others for that. So, Semo (and Mr. Semo), Pingulotta and Keira, thank you, thank you, thank you for helping me out with this. Your input is greatly appreciated and this story would not have worked without you!

Timelinewise, this is about a week or maybe ten days after the mission to Olesia and maybe two or three days after That's How You Make A Hit and takes place during "Trinity" (see if you spot the reference. If you do, give yourself a pat on the shoulder!). Have fun reading it!


Like You're Six Feet Underground

"Do you feel alone when you're surrounded by
Everyone you know
Do you ever feel down
Like you're six feet underground
Can't dig your way out this hole."

Amy MacDonald, "Prepare to Fall"

Let me make one thing clear: this is not the Doc's fault. Whatever is going to happen, this is not Morsberg's fault, so don't let him tell you otherwise.

That said: I hate this galaxy. Because this shit never happened back in the Milky Way. We had a lot of other shit happening, and most of it was annoying and inconvenient and pretty much scary, too but there was at least one constant: no one ever got sick. Stabbed, shot, body-switched, brainwashed, limps broken, limps sprained, totally. Sick? Not so much. Not one of us, not once.

And here we are, three months in a new galaxy, a little over one of them as a team, currently underground, on a recon mission to a supposedly abandoned outpost of unknown origin and my damn sergeant just started "feeling a little under the weather" before not waiting even five minutes to tell us that "he might have to take a break". In Dee's vocabulary, this means that he's close to becoming a liability instead of an asset.

Or, in more direct terms, he's about to fucking keel over from exhaustion.

I frown at Morsberg. "Doc? Take a look, please?"

He gives me a glare. So far, nothing new. "Already on it." Sir. There's a "sir" missing. What did I do now?

Oh fine, have it your way, I really don't care. I nod at Reece, pretending I don't share the worry I can see in her face. "Give the Doc some lighting, Captain. I'll go take care we don't get any surprise visitors."

This planet should be uninhabited, or at least that's what aerial recon suggested last week but since it has a planetary Stargate instead of an orbital one, it's absolutely possible that this could have changed already days ago. Considering the Atlantis contingent's track record so far, this entire situation clearly spells "set-up for a clusterfuck of epic proportions". I hate clusterfucks.

Alright, then. Reece is resuming her usual job of unskilled labor for the Doc, while I keep an eye on the lifesigns detector – which is kind of useless down here but you never know, right? – and an ear out for any uninvited guests to this little recon party. Something just… rubs me wrong about this mission, and I don't only mean the fact that my favorite sergeant – someone who never gets sick, swear to God – all of a sudden doesn't look so good, after all. I have, as I'd say if I were a Star Wars nerd, a really bad feeling about this.

For the time being, though, all is quiet on the bunker front, so I allow myself to shift my attention temporarily to my team members. As of now, Dee is sitting on the ground, his back against the wall, his legs bend at the knees, while both Reece and Morsberg are crouching in front of him. So far, that doesn't look too bad, right? Okay, let's annoy the resident medic a little more. "Doc? Anything yet?"

He doesn't turn around but I just bet he rolled his damn eyes. He really likes rolling his eyes at me. As does Reece. I'm not sure what that says about my qualities as a team leader but… "I'm working on it, sir. Right now, it could be literally anything."

That's not helpful. Not at all. But I guess saying so would just result in a somewhat deserved set-down, or maybe some muttered German that's guaranteed to piss me off just because I still suspect that he's doing that mostly because he full well knows that the only other person on this team who understands it is Reece. I take a deep breath. "Okay. But hurry up, alright. Something's not right here."

I expect him, or maybe Reece, to tell me to shut up in a version that won't get them immediately written up for insubordination but to my surprise, both look at me and nod, and it's Reece saying, "I agree, sir. It's too quiet, and there was some evidence outside that someone was here recently." She's right. It was well concealed and I almost missed it but there were a few tells that made me suspicious. I'm just surprised that she saw it, too.

Which is totally stupid because she's been longer in this galaxy than I have, and I should really stop seeing her as that little lieutenant from almost a year and a half ago.

A short look at the lifesigns detector, though, tells me that we're still alone here. But yeah, that far into concrete walls, it's not let's say very reliable. Dammit. "Dee?"

I don't get an immediate answer, and I really hope that's just due to the Doc probing Dee's lymph nodes for swelling – see, I did pay attention when my last medic tried to teach me the finer points of infection diagnosis! – but of course that gets bashed in as soon as he says, sounding alarmingly breathless and kind of… out of it, "Right now… I'm kind of busy shivering my ass off, sir."

Yeah, that's really not him. The one reason why this work relationship is still functioning after ten years is that Simon DeLisle is the most even-tempered person I have ever known. Time to step this up, after all, and damn my medic being pissed at me, again. "Doc, what is taking you so long?"

I don't get an immediate answer and that's… not exactly reassuring. So far, Morsberg has always been fast, confident and concise with assessments on missions, which is why this is… weird. Then again, until now medical issues on missions were more up his alley as surgeon and emergency doctor. And unlike Laura, this guy hasn't finished his residency yet. Uh-oh.

Finally, he gets up and comes walking over, after telling Reece something about "paracetamol" in a low voice. This is not his usual MO. I know he's only been on this team for four, maybe five months and we've only been on missions for two and a half but so far, he hasn't ever felt the need to bring some distance between himself and a patient before giving a sit-rep. Until now, he apparently could have cared less about his bedside manner, especially in the field. This is not getting better.

And yep, I was right. The low voice and the slightly nervous gestures totally confirm my misgivings. "We've got a problem, sir."

I really, really know I shouldn't do this but I honestly just can't help it. I have to be a sarcastic little shit. "Really? I could never tell, what with the sergeant who never gets sick suddenly feeling under the weather and all."

The fact that he doesn't even stop to glare at me tells me that yes, this was absolutely inappropriate. God, I hope Reece didn't just hear me. "Sergeant DeLisle is running a high fever, mentioned headaches, tiredness, joint pains and difficulties with staying focused."

I frown. "Sounds awfully much like the flu, Doc. That is a problem, I agree, but…"

"It's not the flu, sir." Huh? "His lymph nodes are fine. If this were the flu, I probably wouldn't even have to search for them. There'd also be other symptoms he's lacking. And most importantly, we would probably be just as sick."

Damn, fair points, especially the last one. "So…"

"So I don't…"

"Crap, Mats, something's happening!" Exactly the thing you don't want to hear from your XO when your medic is trying to tell you that he has no fucking clue what's going on.

Immediately, both our attention is back on Dee and holy shit this is bad, even for Atlantis standards. There, on the ground, my sergeant is having seizures. Violent, painful looking seizures.

And if that wasn't enough, the absolute helpless feeling at having to watch this and knowing that there's nothing I can do, all my academic and goddamn special forces training useless, catapults me back to that day, a little over a year ago, when I felt exactly the same thing the moment I stepped into that cave full of bodies where I left my best friend just an hour before. This is so not a good moment for this.

Okay, you're the damn team leader. Lead.

Thankfully, while I'm trying to get my shit back together, the conscious rest of my team already stepped up to act, and at least Morsberg found back into his groove, the momentary insecurity of feeling out his depth with something that couldn't be solved by slapping a bandage on it or stitching it up all forgotten. He's directing Reece to help him make sure Dee doesn't kill himself by choking or otherwise injuring himself and they're both doing a good job and I feel an awful lot like this might turn into one of those things you should talk about with one of the Expedition's psycho docs.

Good thing someone still needs to keep up watching our surroundings. At least that gives me the opportunity to get busy elsewhere and get a grip on those ghosts that managed to chase me here all the way from the Milky Way. It doesn't look like… crap. "Guys? Either the lifesigns detector is acting up," wouldn't be the first time, considering what the Wraith did to our sensors during the siege, "or we're about to get company."

"Lifesigns detector isn't acting up, sir." Again, not something you want to hear from your XO. "I can hear them. They're still a few crossings out but definitely coming towards us." Your XO with the very sensitive hearing who never failed alarming you before. Fuck.

Turning around, I can see that they get a hold on Dee and that apparently, he's not convulsing anymore. I don't even want to know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. "Doc?"

"Unconscious, sir." Little bit of both, then. "Also, not getting any better. I still don't know what this is, but it's progressing aggressively fast, and it's about to get a lot worse, if that just was any indication." There are only few things that are worse than "unconscious" and "seriously sick", and all of them are horrible.

Right then, that's enough. I don't even care whose lifesigns that are on the detector, but they're standing in our way back to base, and they have to go, one way or another. "Doc…"

And there goes another seizure. And the lifesigns just stopped moving at a strategically well place crossing ahead of us. Exactly where I'd be laying down an ambush if that were me. Crap, crap, crap. Okay, this is bad but not unsolvable. Maybe… "Mats? Please tell me he's not going to die?" How about you stay away from anything that contains the d-word, Reece? I heard that, even in a whisper. I'm not fucking deaf.

I scowl at her. "No one's gonna fucking die today. Tell her so, Doc."

That was an order. And of course it gets ignored. "Honestly? I'm not so sure right now." This is not how this works. I order you to do something, you do it. Is this very easy principle not known in Germany? "He's dangerously sick but I have no idea what's happening to him. I know I'm missing something but I have no idea what it is. We really need to get this sorted out and get him back to Atlantis."

Right. Time to calm down and do some real leading for a change. Thank God both of them seem to have temporarily lost their ability to read me like a beginner's textbook in either of their disciplines and Dee is kind of out of it, so all my subordinates hopefully overlooked my little freak out. I try not to take a deep breath. "Okay, Doc, you stay here and take care of the Sergeant. Keep an ear out for trouble but unless you hear a different order from me, you don't move. At all." He nods. Reluctantly, but he nods. Good thing he still cares more about his patients than wanting in on the action. I honestly wasn't so sure about that for the first few weeks. "Reece, you're with me. We're going to have a little look at the company."

She gets up, after making sure that Dee's taken care of and then joins me in carefully retracing our steps, P90s raised, communicating entirely by hand signs, and I know I shouldn't say this anymore but I still can't get over how much more natural and easy soldiering – Or Marine-ing, anyway, why are they so particular about that? – comes to her now. She was never really bad at it, she just didn't approach it right. That's a thing of the past now, and that still totally weirds me out.

Good thing I once learned how to focus on the important things, then, huh?

I give my radio a short series of clicks, to alert Morsberg that we made it to our target and are hunkering down just a few yards away from where the lifesigns detector shows their positions, P90s still raised.

The let's call it interesting thing is that they don't seem to have heard us coming because they keep talking in low voices. It sounds like English, but is too quiet to actually understand anything. I signal for Reece to ask her if she can hear more and yes, of course she can. She's freakishly fast when she's talking in ASL, and I get about half of what she's saying. Apparently, I'm still rusty and the guy back in Black Ops who taught me would probably have a few rather rude signs for me if he knew about that. I sign for her to slow down.

She looks like she has great difficulties not to roll her eyes and instead spells out one of the words I didn't get because she was so fast and… I. Oh come on. I ask her how she knows that and I get back… their accent? Seriously? She could tell from their accent? Every recording I heard or saw of them made it clear that they don't even have a particular accent. Damn linguists, always having to show off.

Alright, fine. Genii, then. Reece signals again and oh she wants to flush them out using a flashbang and possibly a hand grenade or two, as well. How nice. And while I appreciate her suggestion in spirit – trust me, there's nothing I'd like to do more than just blast our way out of this bunker, and also, her newly acquired thirst for violence is kind of maybe possibly a little bit of a turn-on – it doesn't make sense in our current position. The possible yield isn't worth the possible cost of us getting caught in the blast wave and a wave of nasty shrapnel, especially since we don't know whether they have backup stationed by the Gate or not.

I signal her no and she… circumvent? How? Okay, slow down, Kid, slow down… yeah, that's better. Door… back… Backdoor a few crossings back? How did she even… Noticed it on the way in, filed it away… doesn't know if it's really a backdoor because the faded signs on it were inconclusive. Yeah, that's what I thought.

So, to summarize, our options are: blasting our way free, getting wounded or dying in the process and going back to try and sneak out the backdoor, not knowing if it is a backdoor and possibly ending up trapped in a dead end, with Dee being unconscious and you know generally not in best condition.

Have I mentioned that I hate this galaxy yet?

Here goes nothing. I signal for her to retreat and do the backdoor thing, put a new series of clicks through the radio so Morsberg doesn't shoot us and we manage to come back to where the Doc and Dee are still waiting for us. Or maybe the Genii at the ambush site just let us go, knowing something we don't. Everything is possible in this shit hole of a galaxy.

Reece, probably forgetting that Morsberg doesn't know ASL, rapidly signs the plan for him and yeah, no, he doesn't get it. New item on the training plan: have Reece finally teach the Doc ASL basics because trust me, it'll make a lot of things easier.

At Morsberg's uncomprehending look, I try tactical hand signs and that finally seems to work, even if it was crude compared to what Reece can do with a combination of ASL and some pretty specialized tactical hand signs. After way too many minutes, we manage to track back to the door that Reece mentioned, so faded and rusty that it blends in so well with the bunker wall that I nearly missed it the first time. We somehow manage to carry Dee inside and make it a few yards until I hear the Doc half-whisper behind me, sounding as if he just had an epiphany. "Shit, I know what it is."

What the fuck is he even talking about and why can't he do it while on the move? "Doc?"

"Scheiße, wie konnte ich denn nur so blöd sein?" I hate it when he does that.

I don't fucking speak German! Only Reece can do that! She's the damn linguist. I glare at him, which is probably useless in the sparse light from our P90s scopes because from his current position behind me, carrying Dee on his shoulders, he can't even see it. "Doc."

"Malaria." Huh?

I still have no clue what he's talking about. Malaria what? "What?"

"Malaria. That's what this is." Oh. Oh, that's what he's been talking about. His diagnosis. Huh. Not bad for a surgeon, I guess? "Or something like it, Pegasus style. It was right there and I didn't even…"

But yes, back to the important things here. "Doc, can you treat it?"

He gently lowers Dee on the ground, shaking his head and then crouching down to take Dee's vitals. From the look of his face… it doesn't look so good. "I don't know. It shouldn't even have happened because we're all on prophylaxis but everything points to a pathogen that's doing exactly what malaria does." Yes, Doc, the important things. "I might have something to treat the symptoms and stabilize him until we're back in Atlantis but we really need to hurry the fuck up."

Good. Now we're getting somewhere. Let's have some action here. "Good enough. Doc, you do your thing, then carry Dee. We'll switch if necessary. Reece, you take point, I'll bring up the rear for now. Move it." And that's how we roll, right?

Right.

In the end, it's exactly the clusterfuck I predicted. Because of course Dee had to get another seizure and of course the Genii knew about the backdoor and just used the first ambush site as a way to flush us out and of course we spent way too much ammo in the ensuing shoot out and yes, of course someone – Me. It was me. – ended up yelling "Fire in the fucking hole!" and getting caught by the tail end of the blast wave and being lucky that that happened outside, not in the damn bunker and still having their arm sliced neatly by shrapnel.

And yes, of course this ends with us hightailing it out of there – it's a miracle the Genii don't have backup stationed by the Gate and I'm not going to question that for the time being because that way, madness lies – and yelling "Coming in hot, get an emergency med team to the Control Room!" into our radios before making it back to Atlantis, weirdly interrupting Dr. Weir reading Rodney McKay the riot act for… destroying a solar system or something?

After that, it's a bit of a blur, mainly because I'm trying to make sure my sergeant gets all the treatment and care he needs and my medic tries to make sure I get my shrapnel souvenir treated and Reece has to be the buffer again, at some point telling us both to "shut the fuck up and be reasonable adults, good God, that really shouldn't be so hard for two grown men" before stalking off to get herself checked out and leaving a speechless me with a speechless Morsberg.

Which is how I end up with having the wound on my arm – a messy but otherwise harmless flesh wound, as it turned out – being treated by my combat medic, after all. I think he might actually be grateful for that, considering that a) this is something he really does know how to do in his sleep, blindfolded, backwards and in heels and b) it hopefully takes his mind off what is happening in the ICU right now. Doesn't really work for me but like I said, I've been serving for ten years with Dee, I'm allowed to be worried.

Morsberg is almost done now, fixing the bandage and telling me, "You know how to take care of this, right?" and adding, probably for good measure when I give him a dead-pan look, telling him that yes, I do know, this isn't my first shrapnel wound, "Seriously. Please don't mess up my work on this. That is the one thing I'm actually good at," and I realize resignedly that this is one of those situations when you have to prove that being a team leader means more than just yelling around orders on the battlefield.

It also means, for better or worse, to know when to be nice and fair to your subordinates, no matter if they continuously rub you the wrong way or not.

As Reece would say, ugh.

Alright, fine. But I can make it sound as casual as possible, can't I? Yes, of course, sure. I take care not to clear my throat or preface it by any other sound or gesture, just let it roll off offhandedly. "You did good today, Doc."

Morsberg just keeps putting away used up materials and instruments, avoiding my eyes. "All due respect, sir…"

Nuh-uh. You don't get to tell me my praise wasn't justified. Because it damn well was. "Just listen. No talking, that's an order." Carrying a man of Dee's size and stature for as long as he did isn't exactly something you do every day for fun, his diagnosis turned out to be spot on or at least that's what the preliminary tests said or something like that, and no one died on this mission, despite great potential for it. In my book, that counts as "doing good". And it's my book that counts. " Look, as my combat medic, it's your job to get us all to the infirmary alive. And that's what you did. Dee's alive, I'm alive, Reece is alive, you are alive. Well fucking done, Stabsarzt."

"I uh… Thank you, sir." What, not even the usual move to correct my pronunciation? Huh. That's new. Either I'm getting better or I just really managed to floor him. I'm not sure what would be better.

Also, it just got really hard not to mess this up by giving him a hard time for being floored. But I just bet Reece is still lurking around here somewhere waiting for me to finish up and accompany her to check our stuff back in at the armory and she always hears crap like that, and since she apparently isn't afraid of me anymore, doesn't hesitate to call me out on it. Even though she still feels embarrassed by it later. Come to think of it, it's kind amusing to…

Anyway. Back on track here. "You're welcome, Doc. Now go get yourself checked out and then let someone else do the heavy lifting for a while."

"Sir…" No, goddammit.

"That's a damn order, too." Why does every team I end up commanding have to be one full of people who constantly make me tell them I just gave them an order? If you have to explicitly tell people that you just gave them an order, you're doing something wrong, and I really wish I knew what that is in my case. All that is lacking for this team to be just as messed up as my last one is people thinking it's a damn democracy, and considering that this new team is three quarters of my last team, that's pretty likely to happen sooner than later.

"Yes, sir." At least Morsberg seems to have realized that I meant business about ordering him to take a break and step away from the infirmary for a few hours to get some sleep and some distance from what happened today.

Or maybe he's just waiting for me to get out of the infirmary so he can wallow a little more in his perceived failure and put those hours he could have used to sleep into research that others could very well do for him, just because he feels needlessly guilty about something.

Mh. It's kind of scary how well I've come to know this guy in the space of maybe four, five months.

But yeah, right now, he just left the little cubicle where he had my sit on a table so he could stitch up my arm and I'm ready to… "Laura would be proud." Fuck it, I knew she was still around and she still nearly made me jump off the table. How did she get so good at sneaking up on others? And damn me for my only response being looking at her kind of clueless. She shrugs. "It was a nice speech, sir."

Right. She actually listened in on this. Of course she did. Ah, hell. "Do you agree? With… the speech?" Why am I doing this? I'm seeking her approval. Again. I should stop doing that. She's several years younger and a damn captain. A major constantly seeking approval from a captain several years his junior is how you end up in front of a court-martial. And yet, here I am. I roll my eyes at myself and add a muttered, "Of course you agree, why am I even asking?" Wait, don't answer that, just let me change the topic to something less embarrassing first. "Got yourself checked out?"

She's considering not letting me off the hook and saying something about this whole "agreeing with the speech" thing, I can see that. She used to be hard to read but it's a lot easier when you learn what you have to look for. She definitely was about to do her "speak first, think later" thing but regrettably chooses not to, this time. "Yes, sir. Everything fine. You?"

Were we even on the same miss… oh, wait, she means the preliminary blood work. Right. Yes. I shrug. "Aside from a hole in my arm, yeah, fine. So…"

"So shower and dinner should be next." Damn, no one fucking likes killjoys, Captain. "Trust me, sir, they won't let us anywhere near Critical Care like this." And people like killjoys with a point even less, okay?

But, okay, fine. "Fair enough." Can't resist a little dig, though, because sometimes, she makes it so easy. "Just one more question: how do they feel about having dinner in this place?"

"They hate it." Mh, not really in the mood for shenanigans, I see.

I can't help grinning at her, anyway, and being a bit of my usual asshole self, just to cheer her up a little. "They'll just have to learn to get over that, then." She doesn't seem to find it funny. And that just made me realize that in all of this, I never even considered that she's Dee's friend, too and probably has to carry her fair share of worry around with her, too, and still manages to stay absolutely professional and focused, anyway. Which must be taking a bigger toll than she's been letting on so far. Fuck, I really am an asshole. Okay, yes, some atonement is probably due here. I try a half-smile, a real one. "And Kid? You did good today, too."

It finally yields a satisfactory result, as in she unwinds at least enough to mirror my half-smile, when she says, "Thanks, sir."

Good enough for me. "You're welcome."

And I guess… that's a wrap, so I hop off the damn table, take my share of equipment and take up the walk back to the armory, not being able to resist one last stab at the infirmary's strict "no food on the premises" policy and somehow that doesn't set off Reece enough to just walk off and leave me to figure out what I did wrong this time. Instead it turns into an actual easy conversation serving to distract both of us at least for a few minutes from the glaringly obvious elephant in the room that is one team member nearly dying on a mission and probably facing some serious long-term health issues, and I really think both of us just needed that.

Because having almost witnessed a team member dying and now being aware of the fact that there might be serious long-term health issues that might turn into a medical discharge after twenty years for someone who made the damn uniform his life and was planning on staying as long as he could because that's all he thinks he knows to do is fucking terrifying is what it is.

God, I hate this galaxy. Have I mentioned that yet?