Author's Note: I am so, so, so sorry for leaving you all hanging like that with such an evil cliffy! Real life and everything is catching up but hopefully this next chapter will keep you happy. Thank you so much to everyone who is reading and reviewing! It is very much appreciated!

Jakat stood before the Founder in the operations room as alarms flashed throughout the station.

"They destroyed two of our ships and are coming back to the station," Jakat informed the Founder. "What would you like us to do?"

The Founder's eyes flashed in anger. "I want that Stargate. You will have to capture them and kill them after it is found."

"And the human?" Jakat asked.

"He is not going to break. First has his orders. Kill him with the rest."

"Shields are down!" Flash shouted.

"Sheppard?" Razor asked.

"Scanning. Got him. Beaming him to sickbay."

"I will go," Salen said, rushing off the bridge.

As he raced through the long corridors, Salen couldn't help but feel an impending sense of dread. He brushed it off as his Vulcan senses going wild, but was not surprised when he entered sickbay to find the room in chaos.

Sheppard lay on one of the tables in the midst of busy nurses and bloody bandages, his skin unnaturally pale and his lips tinged blue. His face was slack in unconsciousness.

Salen grabbed the nearest nurse. "What happened?"

The nurse shook his head. "We don't know. He had a knife in his chest. Looks like whoever stabbed him missed his heart by a hair's breadth. He's not out of the woods yet, though. He lost a lot of blood."

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

Suddenly, Sheppard's body began to shake with convulsions. His eyes were rolled back in his head and blood was trickling out of his mouth.

"What's happening people?" the doctor demanded, throwing himself to Sheppard's side as the nurses tried to hold him down. He had grabbed a scanner and cursed. "That knife had poison on it. Someone get me the hypo!"

The medical team moved quickly and efficiently, and Salen watched as the doctor was handed a hypospray which was then quickly applied to Sheppard's straining neck. Moments later, the convulsions had not stopped, and Salen moved to the doctor's side.

"Doctor, allow me. I may be able to determine what is wrong."

The doctor looked Salen in the eye, remembering past experiences with the Vulcan, then reluctantly nodded.

Not really knowing what he was doing, but drawing on all of the lessons in focus that Spock and his father had taught him, Salen moved to Sheppard's thrashing head, placing his fingers on the right points and closing his eyes.

Immediately, flashes of a beautiful city floating in water filled the Vulcan's mind. Lightning flashed in a darkened sky above the churning water and he could see deadly looking ships descending on the city. An impending sense of dread filled Salen's mind and he fought hard against the feelings building up inside of him.

Carefully, he projected the image of rain onto the city and concentrated on one small drop falling from the clouds above to one of the city's spires below.

Focus.

Beneath him, the man continued to convulse, and Salen was increasingly aware of pain burning at him from within. It was not his pain he felt, but he knew it was Sheppard's.

The city flashed under the lightning and the ships drew closer, weapons primed and ready to fire.

Defenseless.

Salen saw Sheppard within the city in a large room, sitting alone in a great chair, eyes closed in concentration.

Defenseless. Alone.

Sheppard was straining to make something work, to fight off the attack of the deadly ships. Whatever it was he was trying to fix was not working.

Salen approached his side, laying a hand on his arm, feeling Sheppard's body trembling with exertion. The pilot's eyes flew open at his touch, burning Salen with his gaze.

"What are you doing here?" Sheppard asked.

"I have come to help you."

Defenseless.

"You are not alone, Sheppard. You can fight this."

The pilot shook his head and closed his eyes wearily. "Too many ... Atlantis ... She's going to fall."

"What do you need to do?"

"The chair ... the chair isn't working."

Salen reached deep inside, closing his eyes to the scene before him, and understood. The chair was a weapon. With the chair, Sheppard could defend his city.

"Colonel Sheppard," he said. "Listen to me carefully. I will help you fight this. You must concentrate. Listen to the sound of my voice. Can you see the ships?"

Sheppard nodded, eyes still closed.

"They are coming closer. If you cannot stop them, you will die, along with your friends." Salen stopped, projecting his image of the outside of the city and the falling rain and wind and thrashing waves, imagining calm and peace and quiet. "Can you see the rain? I want you to pick out one small drop, Sheppard. One drop. Concentrate on that drop of rain and watch as it falls to the city below. By the time it reaches the tallest spire, the chair will be working again."

Salen saw through Sheppard's eyes the small drop of rain. It seemed to fall slowly, ever so slowly, as the deadly ships powered their weapons and fell from the sky onto the city.

Then, suddenly, the chair under Sheppard lit up brightly, and Salen again saw the outside of the city. Great balls of energy tore from the city depths and smashed into the ships descending down on it, leaving the skies clear.

The rain stopped. The sun shone through the clouds onto the glistening towers of the beautiful city, and Sheppard opened his eyes.

Salen stumbled back from Sheppard's side, feeling his body soaked with sweat as he collapsed to his knees from the strain of the meld. One of the nurses was at his side and helped him to a chair where he sat dazed for a moment.

Sheppard lay shivering on the table, the convulsions stopped. The doctor and nurses had once again busied themselves around Sheppard's body, wrapping bandages and performing other routine checks. Salen knew that the pilot could be in no better hands on this ship.

The doctor was finishing another scan and Salen could see sweat was beginning to break out all over Sheppard's body, and he moaned, thrashing his head.

"Will he be alright?" Salen asked quietly.

The doctor shook his head. "I think the worst is over but he's still in a very delicate state. I wouldn't recommend we try anything drastic until the medication starts to take effect. The poison on top of the stabbing is going to slow down any progress we could have made immediately. What did you do to him? Those convulsions weren't going to stop until he was dead, but somehow you managed to stop them."

Salen shook his head. "I do not know. I believe the focus that I managed to project to him helped him fight off the poison. I do not know if this is a long term effect."

"Looks like it might be," the doctor said, perusing the scanner. "The poison is in recession. He's probably going to have a rough night ahead of him though. We need to keep a close watch on him."

"I will stay with him tonight," Salen said.

"You're not in very good shape yourself," the doctor replied, shaking his head. "That mind meld looks like it took a lot out of you, Salen."

"I will be fine. I do not require as much sleep as you and the others. Let me stay with him. I will call you if anything changes."

The doctor pursed his lips, thinking. "I'll be in the next room tonight. I won't go to my quarters. I need to get some work done anyway. You can sit with him. Call me the instant anything changes."

"I will."

On the bridge, Razor watched as the remaining Cardassian vessel fled to the station.

"Sir, shall we pursue?" Flash asked.

Razor shook his head. "Cloak the ship and move us behind Bajor away from Terok Nor. Scan the area and keep a constant watch on that station. I need to contact Starfleet."

He swung out of his chair and headed for the captain's office, muttering, "They're not going to be happy about this ..."