Disclaimer: Don't own it.

Disclaimer II: Any medical anything that appears in any chapter of any of my stories is completely based on internet research, and is likely to be inaccurate. I promise to go back and correct it if I ever go to medical school.

AN: Once again, a big thank you to everyone who reviewed and puts up with my long delays. Here's a nice long one as a thank you.

Chapter 21: Catch Up and Fried Eggs,

or Was That Ketchup and Fried Physicists?

"Come on John. I know you're not sleeping," Anka's voice was harsh even while the hand that was shaking his shoulder was gentle.

"'m tired," he mumbled, smothering his face even deeper into the pillow. God, why wouldn't they just let him sleep? Just for one night, a little rest….

Something wet dragged across his face over and over again, poking into his nose, his lips, his eyes, and everywhere else that was exposed. John moaned and tried to turn his face away from it, but the wetness just redoubled its efforts on his ear. John's eyes slid open as his hand moved to slap the source of the disgusting moisture away, only to be brought up short by the sound of mournful, pleading whining. Cracking his eyes open further, John stared into the pleading black eyes begging him to wake up. Startled, John froze as it leaped into his bed, maneuvering its sleek body under his arm, nestling against him to get a better angle on his face.

Sheppard trailed his fingers over the course black hair, stopping to scratch behind the ears. "Rex? Whadda you doing here?" The black lab barked in confirmation as it stood, trying to nudge him farther off the bed, continue in his earlier effort to get him out of it. Sheppard just stared at the pet he hadn't seen in almost thirty years. Rex had died in the car crash with his mother when he was ten.

Rex gave him one last nudge before apparently accepting defeat, and lay down next to John again with a "humph." While John's brain tried to process the presense of his once best friend, his hand returned to the business of some serious ear scratching. Rex continued licking and wagging his tongue in appreciation.

"I think he missed you," Anka laughed. She reached over to give Rex's ears a scratch and received a thank you lick of her own. John chuckled in agreement, moving to rub the canine's belly. "You do have to get up sometime, you know," Anka reminded him.

"Hm, do not," John replied, resting his head on Rex's in an eerie imitation of an Athosian greeting. "Tired."

"John," Anka's voice lowered in warning, "You know what happens when you stay in bed all day."

The texture of Rex's hair changed under John's face, all at once smooth, with the previously short hair lengthening and tickling the inside of his nose. John's eyes shot open even as his body instinctually jerked away, his eyes wide with terror. A flash of blonde hair was all he saw before he was flat on his back, Dala's legs straddling his own. "We can have so much fun together," she crooned. "Think of all the fun things we can do, again and again." She bent over to kiss him, but John was already bucking his hips, throwing her off balance.

Dala's deceptively beautiful face morphed into the redhead's serious and business-like one. "I want to have your children John." John bucked his hips again, closing his eyes tightly and turning his head away.

Suddenly the weight was gone. John cautiously opened his eyes and let out a sigh of relief when he saw no one was there. Definitely time to get out of bed. As his feet hit the floor he spotted a trail of blood leading out of the bed. His stomach collapsed within him as he followed the bright red spots, his vision tunneling in as he saw the figure hunched in the corner, sobbing. The dark curls parted as the head lifted, revealing the face he knew he'd see. The sobbing stopped for an endless second as their eyes locked, before she let loose a terrible screech that shattered him straight through to his soul as he listened. Releasing her knees from her chest, she raised a familiar looking knife into the air.

"Mavah, no!" he cried, bounding towards her.

Her anguished wailing only increased in volume as she drove the knife straight into her own heart.

"NO!"

x X x X x X x

Carson was in his office when he heard the desperate "No!" lance through the quiet infirmary. Recognizing the voice as Sheppard's (which wasn't hard to do with only one patient), Beckett rushed to the Colonel's bed. He'd only lightly sedated the man a few hours ago. John had quickly fallen into a natural sleep that up to this point had been peaceful.

Pushing the curtains out of his way, he saw Sheppard sitting ramrod straight, his arm clutched around his chest, panting. A thin sheet of sweat covered his face as he stared out at something only he could see.

"Colonel Sheppard? It's alright son; you're safe." When Sheppard showed no signs of having heard him, Carson approached and carefully laid a hand on his shoulder. Sheppard jumped as if he'd been burned, but at least he snapped out of his fugue.

For a moment, Sheppard looked as if he couldn't figure out why the heck Carson would be there. "Beckett?"

"Aye. Were you expecting someone else?" he asked, honestly curious.

Sheppard ignored his question, taking the time to take in his surroundings, obviously reorienting himself. It was perfectly obvious to anyone who knew the man the exact second he became fully cognizant of his situation. The uncertainty and open expression caused by the disorientation vanished, replaced by the seamless veneer of the laid-back flyboy. "What happened?" he asked finally.

What didn't happen, Carson thought. Instead he countered with, "What's the last thing you remember Colonel?"

Sheppard's hand began rubbing his chest, prompting Beckett to ask, "Is your chest hurting you? You're not due for your next dose of pain meds for another hour." Although shouting with a tube in you ribs was undoubtedly a strain.

Sheppard looked at his hand as though he'd never seen it before, before shaking his head. "No, it's fine. In fact, I don't want any more drugs."

Beckett's eyebrows met his hairline. "Colonel, you were stabbed in the chest! That's not exactly a paper cut. I don't—"

"I know I was stabbed doc," Sheppard interrupted. "But I mean it. No more drugs."

The two men stared at each other, neither willing to back down. Finally Beckett offered an olive branch. "When you first arrived here, I did some blood tests," Sheppard's eyes looked away. Busted. "Your tox screen was through the roof with several different drugs. Is this related?"

Sheppard stared at his sheets, mentally regrouping. Nodding, he asked, "Are they all gone?"

"Your body had metabolized all of them, fortunately," Beckett confirmed.

Sheppard's shoulders sagged in relief. "When can I get out of bed?" he asked, looking haunted.

"Not for a while yet," Carson answered. He was disturbed by the strength of the Colonel's grimace as he told him. He knew the man didn't like the inactivity, but it wasn't exactly a prison sentence. "I'll tell you what Colonel," he offered, "You still need to take anti-inflammatories and anti-biotics, but I'll leave the pain management up to you. Alright?" Beckett felt a bit less like a warden and more like a doctor after Sheppard's grateful smile.

"Good, now, back to business. What's the last thing you remember?" Beckett asked. He doubted anything was wrong with the Colonel's memory, but between exhaustion and unknown drugs parading about his system, forgetfulness was a distinct possibility.

"My team was here. I was trying to sleep, but McKay kept talking," Sheppard grinned, letting Beckett know he didn't mind one bit. He glanced around, looking for said offender, his grin fading a little. "Where are they anyway? And what's with the curtains?"

Beckett bit his lip, hating to say anything that risked that carefree smile. "When you got back, you spent quite a bit of time asleep. You were suffering from severe exhaustion,"

Sheppard snorted. No doubt about that.

"Rodney's been very worried about you—we all have—the result of which being that his legendary temper is now short enough as to be needing one of my microscopes to find it. When you first started waking up, he said some things that were out of line and upset you. I thought it best that you be given a chance to reacclimate, get your bearings, before I let your team set up camp in here," Beckett explained.

"Upset?" Sheppard asked. What had he done now?

"You broke his nose," Beckett clarified. "I'd have to say he deserved it at the time."

I broke his nose? Good going John! Welcome back.

Beckett knew Sheppard's brain was probably going a million miles an hour, so he took over the task of keeping the conversation going, sparing the pilot from talking. His lungs could probably use the break anyway. "Your team came back through the Stargate without you just over two months ago. The inn where you disappeared was burned to the ground right before dawn. Fortunately your team escaped unharmed. The villagers blamed them for the fire and chased them back here. I found traces of a sedative in their blood; you were probably drugged as well."

"I don't remember," Sheppard commented.

"That's common with many sedatives. A rescue team returned with a jumper looking for you. When they got to the planet, some sort of powerful hurricane had devastated the area, covering everything with over a kilometer deep in mud. The storm was still going on while the team was looking for you. Ronon found your gear floating in the mud, along with debris from the village. Initially we thought the Nultarans were wiped out and you were dead," Here Beckett swallowed; now he was the uncomfortable one. "Fortunately Rodney insisted we keep looking.

We had no way to continue searching for you while the storm was still going, so we had to wait it out. It lasted a very long two weeks. We checked several times a day, everyday, waiting for it to be over. As soon as it was, several jumpers went through looking for you. There were no significant life signs to help us find you. It was like you and the Nultarans had disappeared!

While we were looking, the Wraith came. The hive-ship actually landed on the planet. The teams were forced to evacuate and then we had to wait the Wraith out. We feared the Nultarans may have been Wraith worshippers, and were handing you over."

Sheppard shook his head. This, at least, he could explain. "They were looking for the Nultarans. The Nultarans specialized in growing herbs. Something about the soil allowed them to grow things that couldn't grow elsewhere. They ate the herbs regularly with their food. Something about it caused the Wraith to become addicted. No humans other than the Nultarans would satisfy them. That's why they were culled so often."

"That makes sense, I suppose," The more Beckett thought about it, the more sense it made. "There's so little we know about the feeding process, I never even thought of how the humans' diet affected their palette. It happens in so many other species; it makes sense that the Wraith would be affected too. How did you find out?"

Sheppard hesitated, then shrugged. "Someone told me. It's a long story."

Beckett narrowed his eyes at the answer, but his mum had raised him to be a patient man. 'All things come to ye who wait' was her motto. "One day Major Lorne, who had been doing daily reconnaissance, reported that the hive had been destroyed. When we discovered the Ancient City, we had enough geniuses around to add one and one and figure out it was destroyed by drones. Was that you?"

Sheppard nodded. "Their only food source had vanished. They weren't going to leave until they'd found the Nultarans."

Beckett nodded in agreement. "After that, the jumpers returned to look for you. They ran into some old friends instead: Ladon Radim, Commander Kolya, and a small army of Genii." Sheppard's head shot up in surprise. "According to them, Kolya had been held prisoner there as well. Someone helped him escape, and as you can imagine, the Genii wanted revenge. They led us into the city, where we found you in a stasis pod. You were incoherent when we first revived you, and you were brought here for medical treatment."

Sheppard digested the news, finally satisfied knowing who had told the Nultarans about him. "Dala said someone had told them about me. Kolya must have set us up. What has Elizabeth done with him? I need to speak with her."

"Kolya denied any such thing of course, but Elizabeth already suspected as much. Kolya and Ladon are still in the other city, along with a whole slew of marines, scientists, and Elizabeth herself."

Sheppard snorted. "I bet Senzen is loving that. Warn Elizabeth to be careful. That city's alive and I don't think entirely sane. You need to get all the gene carriers out of there."

"What are you talking about Colonel?"

"She's not like Atlantis. She kept talking to me, telling me things. At first it was harmless, maybe even helpful stuff, like encouraging me to eat. Then it started to get weird. She told me about the Wraith, and used my exhaustion to make me do things like reveal the weapons chair. She stopped me when I tried to escape and lead the Nultarans right to me," Sheppard warned. "She 'doesn't want to be alone again' she said."

"Colonel, the city's not a sentient being," Beckett argued, beginning to wonder about possible hallucinatory properties of the drugs he had been subjected to.

"Then A.I. or something! I'm not making it up Carson," Sheppard snarled. "You need to trust me and tell Elizabeth now."

"All right Colonel, I'll pass it on," Beckett said, tapping his radio immediately to placate the alarmed man. "Dr. Weir,"

"What can I do for you Carson?" she asked. John repeated the words in his head, marveling at just how much he'd missed the mere sound of her voice. He was getting too sentimental, too attached.

Beckett relayed Sheppard's message, giving no indication of his previous skepticism. "Understood. So far the city's hasn't given us any problems, so we'll stay until replacements arrive. I don't intend to leave the Genii here alone, although even they don't seem to like wading through a river of bodies either. I'll be back in Atlantis in about an hour. I'll stop by then."

The infirmary was dead quiet in the wake of Elizabeth's statement. Carson was silently swearing at his boss's casual, yet entirely unhelpful words. "What did she mean by 'a river of bodies'?" Sheppard asked in the slow, cold, careful drawl that really meant he planned on adding to that river.

"Not long before we entered the city, someone released an airborne poison into the city. We have a security video of the culprit, so we know it wasn't the Genii this time. Rodney picked up two life signs going through the gate right before we met up with the Genii. We think they were Nultarans. Everyone else is dead." Beckett waited nervously for Sheppard's reaction. The man was too calm.

"Mavah? Anka?" he asked, every muscle tensed in dread.

"I'm sorry, but no one knows any of their names. I have a medical team on site taking pictures of all the dead," Beckett made note to tell Dr. Biro to make sure the pictures weren't too grizzly. "I'll have them brought to you as soon as they're compiled."

Sheppard nodded, fists gripping the blankets tightly.

"Do you need anything?" Carson asked, feeling helpless around his friend who had obviously cared for at least some of these people—hopefully the two who had escaped the massacre. Sheppard shook his head, wishing he had the strength to rush back to the planet and look for them himself.

Carson had a nurse fetch Sheppard a food tray, leaving it covered on the table by his bed. "When you're ready," was all he said.

x X x X x X x

The circuit board started sparking the instant Rodney went near it, proving once and for all he worked with idiots. "You incompetent monkey! How did you ever graduate high school? Don't you know anything?" he screamed at Radek, pressing the side of his reddened hand to his mouth. "Turn it off."

Zelenka hurried to switch off the power flowing into the consol. He felt like laughing at the irony of McKay being the one to say they were using too much power, but his nerves were far too taut for such an act after no less than three solid hours of Rodney's lovely demeanor. The man had joined the science teams earlier in the day already in a foul mood. The few jeers over the broken nose probably didn't help. As always, McKay just had to lead whatever project Radek was working on (regulating the city's power output from its one ZPM actually was important and worthy of the head of the department's time, so Radek let this one slide as coincidence). Radek's day had gone steadily south since.

"I swear, you're all useless," Rodney grumbled. He started snapping his fingers at Miko. "You, go find Horband and tell him I need him here. And tell him to bring back the proper cables this time. You think you can do that?" Miko fled. Even she was crumbling under Rodney's ire.

"His name's Holbund," Radek muttered, unsurprised when Rodney completely ignored him.

"Maybe you should—" Jemris started to offer. His simpering voice could annoy anybody, but it seemed to tickle a particularly sensitive nerve in McKay. Radek and Rodney both would have loved to be rid of him, but the temporary treaty between Elizabeth and Ladon insisted that the Genii have equal access to the city for the time being. At least the other Genii scientists had realized they were out of their league, but Jemris just had to keep trying, insisting he could get it right.

"That's nice. Did I ask you? Go be useful and stand over there," Rodney pointed to the far corner of the room. The Genii grimaced in distaste. He had been the one to discover this room earlier during his own explorations of the city and had decided to try and fix the broken panel himself. Live wires were still jutting out from it, and Jemris refused to go near them. McKay refused to allow any Lanteans near it, finding Jemris's misery satisfying. "Let him clean up his own mess."

"I happen to be a very important man among my people, Dr. McKay. You should be treating me with more respect than this," Jemris sneered.

"You want respect? Go fetch me some coffee," McKay dismissed him. "Radek, let's go. We need to run another diagnostic on the ZedPM; it's using way too much energy for even the simplest tasks."

Radek grumbled to himself, but connected his computer to the glorified battery once more. He jumped, startled, as a comforting hand landed on his shoulder. Teyla Emmagen, the lady of his dreams, smiled at him before turning to Rodney and delivering the best news all day. "Dr. McKay, you need to return to Atlantis."

"What? Why?" McKay demanded. "I just got here and there's still a lot of work that needs to be done if you want to get this city even marginally operational."

"Colonel Sheppard is awake and has warned us through Dr. Beckett that it is not safe for any gene carriers to be in the city. Everyone else is on their way out of the city already. Dr. Weir has sent replacement people over who do not have the gene. You must leave now," Teyla warned.

"Am I the only one who understands that the gene is needed to make this city work? Without the gene, none of the technology lights up. Without the technology, there is no city. So therefore, I need to stay," McKay sounded like he was addressing a two-year-old, and the man hated them.

"You got a problem McKay?" Ronon leered over Teyla's shoulder.

McKay swallowed, seemed to gather his resolve, received another glare, and slammed his datapad against the table. "Fine. Sheppard's going to owe me a huge explanation for this one."

"You got us thrown out of the infirmary. You better not say anything to Sheppard again," Ronon snarled, towering over him.

"He broke my nose! I think I have the right to be angry about that." McKay objected, closing his laptop once it finished powering down. He pointed his finger at Zelenka.

"Diagnostic, I know. Go," Radek huffed, exasperated.

"Right. Shall we?" He took off towards the door, only to have it close before he could get to it. "Now what? What did you do?" he rounded on the Genii still standing uselessly in the center of the room.

"Me? I didn't do this!" Jemris scoffed. "Your little minion must have overloaded the power again."

"Colonel Sheppard warned us the city was aware of the people in it, and would not willingly let the gene carriers leave. I hope this is not what he was talking about," Teyla pondered.

Ronon growled, throwing himself at the door.

"Oh that's good. Yeah, that'll really work," McKay rolled his eyes.

"Then fix it!" Ronon turned his furious energy on McKay, ignoring his throbbing shoulder.

"Working on it!" McKay turned back to the power consol. As he bent down to open the crystal tray more sparks cascaded out of it before the power surged sending McKay twitching to the floor unconscious.

"Rodney!" Teyla called, rushing over to him at the same time as Radek.