Author's Notes: My medical knowledge extends about as far as what I've seen on TV. I have no medical expertise whatsoever, but it's all make-believe anyway so please forgive me my errors (many as there are).

Chapter 25: Plastic Hearts and Paper Dreams

Brutal silence pressed down on the room with a weight similar to the water still burning in Cadman's throat. The salt still stinging her eyes could be blamed for the tears that slipped down her cheeks but she was not accustomed to lying to herself and now was not a moment she wished to start. She dare not look at the others, entirely unable to tear her eyes away from the slim frame lying prone on the gurney. Tenaera and Reede were too shocked and shivering to make much noise other than the soft sobs currently being smothered in Teyla's shoulders, and the static gasps for air that passed for breath bounced off the walls, resonating with the sound of water that was starting to echo down the air vent over ahead.

In the wake of death the air is always clear, cold and ironically quiet. Breaths catch, and seem obscurely like betrayal, tears are hot and chests tight and never before is it possible to feel so damned alive as when somebody else is dead. Maybe it shouldn't be like that, maybe guilt and grief should not mingle to form something so electric, so pulsating as the relief that builds like ice is your gut, because it was somebody else, not you, but the matter of the fact is that it does, it has and there is nothing you can do about it. There is nothing so honest as death.

Cadman took a step forward, feeling water squelch from her socks; her numb feet tingling as her toes burned under the pressure of her weight, satisfied that they would sustain her she took another, and another, until she was standing next to the gurney. One hand darted out from beneath the towel around her shoulders to halt Beckett's wrist as he went to pull one of the thick blankets up over Lexy's still face. She caught his eyes for only a moment before he relented.

Lexy's hair hung dark and damp about her face, water seeping into the sheets and glistening on skin pale with cold. The water had stolen whatever warmth would have resided after her heart had stopped and the only indication that she had not been dead hours was the suppleness of her skin. Her military-issue tank top hung in tatters astride her torso, the girl's modesty concealed only by her undergarments and Beckett's attempt to cover her. A chain lay against her throat, the pendant buried somewhere amongst her hair. Suddenly, it seemed important to find it and, ignoring the watchful, grief-stricken gazes of the others in the room, she pulled the towel from her shoulders and laid it on the gurney next to Lexy's feet. Cadman's hands were shaking as she gently brushed the teenager's hair aside, the alien pendant lay cushioned between Lexy's neck and the stretcher. The stone was peculiarly warm as Cadman, gently, picked it up between thumb and forefinger. On impulse, if only because if the others knew what she was about to do they'd try and stop her, she let the pendant drop into her palm before she tugged, hard, praying that the alien alloy would give under the abrupt force. When it did, she staggered back, the alarmed gasps filling the air, supporting Beckett's horrified exclamation:

"Laura, no!"

But nothing happened.

Cadman was not sure what it was exactly she had expected to happen; only that she had predicted something a whole lot more dramatic. Angry tears pierced like daggers behind her eyes, overflowing as a furious sob clawed at her throat. It was supposed to have worked. She was supposed to have fixed this ridiculous mess, not confirmed the cruel reality that for a second, one meagre moment amongst millions, had seemed plausible as one of delirium and doubt. Instead of being the hero, the voice of reason and hope in a room filled with grief, she was left with no choice but to stand, shivering convulsively to one side, foolishly clutching a broken necklace in her palm.

Vala looked up, smiled a little in greeting before looking away again. Turned toward the window, her face silhouetted in a profile against the dimming Atlantean light she looked worldly, wise even. So much more than the silly child she pretended so often to be. A surge of pride swelled in his chest as he approached, catching his breath as he took a seat opposite her , sitting and watching her with a stupid little smile on his face. Oh he wasn't grinning; just a pleasant little quirk of his lips that spoke of honour and adoration and everything in between. Smiling just because she was there, and he was hers and she just… she glowed.

"Have I got something in my hair?" Vala spoke with disturbing clarity, her eyebrows knitting into a perplexed frown.

"What?"

"Daniel, you're staring at me," she said, "and as flattering as that is, it's becoming a little unnerving," the frown stayed in place and the happiness fell away with his smile, that gesture, that neat little narrowing of her eyes that shone with confusion and concern a startling reminder as to why he'd come over in the first place.

As much as he would like to pretend it was merely because he wanted to sit with her, talk with his wife for the first time in what truly felt like weeks, that was not true. His heart lodged in his throat as he averted his gaze, plucking his glasses from his face and pinching the bridge of his nose in weary frustration. Just once, he thought, just once why can't life be simple?.

"Daniel?" Vala reached forward, stilling his arm and easing his wrist down into his lap before lacing her fingers with his, "what is it? What's wrong?"

Never before had Daniel Jackson felt so much like weeping.

Pain. She knew pain before she knew anything else. Great, searing, agonizing pain that seared every nerve ending in her body, each cell howling in a deafening cacophony of noise that made her head feel like it was exploding.

After pain, she knew screaming, loud, piercing even, as she lurched upright. The sound tore at her throat, ripping at her lungs with the force of a thousand tiny blades.

She felt hands on her arms, on her legs, cupping her head as she was eased back onto damp sheets, shivering as the shrieking fell away and a rubber mask fitted to her mouth. Voices overhead saying words, sentences that she couldn't quite hear. Hands everywhere all at the same time, pawing and touching and crawling: she struggled, trying to fling them aside as they skittered up her arms and across her forehead, tangling in her hair. A sharp pinch in her arm only fuelled her frantic thrashing before a second later her limbs were as leaden as her terror was real. Something warm jittered up her arm and spread, tendrils curling and for a moment, the edge was taken off of the burning and the pain dulled.

Suddenly, she was dreaming.

So he did, crumpling and letting salty tears soak his cheeks, sobs to wrack his shoulders and claw like vermin at his chest as he slumped over into his wife's waiting arms. Relishing the feel of her slim arms surrounding his body as it shook with tremors he couldn't control, bands of warm steel that shielded him from an onslaught he couldn't name if he tried. It was cathartic in a way, weeping like a child in her arms, and he wasn't so chauvinistic to feel ashamed about it either, the strength simply feeling her close leant him was almost overwhelming.

"Daniel?" Vala spoke quietly, rubbing, somewhat clumsily, what she hoped to be a soothing circle down his back, "Daniel, stop it. You're scaring me,"

But she received no answer, and she had no choice but to stare, dumbstruck, as her husband leant his head against her chest, his face buried in his palms as he openly wept. Wept for life and for death, for the lives lost, and the lives ruined, for the deaths of the men and women caught victim by the siege, the death of his wife, and perhaps most importantly of all, he wept for his little girl. His precious little bundle of joy and laughter; his space-jet piloting, weapon-wielding, ass-kicking, baby daughter, and the childhood she'd had stolen from her.

"What the hell was that?" Mckay exclaimed as Beckett gently squeezed the bag connected to the oxygen mask on Lexy's face, "you just said she-"

"Johnson!" Beckett nodded at the gurney's metal sides, stepping back enough to allow the airman room to lift them into place before the three medical personnel sprang into action, rushing the gurney from the room, trundling down the corridor as Lexy's head lolled in vague delirium.

The route back to the infirmary seemed to take an abysmally long time, but the familiar blue walls of Atlantis' hospital brought a new sense of justice into Carson Beckett's heart. The nursing staff sprung into action and he could fault them nothing as Lexy's lithe figure was moved from the gurney to a separate bed. Electrodes stuck to her skin, lines dancing across monitors in perfect synchrony with the reassuring melody of blips and beeps that emitted from their tinny speakers.

The minutes ticked by in a haze of barked orders and status reports -

"She's hypertensive!"

"Give her a shot of nitro-glycerine – oh-two stats?"

"Hypoxic but stable – body temp. is still too low,"

"Let's get her out of these clothes!"

- but he could work with that. It was those things that he understood. He could react to those words, but not to silence. No doctor can react to silence. Silence is when the doctor's job is done and the moment has passed. But not this moment, not this day.

Not Lexy.

Not again.

The breeze was as warm as the ocean was still: each gust like gentle fingers combing through her hair. Smiling a little, she lifted her face into the sun, relishing the calm that settled over her like a familiar caress. Peaceful, that's what this was, a moment that was entirely without consequence in the grand scheme of things: completely innocuous. Even movement beside her did not have her stir; instead she waited in blissful calm until the voice spoke.

"Last time we were here," it said, "you were thirteen years old and trying to bum cigarettes off of me,"

She opened one, amused, eye "got any now?"

Cadman snorted, "no," she replied, ducking her head a little as she sank down to sit next to her friend, staring out into the horizon with the sort of determination that makes you feel important without even knowing why, "but what I wouldn't do for one,"

Lexy chuckled, nodding before closing her eyes again and tilting her head back into the sun's rays.

"So what is it you're doing here anyway?" Cadman asks, plucking a jello-cup and spoon from her pocket and tugging off the lid, "man, I hate cherry flavour,"

She smirked again, "what do you mean?"

"Well," the Major's words were slurred a little by the mouthfuls of red jello she was swallowing, "don't you have a universe to save or something?"

Something cold tickled at the base of her spine but she ignored it, choosing instead to ignore the comment.

"I mean," she put the cup down and picked up another, this time green, lime flavoured, "all those people out there, they're depending on you baby, we all are,"

Lexy frowned. The air was cooling and gooseflesh plucked at her arms, blonde hairs standing on end as she suppressed a shudder.

"They're screaming Lexy," on to blue, what flavour was blue? She couldn't remember, and it frustrated her, "can't you hear them? They're so loud," Cadman paused, "they're giving me a headache Lexy, you need to make them stop screaming,"

"I don't know how," she admitted softly, her gaze preoccupied by the dark storm clouds rolling across the sky like demons, "I'm so tired Laura," she breathed, desperation clinging to her voice in an ugly fashion, "I'm just so tired,"

"They'll die Lexy. They'll drown in their own pity. They're screaming so loud Lexy, can't you hear them? You must be able to hear them,"

Lexy closed her eyes, tearful but refusing to let them fall, tears solved nothing. "I'm so tired," she pleaded, "Please Laura, I'm just so tired," her voice trembled, drowned out as thunder rumbled, hungrily across the sky.

"I need saving to Lexy, can you save me?" Cadman placed her empty jello-cups to one side, dropping the spoon too, before she got to her feet, standing with her feet squared and her arms spread wide, "can you save me Lexy?"

"How?" "You know how," Cadman's voice as cool now, but her expression remained as warm as ever.

"I don't know," she replied, "tell me,"

"Tut tut," was the Major's reply, "you know it doesn't work like that. Save me Lexy,"

"I don't know how!"

"Save me Lexy," were the last words out of Cadman's mouth before she pitched forwards and there was nothing Lexy could do but watch as the blonde tipped off the edge of the pier in a graceless swan-dive.

Beeping filled the infirmary, racing in tandem with the spikes on the ECG monitor that displayed a rapidly climbing heart rate.

"Pushing cordarone," he announced as he emptied the barrel of the syringe into the IV line.

The nurse shook her head, "she's tachycardic,"

"Again," he upped the dosage again, but the shrill beeps of the heart monitor still echoed through the air of his infirmary: keeping his gaze firmly on the girl's face he waited, hoping, that the drug might take effect any second.

"Doctor?" the nurse prompted after a full minute, young and inexperienced the poor young woman seemed terrified as she watched her boss stare, helplessly as his patient shook with tremors so violent they threatened to tug her IV clean out, or dislodge the oxygen mask from her face, "Doctor Beckett if we don't-"

"Where's Major Cadman?" he exclaimed, dropping the used hypodermic needles in the bio-hazard bin and stripping off his latex gloves.

"She's just-" the nurse gestured but did not have time to finish her sentence before Atlantis' CMO was hurrying down the aisle to a bed where the curtains hung half-closed around it.

"Laura!" he exclaimed, wincing in guilt at his abrupt tone of voice, "Lexy's pendant, where is it?"

"Here," the startled marine replied, holding out her hand, marks in her palm showing where she had been clutching the chain so tightly it had bitten red and white blemishes into the skin.

"Thank ye," he replied, his expression was severe, but as always his eyes filled with a subtle passion that all rudeness was instantaneously either forgotten or forgiven.

Cadman swung her legs around to sit sideways on the bed, clad only in a hospital gown and warm-dry socks she shivered a little at the rush of air but could not take her eyes off of Beckett as he hurried back to Lexy's bed, his fingers fiddling with the clasp of the necklace as he held it open and poised until it was securely around the seizing teenager's neck before letting it snap closed.

Seconds passed, the tremors dissipated and the ECG slowed enough that the manic beeping returned once more to appropriately intermittent beeps, falling into a much steadier, reliable rhythm all together.

The nurse remained stood; shell-shocked at Lexy's bedside, her gaze alternating between her patient and Beckett whose gaze was locked only with Cadman's. The duo staring at each other in relief and confusion, the same question playing on their minds: What in the Devil's name had just happened?

Author's Notes: Hopefully that wasn't too confusing, it got away from me a bit there (as you can probably tell by the quick update!). So many people have this on favourites and story alert, it would be great to hear from some of you so please do take a few seconds to just leave a quick review :).