Chapter 2

Ronon was woken by Woolsey's announcement. He'd been woken by the alarm earlier, but had received a terse and uninformative reply from Sheppard through his earpiece, so had gone back to sleep.

He lay, in the darkness, judging the time by the quality of the light and the position of the shadows. Still a way to go til morning. He grunted once; a minimalist acknowledgement of the situation, then rolled over and went back to sleep again.

oOo

"I trust that you will all stand firm at this difficult time."

Rodney listened to Woolsey's announcement and was reminded of Neville Chamberlain addressing the British nation at the start of World War Two. "I know that you will all play your part with calmness and courage." And then he felt presumptuous and a bit foolish, comparing the possible fate of a few hundreds with the millions lost in that war.

He wondered what Jennifer was doing; whether she had any more patients with symptoms yet. The Ancient database had said that the incubation period could be anything from a few hours to over five months, translated into Earth units. They had never found a cure. Maybe Jennifer would.

He looked at the clock. Oh four fifteen. Such a short time for everything to change.

There was some chocolate in his desk drawer; should he eat it or save it? Rodney didn't move; just stared at his laptop. He could do some work. He could write up one of a number of papers that were really already written, in his head, just waiting to be let out; there'd be plenty of time for that now. He could go back to bed. But he didn't feel like doing any of those things. He felt jittery, yet flat, panicky, with nowhere for that panic to go. One knee jiggled up and down, and when he stopped it, his hands began to twitch.

He tapped his earpiece.

"Sheppard?"

"Huh... yeah?"

"Were you asleep?"

"Uh... kinda."

"Oh. Do you sleep with your earpiece in?"

"No. I... uh... I thought you might want to talk. Or Ronon."

"Oh."

"Do you?"

"What?"

"Wanna talk?"

"I didn't think you did the whole talking thing."

"You don't want to talk about... um... feelings and stuff, do you?"

"No."

"Oh. Well. That's good, then."

"So... er..."

"I was wondering..."

"Yes?"

"If you were Spidey, which route would you take, from the East Pier to the West?"

"Hmm... interesting. Well, obviously I'd have to incorporate a particularly impressive superhero pose on top of the Control Tower."

"Which part?"

"Either the very top, or halfway up one of the sheer slopes above the Jumper Bay. Squatting, with one hand down, just my very fingertips touching..."

"And the other arm out, wrist ready to shoot web."

"And a really heroic, determined expression."

"Yeah. I can picture that. Cool."

"Very. Um... Sheppard?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm not sure... I mean, this is... um..."

"One day at a time, McKay. And if you can't deal with days, try one hour at a time."

"An hour. Anyone can do an hour."

"Sure they can, Rodney."

oOo

"Yes, Rodney." Radek listened. "No, Rodney." He flicked a key to change the display on his laptop. "Yes, Rodney." A pause. "Yes, I see that. Yes, I understand. Yes. Rodney?" A strident squawk broke out from Radek's earpiece and split the silence of the room. He winced. "Rodney! Yes, the system will work, and yes, I understand it and yes, we will monitor it together. And Miko. Yes." A further squawk and then blessed silence.

Radek took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, then ran his hand back and forth through his hair, leaving its straggling wispiness half sticking up, half sullenly flat. He put his glasses back on. He regarded his laptop, which currently displayed a mass of coding, representing a small fraction of the intricacies of the quarantine system that Rodney had woven into Atlantis' existing lockdown protocols. It was a work of genius. Radek considered accidentally breaking his earpiece so that he could admire said genius from afar without suffering the regular haranguings which would surely be his lot more than ever in this unprecedented situation. He tapped the laptop to return it to a summary of the city systems.

He thought about the months ahead, and, oddly, found himself wondering what to do with his hair. At some point he'd either have to cut it or scrape it back in a ponytail, like the not-so-dear, thankfully-departed Kavanaugh. He had some scissors somewhere. He looked around at his quarters, the clutter he'd amassed over his years on the Ancient City; the books, the papers, the artifacts from this world and that, the photos of his much-missed pigeons. He compared the room to others that he had inhabited for extended periods of time. Better than a tent in the bitter-cold depths of a Prague winter, he thought. Better than a prison cell in a Communist jail; better than a small, damp, badly-built apartment where you may not speak your mind for fear of the listening bug. Here, he had not only comparative luxury in the form of a comfortable bed and his own bathroom, as well as, he hoped, enough food, but the freedom to share with friends and colleagues, albeit over the comms, any and all ideas, notions, wishes, or indeed flights of fancy that alighted in the nest of his mind. He could speak, write or sing without fear of censorship or repression, which was a blessing he would never cease to be thankful for, having grown up with no such privilege. In fact, he admitted, a small part of his mind always glowed with ironically amused admiration at Rodney's total lack of self-censorship; the direct line between his turbulent intellect and his mouth would have swiftly brought about his quiet disappearance in Communist Czechoslovakia.

The problem with freedom of speech, however, was finding someone to listen. He could always discuss work with his colleagues (a one-way discussion if it was Rodney), but what he really wanted was a like-minded enthusiast with whom to discuss all the finer points of the breeding and care of racing pigeons. Maybe, he thought, that was the answer to this current situation; maybe he could fill the unexpected bonus stretch of downtime by writing the definitive guide. That's what they call a positive spin, he thought, with some pride. And, he continued to himself, that's another benefit of having had a miserably deprived, oppressed upbringing; the ability to see the positives and make the most of what you do have.

"Malé ryby taky ryby!"* he told his room.

oOo

The lock clicked, the door slid open. Ronon sprang out, his head whipping one way and then the other; his palms itching for his weapon, the familiar hallway feeling wrong, almost as if he were about to rescue prisoners from a hive ship. The air was still; no breeze, no subtle movement caused by other living, moving beings, no faint and far-off footsteps or words. It was an uncomfortable, almost eerie feeling; Ronon shook it off and focussed on reality. His mission today: visit the supply cupboard, find some soap and see if there was anything to draw with, and then the food stores to stock up for the next few days. Ronon had decided to ration himself, knowing that he could survive on very little, especially if he wasn't getting much exercise.

He prowled, silently, automatically slipping into runner mode in the strange atmosphere. He'd encountered quarantines before; villages that had cut themselves off to try to stop the spread of disease. Nothing like this though, where each of them was locked in their own solitary existence, cut off from all human contact.

Ronon had spoken to Sheppard and McKay over the comms a couple of times, and even Woolsey once; that had been an awkward and one-sided conversation. He wasn't much for conversation, though; never had been, even before his time as a runner. He found his thoughts were mostly quite happy in his own head and didn't need the validation or reflection of others' thoughts and opinions. He knew he could do solitary, had done it for years, but he'd grown used to having people around; their voices, their faces, their stupid jokes and, in McKay's case, their whinging. He couldn't exactly call up McKay and ask to be whinged at. Could he? Might be worth a try.

He would miss running with Sheppard. And fighting with him. And Teyla. Teyla, who had sometimes, in the beginning, explained Earth culture to him, and sometimes been as mystified as he was. And when Sheppard and McKay were really laying into each other in some kind of festival of slang and sarcasm, he would meet Teyla's eyes and it was almost as if they were parents, sharing a rueful moment over the heads of their squabbling offspring.

Ronon passed a doorway, forbiddingly closed, and walked on down the hall. Then he stopped, turned around, trod softly to the locked door and listened. The sound was muffled, and he couldn't remember whose room it was, but it was unmistakable: somebody was crying.

"Hey!"

"The sobs continued.

"Hey!" he called, louder.

Silence, but no answer. Ronon knew he couldn't stay; other people would be pacing their rooms, waiting their turn.

"It's okay!" he called. "We're all here. We'll get through this!"

He wasn't sure if he'd heard a muffled reply.

oOo

The door opened, and she rose, listlessly from the unmade bed, a detached part of her mind commenting that her depression hadn't over-ridden her need for food; yet. She rubbed her eyes, glanced at the mirror, began arranging her hair into some semblance of order, and then stopped and thought: why? Leaving her hair in disarray she stepped out of her room, feeling the weight of her action, where before her mind would have skated along the corridors far ahead of her body, eager to begin the day's duties.

There was a drawing on the floor. A drawing, roughly scrawled, in that thick yellow chalk they sometimes used to mark things out for training manoeuvres on the piers. It was just a stick figure; drawn in haste, with a wildly grinning face and a lot of hair. She felt her mouth curve into a smile. One hand crept to her throat and tears welled in her eyes. The voice she'd heard earlier had been real; a voice of hope in the silence.

She set off for the stores, and every time she passed a locked door, she called out, "Hello! I'm here!" so that others would remember that none of them were truly alone.

oOo

Another death after, what? Forty-eight hours, give or take. Woolsey's voice had been regretful, but calm, resigned. John tried to imagine how the event had really played out in the infirmary, what was happening there now; the two remaining members of the team, knowing they were living on borrowed time, that death could strike at any moment. And the Marines and the Gate techs, hoping, maybe praying, that they had been far enough away, that the virus hadn't reached them.

John sat on the very edge of his bed, lip gripped tightly between his teeth, adrenaline flowing with no outlet, nothing to fight, nowhere to run. He tapped his earpiece.

"Keller? Jennifer?"

A pause, then a slightly muffled, "Colonel Sheppard?"

"Uh, I just heard. Just wondered how you're doing?" Stupid question, he thought.

"Well..." she hesitated. "It's... it's pretty tough, you know." Her attempt to infuse some lightness into her voice was pitiful. He guessed it was her way of holding back the flood of horror; a tactic with which he was all too familiar.

"You're in hazmat all the time?" Another stupid thing to say.

"Yes. Yes, we decontaminate at the end of each shift. I've spent so long in this suit that I'm pretty used to it now. We all are."

"Can I talk to them?"

"I think that would help, Colonel. I'll make sure they have earpieces."

Fallon, Ramirez, O'Shea, Jones, Christensen, Williams; all scared and trying to hide it, all speaking of hope amid their fears, amid their horror. They had seen their colleagues die. John talked to them all for as long as they wanted, then took out his earpiece and put it down on the nightstand. He'd lost people before; many people, good soldiers. And he'd been helpless to save them before, and, in some cases had giving the orders which had led, directly or indirectly, to their deaths. This, in many ways, was worse. These deaths achieved nothing, saved no-one, protected no-one. They had not died, were not dying for a cause, but merely from some random mutation of nature. Dying by slow, inevitable inches.

John thought, in a detached kind of way, about punching the wall. He would relish the explosive power, relish the pain, because, just for a moment, it would feel like action, like he could make a difference. But then reality would quickly follow, and his fingers, broken in a futile act, would be a mark of disrespect to those who had no choice but to suffer genuinely.

He wondered when his door would open, and when it did, where Atlantis would let him go; far, he hoped. Far, far, fast and free in the silent City, his heart and feet pounding together, so that he could pretend, just for a while, that lives depended on his running.

* Even small fish are fish