Possibly the least efficient thing in Atlantis was the sleep-deprived geek after the crisis. Multiply that by an entire exhausted tech team, and somehow you got something even less functional. Normally that was sort of fine. Once the crisis was over, the next shift could handle the clean up.
The problem in this case was that it wasn't really over. They still had off-world teams, most of which were on long-term assignments and probably hadn't even missed Atlantis, but one of which was supposed to have been checking in daily. Instead, there had been nearly three days of silence, which meant either the virus had somehow locked the Atlantis Stargate out of the system so the team couldn't even dial in… or something had happened to that team. Given that the troubles in Atlantis had started with that team's departure, the latter seemed likely, but either way the weary techs couldn't afford downtime just yet.
It was also not lost on John that he and Rodney were doubly responsible for whatever happened to that team. It was true Lorne had volunteered, but he never would have if John and Rodney hadn't blown the potential value of M6S-868 out of proportion and insisted that it had to be checked out sooner rather than later. Otherwise the planet might have been put on the to-do list for weeks, months or even years before anyone got around to it. By then, they might have been better prepared for the gremlin problem. At the very least, they might've been aware that there was a problem. Because they'd been in a rush, and had been preoccupied with why a team should visit the planet, both John and Rodney had overlooked warning signs that were, in retrospect, obvious. They hadn't set out to hurt anyone, but John still felt responsible, and he was fairly certain that Rodney did too. If even one member of Lorne's Team had been killed… well, John didn't know what he'd do. But he knew how much guilt like that weighed, and he already had his share of that. He didn't want any more of it.
So he didn't have a lot of sympathy for the fumbling 'Gate Operations team, which was struggling just to maintain consciousness. They'd been watching this thing develop, they had been the ones participating in the final gremlin battle, they knew what the damage was better than anyone. That made them best qualified to put the city back in working order sooner rather than later.
Fortunately, Elizabeth agreed with John that Atlantis had to get up and running quickly, and there wasn't even a question from Rodney's end. Clearly, Rodney was too tired to complain about being overworked, having energy only to move on to the next task. Well… that and argue with John.
"You got the DHD working in a jumper," John pointed out, "Can't we just use that?"
"To do what, exactly?" Rodney snapped, "Eject ourselves into space?"
"To contact the off-world team," John replied.
"You have a working radio? 'cause I sure don't," Rodney said, "That thing completely scrambled our communications systems. Which is what I'm trying to fix right now," he paused and turned to glare at John, "But somebody keeps hovering over my shoulder, asking 'are we there yet' every five minutes!"
"Okay," John put up his hands, backing off, "Okay, I get it."
Elizabeth had already forbidden John from taking a jumper out. Firstly because no one had taken the time yet to see if the jumpers were as messed up as the rest of the systems the gremlin had been toying with. Secondly because a jumper going through the Stargate was what had started this whole thing. The hope was that merely activating the Gate and radioing the jumper already off-world wouldn't cause any more problems, but the fact was that Elizabeth wasn't even willing to take that risk without first having Rodney implement all the safe guards he could come up with to catch any other gremlins trying to get through, or at least alert the Atlantis team to the fact that one had gotten through.
Rodney, Zelenka, Chuck and the rest of the Gate Operations team were the ones who knew best how to recognize the gremlin's meddling. So once they got communications back up, they still had to put together safety protocols and alert systems before Elizabeth would allow them to contact the jumper. Only then would they finally be able to switch out and leave the rest of the repairs to the next shift.
In the meantime, there wasn't anything for John to do except hover around. John wasn't very good at doing nothing, nor had he been gifted with anything like tremendous patience. He was the sort of man who saw a problem and wanted to do something about it immediately. And if he couldn't solve the problem for himself, it was his first instinct to crack the whip over the head of whoever could.
"Okay, but would it be faster to-" John began, but he was interrupted by a loud stream of Czech coming from Zelenka, who was presently stationed next to Rodney at the main communication panel.
"Sheppard!" Rodney exploded, cutting Zelenka's incomprehensible tirade short, "Go! Be somewhere else!" he locked eyes with John for a moment, and John saw his own exhaustion, fear and guilt reflected there before Rodney softened, "Please… we'll… we'll let you know when we have something working. Just… let us do our job," he broke eye contact, repeating dully, "We'll let you know."
John opened his mouth to say something, but even he wasn't sure if what was going to come out was an apology or an insistence that they keep working. He never got there, because he heard Elizabeth call his name, and turned to see her in the open door of her office. She waved him over.
Reluctantly, John left Rodney and the rest of the sleepy tech team. Elizabeth was in the chair behind her desk by the time John got there, and he threw himself into the chair in the far corner, watching her warily, while noticing that she had put her office back in order since the gremlin wrecked it.
He was pretty sure she was planning to admonish him to leave the tech team to work in peace. She certainly looked like she had a scolding in mind. But for awhile they both just sat staring at each other in silence. In her eyes, John recognized the desperate frustration of the leader who can do nothing to aid their team aside from get out of the way. And too, though he hadn't thought of it that way until just now, she harbored guilt of her own, for it was she whom John and Rodney had convinced, she who gave the mission to Lorne's Team, she who gave approval for the mission in the first place.
At the end of the day, Elizabeth was responsible for every team, every mission, good or bad. She had to live with that burden, which John knew was anything but light. Especially as she had come here as an explorer, not a warrior. Elizabeth had put together the Atlantis Expedition to discover the mysteries of the Ancients, to learn the secret history of the galaxy. Instead… instead they had wakened the demons of the Pegasus Galaxy, plunging headfirst into a war for which they were woefully ill-equipped and completely unprepared. She had to live with that knowledge every day, that the people she'd brought here for the sake of intellectual curiosity and the hope of finding new technology and possible cures for disease had instead been forced to become fighters, soldiers protecting humanity, and that some of them would die for the home they might never see again.
In the end, it was John who spoke first, finding the words they both needed to hear, and that at least one of them needed to say out loud.
"Major Lorne knew what he was getting into," John said, "In fact, I'd say he knew better than any of us. Nobody twisted his arm to come to Atlantis, or asked him to take the mission. He chose this. He piloted that jumper through the Stargate with eyes wide open, knowing anything and everything could go wrong. Not one member of his team went in blindfolded either."
Elizabeth smiled wanly and nodded, but it was some time before she spoke, "It's taken me a little while, but I've come to understand that about him."
John cocked his head curiously at that. He knew that Lorne had taken over his duties when he'd been infected with the Iratus bug retrovirus, and had been specifically deployed to obtain the cure. And he knew that Lorne had been charged with finding his team when Ford caught them. He knew that both undertakings had almost zero chance of success, but Lorne had done as Elizabeth directed despite that. But what he didn't know was that, before obeying Elizabeth's orders, Lorne had first ensured that she had full understanding of just what she was asking of him, and that she realized he knew it as well. He was willing to face the danger, to throw everything he had into a task he was almost guaranteed to fail at, just as long as there was no delusion about it.
Possibly this was to avoid blame for things that were not his fault. But given his tendency to apologize for things over which he had no control, it seemed more likely that Lorne just wanted honesty. He wanted to be honest with himself and with his CO, and he wanted them to do the same.
"He knew what he was doing, Elizabeth," John repeated with firm conviction, though saying it didn't seem to make him feel any better, despite the fact that he believed it, "He knew."
If Lorne had been expecting to escape without injury from the cauldron of fire his explosives had created, he would have been disappointed. But in truth, he had expected to die (despite telling himself otherwise), known only a slim possibility of escape. He might have been a believer in God, but his faith in long shots was limited at best, particularly when he looked over his own track record, which suggested a man whose luck was either nonexistent or else quite bad.
As the structure had collapsed around him, filling the air with choking dust and heat from the fire that blazed a level below, Lorne had absently wondered if it was logical or rational to believe in both a God with a purpose and plan for the universe and the element luck as well. He supposed probably not.
Oh well. It wasn't as if luck had ever done him any favors.
When Lorne woke up later, coughing and half-buried in rubble, he was surprised to be alive. This should have been welcome knowledge, but actually proved to merely be painful. He became aware of an ache in his chest, the result of so much debris having crashed down on him, and also the scratching of his lungs and throat as he fought to get air in around the dust and smoke. The worst of the damage was to his left arm, which had been pinned. His hand was numb, he hoped only due to a lack of circulation as opposed to its no longer being there. But he couldn't dislodge the broken chunks of blue-painted stone that had landed on him enough to find out.
He sort of wandered in and out of consciousness for awhile, hearing and seeing things he wasn't sure were actually real, wondering with vague unconcern if he was perhaps going to die after all. But then some of those sights and sounds became persistent, and gradually he realized that the team had come back for him, had in fact rappelled down into what remained of the chamber Lorne had fallen into and started digging through the rubble for him, periodically calling his name and waiting for a response before continuing their somewhat haphazard excavation.
Finally, they shoved aside a large chunk of ceiling that had been propped just so by a shattered column, preventing it from flattening Lorne entirely. With the weight off, he was able to breathe more easily, and his thinking began to clear enough for him to try and respond to the voices calling his name. He succeeded only in coughing, but apparently it was good enough.
"He's here! I've got him!" that was Helton, calling to the others, who immediately converged on him and began to assist the doctor in unburying Lorne carefully, for fear of doing more damage.
"Hey, Coughlin," Lorne managed weakly when the lieutenant entered his field of vision.
"Major," Coughlin nodded curtly, kneeling down near him for a moment, "I suppose you know we're all upset you chose to blow yourself up before we got back."
"Yeah, I never did like making a spectacle of myself," Lorne replied, "How're we doin'?"
"Jumper's airborne, but not spaceworthy. All team members accounted for now we've found you."
"Well that's nice," Lorne said unworriedly.
"You did hear the part about not being spaceworthy, didn't you?" Coughlin asked.
"I did," Lorne replied, "But the DHD works, doesn't it?"
"Yes sir, but I don't see how-" Coughlin began.
"So we call Atlantis. Tell 'em what happened. Colonel Sheppard will take care of the rest," Lorne told him, "We're goin' home, Lieutenant. It's just a matter of time."
Coughlin was silent for a moment, absorbing that. Then he said, "You are a complete lunatic for doing what you did. You do know that, don't you, sir?"
Lorne started to laugh a little, but it only made him cough, which hurt, though he still managed a game reply of, "You're welcome. Merry Christmas."
"Dr. Souci is pretty pissed with you, sir," Coughlin persisted.
"Tell her Merry Christmas too," Lorne said, and passed out again.
"You're as crazy as Colonel Sheppard," Coughlin said, with equal measures of irritation, affection and not a little bit of gratitude. Then he sighed and placed a hand on the unconscious Lorne's shoulder and sighed with a shake of his head, "Merry Christmas, Major."