Ronon had learned a few things about the spiders. Firstly, they didn't like loud noises or sudden movements. Normally, if Ronon made a loud noise or a sudden movement, they would immediately skitter away. Ronon thought the spider that bit John might have been defective or something, since it had attacked him when he'd jumped and screamed instead of hurrying away, but anyways, that was why he thought John had been bitten.

He also had at least a possible solution. The likely reason the spider had dared to venture into the Gateroom at all was probably because it had been too quiet in there. It possibly hadn't realized there were any people, and thought it was just a late-night buffet of its favorite snack. Ronon thought that was why they'd never seen the spiders before now. There were always too many people on Atlantis, moving around and making noise.

Ronon thought they could fix this by putting a loud piece of machinery in the Gateroom while they slept, or alternately playing some loud music. He thought that would keep even particularly bold spiders like John's away from them.

Granted, he still really wanted to try out the bug spray. If Ronon's plan of being loud didn't work, they would definitely need a weapon that didn't do so much damage to the surrounding area. These spiders were just so damn hard to sneak up on.

Ronon wasn't sure how long he'd been walking around the lower hallways of Atlantis when the lights came on. They flashed bright for a second, flickered a few times, and then held steady. Ronon blinked - he'd already gotten used to the lack of electric light.

Then he smiled. Zelenka and Sheppard must have been successful. Which meant, once Zelenka did a little tinkering, that they could have meals heated up on the stove and water for showers and heat and light. All the things he thought he'd never get used to.

That was great, they had good news on both sides then. Ronon tapped his comms and heard the channel open up.

"Hey, Shep, nice job on the power! I think I got somethin' to take care of the spiders, too. If we just play music really loud, they'll stay away. Turns out they don't like noise."

Ronon waited for John to congratulate him on his ingenuity, but there was just a confused sort of silence from the other end of the channel.

"So we don't have to worry about the spiders anymore. And we can take showers."

John mumbled something, and Ronon couldn't make out the words but he was familiar with the tone. That was the tone of voice Sheppard used when he really, really didn't want to admit something.

"We don't have water," Ronon guessed.

"Not yet," John said miserably. "Zelenka's tryin'."

The more Ronon heard John speak, the clearer it became that John was very sick indeed. Ronon didn't know which would make him feel worse, if all of John's symptoms came from the blood loss or if they were from leftover poison Ronon had failed to fully extract. Either way, it felt like his fault, and it was becoming increasingly clear that John didn't really understand what was happening. Ronon hoped he was okay.

"Can I talk to Zelenka?"

"Umm…no," John finally said. "He's...he's not here."

"Where is he?"

John sighed heavily into the comms. It sounded like he was having trouble breathing. "Fixin' the water," he mumbled.

Ronon frowned. He didn't know the most about how Ancient technology worked, but he was fairly sure that they'd had a long conversation that morning about how Zelenka needed Sheppard's gene in order to get everything up and running. He wasn't sure how that could be happening, if Sheppard wasn't with Zelenka.

"Where are you?" Ronon asked.

John made a small noise that sounded almost like a whimper. "'S complicated. Umm, a hallway? Sittin' down. Can't move too good."

"Why isn't Zelenka there?" Ronon demanded, curling his hand into a fist and vowing to beat the physicist senseless for abandoning John (after he'd fixed the water, of course).

"Ummm…something about the tides?"

Ronon gave up on getting a straight answer out of the Colonel. "Where are you? I'm comin' to get you."

After some trial and error, John managed to give Ronon his location, and Ronon set off towards him at a brisk pace. Sheppard was a while away from him, even with the newly rebooted transporters, which gave Ronon plenty of time to call Zelenka and sort out just what the hell was going on.

"Why is Sheppard all alone?" Ronon demanded.

Zelenka swore in czech. There was a lot of white noise behind him, and he sounded distracted and strung out. Ronon had no idea what was going on, but it wasn't difficult to tell that it was not good.

"Doc?" Ronon said threateningly.

"He was going too slow!" Zelenka burst out.

"He's sick!"

Zelenka sighed dramatically. "With the power down, I did not know how much of the damage to the water filtration system was mechanical. The answer is...a lot of it. I will need to repair it separately if we are to end up with fresh water again. The parts I need access to are blocked by the flooding except at low tide. I was trying to get John to hurry, but that...that was impossible. I left him to try to fix the water filtration system on my own, but I was too late, and it was blocked. Regardless, I would probably have required John's ATA gene to fix it."

"So what does that all mean?" Ronon asked. He didn't know a lot about tides.

"It means we will not be able to even attempt to fix the water systems until tonight, twelve hours from now. And that is assuming that the Colonel is able to wake up in the middle of the night and get himself to the far side of Atlantis before the tide turns again. And once we arrive at the damaged part of the filtration system, we will not be able to leave for twelve more hours, regardless of how quickly we are able to repair it."

Ronon didn't like the sound of that at all. He still wasn't sure exactly what was wrong with Sheppard, but he had sounded pretty bad on the phone. He did not think waking up for a midnight trek around Atlantis would be very good for him at all.

"Well, we have some water bottles," Ronon said definitively.

"We do," Zelenka agreed. "But we will not have them forever."

Ronon thought this conversation was starting to go in circles, so he hung up on Zelenka. Now that he understood what had happened, he was much more concerned about John. And anyways, he was angry at the scientist for leaving John, and, even though he knew it wasn't fair, for failing to fix the water.

It took Ronon another five minutes or so to arrive at the destination John had described. At first, he thought it was empty, and John had moved. But then he saw a small figure curled against the base of the wall, limp and still.

"Sheppard," Ronon gasped, half-worrying that John had somehow managed to expire in the short time since Ronon had talked with him. But at the sound of his name, John moved fitfully, moaning softly and looking as though he were trying to get up. He didn't look like it was very easy.

"Hey, no," Ronon told him, kneeling down beside him and putting a restraining hand on his back. "You don't have to get up."

John turned slightly and tipped his face up towards Ronon. It was chalk white and bloodless, haggard with pain and exhaustion. He blinked up at Ronon, but his eyes weren't focusing very well, and Ronon was hardly sure John actually could see him.

He mumbled something inarticulate, and squirmed under Ronon's hand. "I dunno what you're trying to say, buddy," Ronon said sadly.

"I'm s'posed to help Zelenka," John whispered.

Ronon grimaced. He wasn't really sure how to nicely tell Sheppard that he no longer had to help Zelenka, because he hadn't been able to walk fast enough and Zelenka had missed his window to fix the water.

"Umm, not anymore," Ronon said, steeling himself.

"Why?" John asked softly. "Thought it was important."

"Umm, he couldn't fix it," Ronon blurted out. "Guess he's not as smart as he thought. Said he'd try again later. Nothing you can do."

John seemed satisfied with that explanation, which just furthered Ronon's impression that John was not doing well at all. Even by Ronon's standards, it hadn't been his best effort at a lie.

"C'mon, let's get you back to the Gateroom," Ronon said, removing his hand from John's back and going to pull the pilot upright. As soon as John was on his feet, he tipped and fell heavily into Ronon.

"You okay?" Ronon asked sharply.

John gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Dizzy."

That really didn't seem like a good sign. Sheppard was a fighter pilot. He'd pulled stunts that made even Ronon lightheaded, and John hadn't even seemed to notice. If he was so dizzy he couldn't even stand upright, something was very wrong indeed.

"Blood loss?" Ronon had never before found himself in the position of hoping that his friend was suffering from blood loss (that he'd inflicted), but it was definitely better than John being poisoned by a mysterious spider bite.

John nodded, too quickly. "Blood loss," he confirmed. Ronon shifted uncomfortably, perfectly able to hear the lie in John's voice, but not sure what the hell he was supposed to do about it. Even if it was the poison that both of them feared and suspected, they were stuck. None of them were doctors, except of course Zelenka, who was the useless kind of doctor that could not keep John alive.

"I did fix the spider thing," Ronon said, hoping this would cheer John up.

Instead, John looked frightened. "What spider thing?" he asked suspiciously.

"The fact that there are spiders on Atlantis now," Ronon said, forcing himself not to sound annoyed. "That are huge and poisonous. That thing."

"I wasn't sure if there was a different thing," John mumbled, sounding upset.

"They're scared of loud noises, so as long as we play some music or somethin', we should be fine. Also, I'm pretty sure they don't like bug spray, but I haven't gotten to test that one out yet. Let me know if you see any."

John looked pale, but he nodded, and Ronon decided that if they did see any spiders, he would probably try to take care of them with bug spray without John even knowing.

Zelenka laid out all of the water bottles they'd scavenged from the kitchen and Jumpers, spreading them in an arc in front of him so Ronon and John could see how much there was. They hadn't really taken an inventory since the meteor. They'd been too focused on putting out immediate, and sometimes literal, fires. But now, with the power back on, it was time to figure out what they had. And consequently, what they needed.

"If we ration, the three of us alone can last until the rest of Atlantis returns from their two weeks, although only just. And that would be if we only used the water for drinking, which may not be possible. We might need it to cook, to wash out delicate machinery, to clean wounds…."

"To shower?" John suggested.

Zelenka and Ronon both stared at him. He was pale and dirty-looking - spending a large portion of the day lying on the ground did not seem to have done him much good. Zelenka realized that John probably hadn't taken a real shower since before he'd left Atlantis, almost a week ago. Even his hair was looking kind of flat, something Radek wasn't sure he'd ever seen.

But they simply didn't have the water. Ronon and Zelenka, who had lived with fewer resources than John ever had, knew that personal hygiene was one of the first things to go.

"No, unfortunately we will not have the spare water to take showers," Zelenka said.

John looked a little put out, but didn't protest.

"Similarly to the water filtration system, I have found a few other systems that sustained additional damage beyond the lack of power, and will need to be repaired before they can come back online. One of them is the Gate."

This announcement wasn't met with the horror that Zelenka expected, which probably meant that Sheppard was too far gone and Ronon too confused to understand the full impact of the news.

"That means that we need to decide now which system is more important, water or the Gate," Zelenka explained carefully. "Because if we attempt to fix the filtration system, and cannot, then it will be too late to fix the Gate and go offworld for supplies by the time that we run out of water. And if we attempt to fix the Gate-"

"We could run outta water an' not be able to fix the filtration," John said quietly. His words were beginning to slur alarmingly at the edges, but at least he'd followed Zelenka's explanation. And by the looks of his expression, he understood the weight of the choice they would have to make.

"Well, fuck," Ronon volunteered. Zelenka ignored him, not finding that to be particularly helpful.

"So which one?" John asked. He looked like he'd gone even paler than he'd been at the beginning of the conversation, and Radek wondered if it was stress, or if the Colonel was about to faint again.

Zelenka grimaced. He wasn't really used to making major decisions that would affect the survival of everyone on Atlantis - that was the sort of thing Rodney got off on. Still, with the Military Commander and Acting Head of Atlantis barely able to process complete sentences, it had to fall to Zelenka to make the judgement call of which system to fix.

"Well, the Gate is not blocked by water for twelve hours out of the day," Zelenka said slowly.

"Gate, then?" John asked.

"But on the other hand, I have already begun the work on the water…."

"Water, then."

"Of course, the Gate would allow us to contact allies for assistance-"

"Please just pick one," John interjected, all of a sudden sounding very small. Zelenka shook himself, then nodded.

"I will begin work on the Gate tomorrow."

John and Ronon visibly relaxed, and Zelenka passed each of them their water ration. Ronon took his, frowning at the pigeons littering the room around them.

"We still gotta get rid of these things. I don't think I can kill all of 'em."

"And if you did, then we would have a new problem," Zelenka pointed out, rather acerbically. "Piles of dead pigeons. This will already be difficult enough to explain to Mr. Woolsey."

Zelenka had meant it as a joke, but both Ronon and John stiffened. "Hey," John said slowly. "What...what are we gonna say to Woolsey? When he comes back?"
Ronon shrugged, but he wouldn't meet either of their eyes. "Was figuring we'd clean all this up beforehand."

Even though it was clear Ronon hadn't meant it as a joke, Zelenka snorted with laughter. Woolsey was returning in right about a week, along with the entire rest of Atlantis. And currently, the Gateroom was covered with rubble, there were pigeons everywhere, no water, a dying Military Commander, and oh, a hole in the ceiling.

And anyways, they were coming back in a week assuming Zelenka could get the Gate fixed by then. He was confident the Gate system had just suffered superficial mechanical damage from the meteor itself, but then again, he hadn't really had time to examine it yet. If the problem was worse, and Zelenka wasn't able to fix it on his own...he didn't even want to think about that. They would be completely cut off from Earth until the Deadadulus arrived to check on them, and by the time that happened, the best Zelenka could hope for was being so fired he would probably never hold a job again.

"We could tell him it was a Wraith attack," John said, looking critically up at the hole in the ceiling.

"I am not sure that will work," Zelenka siad. "I would have contacted Earth in the case of a Wraith attack."

"Maybe they destroyed the Gate before you could."

"The Gate is clearly not destroyed," Zelenka said. "Also, there were supposed to be shields up."

"You could say the pigeons did it," Ronon said.

"The...pigeons?"

"From the inside," he clarified.

"For what purpose?"

Ronon thought carefully for a moment. "Wraith pigeons," he finally said.

"I am not going to explain to Mr. Woolsey that Atlantis has a hole in the ceiling of the Gateroom because we were attacked by a flock of Wraith pigeons," Zelenka said definitively.

"Whatever," Ronon said. "Do you have a better idea?"

"Yes. Not to tell Mr. Woolsey that Wraith pigeons somehow put a hole in the ceiling of Atlantis."

Ronon looked as though this appeal to logic upset him, and glanced towards John, probably hoping that the pilot would side with him. John didn't seem to notice. He was too busy staring blankly at the untouched meal in front of him.

"Are you gonna eat that?" Ronon asked, pointing at the hunk of meat.

John shook his head. Ronon reached eagerly towards Sheppard's plate, then paused. "Why aren't you gonna eat it?"

John just blinked at him for a few seconds, then gave a very small shrug. "Not hungry," he mumbled.

Ronon sighed heavily. "You're still real nauseous, aren't you?"

John shook his head again, looking down and away from Ronon. "Nope."

At this point, even Zelenka could see the Colonel was lying. Was he really too nauseous to eat even a single bite?

Now that he was really looking at John, Zelenka was rather horrified that he hadn't been more worried this entire time. He had realized that John was declining, despite the pilot's protests to the contrary, but he'd let John's stubborn denial that it was just blood loss pacify him. He wasn't Rodney, Teyla, or Ronon - he knew John well, but he didn't speak the bizarre code that Sheppard's friends all seemed to. Apparently, he should have been discounting everything John said about his own health, instead of just ignoring the more clearly ridiculous half.

"You haven't eaten all day," Zelenka blurted out, thinking back.

"Shep," Ronon said, sounding both exasperated and deeply concerned. "You can't keep doin' that."

John squirmed, the tips of his ears beginning to flush red. Zelenka got the impression that if he had been able, he would have attempted to run from the Gateroom.

"I...I woulda thrown it up," John mumbled, looking deeply mortified.

"I thought that you said you were not nauseous," Zelenka said primly.

"Hey, yeah," Ronon growled. "He got you."

"Leave me 'lone," John snapped, his voice carrying some volume for the first time since the spider incident. "It's...s'not like we can solve anythin'. I jus'...jus' gotta hold on."

"We coulda gone through the stuff in the infirmary," Ronon pointed out, sounding almost gentle. "Get you somethin' to make you less nauseous. Maybe...I dunno, maybe some anti-spider stuff too."

John sighed heavily, swaying a little. He shook his head. "We don' know what any of that stuff is."

Ronon laughed, a little sadly. "Hey, you know I don't do that."

"Exactly," John mumbled. "'M fine. For now."

"Dr. Keller will be back in a week," Zelenka said. He didn't mention that that was assuming he could fix the Gate. He would be able to. He would be able to. "You only have to wait a week, and then she will provide you with...anti-spider stuff."

"And she won't care that there's a hole in the ceiling," John mumbled. "Only Woolsey will be mad."

"Yes," Zelenka said. They hadn't come up with any sort of excuse for Woolsey, and the way that conversation had been heading, Zelenka wasn't sure they were going to. If it weren't for the Colonel, Zelenka would have suggested not fixing Atlantis, and abandoning the city all together. That would certainly avoid trouble with the IOA. But for now, the best option might be to simply apologize, and that didn't seem to be a very good option at all. This could very well be the last week Zelenka was employed by the Stargate Program, unless they thought of something better. "Only Woolsey will be mad."

Everything had gone well until they'd gone to sleep. Ronon had bullied Sheppard into eating a few bites of dinner, and he had seemed to perk up after that. Maybe he was on the mend. He and Zelenka had set up a stereo to play music to scare the spiders off, and now, at sleepy John's request, they were listening to Johnny Cash. Ronon had still left a few select cans of bug spray scattered around the Gateroom, just in case. Ronon's burned shoulder had gotten horribly itchy, and the pain pills he was still popping weren't touching that, but he was pretty sure it was a good thing. It meant his burn was starting to heal.

Ronon wished, not for the first time and not for the last, that Keller had stayed on Atlantis instead of going to some dumb physics party with Rodney. Everything with John aside, his shoulder would probably be feeling a lot better if she was here.

But, on the whole, he couldn't complain. The power was back on, and therefore the heat, Zelenka had some sort of plan to fix the Gate, and Ronon's shoulder was starting to heal. Now all they needed was a way to fix John.

That changed in the middle of the night.

Ronon was a light sleeper, and he normally woke up if he heard any of his teammates start to move around too much. But now, the Johnny Cash was drowning out a lot of the background noise, and Ronon didn't wake up until he heard a small whimper. That had him up like a shot.

He knew who it was without even having to think. In a matter of seconds, he was kneeling beside John, who was curled into a tight, miserable-looking ball.

"Sheppard," Ronon said, reaching out and touching John's shoulder gently. He shook it, and John whimpered again.

"Shep, you okay?" Ronon asked softly. He didn't really need an answer - he knew John was a long way from okay.

John still didn't answer, and Ronon decided that he had given the pilot enough time. He reached out again and carefully uncoiled John. Ronon thought he was trying to fight, but he had gotten so weak that Ronon barely needed any effort to stop him.

"Hey, it's just me," Ronon told him, and John's eyes fluttered halfway open before closing again.

"Spiders," he mumbled, shaking his head. "Gotta…they're comin'."

This did not sound much like John. Carefully, Ronon placed a hand on his friend's forehead, wincing as he felt the heat radiating from John's body.

"You've got a really bad fever," Ronon told John, hoping against hope that some vestige of John's calm command of all situations remained. John merely whimpered again and tried to pull away from him, giving up almost immediately.

"I think I mighta fucked up," Ronon said miserably. John twisted again and shook his head.

"Uh-uh. Gonna…gonna stop the spiders."

"Too late now," Ronon muttered.

"Big," John whispered, and moved his injured wrist slightly. He whimpered again, and Ronon thought he might have gone a bit paler.

Carefully, Ronon took hold of John's arm. Even covered by the bandage, it looked bad. His fingers were swollen, and the bandage looked...wrong. Ronon didn't really want to take it off, partially because it would hurt John too badly, and partially because there was nothing he could do to help him anyway. He'd probably rather not know if Sheppard's arm looked like it was about to fall off.

Still, he was worried either way. Ronon couldn't believe that less than a few hours earlier, he had thought that John might be on the mend. Now, he was starting to worry that John would be dead before the week was out.

"Shep, you gotta talk to me," Ronon said hopelessly.

John's eyes flew open. "Ronon. Spiders. I c'n hear 'em."

"There's nothing there," Ronon said. "Come on, buddy."

"Arm hurts," John whispered, tucking it against his chest.

"I know," Ronon said worriedly. He thought he could count on his hands all the times he had heard John complain about a specific injury. He hadn't even been entirely convinced that John could even feel pain. But now he was curled on the ground, hugging his arm to his chest, clearly in pain.

"Any water?" John gasped, eyes opening to glassy slits.

There was a bottle of water pressed into Ronon's hand before he was even aware of what was happening - he looked up and Zelenka was there, also watching John with worried eyes. Ronon wasn't sure when he'd woken up, but he was glad he was here now.

"Thanks," Ronon said softly. Zelenka didn't say anything, just continued to stare at John.

Ronon got a hand under John's shoulder and managed to lever him into a sitting position. To Ronon's surprise, he was able to stay that way on his own, with only Ronon's hand on his shoulder offering support. His eyes opened slightly at the movement, and he seemed to perk up a little when he saw the water.

"Water," he whispered. "Please-"

"Are you sure-?" Zelenka asked quietly.

"Dunno," Ronon said, cutting Zelenka off. He wasn't sure of anything, really. He didn't know if he should be giving John water, or pain meds, or trying to get him to go back to sleep. He was so out of his depth that he was worried Sheppard might die, and there was very little that he was able to do. All he knew was that if Sheppard was asking for water, Ronon was damn well going to provide it.

Ronon unscrewed the cap, and helped John take a few sips. It came back up all over the front of John's shirt about two seconds later - so fast that Ronon wasn't sure if the swallowing motion had triggered a round of vomiting, or if he hadn't even managed to swallow in the first place. John started coughing, and Ronon almost started patting him on the back before realizing he was probably too fragile for that.

"Water," John croaked when he was finished.

"Give it a minute," Ronon said.

"Water," John gasped, and it sounded like he was dying.

"Not yet."

John abruptly went heavy in Ronon's grip, and Ronon lowered him to the floor. His eyes were closed again; he seemed done arguing. As far as Ronon could tell, he was no longer conscious.

"What are we gonna do?" Ronon asked quietly. He wasn't sure who he was even talking to - normally, that was the sort of thing he asked Sheppard. John always had a plan, even if it was one that he was coming up with as he was saying it. Ronon had started to rely on it more than he'd realized. But now, he couldn't ask John what to do, and it didn't seem like Zelenka knew any more than Ronon did.

"I think he may be dying," Radek said, his voice even softer than Ronon's. "I...I do not know what to do."

Very carefully, the scientist reached out and laid a hand on John's shoulder. Sheppard didn't react, but Zelenka left his hand there for a moment. Ronon watched him with some surprise, not having quite expected this from the physicist. Obviously, he liked Sheppard - everyone liked Sheppard - but Ronon had always been under the impression that Zelenka found most of the people around him, especially the military, to be vaguely irritating. Ronon had expected him to sound worried about John, but Radek was clearly gutted over the idea of John dying in front of them.

This, in turn, made Ronon rather more panicked. He'd been counting on Zelenka to maintain the sort of calm indifference that McKay only thought he could manage, but now it appeared that Ronon himself would have to be the calm one. Ronon was not sure that this was something he could achieve. He was still a little loopy from the painkillers John had given him, and he wasn't good at thinking at the best of times, and one of his best friends was dying before his eyes, and nothing could be solved by shooting something.

"I wish Keller was here," Ronon said. "I know earlier I said doctors were stupid and I didn't want 'em around ever, but that was before Sheppard started dying. I bet he wouldn't even mind if it was Beckett, even though he could make him stay in the infirmary for way longer."

A funny expression crossed Zelenka's face. "Did you say...Beckett?"

"Yeah. The Scottish guy. Doctor. Clone," Ronon snapped. He was fairly sure Zelenka knew who he was talking about, but at this point he didn't have any patience for Zelenka wasting time with useless questions.

"I know - Never mind. We have been assuming that we cannot get the Colonel any medical help until the Daedalus returns, but Dr. Beckett is still in Pegasus. All we have to do is fix the Gate, and that will solve both our fresh water problem and the problem of John's injury."

Ronon's eyes widened at the faint glimmer of hope that Zelenka had suddenly provided. Almost unconsciously, he put a hand on John's shoulder.

"Can you fix the Gate in time?" he asked.

"I had better."