Beckett stayed in the infirmary. He didn't actually have to. He had plenty of staff who had nothing more to do than the occasional stitches and broken bones that come with being responsible for the health of a large group of healthy people, but he didn't want to hand Melony's care over to one of them. And he was honest enough with himself to admit that it wasn't just because he was the chief medical officer and it was his responsibility to be there.

He spent countless hours in the small room off the main infirmary, watching her as she slept, listening to the monitors that were beeping in time to Melony's heart – and Talon's – and wondering about what McKay had mentioned when he'd said the shielding device had come off at just the wrong time.

Had it actually been the wrong time? He knew more than anyone there just how much she was hurting – no matter how she smiled at the occasional joke. There was a hurt in her eyes that was never far from the surface, a mirror of the ache of loss she was feeling at the death of her Major. Had she decided at the last minute – or even sooner, for that matter – that a Wraith was as good a way to end the hurt as any? She didn't strike him as a type who would suicide, but he didn't know her all that well, no matter how much time he'd spent with her, and he knew that people who were in pain could sometimes do radical things to try and escape it.

He sighed, and leaned over her, brushing his fingertips along her temple.

"You're going to be okay..." he whispered, promising her something he had no business promising just then.

She moved slightly, turning just a little towards the touch, but she didn't wake. Not completely, anyways.

"Brad...?" The voice was a dazed whisper, and came out of a fog that Carson knew wasn't lucid. She was asking for her Major, but she wasn't awake enough to hear the response – even if Brad Anderson had been there. Beckett thought his heart would break, and there was a stinging in his eyes when he leaned closer and brushed his lip gently against her ear.

"I wish I was, Melony..."

She mumbled something that he couldn't understand, and he waited, hoping she'd fight her way back to consciousness, but a moment later she settled once more, and he knew she'd lost that round of the battle. She was asleep again.

OOOOOOOOOO

Melony was asleep, but Talon wasn't. And the symbiote wasn't idle. His host was in bad shape, however. Maybe worse shape than he'd ever seen. The physical injuries weren't too severe – nothing he had time to deal with, and nothing that was serious enough for him to try and deal with just then. But the Wraith had actually managed to form a sort of bond with Mitchell in the few minutes that it had been in direct contact with her – a byproduct of their feeding, the symbiote knew, now – and that bond had exposed Melony to things that she hadn't been able to handle well. The Wraith held an evil in their souls that Mitchell had never experienced before and even though Talon had managed to shield her from the memories of the creature once he realized what was happening, it had been too late. She'd withdrawn her mind from that evil rather than be tainted by it, and had unfortunately also inadvertently withdrawn from her bond with Talon – and now she was having trouble gaining that mental equilibrium back.

Basically, she was floating in a place that was only her, and she couldn't focus enough to recapture the basic essence of herself. And the longer it was allowed to go on, the harder it would be for her to recover. Had she been a normal human, she undoubtedly never would have recovered. She would have been like one of the lost souls that filled the mental institutions; waiting out the days staring at blank walls and ignoring the people around them because they didn't even see the people around them, and couldn't feel the people around them. Detached in a way no one could ever understand without living through it themselves.

She wasn't normal, though. She had Talon, who was going to be her focus point – if he could be – and had spent what seemed like far too long trying to find that piece of herself that had escaped the evil of the Wraith only to become lost to him as well. The same way Melony had healed Talon from the effects of the anti-Goa'uld beam, Talon was trying to heal her.

He was searching along the shattered remnants of their bond, looking for that one spark that was left. Her psyche was complex, though, and the search seemed endless, but Talon was well aware that this was his fault, and he wasn't going to give up.

A gentle touch – one he felt more than Melony did – and a soft whisper in her ear, and a flicker of a response from her. Just the thing he'd been looking for. The tiny spark flared for an instant – less than a second – but it was enough. Talon grabbed that spark tightly, capturing the awareness before it could fade once more, and 'yanked' it close, holding it firmly. There was a brief struggle – she wasn't so sure she wanted to be captured knowing what she was going to be facing when she got back – but Talon fought her, 'feeding' her positive thoughts and memories, assuring her that the evil wasn't close to her anymore, and reminding her that there were those who still needed her. She needed to return to them.

Her mind had instantly focused on Brad. The gentle touch was something so similar to his touch that for the briefest of moments she'd thought it was him – a hope that Talon had almost allowed her to believe before he realized that it would have been a cruel thing to do to her. It wasn't something he'd do – not even to save her – and he'd reminded her that it couldn't be Brad, but it was someone who cared. He didn't share Beckett's word with Melony, but he had sent her a gentle swelling of love – Talon loved Mitchell far more than anyone would believe a symbiote could love its host – and Melony responded to that.

Talon?

I'm here

Where...?

She was still so dazed and confused that there was no way he'd be able to hold a conversation with her. He had healing to do, and he needed to repair their tattered bond. To do that, he needed her to be settled.

Rest, Melony. I'll explain it all later

She didn't nod, but she did send him an affirmation, and a moment later she stopped struggling to wake, and settled back into her sleep.

He waited, soothing her battered psyche with gentle love until he was certain she was asleep once more, then he went to work.