"Elizabeth"
She groaned and raised her head; she'd been taking advantage of a few blessedly peaceful minutes to bang it on the desk a couple of times, although it wasn't making her feel much better and had in fact made her headache several times worse. She should've expected that.
The intercom hissed slightly, sounding concerned at her unresponsiveness. "Elizabeth? Are you there?"
"I'm here, Carson. What is it?"
"Can you come down here a minute?" He didn't exactly sound awake either, come to think of it, but at least he was doing his job, which was more than she could say for herself. "We need to talk. There's something you ought to know about this."
"I'll be there in a minute." Elizabeth stood up and left her office. Ford and Teyla were still waiting outside, looking distinctly unhappy with their current inutility. Without asking, they fell into step behind her as she all but ran down the stairs and headed for the infirmary.
-----
Doctors Braun and Hamilton had been laid out neatly on adjacent beds at one end of the infirmary and covered discreetly with sheets. It was far too easy to forget that those two anonymous white lumps had been living, breathing people only a couple of hours. People she'd somehow failed. As their leader, she'd been responsible for their welfare. It was her job to make sure her people didn't end up under white sheets.
Elizabeth had to force herself to turn away and face Carson. If she couldn't bring the two scientists back, she could at least figure out how she'd lost them. It might help to get John and Rodney back alive.
"Rodney came to see me after the last offworld mission," he began without preamble. "He said he thought that the Major was, well, not exactly in his right mind when it came to that sword. That it was controlling him somehow."
"Really." Elizabeth crossed her arms. "And why didn't you tell me this?"
Carson flushed slightly. "To be honest, ma'am, I thought Rodney was a bit daft himself, the way he was talking. He was going on to me about John's eyes changing color . . . I told him he'd been overreacting or just plain imagining things, and he went off in a huff to talk to you about it."
"Rodney did come to see me." She nodded. "But he never said anything about that, just asked permission to store the sword in his lab for safety reasons."
"I cannot speak to the color of Major Sheppard's eyes," said Teyla thoughtfully. "But there was a rather curious incident on that mission; perhaps Major Sheppard omitted it from his report."
"I think he did." Elizabeth frowned. "What happened?"
"You know Major Sheppard took out three Wraith with that sword, right?" Ford began. Elizabeth nodded, and he continued, "The rest of us were watching from nearby. When the Wraith were dead, Dr. McKay stood up and called out to see if the Major was all right. Next thing we knew, Major Sheppard had the tip of the blade pressed against Dr. McKay's throat. Only for a second, though—he said we'd startled him. Didn't think it was worth mentioning, I guess."
"Unless he deliberately chose to remove it from his account," Teyla pointed out. "Considering the circumstances, I would say that was more likely."
"I don't suppose you noticed anything about his eyes?" Elizabeth asked.
Ford shook his head regretfully. "Maybe I thought they looked a little shadowed. But it was nighttime in any case."
"So it was." Elizabeth gritted her teeth. "We've got two people who actually know what's going on, and they're the ones we can't find. Wonderful."
"So what exactly happened to them?" Ford asked, gesturing back at the corner where the two corpses lay.
"It depends how you look at it," Carson told him grimly. "It was Major Sheppard who physically picked up the sword and killed them with it—must've been, since he's the only one who can use it. But I doubt he did it of his own will."
"In other words," Teyla completed, "Major Sheppard was acting as an avatar of the sword itself rather than under his own willpower."
"That's about the size of it," Carson confirmed.
-----
John opened his eyes to near-darkness. He must've been asleep for a few hours; as best as he could tell, it had been mid-afternoon when they'd gotten there. He sat up, stretching, and realized his palms were wet—with what, it was too dark to tell. Sweat, probably. Weren't desert planets supposed to be really cold at night? The wind still howled outside, but otherwise it was alarmingly silent in the cave as he got to his feet. "Rodney?" His voice was scratchy from the dry air, so he tried again. "You still in here?"
The only voice that answered him seemed to come from inside his own mind, a cold foreign hiss. He is here. But he will not answer. Save your breath.
"What?" John shook his head violently as if to dislodge the intruder. "What the hell's going on here?"
It was necessary, the voice in his head continued unheedingly, its tone obscenely placid. He lusted for you. His presence was counterproductive; it would have proven a distraction and an obstacle. We had no choice.
Was . . . John's throat tightened suddenly, a chill rippling down his spine as he finally recognized the voice. "What did you do?" he demanded frantically, but there was no answer this time. John grabbed Rodney's jacket from the floor, groping through the pockets until he finally found a flashlight and switched it on. Three seconds later, he almost wished he hadn't.
Rodney was crumpled limply on the ground at his feet, the center of a still-spreading pool of dark liquid that matched the stuff smeared all over John's hands. And there was no longer any question as to what that was, because the flashlight illuminated it too.
It was Rodney's blood.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Heh. Heh. Heh. Feedback makes me happy . . . evil cackle
There was a little confusion (hi, Leah) about what exactly happened to the two scientists. Hopefully this should clear it up. Come to think of it, that was a very CSI-like scene, with the morgue and all . . .Dear God. I'm getting so fking morbid.