AN: You guys thought last chapter made you lose it, wait till you finish this one!

Chapter Six

Ping – Pong John

"Major," McKay called. He was shaking my shoulder. I could feel his fingers digging into my skin.

I shot a hand out, on instinct, to cease the shaking, and felt my hand connect, and grasp his wrist. I opened my eyes, confused to find, that I was, in fact, holding McKay's wrist, and not only that, but I was sitting against the counter I'd fallen asleep against earlier.

I stared at the room, stunned. I'd been in the infirmary, Bates had caught me, and McKay hadn't known anything about any conspiracy. I licked my lips, struggling to make sense out of everything.

"What's wrong?" Rodney was staring at me, and he kept looking behind him, as if he thought I was seeing something that he couldn't, and wasn't sharing the secret.

I sat up straighter, pushing myself with a slow tentative movement, because I was beginning to worry that if I blinked, or moved too fast, everything might change. "Have I " I stopped, getting lost in my thoughts, trying to put sense to the disorder, then tried again, "I've been here." I stated it in such a way that it came out as one needing assurance of the obvious. I looked around again, verifying that Weir and Beckett weren't lurking, or Bates. "The whole time you were gone?"

I saw McKay's forehead wrinkle. He looked around, following my earlier examination. "Of course, why?"

"Of course," I echoed, and anyone who was careful, would've picked up on the hysterical edge.

My mouth had gone as dry as the Sahara. I sucked the bottom of my lip inward, and bit the corner, trying to gain my bearings. It felt like someone was playing a sick joke on me, you know the kind where you put something down, and someone moves it when you look away, and then you wonder if you're more screwed up from the party the night before than you thought, because you could've swore you set those keys by the phone, and now they're by the water cooler.

"McKay…I…I think I'm really starting to lose it here," I confessed, my words tumbling over themselves.

"Just relax, it'll be over before you know it," McKay whispered, leaning towards me, and almost caressing my face.

I jumped back, branded from the shock, and slapped his arm away, lurching to my feet. Oh God, not again. I spun towards the door, wanting out, anywhere, as long as it wasn't here. I needed to find somewhere to hide, to try and escape from these crazy hallucinations. Was McKay even really here?

"Major!" McKay hollered. "It's not real," he stressed, and he sounded so damn honest, and normal, and for an instant I thought maybe I could believe him. I stopped my flight out the door and looked over my shoulder at Rodney. But, it wasn't McKay anymore, just a dreamt-up facsimile, because this McKay was wearing a Cat in the Hat costume, complete with white powdered face, a big black rubber nose, and pointed whiskers.

I couldn't fight the hysterical laughter that bubbled forth. "Thing one, you've been a bad, bad boy," I wavered a pointed finger at him, "Go back to your box," and I turned and left, didn't even bother to run this time, because he wasn't real. He wouldn't come after me, because he didn't exist.

I wandered, weaving a drunken mad path through the empty halls, finding it ironic that my feet were as misled as my mind. I stopped at a door. There wasn't anything special about it, but I bent my mind towards it opening, and it did, so I heaved myself inside, and fell against the nearest wall. I was exhausted. The fatigue was pulling at me, like an insidious leech, taking away part of me bit by bit, until there'd be nothing left.

I was afraid to close my eyes. If I went to sleep I might wake up in the infirmary, strapped down, and facing who knew what. I didn't know if I could trust Weir, or Beckett, or McKay. I hadn't seen Ford, or Teyla. Maybe I could find them? I felt my head falling towards my knees, and I jerked it back, forcing my eyes to open wider. I had to stay awake.

I had to walk. I had to get back on my feet; otherwise I'd succumb to the tiredness, and the madness. I leaned over, throwing my hands out to brace myself, and levered my body up, knee to foot, and then the other, grabbing on to the nearest counter. I leaned against it, breathing heavy, and letting my head loll to the side, just for that brief moment. God, I was tired.

Think, John, think, I berated myself mentally. I had to concentrate, and quit losing track. My mind was hopping all over the place, like a broken record, with a needle that kept jumping every time it hit a damaged groove.

Was there truth in the madness? Was the answer being lost in the nightmare of everything else? Had I been exposed to something, and all this was a hallucination? What if I wasn't even here, what if my body was lying somewhere in the city, and this was all a dream within a dream within a dream? Now that's messed up, because how would I ever know what was real? Maybe this was real? I hadn't 'skipped' since I had woken back in the other room.

I hadn't seen anyone since I'd walked away from McKay. Shouldn't there be people? I shivered, and realized with shock, I was still wearing those same stupid pink scrubs, but they were looking dirty, and sweat stained. I'd been in them a while, but they were the one constant. Everything else was changing, but I remained in the scrubs, so maybe I was in the infirmary. Maybe that reality was the right one?

I scrubbed a desperate hand over my face, and felt the abrasive chafing. I paused, my hands still against the sides of my jaw, and moved them up and down, in short jerks, stubble that had to be a few days accumulation, going off the feel of it. If I could count on my physical characteristics, then this had been a few days worth of madness. I tried to think back to what I had been doing three or four days back. It'd been after we caught Steve. Or, had it? Damn, I couldn't think straight.

I heard a noise behind me, and I turned, but my body wasn't cooperating, and my movements were sluggish, and stunted. I caught a glimpse of a uniform, before I was tackled to the ground. I blinked stupidly, trying to clear my eyesight, and figure out who had found me. I groaned when I finally made out the grinning face. Ford.

"Got you, Major," he said.

And that was the last thing I heard, because my body lost the battle to stay awake, and I tilted into the netherworld, drifting back into the only place where I wasn't insane.

I rolled onto my side. Awareness had been returning in short leaps. I heard noises, felt the sensations of sheets against my skin, the cool breeze of someone walking by, causing the blanket to flutter where it hung off the bed. I was back in the infirmary, and this time I wasn't restrained. That caused my mind to shake off the tattered remnants of slumber. I tried to open my eyes, but found they were sticking shut. It took a few tries, but finally I got them to respond, and I could see the room.

It was bright, and it hurt my eyes initially, but after my eyes adjusted, I could make out some nurses whispering in a corner. I craned my head around, not wanting to move just yet, searching for a familiar face. I didn't see any of my team, or Beckett. Maybe that was a good thing. I idly wondered how long it'd take before this reality would shatter into so many pieces that I'd never find them all again.

As if on cue, McKay sauntered in. He leered at one of the nurses, and seeing me staring at him, pasted on a cheerful smile, and headed my way. "Good to see you up," he said. He stood at the end of my bed, and folded his broad arms across his chest. I hadn't noticed his biceps were that thick, when'd that happen? Huh, he could probably take me in an arm wrestling match.

"Up?" I pointedly looked at my toes, just inches from his belly. You know, if I kicked just so, he'd fold like a faulty card table.

"Yeah, about that," he got all serious, "Do you remember anything?"

"Which time?" I asked waspishly.

"What?"

Obviously, I'd been here before, but he hadn't. I was actually feeling pretty amazed at my ability to remain calm. I was approaching this with a cooler head. But, I was getting sick of trying to look up at him, and my neck was starting to hurt. "Could you ," I gestured at the back of the bed. I'd do it, but my muscles felt like Jell-o, and not the good kind, the off-brand, that never set as solid as the real stuff.

He unfolded his arms, catching on to my need, and bumbled over to the side of the bed, searching for the lever that'd raise the back of the bed, letting me sit upright instead of lying flat. "How's that?"

"Better," I replied appreciatively. "So, tell me, how long have I been here this time?"

He was still standing next to me, and he looked down, and from the look on his face, he really didn't know what I meant. "You've said that twice, what are you talking about?"

I shook my head. I didn't have the strength to get into it with him, and what would it matter; this would only disappear again, like smoke in the wind. It was only tangible while I had my eyes open. "I liked your old look better," I muttered, relishing an inside joke that he'd never get.

"Beckett, I think you'd better get in here," Rodney shouted, and he was directly overhead, causing me to wince from the noise level. That had to have been approaching eighty decibels. I must really be freaking him out. Good. They could all have tickets to the show; I was tired of being the only one in the roller coaster ride.

Carson came out of his office, like the good little lap dog he was, a Scottish terrier, and I laughed at the picture, just add a plaid bow right there . He frowned at my behavior, but sorry, can't help it, and it wouldn't matter anyway. "How are you feeling, Major?"

"Just fine Doc, hunky dory, never felt better!" and even I was shocked at the maniacal edge.

Carson and Rodney exchanged looks, and it pissed me off more. "Oh come on, you didn't know I was losing it? Last time I was in restraints. What, didn't think I was a threat anymore, or decided to go for a different angle this time? Trick me into thinking everything's okay, and that this is going to last?" I was all but shouting by the time I finished, and could feel the spittle running down my chin, when I finished.

Beckett waved at a nurse, surreptitiously, but I saw him anyway. He saw that I saw, but I didn't bother making a move for it. "Major, you were injured on the flight home, you hit your head "

"Bull shit, Doc, I didn't hit my head. I've been yo-yoed between different realities like some life-sized Sheppard ping-pong ball. I wake up here, I wake up with McKay, I escape, but I wake up here. People are saying things, doing things, and nothing's real." I was shouting again. "Nothing's real!" I cried, and all my doubt and fear, were embraced in that last word.

McKay stunned us all, by grabbing my face, each hand on either side, clasping my head, and bringing his down in front of me, and holding my head in a lock, and I couldn't look away. He drilled me with his gaze. "It's real, Major. Feel me, my hands. I don't know what's happened, but this is me, McKay, and I'm here." He was holding me like a lifeline tossed out to a drowning man, and he and I both knew I was the one going under.

I heaved in breath after breath, aching with the need to believe it. I wanted to, so badly, but what if I opened my eyes up again, only to find myself somewhere else. I stopped fighting to get out of his grasp, and latched my hands on top of his, and grabbed for all my life depended on it. "I can't," I whispered brokenly. "You'll go away if I sleep." I matched my eyes to his, and saw his blue eyes watering. "It's not real, McKay…it never is."

I felt the pinprick of a needle, and jerked my head to the side, the movement taking McKay off guard, and I was able to see the needle being pulled out of my shoulder. I threw my head back, hard, against the bed. I stared at McKay, and smiled cruelly, "You won't be here when I wake up. I won't be here," and this time I shifted my eyes to Beckett, "You could've at least given me a little while before sending me back."

And then my eyes closed. I didn't want to go. I'd given them hell, but I wanted to believe. I wanted this to be real, and for the past nightmare to come to an end, and I could tell them about the weird things I'd seen, and experienced, and I'd move on, and be normal again. My thoughts muddled, and became disjointed as the sedative took effect. I lost the fight, and surrendered to it once again.

I don't know how long I slept for, I don't even know if the drug was real. I woke up feeling hung-over from its effects, regardless if it was the placebo effect. My mind dumbly processed the dim lighting, and the fact that I was sitting up. Instinctively, I reached out a hand, and caught McKay's as he was trying to wake me up. I raised my eyes to his, "I'm up," I said, my voice dead and empty. And I slid my eyes back off his wide-eyed owlish stare, and focused on nothing. Nothing was all I could count on. Nothing.