Chapter Seven

Break

"Come on, Major, eat something," Rodney pleaded.

Since I had woken up in the room where McKay had stashed me from the big bad conspiracy, I had sat, and stared, and done nothing else. I hadn't moved, drank, eaten, and I wasn't even sure if I had blinked.

"No," I answered succinctly.

McKay was mad at me. I could tell because whenever he gets mad, his eyebrows go down, and his mouth tightens in this way that makes it look wider than it normally is, and those lips of his get even thinner. "What is wrong with you?"

Now that was funny. I pulled my eyes off of the nothing, and met his angry glare, "Everything, Rodney." And I said it like the calm before the storm, that promises chaos, and destruction in its wake.

I guess I startled him, because he backed off, and began pacing by the console he'd been tapping away at earlier. His efforts had paid off, though, and he didn't even know it. I'd stopped staring at the nothing. This room, and the infirmary, those were two constants. Why these two rooms? McKay was also there, a lot, more than anyone else. Why McKay?

"McKay?" I called.

I saw him turn to me, expectantly. I hated to dash his hope that I was returning to normal. I think normal had been erased, and once you erase something, you can never get it back. I sighed, and pushed myself wearily to my feet. It took me off guard when I faltered, and an agonizing pain sliced through my gut, causing me to reach out for support.

My hands latched on to something solid, and warm. I titled my head upwards, just enough to see who it was, because at this point I didn't trust that it would be McKay, but it was. He was holding my arms, and reaching in further, trying to ease my plight, and help. "Hang on, Major," he crooned. "It's almost over."

I collapsed with the pain. It was unbearable. I closed my eyes, something I'd been fighting against the entire time, but the pain was making me sick, and I would've done anything to escape from it. It felt like someone had reached into my belly, ripped out my guts, wrung them out like a wet towel, and stuck them back in. I shook from the pain. I could feel McKay hand's smoothing my hair, and he was whispering soft words, but I couldn't make out what they were, because all my thought was occupied by the insidious fire eating me alive in my stomach. Blessed relief came when I finally passed out, overwhelmed by the agony that each second rolled through my frame.

I licked my lips. I was hot, sweating, and writhing from the hurt. I felt a cool hand caress my face, starting from the slicked hair, and moving to my chin, offering a small level of comfort. "Where am I?" I asked, hopelessly, because the answer didn't matter. Whatever was wrong, it was coming to an end either way.

I've lost track of time. I can't recall the days, or weeks, that may have passed. I no longer know if this bed I lie on is real, or another figment, that will shift before I blink, and I'll wake somewhere else. My world has telescoped to one of pain, and waking in between shifts of reality.

"You're with us, John," Elizabeth's gentle answer washed over me.

I felt a salty tang run across my lip, and knew it was a tear, but whose tears? Who was crying over me? Or was it my own? I blinked away the grit, and focused. I saw Elizabeth, and McKay, and Teyla was behind with Ford. "I'm dying?"

I saw Elizabeth's mouth quiver at my question, and McKay's lips tightened, but this time it wasn't the anger tight, it was the 'stiff upper lip, try to hold it together', tight. The one that meant he'd be out on the balcony later, trying to deal with the events and the emotions they had dredged to the surface. I was surprised to see that reaction for me.

Elizabeth swallowed, and I knew she was fighting to hold it together. "No, John. You're going to be fine, soon, I promise."

I could barely see. The friendly faces that had begun to mean so much, they were blurring, and dim, and I felt the pain growing again, fierce, and angry, and promising another break was around the corner. I felt my body seize uncontrollably, and every muscle flexed, and I couldn't hold back the hoarse scream that ripped forth from my mouth.

And my world tumbled, and broke, and shattered. I saw the past events flow over, and by me, like a pebble tumbled about in a larger stream. McKay twisting the dial, and Weir, in that sexy red top, and the scenes spun madly out of control, like a cranked up carousel ride, slowing at the Beckett Wraith, and speeding up again in time to see Weir and Beckett beckoning to me, Carson stroking his big drill. It exploded into a million pieces and reformed into McKay, wearing his Cat in the Hat suit, and the nurse sliding the needle out of my arm, and a small, miniscule droplet of sedative bubbled on the top layer of my skin, perfect in it's shape.

I arched off the bed. "Help me!" I screamed wildly, and I reached out, and felt my hand grabbed in a grip that promised, whoever it was, would be there, and would never let go. I lost any final attempt to remain sane, to remain cognizant, and everything I knew slid to a halt, and I stopped. I heard shouts, and an incessant constant whine of a machine, and then I didn't know anything.

"I know you're awake, so quit faking."

"Go away." I answered him, rewarding his suspicion, but I didn't feel like talking. I cracked an eye, and saw Rodney smiling smugly in a chair next to my bed.

"You're a terrible actor," he said, taking another bite of the perpetual power bar that always seemed to be in his hands.

"Look, I appreciate what you are trying to do, but I'm tired, okay?" I wasn't really. Well, I was, but I wasn't, how's that for contradicting, but I think I was entitled, and if I was being truthful, I wasn't entirely convinced this was all real, or just another dream.

I'd woken up after that total, and complete break, where I'd thought I'd died; only to find out I had, died that is. I'd surfaced long enough to find the pain was mostly gone, and I was wearing clean, pink scrubs, and my stubble was gone. I hadn't been all there, from the drugs or God knows, but it wasn't in the sense of the previous psychotic moments. I had recognized Elizabeth on one side, still watching me like a fragile seashell that was going to be washed back out to sea at any minute, and McKay, holding on, and letting go when he saw that I was aware.

Beckett had joined the crew, and I'd tried to stay awake, watching him with lidded eyes, but I'd lost the battle. I felt his strong, reassuring pat on my shoulder, and a murmur of something about being all right now. I wanted to tell him I'd never be all right again.

"You need to talk, since you've come out of it, you won't say a thing, but I know it was bad." McKay took another bite, but he was being serious, Doctor Rodney McKay, physicist and practicing psychologist. "You haven't even asked what happened."

I wondered if he wanted to know the truth. To be faced with my stark reality. I stared at him, bleakly. "Because I haven't begun to trust that you're real. Is that what you want me to talk about? That I'm still waiting to close my eyes, and wake up somewhere else, in that other room, with you."

McKay absorbed my semi-outburst. I say semi, because I didn't have the strength left in me for a full-fledged break down. "Are you ready to hear what happened?"

"No," I answered honestly. Truth be told, I was a little scared to hear. No one had said much of anything yet, and I didn't know if that was a good thing. What if I had suffered a psychotic break? All I knew, was after that intense episode of pain, the constant shifting had stopped, but that was it. I was still in the infirmary, and I was having a hard time thinking clearly.

McKay seemed upset by my answer, angry. "Fine," he stood up, and tossed the wrapper in a trashcan by my bed. "I never took you for a coward, Major." And he stormed out before I could call him back.

I wanted to. I wanted to tell him I wasn't a coward, but maybe, deep inside, I was beginning to believe it myself. Something had gone very wrong with me, and I wasn't ready to face up to it. I still wasn't certain that it was over.

"How are you feeling, Major?"

Elizabeth. I craned my head to look at her. She had walked so softly towards my bed, I hadn't heard her approach. I hoped I hadn't let much show. I tried to keep a poker face on around her, but I was raw, and unbalanced, and laying here without shouting, and crying, was taking all my effort. "Oh, you know, you die once, twice, it's like riding a bike, you never forget how," I cracked.

She tried to smile. She knew it was my lame attempt at a joke. "You really need to quit making a habit of this," she chastised good naturedly, "I think Beckett's getting more than he bargained for."

"Good for the Scottish terrier," I said, and then realized what I had said.

Elizabeth noticed also. "Scottish terrier?"

Now I'd done it. I was trying to keep those memories to myself, at least for the time being. I don't know how much longer I could hold out on not talking, but I guess right now my health wasn't the best, because with the exception of McKay, no one else was pushing me. "Nothing," I said thickly, "It's nothing."

She pulled up the chair, and sat back. "Rodney tells me you still don't want to talk."

I narrowed my eyes, so much for everyone else leaving me alone. "That's right," I answered evenly.

She crossed her legs, and fixed me with her best politicians smile, the kind that make you want to do whatever she asks. "You need to talk about this, John. We only want to help."

"What's there to talk about," I started out deceptively calm, but my emotions were a cauldron of boiling water beneath the surface, "I went nuts."

"It wasn't your fault."

"I said I didn't want to talk about it," I retorted, starting to let my anger show. It wasn't that I didn't want to know, I did, probably more than they could realize, but the thing of it was, I had to make sure this was real. I had to make sure that I wasn't going to go to sleep, and wake up somewhere else. I had to make sure that she wasn't going to try and seduce me, or someone try to feed me bugs, or drill my brains out. So far, so good. I didn't know what had happened. I didn't know why things had changed. I didn't understand any of it, but I was afraid to try.

I saw her stand up. She placed a hand on my arm, just a light touch, then withdrew it. "Okay," and she smiled. "I'll be back later."

I nodded, and closed my eyes. I was tired, and this was just another test. If I fell asleep, and woke up back in this bed, the same way, it'd be one more step towards believing that perhaps this was real.

AN: First and foremost, thank you so much for continuing to read and review. There is one more chapter, and that's going to be the answer chapter. I promise it should be very interesting!