Part Four

The briefing had gone well enough. Detailing the events of his encounter with the Wraith for Elizabeth and Carson had been easier than he'd expected, and he thought it might be due to telling Sheppard about it first. Sergeant Stackhouse and his team had returned to Pataskala and retrieved the corpse of the Wraith. They had searched for a Dart, but found nothing and concluded that it had either intended to leave via the Stargate or would have been picked up by another Wraith.

Carson had examined him, found nothing wrong, and released Rodney to light duty, allowing him to return to his lab. But somehow he couldn't seem to concentrate on his work, due in large part to the incessant chit-chat that his colleagues indulged in.

God, couldn't they just shut up? Rodney's head was pounding, the lights were painfully bright, and the strange wound on his chest itched and burned.

His dreams last night had been strange and disturbing, full of Wraith feeding on his friends and colleagues, and he was among them, draining the life from humans and Wraith alike. His sleep hadn't been restful, but he'd managed to convince Carson that he felt well enough to return to his normal duties. He wanted to work, wanted to be distracted from the images in his mind.

They just kept yammering on and on! He couldn't quite make out what they were talking about, and frankly he didn't care; he just wanted them to stop. It seemed like he could hear every tiny sound in the lab: the hiss of the ventilation system, the buzz of the lights, the creaking of chairs and floor as the other scientists moved around. Before, the city had always seemed almost unnaturally quiet, but now he swore he could hear the entire structure shifting, every sound magnified a thousand times until he could even hear the gentle plash of the ocean against the outer walls.

But the voices were the worst. It seemed like every word spoken lanced directly into his brain right behind his eye socket. He picked up an energy storage crystal to examine and grimaced: the smooth surface felt slick and unpleasant under his abnormally sensitive fingertips and the continually murmuring voices behind him made the crystal vibrate in a way that made his teeth ache.

He closed his fist around the crystal in an attempt to dampen the vibrations, but it only served to bring more of his skin in contact with it, and he shivered with revulsion even though the room felt too warm.

Suddenly his ears were assaulted by a loud, sharp crack, and he surged to his feet.

"Shut up! All of you, shut up! How can anyone get any work done if you're all running off at the mouth all the time!"

They all stared at him, but instead of looking embarrassed or guilty, they seemed surprised and alarmed.

"Boze, Rodney!" Zelenka exclaimed and started toward him. "Your hand!"

Puzzled, Rodney looked at his hands. The crystal was in shards, several large pieces embedded in his palm. Blood dripped thickly from deep cuts he still couldn't feel.

He stared at it bemusedly. The blood really was quite an attractive shade of bright red, and the way it slid over the clear splinters of crystal was beautiful. He heard Zelenka calling the infirmary to report an accident as he grasped one of the shards to pull it out.

"Ne!", the Czech exclaimed, grabbing Rodney's wrist. The touch was like sandpaper and he pulled away with a hiss of discomfort. "Sit down, Rodney, please?"

He obeyed, feeling a little dizzy, though his headache was receding behind a growing fascination with the crimson splatters on the floor.

"How did that happen?" he asked breathlessly.

Zelenka's frown deepened. "You broke it."

"I can't have. It would take a pressure of almost 400 pounds per square inch to shatter it like that."

The smaller man shrugged. "It must have had a stress fracture. It's not important. Just don't touch it until Doctor Beckett gets here, please?"

Carson arrived within minutes, grumbling. "Can't you keep out of trouble for just twenty-four hours, Rodney? Between you and Major Sheppard, I'd be a rich man if I charged for my services." He shook his head over Rodney's hand and asked, "D'you think you can walk down to the infirmary? I think you're going to need a few stitches, and I want to irrigate those cuts to flush out any splinters."

Rodney sighed, feeling chilled and tired, and hauled himself to his feet, staggering a little as the room tilted around him. Beckett and Zelenka grabbed him.

"Would you give us a hand taking him to the infirmary, Radek? It'd be faster than getting one of my nurses up here…"

The Czech shrugged and said, "Anything to get him out of here. He's been in a foul mood all morning."

"I have not," Rodney denied automatically as they guided him out the door.

Zelenka gave him a sidelong look of irritation. "You yell at everyone to shut up when no one is talking. I think that qualifies."

"You were," he insisted, shaking off their hands. "Everybody was talking nonstop all morning. I couldn't think with all that noise." The injury to his hand was finally making itself known to him with sharp, stabbing pains that shot up his arm with every step. He kept his eyes on the ground in front of him because of the dizziness he still felt, but soon noticed that his hand was still dripping blood, and he glanced back over his shoulder to see a trail of red spatters behind them. He stumbled, and Zelenka caught his arm with a muttered curse.

The hand on his bicep, left bare by Rodney's short-sleeved shirt, felt warm and strong, and he reached across himself with his undamaged hand to grasp the Czech scientist's wrist without thinking about it.

He felt better immediately, and closed his eyes to enjoy the sensation. He didn't hear Zelenka's weak cry, or Carson shouting at him, or the muted plink of the bloody crystal shards hitting the floor as they worked themselves out of his flesh.

A shove sent him lurching into the wall and broke his grip on Zelenka, who fell to his knees in the middle of the corridor. He stared at Rodney, wide-eyed and frightened, babbling unintelligibly in a mixture of Czech and English, clutching his wrist.

"Rodney, your hand," Carson said in a choked voice. He followed the doctor's gaze and saw that the shards had all come out of his palm. The deep cuts were now nothing more than thin red lines. He wiped the blood away and found that the skin was a little tender but unbroken.

Zelenka tried to get to his feet but was too weak to stand. He looked exhausted – exactly like Sheppard had looked back on Pataskala, like Teyla had looked in the infirmary yesterday evening. Rodney, on the other hand, felt better than he had all day.

He met Beckett's blue eyes, shining with fear and fascination. "Carson, what's wrong with me?"

The physician reached for him, "I don't know, Rodney, but I'll figure it out."

Rodney jerked back, "No! Don't touch me! I don't want to hurt you, too!"

"Come on, then. We need to get you and Radek to the infirmary so we can figure out what's happening." Rodney backed away, and Carson continued, "Come on, don't make this harder than it has to be. I won't touch you, I promise."

He stopped and waited while Beckett helped Zelenka to his feet, then preceded them down the corridor. At the door of the infirmary, he hesitated, and felt Carson's hand on his shoulder. Even through the fabric of his shirt, the hand was pleasantly warm, and he couldn't help but put his own hand up to touch it. A moment later, he heard Carson stumble and fall to the floor, taking Zelenka down with him.

Turning, he found the doctor gazing up at him with horror and pity. "Heavenly days, Rodney, what's happening to you?" the Scotsman breathed.

The pity was more than he could bear, and Rodney slipped past the weakened men and ran, taking turns blindly, instinct guiding him through the city.