Whispers…all around…and yet he couldn't hear what they said. Sheppard reached, and tried to grab a word, a thought, and still it jumped, and changed, and it was a different whisper…every time.
He rolled in bed, his sheets sticking to his bare torso. The whispers were growing, but it seemed the louder they got, the more unintelligible they became. He tossed again. It was louder…and louder…and he woke up with a start.
He took a deep breath, surprised to find he'd been holding it. He gasped the air in with sweet relief, and wondered what the hell was that? His body was slicked in a cold sweat from the dream…nightmare…whatever it was. He groaned, and reached a hand to flip the lamp on.
What time was it, anyway, he wondered? He swung his legs over the side, and grimaced as he felt the damp sheets give up their hold on his skin. He picked up his watch, and peered tiredly at the LCD, two-thirty in the morning. Damn.
The dream, he tried to remember what it was. Chaya, she'd been there. He hadn't seen her, so much as felt her. Ever since she'd shared with him, he'd been having problems and now this. Sheppard slid the watch onto his wrist, and got up, knowing sleep at this point was useless.
Something was wrong with him. He'd spent weeks biting every one's head off. He'd lost weight. Headaches plagued him. He was hearing things…things he couldn't understand, and that damn console. It scared the hopping hell out of him, and he didn't know why. It was high time he figured out why, because something had to give, and he'd rather it not be his sanity.
He pulled his pants on, and slipped his black t-shirt over his head, yanking it over his chest. Forgoing socks, he pulled on his boots. Earlier, he'd run from the console. He'd never run from anything in his life. Why was this console causing so much fear without any legitimate reason? He left his room, and headed to the console room. Time to face his demons.
oOo
McKay studied the results, and didn't like what he saw. Something was off. He'd run the test at least ten times, and yet the data was only reproducible to an order of ten to the negative third. That wasn't good enough. He needed at least results good to the nanometer.
But, it was late, and tiredness wasn't going to work in his favor tonight. When you got tired, you got sloppy. You missed things in calculations, left out variables; heck, one time he'd been so tired he'd left out mass entirely from an equation. That was pretty damn important when you try to calculate force.
He glanced at the clock. Two-thirty. Later than he thought. He shut the program down, not bothering to save the latest run. Garbage. He stood up from the chair, and stretched, knees protesting the length of time he'd sat without moving. Sometimes getting old sucked. Of course, not getting old sucked more, he thought wryly. He shut off the lights, and headed into the dimly lit corridor.
oOo
Sheppard stood in front of the console. It was dark, the city lights lowered for night, but the soft glow from the few lit areas allowed him to see everything he needed. Now that he was here, he wondered why this had seemed like a good idea.
The headache that was already throbbing reminded him. He had a hunch this was going to make or break him. This would either solve it, or kill him. Why he knew that, he didn't know. He just did.
He steadied himself. Waiting wasn't going to get his nerves any steadier…just the opposite. The more he stood here, the more he wanted to go back to bed and never touch that console again.
"Oh, hell," he muttered. He stepped forward, and thrust his hands on the console. He never saw the bright light effuse the room, and he never saw his body go rigid as the power coursed from the console into him. He never saw his body shake, and he didn't see himself fall to the ground, like a boneless fish…
…but McKay did. McKay, who had been returning to his quarters, and saw the flash of bright light. He'd ran to the room, only to see Sheppard's body tense, and jerk, before falling.
"Major!" shouted McKay, running in, and kneeling. He rolled Sheppard's body towards him, and found John to be deeply unconscious. He tapped the comm button. "I need a med team!" he hollered, and he was losing control, because Sheppard had stopped breathing.
oOo
McKay looked at the still figure in the bed. Sheppard wasn't moving. He wasn't breathing…or he wouldn't be, without the assistance of the ventilator. He was looking to see any sign that the man he knew was still there. The problem was, he didn't see anything.
"You should get some rest," spoke Carson from behind him.
McKay hadn't heard the doctor. He hadn't heard much of anything since…
"How could I be wrong?" he wondered. "Not that I haven't been wrong before," he continued as if he were explaining the situation to an imaginary friend, "But not like this…"
Beckett wasn't sure if McKay was asking him, or talking to himself. "You can't blame yourself…"
"Then who else?" asked McKay. "He didn't want to touch the console. I pushed him." Rodney turned, and looked at Beckett. "I'm the one who kept pushing!"
Carson didn't know what to say that would reassure Rodney. Preliminary tests were worrisome. Sheppard was in a coma, unresponsive. They'd stabilized him, and now needed to run tests. "Get some sleep," he ordered, instead of offering platitudes. "We've got to take him for scans, anyway, so you might as well. Come back when you wake up," Beckett's eyes slid off McKay and onto Sheppard. "We'll know more then."
McKay closed his eyes, just for a moment, and he felt the tiredness. He felt all the pent up frustration that had been boiling under the surface since he'd seen Sheppard fall, and it was joined by all the frustration he'd felt over the past year. Why couldn't it ever be easy? Every time it seemed something went right, fate had to step in and kick them down.
Well fate wasn't going to win this one, he thought grimly. He took a last look at Sheppard, and strode out. There wasn't anything to say that would make it better, so he didn't say anything at all.
oOo
McKay jogged through the hall. Beckett had called. The results from Sheppard's MRI were in, and he wanted Rodney and Elizabeth to meet him in the infirmary. He waited impatiently for the doors to open wide enough to admit him. He hoped that he'd see Sheppard awake, or at least breathing on his own now.
Beckett waved him over, and he saw Carson was discussing a picture of Sheppard's brain that he was holding up to the light.
"How is he?" asked McKay.
Carson wished he had better news. "Same," he answered. "But the MRI results are interesting." Beckett gestured for McKay to look. "You see the area in red?"
McKay nodded. "There's a lot," he said. "Isn't that a good thing?"
Beckett shook his head. "No, at least, not this much," he clarified. "I found something interesting though." He walked over to his computer and tapped a few buttons. "I did a search of the symptoms and found this…" Carson showed the contents on the screen.
"But that's John's MRI?" said Elizabeth.
"No, it isn't." Carson pointed at the bottom of the screen. Colonel Jack O'Neill.
"How is this possible?" asked Elizabeth, looking from the screen to Beckett. "What caused this in General O'Neill?"
McKay had a sinking feeling he knew. He'd read all the mission reports. From the beginning he'd been fascinated by the Stargate. He'd worked in Area 52 as a consultant. He'd gotten two chances to actually work directly with the SGC. And he read every single mission report. "Back then, O'Neill was the commander of SG-1," he explained. "Hence, Colonel. He had the knowledge of the Ancients downloaded into his brain by a device they found on another planet that wasn't known to the Go'auld."
Elizabeth felt her heart sink to her feet. She hadn't known. Or rather she knew about the download, at least the second one, but she hadn't seen the MRI's from when it happened. "There's no Asgard nearby," she said flatly. "But we can send a message."
"If they aren't too busy," McKay said. Last time they'd been almost too late to save O'Neill. If it hadn't been for the stasis chamber, it would've been.
"But we do have an Ancient," said Elizabeth. She looked at McKay. "Avitus."
And suddenly, Rodney experienced flashes of scenes from before. Avitus asking about Sheppard, telling him that the console was for Sheppard to activate, and the interest Avitus had in the Major seemed ominous now, in hindsight.
The disjointed scenes snapped into one realization. "That son of a bitch knew this was going to happen," swore McKay.
Beckett didn't say anything but Elizabeth appeared to dismiss the idea, consider it, and become upset once she realized that it wasn't impossibility. She didn't have time to form an idea on how to handle the situation, because McKay was already sprinting out the door, to where, she had a horrible feeling that she knew. She tapped her earpiece. "Bates, meet me at the guest quarters!" She didn't even bother explaining to Beckett who was looking shocked by the turn of events. Instead, she headed out after Rodney, hoping she could prevent anything else from going wrong.
oOo
Rodney stormed into Avitus's room. He didn't wonder at why it was open, his only thought was finding out just what the hell kind of secret agenda this Ancient had.
Avitus was sitting on his bed, cross-legged, and still. When he sensed McKay's presence, he opened his eyes sedately. "Doctor McKay, I've been expecting you," he said.
"You set him up!" accused McKay. "You son of a bitch! You knew it would download the knowledge of your kind into his brain!" He was breathing hard and fought against the urge to grab the old man and shake him. "Why?" he asked. "Just tell me why you would do that?"
McKay's anger was becoming overwhelmed now by the impact of what had happened to Sheppard. "Just…tell me why? We trusted you. I trusted you…"
Avitus stood, and the white folds of his robe fell smoothly into place. "Because it was meant for him," he said.
"What?" McKay was only inches in the door, and Avitus's answer seemed to take the wind out of his sails, because it wasn't what he'd expected to hear.
Elizabeth jogged in the room. "Rodney, wait…" she trailed off when she realized that McKay wasn't attacking the Ancient, nor was the Ancient attacking McKay. "Never mind," she said.
Avitus started towards the doorway, when Bates and his team arrived. "All this is unnecessary. I will come with you. Please, let us go see your Major, and I will explain everything."
Elizabeth waved off Bates and the others, and they started towards the infirmary. "I told you the console was meant for Major Sheppard, and that is the truth," he began to explain as they walked. "Thousands of years ago, we knew we had to leave. We also knew that our people would hopefully continue, in some form or another, and one day return."
"What does that have to do with Sheppard's brain getting reformatted?" snapped McKay.
Avitus smiled. "Patience, Doctor McKay," he cautioned good naturedly. "The dilemma was, we could not assume that our knowledge would remain intact. One of us might return, and that alone was an undertaking, as I'm sure you know," he said. "But they might not know everything we've learned."
Avitus gestured at the city in a sweeping motion. "This city you see is much more than technology and metal, it's alive!" he said dramatically. "This city thinks, and watches…you've seen it yourself, when the nanovirus invaded your people."
"That was just a program," protested McKay.
Elizabeth added, "Besides, it didn't work in the damaged areas of the city."
"When your leg gets broken, does it bear weight?" Avitus asked. "Damage to living things rends them incapable as well as machines."
"Fine, the city is some living thing," snapped McKay. "But what does that have to do with Sheppard?"
Avitus remained nonplussed by the conversation, and the haranguing. "The city has been waiting for him for a very long time, Doctor McKay…for the next evolution of our people."
"What!"
Two simultaneous exclamations from Weir and McKay caused the old man to grin more. "You've said it yourself, the technology responds to Sheppard with no effort on his part. He walks by, and systems activate, and respond. He is what we would be had my people chosen not to ascend."
McKay and Weir realized they had arrived back at the infirmary. The doors opened, granting them access. The two woodenly moved in to the room, pausing for Avitus to follow.
Rodney was trying to wrap his mind around what Avitus had said, but it still didn't change that Sheppard was lying in a coma. That had never happened to O'Neill. "The last one of our people that got subjected to your knowledge download almost died."
"He wasn't the one," remarked Avitus. "He wasn't of strong enough genealogy." They'd managed to come up alongside Sheppard's bed. "Think of it as a first cousin instead of a brother, or sister," he explained.
"But," started Weir. "He's in a coma, he's dying."
Avitus shook his head. "No, not dying. His mind must process the knowledge. It must change. To do this, he is…" Avitus touched Sheppard's hand gently, "…learning."
McKay swallowed nervously. He still didn't trust Avitus, but he couldn't think of why the Ancient would come up with an elaborate deception like this. He was a scientist. You formed a theory, and went from there. Right now, the theory that Avitus was giving him was logical, but on a whole different level, Rodney wanted to disbelieve it as incredible, and fantastical…fantasy instead of reality. But the alternative for Sheppard…
"Will he be the same?" he asked quietly, the snappish and acerbic edge disappearing briefly in the sudden spike of fear that his friend wouldn't be the same.
"No," Avitus said, watching Rodney's face fall. "And yes," he offered. "He'll understand far more than you can comprehend, Doctor McKay. He'll be an Ancient…but he'll still be John Sheppard." He reached a hand out and this time touched McKay, who felt warmth spread through his body. "He'll still be your friend."
Elizabeth had fallen back to Carson's office, pulling him out so he could talk to Avitus about Sheppard's condition. They'd overheard the conversation. Elizabeth looked sadly at the man standing beside the bed, and at the man lying on the bed.
She didn't understand how two polar opposites like Rodney and John had managed to find such an enduring friendship in the other, but find it they did. From the first time when she'd seen Sheppard shove McKay over the balcony, the growing camaraderie had amazed her…and alarmed her. Losing people was a fact of life for members of this expedition, and she shuddered to think what the loss of one would do the other.
And then this…losing one, and not losing him. What would happen? She looked towards Carson, and realized he'd already joined McKay and Avitus, and were discussing Sheppard. She didn't have any answers, and she wasn't even sure who to ask.