This one's going to be a little different from the other two. It's going to be in first-person, from Shep's point of view, rather than from Kate's. Also, there are some spoilers for Asclepius, so if you don't want to be spoiled, you should read that first. (Actually, you should just read it anyway. ;-))

Thanks to liketheriver for the loan of Heightmeyer's curling iron!

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I was so going to kill Beckett.

Apparently Kate Heightmeyer had told him that I kept putting off our scheduled session, so he cornered me as I came out of Liz's office after one of our meetings. Told me oh-so-sweetly that I could go voluntarily or be dragged there by a couple of jarheads in full view of Atlantis's entire personnel complement. Then he mused out loud about various new medical tests he was thinking about implementing on a regular basis. And he topped it all off by giving me the glare he usually reserved for McKay. You know the one. Ice-blue stare, no facial expression, one raised eyebrow.

I hate it when he does that.

So that's how I found myself sitting in Heightmeyer's waiting room. Since I did not want to be turned into a human guinea pig by our friendly neighborhood mad scientist, nor did I want to listen to McKay's snide comments about having my ass dragged through the city, I just put the best face on things as possible. Then I girded my loins and entered the dragon's lair.

Look, it's not like I don't respect Dr. Heightmeyer. I'm sure she's very good at what she does. But this is my head, you know? I don't appreciate anyone trying to get inside it unless it's on my terms.

As I was wondering how Heightmeyer kept her hair so curly and contemplating the rumors I'd heard about McKay adapting her curling iron in exchange for clean mental health reports, the door to the inner sanctum opened. Heightmeyer gave me a smile that showed all her teeth and said, "Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to meet with me, Major."

Crap. A pissed-off shrink was never good. "Well, you know how it is. I figured other people needed your valuable... insights more than I do."

She snorted at that. "Uh-huh. Your altruism does you credit." When I didn't respond, she sighed and gestured towards a chair. "Look, I'm not the enemy. We - Carson and I - just wanted to make sure that no one was having trouble after the nanovirus incident. You had the added pleasure of being nuked on top of everything else."

"Fine. What do you want to know?" Anything so I could get out of here.

"Let's start with something simple. How are you doing?"

"Me? I'm telling you, I'm fine. No radiation sickness, no flash-blindness, no hair falling out." Just to make sure, I ran a hand through my hair to make sure it was appropriately spiked.

"That was a good bit of flying, from what I heard."

"Thank you. Just doing my job, instead of..."

"Instead of what?"

Uh-oh. I definitely need to be careful here, and watch what I say. "Instead of... instead of just hoping that McKay or Beckett would save the day."

"Which is what you would have had to do if you didn't break quarantine."

Son of a... "Jeez, you're making it sound like I'm some sort of glory hound. I knew I could at least do something if I wasn't stuck in the gym. I would have thought Dr. Weir would want as many people as possible working on the problem."

"I'm sure she did. You could still have offered suggestions from the gym."

"Look. Even Bates thought I was right. And he's so straitlaced it's like he has a stick rammed up his --."

"Thank you, Major. I get your point. But if yours and Dr. Weir's positions had been reversed, what do you think you'd be feeling right now?"

I'll tell you what I was feeling. I was feeling downright annoyed. They'd blackmailed me here so I could get a repeat performance of Liz's lecture? So much for "we just wanted to make sure no one was having trouble." I said as much.

"There's no need to get defensive, Major Sheppard. I'm just wondering. You and Dr. Weir have disagreed before, but this is the first time you did it so openly and to such a degree. Why now?"

"This time there were many lives at stake!"

"And you don't think that Elizabeth was aware of that?"

Suddenly I knew where this was going. "Oh, no. We are not going there." I stood up. "I have no doubt that what I tell you tonight will be on Weir's desk in the morning."

Heightmeyer looked surprised. "Major, these sessions are strictly confidential."

Yeah, I knew she was going to say that. Doctor-patient confidentiality is sacred unless you say something that makes the doc think that you or someone else is in imminent danger. In the military, there's an added loophole in the form of breaking confidences if the "survival or functioning of the unit" is compromised. It's a loophole you could drive a Mack truck through. At the Academy, one guy I knew found this out the hard way when he made the mistake of telling a counselor about his secret feelings for other men. He was thrown out faster than you can say, "Don't ask, don't tell."

"Major Sheppard," she asked. "Can you please sit back down? As I said, this is confidential."

"Sure," I said in reply. "Unless you decide the good of Atlantis is better served otherwise."

Now Heightmeyer looked exasperated. "John Sheppard, unless you say you have homicidal tendencies towards Dr. Weir, nothing will leave this room!"

Oh, I was having homicidal tendencies, all right. Just not towards Liz. Did I mention that I was going to kill Beckett?

I reluctantly sat back down. As I did, I caught sight of a clock on her desk. There were still thirty minutes left in this session. Damn.

Heightmeyer had a concerned expression on her face. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. But I do think this is an important question. Why didn't you trust Dr. Weir to realize lives were at stake?"

I took a deep breath and exhaled, suddenly not sure why I was so angry. "Elizabeth is an idealist. She wants to believe the best of everyone and every situation. Sometimes I envy her that. Because the way I see it, we're only a few steps away from disaster, Doc. And it's my job to keep all of us from taking those steps." I craned my neck. Twenty-five minutes.

"Can you be more specific?"

"All right, what about the time I tangled with that wraith-bug. We had 38 minutes to get the jumper through the gate. Elizabeth didn't want to do anything until she had all the facts, and that cost us time. Sometimes you can't be that precise. You've got to take your best guess and go with it."

"Any other instances?"

"Well, then there was the time with Steve."

"Who's Steve?"

"You know, Steve. The Wraith we captured."

"You named a Wraith Steve?"

"Sure. Why? Do you think Mike would have been better?"

She shook her head and jotted something in a notebook she carried with her. Looked like it said, "Takes refuge in sarcasm." Figures. But hey, we'd frittered away another ten minutes! Fifteen to go.

"So, what about... Steve?"

"The Hoffans had a drug they wanted to test against the Wraith, and we had a Wraith that was going to die anyway. Sounded like a match made in heaven to me."

"But?" Ten minutes.

"But Elizabeth was not happy about violating the Geneva Convention." This time I shook my head. "The Wraith certainly weren't signatories, and like I said, he was going to die anyway."

"So what happened?"

"Well, you read the mission reports, so you know about the 50 percent mortality rate for the Hoffans. Steve died, too." I was silent for a minute, thinking. We didn't come out of it unscathed, either. Beckett lost someone he was starting to care deeply about, and he also felt the weight of those thousands of deaths. He'd almost pushed himself beyond the point of no return trying to atone for them. I didn't remember most of it, having been pretty damn sick from food poisoning, but I'd heard about it afterwards. "Six minutes to go," I muttered under my breath.

"What was that?" asked Heightmeyer.

"It's amazing how decisions like these weight the heaviest on those who are just trying to do what they think is right. That's what I wanted to spare Elizabeth from when I busted out of quarantine."

"I'm not sure what you mean." Three minutes.

"Look, it was an emergency situation. No matter what we did, some more people were going to die until we figured out what was going on. The question was who. We might have taken Petersen out before he got to the mess hall. Should it have been him? Or should it have been those he came into contact with during his wandering? I think the decision about Steve and the Geneva Convention threw Elizabeth a little. As ranking military officer, this time I wanted to make the decision myself, to give her a little respite."

As the clock ticked, Heightmeyer looked at me. There were twenty seconds left to go when she asked, "Major, what are your personal feelings about Dr. Weir?"

Time! "Sorry, Dr, Heightmeyer, I think my time is up. I don't want you to keep your next patient waiting." As I left her office, I felt a little bad about doing that to her. But confidentiality or no, her question wasn't one I was ready to answer. Even to myself.

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A/N: I don't know if military medicine really works that way. Probably not. But I do know that their docs shouldn't have been helping in interrogations. :-(

And for those of you that asked, Asclepius is pronounced Uh-SKLEE-pee-us