As it turned out, Elizabeth came down to meet us in the infirmary. She appeared interested in what Carson had to say but not willing to hope too much. Ronon and Rodney showed up a few minutes later. Rodney slouched against the wall and Ronon stood there with his arms across his chest. Both men were obviously struggling with the same emotions as Elizabeth.
Carson began to explain his idea, but as was typical for him, Rodney soon interrupted. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I see where you're going with this. If we can artificially create the pheromone, it might be able to confuse them enough to leave us alone." Yeah, right. As if we could synthesize the compound just like that.
"Aye, that might work."
"Well, that's an excellent plan, Carson!"
Carson knew just as well as I did that it wouldn't be that simple. "I wish it was!"
Worf -- oops, I mean Ronon -- spoke up for the first time. "You can't do that, Doc?" He spoke calmly, but there was suppressed anger in his voice, his eyes, and his clenched fists. At whom it was directed, I couldn't say.
Carson explained why the idea wouldn't work. "Well then, that's a terrible plan, Carson!" Good old Rodney. But I had to admit that I was confused, too. Where was this going?
"There's only one person on this base that wouldn't need the artificial pheromone," Carson said earnestly.
"Sheppard?" Elizabeth was skeptical.
I'm not sure if you noticed, but um, Colonel Sheppard's not feeling very well!" Rodney snapped. Behind the sarcasm, I could hear the pain and worry. I was beginning to understand why no one had killed him yet. Underneath the gruff exterior, he was fiercely protective of those he cared about. I bet he would rather give up his last powerbar than admit it, though.
Carson gave Rodney an exasperated glare. "We stopped the inhibitor. It was able to keep him lucid."
"I thought its effectiveness had worn off," said Elizabeth, puzzled.
Carson hesitated and shot me a glance. "True. But I believe if we give him a massive dose, it might make him clear-headed enough.
Wow. That was a huge deductive leap. John had continued to deteriorate after we stopped the inhibitor. We had no idea if the virus had mutated or even if John's body could tolerate the drug at all. Rodney seemed to have realized that, too. "Won't giving him the natural inhibitor, like..."
"Kill him?" Carson finished grimly. "Yes, it's a definite possibility. Even if I knew for certain, though, I'd be tempted to offer him one last hour of lucidity. He again looked defensively at me.
I'm sure Elizabeth saw the nonverbal communication, but she didn't comment on it. "Do it," was all she said.
"Aye. We'll need about thirty minutes to set things up, then we'll administer the inhibitor. We'll let you know when we're ready." Elizabeth seemed to understand that Carson wanted to talk to me privately, and she led the unlikely pair of Ronon and Rodney out of the infirmary.
I spent a long minute just looking down at John's comatose body. He was breathing a little more slowly now, and his human skin had turned sickly pale. "What do you think?" Carson asked at last. "Should we do this? I'm not exactly objective anymore."
"Neither am I," I admitted, noting absently that he'd switched back from "me" to "us." I wasn't sure that was a bad thing, either. I remembered John's plea to help him retain some humanity if it was clear he was changing beyond hope of recover. As I looked down at the form lying restrained and motionless on the bed, I knew that the only way to give him that would be to allow him one last chance to save himself.
"If we don't do this, we'll be giving up." I pointed towards the monitor and the now-diminishing heart rate. "Because either way, I don't think he has much more than an hour left."
What seemed like ages ago, John told me that he had put his fate in our hands. Now we had no right not to put it back in his own.
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John stirred a bit, and the flicker of motion caught my eye. Carson saw it too, and he nodded. "I think we're ready. You turned off the pentobarbital drip about twenty minutes ago? That should be enough time." He uncapped a syringe of interferon and poked the needle into an IV access port. "Can you bring Dr. Weir back in, please?"
Elizabeth was sitting in the hallway, in the area that had become an unofficial waiting room. She sprang up when she saw me, and her shoulders relaxed slightly when I gave a little nod. Once back inside the infirmary, we saw that John was already lucid. He grimaced, though, as if he was in some pain.
Elizabeth walked right up to the bedside. "John? Hey. You're in the infirmary."
"Sorry about the headache," Carson added. "It's a side effect of the inhibitor."
"Did I hurt anyone?" That was so typical of John. He tends to put everyone else's welfare ahead of his own.
"No, not seriously."
John paused, then asked almost indignantly. "Did Ronon shoot me?"
The first glimmer of humor appeared on Elizabeth's face. "You had it coming. Look, we don't have a lot of time. How would you like to go on a mission?"
The colonel listened as Elizabeth and Carson explained the plan. "Let's do it," he finally said.
Carson nodded. "Assemble the rest of his team. We'll meet you in the gateroom as soon as possible."
As Elizabeth left, I helped John sit up. "Take it slowly. Your balance is probably shot from the drugs."
"I don't have the luxury of taking it slowly, doc," he said softly.
It still took us longer than we wanted to get John ready. We didn't apply any monitoring devices (what would we do with the information?), but we still needed to help him with things as simple as buttoning his shirt. He had lost some fine motor control and was clumsy. On closer examination, his fingers were beginning to fuse. I had to suppress a shudder.
John insisted on wearing a hooded cloak. He was understandably self-conscious about his appearance, and his eyes pleaded with us to understand. I wasn't sure where to find something like that, but Judy saved the day. She blushed a little and declared that she used it for jogging in cold weather. At the same time, she folded her arms over her chest as if daring me to laugh. No danger of that, though! I was just happy John was thin enough for it to fit, even if it was a little short.
Finally everything was ready. We had used about twenty minutes of John's projected hour of rationality. Carson grimly set his watch, then tried to usher John out. John flinched at the attempted touch, and a profound expression of pain briefly crossed Carson's face. As the two of them walked out, he looked over his shoulder. "Keep an eye on the place," Carson said, and then they were gone.
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The next eighteen hours were a blur. Fifty minutes after they gated out, the team returned to Atlantis with one container of eggs and an unconscious John Sheppard. Ronon had to shoot him again when the inhibitor wore off. Carson disappeared into the lab with the eggs, and I did my best to stabilize John's condition. He was in pretty bad shape this time. The metamorphosis had progressed in spite of the inhibitor, and his body was shutting down. I finally decided to re-anesthetize him to slow down the replication of the virus. The coma might kill him, but the conversion process definitely would kill him.
At one point, Carson called Dr. Biro into the lab and the two of them sequestered themselves for several hours. Hopefully that was a good sign, indicating that the treatment development was going well. I didn't really know what was going on, though, and it was the one time I regretted not becoming a lab rat myself.
This time we had to put John on a ventilator. His heart rate and blood pressure continued to drop. I didn't want to think about where this might end, so I took refuge in adjusting the settings of the machines. Unlike my father, I'm not a very religious man. I keep some of the traditions, but I certainly haven't prayed on a regular basis. Until now, that is.
After what seemed like years, Carson and Dr. Biro emerged from the lab. Carson looked like an intern who hadn't slept for three days, but he carried a syringe full of clear liquid. "Is that it?" I asked.
"Aye, that's it. I'm less sure about it than I would like. We couldn't use a mouse retrovirus vector because of biochemical incompatibility..." I understood maybe one word out of five from Carson's explanation, but in the end it didn't really matter. This new, completely untested treatment was our version of Flutie's Hail Mary. It was an analogy I thought John would appreciate.
Carson took a deep breath and administered the stem cells. "We may not know anything for awhile," he said. "Why don't you go get some rest? I'll hold down the fort." Now this was a familiar battle. Both of us are stubborn men, unwilling to admit to personal vulnerabilities or perceived weakness. The problem isn't our fundamental differences, I thought suddenly. Our problem is that we're too much alike.
"Yeah, right," I drawled. "I want to see this through as much as you do." He started to protest again. "And, since I technically no longer work for you, I'm not going to follow that instruction."
Once again, I couldn't read the expression on Carson's face. "Suit yourself," he said with a shrug and retreated back to the lab.
I did manage to catch a brief nap as I kept vigil. Judy promised to wake me if she noticed any change at all. We didn't have too long to wait. About ninety minutes later she gently shook me. Startled, I jumped, but then I saw she was grinning. "Come take a look," she whispered.
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Carson and I stepped out from behind the screens that were surrounding John's bed. "It's not going to happen overnight, you can bet on that," he said. "But the transformation has begun to reverse itself." Elizabeth, Rodney, Ronon, and Teyla looked stunned but thrilled. Caldwell -- not so much.
As usual, Rodney had to get the last word. "Well done, Carson, for once again elevating medicine to an actual science!"
"Well, thank you, Rodney!" Carson retorted. But he gave a small smile.
Elizabeth sighed with relief. "We'll all finally be able to get some sleep. Keep me posted."
"Aye."
Elizabeth and Caldwell left, but the rest of the team didn't budge. They stood shoulder to shoulder with an air of defiance. Mutiny in the infirmary?
Ronon, looming over everyone, spoke first. "We might, uh..."
"Stay awhile," continued Teyla firmly. I had to hide a grin.
Rodney wimped out a bit. "Well, if that's all right."
Carson looked at them, most likely recognizing a battle he wouldn't win. "Of course," he said mildly, like it had been his idea all along. He walked away, and the team crowded into the space he had just vacated.
On a sudden hunch, I followed Carson. He went neither to the lab nor to his office. Instead, he ducked through a half-open door into an area we had designated as a medical library. I peeked around the corner in time to see him collapse into a chair. He held one trembling hand up to his face and covered his eyes. Then he leaned over and I could see him begin to weep.
I knew exactly how he felt.
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That night I dreamed of my father. The two of us were sitting in his study drinking tea, and I haltingly told him everything that had happened over the last few days. "I'm not sure what to do," I confessed. "What Carson originally did goes against everything I believe in. Everything you taught me. And it lead to the death of a young girl! Yet, similar methods saved the life of a good man. I'm having trouble dealing with the duality."
Rabbi Schwartz nodded. "You're concentrating on the method, the tool, but you're neglecting the wielder. Take fire. Man can use it to bring warmth and life, but also death and destruction. It's only a difference in intention."
"But the road to hell," I protested, falling back onto a cliche.
"Yes, yes, I know what it's paved with," he said impatiently. "You think too much in black and white. I think that's why you became a surgeon. Cut out the bad tissue, leave in the good. But you should trust yourself in dealing with moral ambiguities. Your judgement is sound."
At that point I woke up, and I knew what I had to do.
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To be concluded