And you're getting another chapter now. Aren't you lucky? Honestly, I have this and another chapter written and posted elsewhere. But I lowered the rating so I could post it here. Thank you to everybody who reviewed and read this. You guys rock.

xoxoxoxo

"Coma? What do you mean coma?" John whispered.

"It's very unusual," Carson told him. "According to his brain scans, it's as if he is experiencing dreams. The brain scans show patterns that are very similar to the patterns exhibited during R.E.M. sleep. However, there are other signs, and all I can tell you is that, for the moment, Rodney is in a coma."

His voice was expressionless, but they could see the wealth of emotion in his eyes. After all, Carson had known Rodney for years and the scientist was his best friend.

John sank down onto one of the chairs, his face in his hands.

"OhGodOhGodOhGodOhGodOhGod," he just kept repeating over and over again. The rest of Rodney's team looked at each other in shock.

"How can that be?" Teyla whispered. "He is uninjured."

"Aye, we couldn't find a scratch on him," Carson agreed.

"Excuse me," a voice interrupted. They turned to see Sonider standing behind them, looking apologetic and concerned. "I think I can help you."

John looked at him warily. What was going on?

"Dr. Mendesa, our physicist, is dying," he told the group. "He was going to return to our home world this morning, but last night…" he got no further. John had jumped up and now had his hand wrapped around the alien's throat and had him pinned against the wall.

"What did he do?" he snarled. "What did he do to my husband?'

"John! Calm down!" Elizabeth shouted, pulling at John's arm. "Let him go Colonel! That's an order! This isn't going to help Rodney."

Teyla and Aiden stepped forward and pulled him off the Thesarian. Sonider gasped and drew in huge gulps of air. Elizabeth rushed forward to help him, but he waved her off.

"I am alright," he assured her.

"I am so sorry for the Colonel's actions. I…"

"It is understandable," he told her. "But perhaps in the future, you could restrain yourself Colonel Sheppard-McKay."

"Just tell me what Mendesa did to Rodney," John growled.

"It was unintentional, I assure you. Last night, Dr. Mendesa slipped into a coma in his sleep. If you remember yesterday, Dr. McKay-Sheppard felt Mendesa's emotions and tiredness. The same thing has happened again, I'm afraid. Because Dr. McKay-Sheppard is a close to Mendesa, like last night, his mind linked with Mendesa's and he slipped into a coma also. It is hard to explain…"

"How come none of your people are in comas?" John asked, still glaring at the alien. "What is this? Some sort of attack?"

"No!" Sonider assured him. "Remember, last night I told you that we are all trained at childhood to block the telepathic energy that is often projected when we are dying. Your people do not have that ability. That is why you feel so tired when you are working on the Doctor," he told Carson. "You are feeling the effects of the telepathic energy that Mendesa is projecting now that his mental control is slipping."

"Just tell me the bottom line," John said, standing close to Sonider and staring him straight in the eye. "What is going to happen to Rodney? When will he wake up?"

Sonider sighed. "Colonel, you don't understand. Their minds are linked. There is a reason for it. It is not random. Unless Dr. McKay-Sheppard can break that bond, and wake up on his own, he will die with Mendesa."

John had to sit down before he fell down. His head swam and his vision blurred. No, he has to be wrong. Rodney can't die. He was as healthy as any of them! Alright, he had higher stress levels and a higher caffeine intake, but that was it!

Elizabeth sat beside him, and placed a comforting hand on his arm.

"What can we do to help?" she asked Sonider, taking control of the situation. John just wasn't up to it right now.

"There is nothing you can do, I'm afraid. Dr. Mendesa is too ill to be moved, but even if we could, I don't think distance would break this bond. It is one of the strongest that I have ever seen."

"Why Rodney?" John whispered.

"I do not know," Sonider told him kindly. "They became good friends during our time here, but even this does not explain the depth of the bond. Unless…"

"Unless what?" John asked.

"Tell me, what did you dream of last night?" Sonider asked him.

"What did I dream of?" John asked, anger in his voice. "Rodney is in there in a coma and you're asking me what I dreamed about? What the fuck is the matter with you?" he yelled.

"Colonel," Elizabeth reprimanded him sharply.

"Please, just tell me your dream if you remember it Colonel," Sonider asked.

John was angry at Sonider for wasting time, but tried to remember his dream anyway. It had been a good one, that he knew, but he just couldn't remember the details. So much had happened since he woke up, but barely two hours had past. Finally, he remembered.

"I was fishing with my dad," he explained. "He was home on leave, and he took me up to our cabin on the lake; just the two of us. I was about nine. I always remember it as one of the best weeks of my life. That was before I developed a personality of my own, of course, and started clashing with him on everything."

"Hmm," Sonider said. He turned to Elizabeth. "Tell me please, Doctor Beckett, what did you dream of last night?" Elizabeth cast him a wary look, but told him.

"It was when I twelve and was spending the summer with my cousins."

"Is that a happy memory for you?" he asked her.

"Of course it was," she told him. "We were very close. Still are, in fact."

"So, you dreamed of when you were a kid too?" John asked.

"I dreamt of the time when I was thirteen and my parents brought us to New York on holiday," Aiden spoke up.

"And I dreamt of the time I spent with my father when I was just a child," Teyla told him.

"I had a dream about my dad and the time we spent together before he died," Carson told them.

"I'm sensing a pattern here," John said.

"Were all these dreams memories of events that actually took place?" Sonider asked them. They all nodded.

"Hmm, I think I may know what is wrong. Colonel Sheppard-McKay, you know the Doctor better than anyone. What was his childhood like?"

"Rodney never talks about it," John said, a sinking feeling settling in his gut. "I got the impression that it wasn't the easiest of times for him."

"I thought so. I do not know if you are aware, but Dr. Mendesa's area of expertise is not only physics. He is also a doctor and a leading psychologist amongst our people. His specialty is child psychology."

"And you think Rodney's past has something to do with his coma?" John guessed.

"I do. We all have moments in our lives that define us, and who we are. Unfortunately for some of us, these events are not positive ones. Perhaps the events that defined Dr. McKay-Sheppard's life are such. If Dr. Mendesa were awake, he would be trying to help him work through this experience. Perhaps his subconscious is reaching out to the pain in the Doctor's past, and is trying to help him."

"So, you think that they are in Rodney's memories? The ones that he won't even talk to me about?" John asked.

"I am almost certain of it," Sonider told him.

"Do you think their dreams are linked?" Elizabeth asked him.

"It is possible, but I do not know for certain."

"So, through no fault of his own, Rodney's crappy past is what is keeping him in a coma," John growled.

"It is through no fault of Dr. Mendesa's either," Sonider told him mildly. "He is in a coma, but he is inherently a good person and always tries to help people if he can. His subconscious mind is reaching out and trying to help someone in pain."

"So, Rodney has to work through this if he is to wake up?"

"Yes," Sonider told him.

"How the hell is he supposed to do that?" John yelled. "By reliving it? If it was traumatic enough to follow him for twenty years, then how is reliving that nightmare going help him get past it?"

"I did not say that it would be easy Colonel."

"It's fucking impossible!"

"Well I'm sorry, but the only way I can think of to break the bond is for Dr. McKay-Sheppard to work through it. He should wake up on his own then. I'm sorry, but that's all I can do," Sonider told him and started back inside to tend to his friend.

"Wait, that's not good enough!" John started to follow him, but Elizabeth held him back.

"John, he is doing everything he can. It is not his fault," she told him gently but firmly.

"Rodney won't know what's going on," John told her, the distress evident in his voice. "He won't know what to do. He'll just be trapped in this nightmare, and won't know why. He hasn't been sleeping well. He's been having nightmares. And I'm guessing now that he's stuck in this one!"

"Colonel, I'm sorry. Truly I am," Carson told him. "We are doing all we can for Rodney. Would you like to see him?" he asked.

John didn't need to be asked twice. He walked past them all and made a bee-line for Rodney's bed, where he was hooked up to half a dozen different tubes and monitors. One nurse tried to stop him, but Carson shook his head at her, and she let John past. He sat down on a chair beside the bed and held onto Rodney's hand.

"Hey Babe," he said. "You gotta wake up. You're causing me grey hairs, and that's just not acceptable. You know how much I love my hair," he joked, but there was no response from Rodney or any of his monitors. John's heart sunk a little further. It had been a foolish hope that he would respond in any way, but he had hoped anyway. "Listen Rodney," he whispered, scooting closer. "You've gotta wake up. Work through it, whatever you need to do, but… I need you here, so come back to me, ok?"

Again, there was no response. Over the next few hours, they tried, but Rodney didn't respond to Teyla, or Elizabeth, or Ford or Carson either. Carson couldn't even say for definite if Rodney could hear them. After a while, John stopped talking and just rested his head on his arms. He was tired; probably because of the telepathic energy that Mendesa was exhibiting, but he couldn't sleep.

Rodney looked so pale and still just lying there on the bed, it was unnatural, and for the first time in a long time, John felt tears prick at his eyes.

The other end of the infirmary had quietened down also. There were no longer half a dozen Thesarians hanging around the bed and waiting room, and there was only one doctor left monitoring the patient. John watched as one of Becket's nurses walked past the bed on her way to the supply closet, and stumble suddenly, putting her hand on the bed to steady herself.. The Thesarian doctor, Lokin, jumped up and rushed over to her.

"Be careful," he told her, not unkindly. "The telepathic energy is strongest here, and you probably feel very sleepy." The nurse nodded. ""Have a care," Lokin said. "Do not touch Dr. Mendesa. It is quite possible that you could be pulled into the coma also if you did. His mind is quite powerful, even in this state."

The nurse edged her way around the bed, careful not to touch any part of it, and John had to laugh a little. She looked so scared, as if being inside Rodney's mind was a bad thing. Well, it would be sometimes, especially when they are running short of coffee, but…

Wait… Be pulled into the coma with them? Be pulled into Rodney's mind? That… that was a possibility. One of the things that upset John the most was that Rodney didn't know what was going on, and therefore couldn't help himself. If he could somehow talk to Rodney…

John was no fool. He knew it was a risk to do what he was thinking. He could be put into a coma and die with the other two if he couldn't help Rodney. But, there was no life for him without his husband. He knew that he would never be happy without him. Besides, Rodney would do it for him, without a moment's hesitation.

John put his head back down into the pillow of his arms, but he kept one open. He watched for the next hour as the Dr. Lokin took readings and tried to help Mendesa. Finally, he looked around at the quiet infirmary. He saw John apparently sleeping beside Rodney. The nurses that regularly checked on Rodney were not there at the moment. The infirmary was very quiet, and he needed a break.

"Sonider," he spoke into his com link.

"Yes Lokin?" Sonider answered.

"I am going to the mess hall to take a break. I need some food and a drink," Lokin replied.

"Very well," Sonider replied. "I am sending down another Doctor to look after Mendesa."

"Shall I wait for him?" Lokin asked. "The infirmary is quiet. Colonel Sheppard-McKay is asleep and there are no Atlantean medical personnel around.

"The replacement will be there shortly," Sonider told him. "You may leave if you wish."

"Thank you Sir," Lokin replied, cutting off the com link. He checked Dr. Mendesa once more, and saw no change. Sighing, he cast another look around the infirmary, and saw nothing had changed. He wrote something on the chart on the end of Mendesa's bed and left.

As soon as he was out the door, John sprang up. He had been ready to push him out of the door before the end! John quickly made his way down to Dr. Mendesa's bed, and without hesitation leaned down and took Mendesa's hand in his own.

For a moment nothing happened. Then, his head began to swim and his knees gave out. He sank to the ground, dizziness overcoming him.

He was unconscious before he hit the floor.

xoxoxoxoxoxo

And I think I'm going to leave it there. Mean, aren't I? I hope it wasn't too confusing as an explanation. I'll update again next week when I come back from my holiday.

But if you just can't wait to read the next chapter, then you can check out my livejournal. The link is on my bio-page. Or, check out McKaySheppard livejournal community or my Wraithbait account.

You know the drill. Review please!

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