AN:Dr. Dredd, I have to laugh at your review. There was a point around the third month where I was in tears asking myself why I'd ever EVER wanted to have a baby when I was pregnant with my first. Hugging the toliet every morning for a few months will do that to you. And I'd gone into it wanting the whole experience, so imagine what John must be feeling, poor man.
And, really, I'm just so touched with the reviews. There are so many wonderful comments and I find myself laughing and smiling, and being touched by it all and I know Shelly's the same. Belisse, Laura-Trekkie, Linnzi, rogue, nebby, highonscifi, Lilas, purpleyin, red tigress, Labrat, sheppardster, Jules, Titan, Harper's Pixie, MacArtney, parisindy, LTwill, Puddles - gosh I hope I got everyone. Thank you thank you thankyou!
Not the Daddy…part 7
John was only vaguely aware of being lifted to a gurney and reassuring hands on his shoulder as the pain ripped at him inside of his gut. "What's happening?" he moaned, not understanding what was causing this newest symptom. He'd been sick, but nothing like this before now.
Beckett's worried face breeched his line of vision, as blurry as it was, from him squinting his eyes against the pain. "I don't know, son. It might not even be your pain."
Suddenly, Rodney's breathy voice bumbled into Sheppard's senses. "What's wrong with him? I heard the call on the comm -"
A shot of lightening vibrated through John in a moment of clarity that startled him long enough to catch a breather from the coursing pain. Trying to get his thoughts across while he could, he gasped "The baby! Something's wrong with the baby."
He couldn't remember saying it earlier, nor did he recall Beckett only seconds ago saying that the pain probably wasn't his own. He was too lost in the stabbing hurt that had become his world.
John fumbled for McKay's arm. "Get Ronon, bring her back." He struggled to catch his breath as another sharp pain curled in the pit of his belly, causing him to double over on his side, cradling the source of the agony, and crying out. "God damn it!" He shouted the anger aloud. This wasn't his baby, this wasn't his fault. He didn't do anything, but he was suffering anyway, and it was starting to piss him off. He felt like the lion with the thorn in his paw, except this hurt a heck of a lot more than a thorn.
McKay hesitated, staring uncertainly at Sheppard's form writhing on the bed, trying to escape the pain he was in. "And what good is that going to do?" he asked, having to break back into a slow jog as the techs wheeled the gurney around the corner and angled for the infirmary door.
"If something is wrong with the baby, we need her here," snapped Beckett. "Maybe we can help, but if anything, we need to know what this bond will do under the worst of situations, Rodney."
"Worst of situations?" echoed McKay sarcastically. "If she loses the baby, then Sheppard's free, what's bad about that?"
"And if she is bleeding internally, and dies, what about Sheppard?" Carson asked hurriedly, while taking Sheppard's shoulders and lifting him to the exam bed as the techs moved his legs. "Did you think of that?"
From the sudden lack of color in McKay's face, John figured he hadn't. For that matter, neither had he. Another knife-edge sharp pain twisted him into a ball, and he pushed one hand at McKay, while holding the other against the pain. "Go!" he urged weakly.
"Easy lad, we're going to take care of you," promised Beckett.
He felt his arm being tugged straight and felt them prepping for an IV line, while someone wiped the gathering beads of sweat from his forehead. He was practically panting from the pain, and could feel the strands of his hair sticking to his head. Finally, he was lost in it, and he felt himself falling into darkness…
oOo
McKay had radioed Elizabeth and filled her in on what had happened since they'd rushed Sheppard from her office. He'd no sooner finished then she ordered him to go, which brought him to where he was now. He'd flown the jumper haphazardly, earning worried glares from Ronon and Teyla. He'd huffed something along the lines of 'any landing that you walk away from is a good landing' and stormed out of the rear hatch.
Beckett had brought up a side of the bond that he hadn't considered, which only made him more irate. Why didn't he anticipate the severity of the bond? He'd been so wrapped up in the humorous side of Sheppard's predicament that he hadn't used his brains to realize all the ramifications, and he always used his brains.
Dreya's people weren't totally third world, but who could say how advanced their medical capabilities were. What was the mortality rate for expectant mothers? What would serious complications do to Sheppard? If John was any indication, something was very wrong with the baby.
Striding up to Dreya's house, he raised his hand to knock, pulling back in surprise when his knuckles came down against air as the door was yanked open.
Hamas stepped forward, latching on to McKay's arm and pulling him around.
"Hey!" Rodney managed to protest being manhandled.
Ronon and Teyla took a threatening step towards the Eradian.
"You are here because of the bond. Dreya began to bleed an hour ago, and is in great pain. She's been taken to the medical center. You wish to go to her?" He rapped out the words without slowing, still pulling McKay along, which in turn pulled Ronon and Teyla as they followed, albeit by less physical tethers.
"The baby?" asked Teyla from behind McKay.
Hamas shook his head sorrowfully. "We don't know, but when I left to come here and wait for your arrival, the midwife said the situation was dire."
"Take us to her," ordered Ronon.
The rapid pace to the medical center had McKay breathing hard. They entered an arched doorway, and a friendly older woman looked up from a scarred wooden desk. Her lips tightened when she saw who had arrived, and merely pointed down the hallway.
Hamas jerked his head, and guided McKay in that direction. "You should have brought the other…Sheppard," he finally spoke, admonishing them.
"He collapsed in pain, Hamas," Teyla said tightly. "We did not know the nature of his condition."
"Besides, I wouldn't hand over my cat to your medical science," bitched Rodney. "We're taking Dreya back with us, like we should've last time." He glared pointedly back at Ronon and Teyla.
Hamas remained quiet, but the scowl wasn't lost on McKay. He stopped at a door, and pushed it open slowly, peeking in. Whatever he saw must have been okay, because he pushed it open the rest of the way and waved them in.
Even McKay was hit by the seriousness upon seeing Dreya. She lay sallow faced and drawn in a bed, her skin as white as the muslin sheets. She was awake, but clearly despondent.
Rodney wasn't any good in comforting people. Look what happened to Gall – he'd been so good he'd all but held the gun to Brendan's head. He looked forlornly towards Teyla, silently urging her to step forward and handle this.
Teyla didn't need the urging. Being leader of her people had required a natural empathy for others, and it surged to the surface at the sight of the stricken woman. "Dreya, we are sorry about the baby," she whispered, moving closer and sitting stiffly in a chair near the front of Dreya's bed.
Dreya remained stone-faced, staring at the ceiling.
"If there's anything we can do?" added Teyla sympathetically. Women in her village had lost babies, and she knew the grieving took time. Mothers would speak of the empty ache even months, years, after the loss. A hole in their hearts that nothing could change.
The Eradian woman didn't look, but began to speak, quietly. "I must be with Sheppard. The loss must be dealt with together, or he could die."
The severity of her warning would've called for emotion. Something. But, she remained emotionless, as if already dead.
Gently, Teyla reached for her hand, and held it. "We'll take you to him." She turned to Hamas and asked, "Can she travel?"
Hamas shrugged. "I'll ask the midwife." He slipped out the door, leaving awkward silence in his wake.
Rodney moved over towards Ronon, feeling very uncomfortable and wishing they were back, but at the same time feeling the first real edges of regret. What a mess, he thought with annoyance. It had seemed funny, even inconvenient, but now more than anything it was depressing. He didn't want this woman's last connection to her dead husband to be gone. He didn't want her to hurt, and he didn't want Sheppard to die. This sucked.
Ronon looked barely civil. McKay glanced at Teyla, and made a decision. "We're going back to the Jumper. We'll fly it here, so she can be moved easily."
Teyla nodded, and went back to murmuring to Dreya. McKay couldn't make out the words, but whatever she was saying, it seemed to be breaking through, because he could see Dreya's face beginning to crumple.
"Let's get out of here," McKay grunted abruptly, pulling at Ronon's arm. At the lidded look, he dropped his hand, and stalked out the room; let the brute follow if he wanted.
Apparently, Ronon did, because as McKay breeched the door, the man was right behind. Once they were out in the street, Rodney tried to defuse the growing heat he could feel radiating from the bigger man. "It's not her fault." Rodney couldn't believe he was defending her.
"It is," argued Ronon. "She shouldn't have done that to him. Now he's in danger."
"Come on," snapped McKay. "Sheppard thrives on danger. Most people eat their Wheaties, but not Sheppard. He scarfs down danger like it's his last meal."
"Wheaties?" echoed Ronon imperturbably.
McKay stopped and made a small square with his fingers. "It's a cereal on our planet. Dry, full of healthy stuff, tastes like crap," he dropped his hands in disgust. "Just…forget it. The point being Sheppard isn't pissed at her, so you shouldn't be either."
"If Sheppard didn't mind being a meal for the wraith, would you mind?" Ronon rumbled back.
McKay rolled his eyes and his head, before fixing a dirty look on Ronon. "That's not the same thing."
"Sure it is." Ronon said simply.
Rodney threw his hands up and retorted, "No, it's not."
"Yes it is."
Ronon had this annoying habit of acting like a mountain. You knew you could shove and argue and talk till you were blue in the face, and you wouldn't move the Satedan. And maybe…maybe he was partially right.
Irritably, McKay let his hands drop, and turned back towards the Jumper. "Let's just get her back to Atlantis and save Sheppard's life before we go and try to worry about the psychological side. I'm not a shrink, and neither are you. Leave that mind stuff to the experts."
Ronon followed, and though the edge of his anger seemed blunted, he still hounded McKay all the way back to the ship.
"On Sateda we had to learn about the mind as well as the body, isn't it that way for your people?"
Rodney flexed his jaw and hoped that some day Sheppard would be alive to thank him for this…
oOo
The trip back to Atlantis was as depressing as the whole situation. Dreya had broken out of her emotionless state and wept in Teyla's arms for most of the short flight. Hamas had threatened war between their people if anything happened to Dreya and Ronon promised Hamas that it went both ways. If Sheppard died, the Eradian people would regret ever knowing the people of Atlantis. McKay had the distinct impression that he'd lost control.
A medical team greeted the Jumper, and Teyla helped Dreya onto the waiting gurney. Beckett wasn't present, and that worried McKay. If he wasn't here, that meant he was with Sheppard, and if he was still with Sheppard that meant that the colonel wasn't doing so hot.
Cursing the whole screwed up situation, he stormed after the medical team, not bothering to seek out Elizabeth. She'd probably be keeping apprised anyway.
Arriving at the infirmary, he sought the bed containing Sheppard. Relieved, he found the colonel dozing on his side. He looked pale, but he wasn't curled into a ball any longer, and he didn't seem to be in pain. There was an IV running into his right hand, and a blanket pulled up to his shoulders, exposing just enough to see they'd gotten him changed into scrubs. While he didn't look dead, he did look haggard.
Beckett greeted the gurney, and they rushed Dreya off, amidst her protests and insistence on seeing Sheppard. Sheppard didn't even stir, so either the bond didn't work so well in that way, or Carson had drugged him good. McKay was betting it was the drugs.
Sighing with relief that, at least for now, disaster was averted, he slumped tiredly over to Sheppard's side. He dropped into the chair that was always around when Sheppard, or any of his team landed as guests here. Rodney had always just taken the chairs presence for granted until he noticed when Bates had been beaten to a pulp that there wasn't a chair. No one to sit by Bates, and that had made him feel guilty and pissed for weeks, and he didn't even know why.
McKay allowed his mind to drift, losing himself in theories over a new piece of equipment they'd discovered yesterday. He knew he should probably go to his lab. He'd be more use there, than here, but he never could seem to do much in times like these. He thought back to the recent time when Sheppard had been changing into the iratus bug. They'd congregated in the mess hall, doing nothing but sitting, because nothing else seemed like the thing to do. Teyla had gone with Dreya and Carson, and McKay guessed Ronon had taken up the chore of debriefing Elizabeth about their trip to Eradia. He'd have to thank the moose later. Despite his mind running a hundred miles an hour, his head began to droop, and soon he dropped into an uneasy doze.
oOo
Sheppard drifted awake, the only remaining echoes of pain being a vague soreness in his abdomen. A big improvement to the gut wrenching agony of before. He blinked against the bright light of the infirmary, and looked around. McKay was hunched over, snoring peacefully in the chair next to his bed, and he saw the back of Beckett a couple of beds away. He and Teyla were talking quietly, and there was someone in the bed, but he couldn't see who it was.
He stretched carefully, and the sound of his movement drew the eyes his way. Beckett turned, and upon noticing Sheppard was awake, grinned and started towards him. Teyla followed, and their absence from the other bed exposed that it was Dreya. She seemed to be sleeping.
Sheppard almost hated to ask, but he did anyway. "The baby?"
Carson grimaced, and Sheppard steeled himself for bad news.
"It's a bit of a surprise, Colonel. She was pregnant with twins, and as is often the case, one of them didn't make it. That was the pain you felt. For now, her body has miscarried one of the twins, but the other is still hanging on."
John cycled through sorrow, surprise, and a mixture of relief and stress. So, he was still basically 'pregnant' then. He didn't know how to feel about the loss of the twin. It wasn't his – yet, he felt…he couldn't quite describe it. It was as if part of him had been taken away, and that didn't make any sense at all.
Teyla placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Something people had been doing to him a lot. "It is okay to feel sorrow, Colonel."
"Why would I be sad?" he retorted a little too quickly, a little too harshly. "It wasn't even mine."
Teyla narrowed his eyes in that way that made John know he wasn't fooling anyone. "As you say," she replied.
Her voice held this bit of tenderness, and support, and a refusal to let him escape from reality, that he felt tears prickle the edge of his eyelids and suddenly angry, he swiped his hands across his face to dispel the offending things. He wasn't sad, and it wasn't his. Period. Now he just had to figure out whom he was trying to convince, them, or him?
"When Dreya wakes up, she needs to talk to you," interrupted Beckett. "Do you feel up to it?"
God bless Beckett. "Yeah," said John, his voice rougher than he'd thought it'd be.
"Then rest, Colonel. There's nothing else you can do now. Later we'll see about getting you released since the crisis appears to be over for now."
Another reassuring pat, that was fast becoming annoying, and the two left him alone. He found his hand drifting oddly down to his belly. It hadn't changed, and he knew it wouldn't, but it felt funny. Full, kind of, and sore. Despite the loss of one baby, another still was fighting to stay alive, and he found himself rooting for the little squirt despite the predicament it put him in. Shit. He was so not going to think about this kid like that. It wasn't his, it was some dead guys, and if he let himself get involved, what would he do when the wraith culled their planet again?
Sheppard lost himself in his thoughts, and wasn't sure how long he'd been lying there just thinking. The soft moan from the other occupant in the infirmary brought his attention outward instead of inward. The chair where McKay had been was now empty, and that kind of surprised him, because he hadn't heard anything. He must have slept and not realized it.
He turned towards her bed, and watched as she finished waking up, and realized where she was. John wondered how much Beckett had told her. Did she know she'd lost one child but that there was hope for the other? Did she think or feel Sheppard's mixture of anger, regret – a strong sense of intrusion. He gazed at her and couldn't help but realize just what her impetuous actions had cost him.
Sure, there was the funny side. He'd gotten a lot of that already. A man getting to experience being pregnant. But, the other side, the dark side, was that this had been forced on him. Ronon had been pissed for both of them earlier, but now Sheppard's rage was catching up. His entire way of life was being messed with. It made him wish there was a morning after pill for his situation, which was ridiculous, because he wasn't physically pregnant. A morning after pill to erase stupid bonds placed against men without their consent? He wondered if the lab techs would be able to stop laughing long enough to work on it…
"Colonel Sheppard?" Dreya called hesitantly.
"I think John is more appropriate," he said with a trace of bitterness. "After all, you've gotten me more intimately involved in your life than any other woman has."
Dreya looked embarrassed, her face flushed, and Sheppard felt a degree of satisfaction because of it. And then he felt petty.
"Don't hate me for what I did," she whispered, barely audible.
"I don't hate you," Sheppard started to protest, but then stopped, because the truth was that maybe he did a little. Or maybe not so much hate, as he was beginning to resent. He sighed. She looked lost in the bed. A small figure dwarfed by the blankets, with a too pale face, and lines of pain that had nothing to do with the physical.
Son of a bitch, swore John to himself, as he pushed back his own blankets and walked somewhat unsteadily to her bed. He sighed again, and sat next to her. "I don't hate you," he repeated, as much for her benefit as his. "But what you did was wrong."
She looked unsteadily at him for the first time…truly looked at him, meeting his eyes with her own. "I know. It's just, everything happened so fast and you remind me so much of him -" her voice was husky, and broken, and John felt a small part of himself ache for her.
He swallowed, forcing the lump in his throat to retreat. "That didn't give you the right to force this on me. Dreya, I can't even do my job now -"
"I know. I'm sorry."
Sheppard frowned at her, and regretted his harsh words. Something about beating a dog when it's already down…
He ruffled a hand through his hair, and fought back a sudden rising of nausea. "You need anything?" he asked abruptly.
She shook her head. "Sorry."
She apologized again and they both knew why. She was feeling sick and because of that, so was he. "It's okay," he offered her this time.
"No, it's not."
He sighed. Honesty sucked at times. "No, it's not, but I guess it will be." He thought about the days to come, thought about what was ahead, and was surprised when her hands took his.
At his questioning look, she explained.
"The loss of the child. It's necessary for the two bonded mates to do Sa'crala…" Dreya stumbled to explain, "a sharing of grief, so we both may heal. Even though one child remains, another was lost."
"I don't need to heal. It was never mine, and we aren't mates," he protested and winced. That had to have hurt, and from the look on Dreya's face, it had. God damn it…
"What we are doesn't matter. If we do not, the bond will make you even sicker, both in body and spirit."
Aw, hell…in for a penny, in for a pound, right? "Okay, but," he cautioned her, "No funky alien stuff that might get me pregnant – again."
She grinned. "I promise."
And then she took his hands and placed them on her belly, a little farther down than he felt comfortable with, until she placed hers against his, right where the hair from his belly button tapered off into an area no one but Beckett had seen in a while. He felt a flush of heat spread throughout his body, and found himself falling into the chanted words she repeated.
A forced cough drew him upright, and the flush going across his face now had nothing to do with the heat of the encounter and everything to do with the sour-faced Ronon staring at him.
He pulled away self-consciously. "It was the Sacrala," John insisted. "Had to do it to keep my sanity."
Ronon's lip twisting up just so caused Sheppard to pull back farther, and scowl.
"And did it work?" asked Ronon with subdued amusement.
"I'll get back to you on that," muttered Sheppard.
"Weir wants to see you." Ronon announced it abruptly. "Doc says you can go."
Sheppard straightened, assuming a military bearing even in pink scrubs, and finding the queasiness was still tagging along. "Thank you, Ronon. You can tell Doctor Weir I'll be there in a minute." After I throw up, thought Sheppard wretchedly, and he dropped all pretenses and dashed for the toilet, only dimly hearing Dreya suffering the same fate behind him.