Stuck!

Chapter Thirteen: A New Kind of Battleship

Sometime later, after night had fallen once more, the tiny figure on the bed started to stir. He felt warm and comfortable, wrapped protectively in someone's arm. The arm was slight and gentle, a woman's. For a moment, he thought he was actually home, lying on his bed, his mother holding him...

But then he remembered that his mother had never held him.

And he remembered who he was. Frowning, throwing off vestiges of what felt like a very heavy sleep, he blinked open his eyes and looked around. He was lying against someone, wrapped in their arms. A moment later, he recognized the arm as the withered, wrinkled arm of Teyla.

A faint memory of being in the infirmary with her, sitting and leaning on her as Carson tried to explain something important to him, but not quite understanding it, came to him. Something about brain scans. The only thing that really came through is that they had less time to help Teyla now. And him. He was in trouble too, but he wasn't sure why. Wasn't he supposed to be fine?

All that really mattered is that, when dinner had come, Teyla had given him her chocolate pudding cup. Teyla was great. He didn't want her to die. He wanted to help her. But he just couldn't think how. He just couldn't think...

Think about what?

Sitting up, he rubbed at his eyes with his fists and yawned. Teyla's arm slipped down a bit, and he twisted, turning to look at her. She was breathing heavily, wheezing roughly, her mouth wide open like a goldfish. Suddenly, a flash of memory creased through his head, of being forced to stand by his grandmother's side as she died slowly of cancer. He remembered his mother shoving him forward, telling him to say goodbye to the withered, white haired woman. All he really remembered was that everything was white. His grandmother's skin, her hair, the pillow, the blanket, the walls...white. Why did people equate death with the color black? To him, it was the opposite color that was more appropriate.

He didn't want to think about this anymore.

Gently, he lifted Teyla's aged arm off of him and rested it across her side. She didn't wake.

The infirmary was dark, and when he looked over at the clock up on the wall, he saw that it was nearly three in the morning.

Okay.

A snort from another bed, and McKay found his eyes drawn to a sleeping figure on one of the infirmary beds opposite, big booted feet hanging over the edge. As they usually did. Sheppard was sleeping on his stomach, almost spread eagled on the narrow bed, blanket twisted all around the thin frame.

A grin flashed, and McKay was pushing himself off the bed, falling in an ungainly heap when the distance once again was a bit much. Looking around, he quickly spotted the pile of hideous clothes and even more hideous pink shoes, and scrabbled to get them on. A moment later, he was across the infirmary and reaching up to tug insistently at the hand hanging over the edge of the bed.

"Colonel," he hissed. "Colonel, wake up!"

"Hmmph," Sheppard replied, shifting a little, trying to pull the hand back.

"Colonel!" McKay said a little louder, grabbing the colonel's fingers more tightly, using both hands, "Colonel!"

A hazel eye cracked open, rolled around a bit, then focused on the tuft of hair and huge blue eyes peeking up over the edge of the bed. McKay let go the hand and grinned triumphantly. Snorting, Sheppard pushed himself up, the other eye joining the first, the pair now peering wearily and with some annoyance at McKay.

"What?" he muttered, sniffed again, and added, "What do you want?"

"I wanna show you something! Come with me!"

"McKay," Sheppard groaned, twisting his left arm around to blink down at the watch on his wrist, "It's...three in the morning."

"I know. But I'm awake." McKay grinned at that statement, as if that was all that mattered. "Come with me. I wanna show you what I found!"

"Can't it wait?" This was delivered in a plaintive whine.

"No," McKay whined back. "Come on. Please? I wanna show you...please?"

Sheppard almost said no. He was tired—exhausted the better word—and it was way too early to deal with the crazy, conflicting emotions McKay's current condition caused inside him. But then he remembered Carson's diagnosis from earlier, and grimaced.

"Yeah," he finally muttered, sitting up the rest of the way and twisting to dangle his feet off the side. "Okay. What do you want to show me?"

"Not here," McKay said, reaching to grab a handful of pants fabric, pulling it towards him as if he could physically force Sheppard off the bed. "In the nursery. Come on! Hurry up!"

Sheppard sniffed, rubbed a hand down his face, covered a yawn, and got up. Wobbling a little, he felt McKay grab his hand—or at least, several fingers on his hand—and start pulling. Giving in, he yawned again and let himself be led.

Over on the far bed, Teyla watched them go. She'd been awakened by McKay's voice, and she smiled a little at the picture the two presented as Sheppard followed McKay's already bouncing form out of the infirmary. She considered alerting Beckett, but he was sleeping on the bed in his office, and she didn't want to wake him. She was sure Sheppard would take care of the little one.

[{O}]

McKay never let go the hand of the "adult" with him, dragging his best friend behind him with the insistence of a hyperactive and very determined dog on a leash. It was all the still groggy colonel could do to keep up. Fairly soon, they were at the nursery door, and McKay was reaching up to try to hit the door panel. Sheppard beat him to it, opening the door with a tap and watching as the half door slid open.

The lights came on immediately inside the dark room and, letting Sheppard's hand go, McKay kicked aside a set of plastic stairs and ran inside, heading unerringly for one side of the room. The colonel, meanwhile, had stopped dead, staring around at the room in wonder.

It looked like a tornado had hit it. McKay had obviously wreaked complete and wanton destruction on everything in here, apparently acting out against his confinement. Feathers and stuffing covered every surface in the room, remnants of what must have been explosive charges (how had no one picked those up in the control room?) left black marks on different parts of the walls and floor, mangled and destroyed toys lay in twisted messes, and heads of different, strange "creatures" that had once been part of stuffed toys were mounted on sticks (which explained the "Wraith head on a stick" they'd found on that catwalk) or thrown atop higher shelves. It was incredible.

"Holy cow," Sheppard muttered, his eyes wide. "How...did you do this?"

"Hmm?" McKay turned around, then turned further to look at the room. "Oh, they had it coming. Besides, they were just unwanted toys—not like anyone would care what happened to 'em. As to how, I just used the stuff from one of the art kits and fashioned some explosives from the teacher's tools that I found in the main desk." McKay frowned a moment, as if trying to remember exactly how he had made the explosives, then blinked some more when it didn't come to him immediately. Then he shrugged and turned back to unearthing a pile from under bits of plushy stuffing.

Sheppard grimaced, placing his hands on his hips, and took more careful stock of the room. He hadn't really studied it before, but now he understood a little why it must have felt so demeaning for McKay when he was first put in here. It was too...happy.

His brow crinkled a little as he studied the different toys and objects scattered around. There was something more strange than just the total chaos of the destroyed stuffed animals...but he couldn't quite put his finger on what...

"Here, come here!" Rodney demanded, calling Sheppard over and flapping a little hand impatiently, "I wanted to show you these! They're so cool! Come here!" He was getting annoyed at the colonel's seeming unwillingness to leave the doorway.

"Shep-PARD!" he whined, volume going up a decibel, "Come ON!"

That woke the colonel from his daze, and he walked over. Kneeling down next to McKay, he looked at the pile of untouched toys. McKay grinned from ear to ear, and, in the rapid fire speech that was both very McKay and very hyper four year old, he started going through everything in the pile, which included some "gene" controlled toys that reminded the colonel of remote control cars, though they were ships. He had to admit his own genuine excitement at seeing those, because they were models of Ancient vessels like the Aurora, allowing him to see what that ship had looked like before it had been destroyed. McKay had several of them flying around his head at once, which amazed Sheppard, as, when he tried, he actually found he couldn't work them as easily as the boy did. There was also figurines ("not dolls!" McKay had stated vehemently when Sheppard had called them that) of Ancients and one or two creatures that were definitely not human, along with musical toys, learning toys, and finally, things McKay had determined were teacher's tools. One looked a little like the Ancient version of the toy Simon, but when McKay pushed the brightly colored buttons, a mini hologram of the universe popped up. It appeared to be a mobile, mini-version of the big one that the main hologram suite created.

And Sheppard couldn't stop himself from smiling and admitting, "Neat!"

"See? See? Isn't it cool! I wanted to show them to you yesterday, but...um," McKay blinked a bit, frowning a little, then shook his head. "Doesn't matter. Aren't they just so awesome?!"

"Yes, McKay, they're cool." Sheppard grinned back, looking up at the ships hovering over his head. He was a little disappointed that there wasn't a mini puddle jumper among them. He wondered why.

"Wanna play?" McKay asked, his eyes bright, bringing Sheppard's attention back. There was a hint of desperation in the tone, as if the boy knew he didn't have much time. "We could...we could recreate a battle, or something. Like playing Battleship! And this time, the Ancient's win! Whaddya say? I'll even let you be the Ancients. I'll be the Wraith. I don't mind losing, but I won't make it easy." His cheeks were bright red as he grinned again.

Sheppard grinned at the boy, and chuckled. "But we don't have any Wraith ships."

"Yeah we do," McKay said, pointing upwards with a single pudgy finger. "Look up!"

Sheppard did as he was told, and looked up. For a moment, he frowned. McKay was right. There were Wraith ships floating up there with the Ancient ones. Where had those come from? Must have missed them when McKay was first going through the pile. Shaking it off, he laughed.

"Okay," he said. "Why not. But I'll be the Wraith. You be the Ancients."

McKay's grin grew. "Okay! I've made it so the Wraith ships'll respond to your commands instead. So, wanna go first?"

And so Sheppard made the first move. It was ridiculously fun. They played three times, every time with Sheppard playing the "bad guys" and McKay outmaneuvering him and knocking his ships out of the air. (To be fair, Sheppard didn't have to fake being outmaneuvered—McKay had a real knack). The "destroyed" Ancient and Wraith ships would fall to the floor with a clunk. Before they started, McKay had said he wanted to blow them up when they were hit, but Sheppard had immediately told him no. The mini-scientist appeared disappointed, but acquiesced after Sheppard mentioned they didn't have an unlimited number of the remote control ships and they wouldn't be able to play more than once if they blew them up. McKay sighed but nodded.

After about an hour though, Sheppard saw McKay flagging. The boy was yawning again and rubbing at his head. Fact was, McKay was burning too brightly and too fast, and Sheppard knew it meant the boy needed to rest more.

Taking his ships out of the air and landing them on the ground, he looked squarely at the boy, who was giving him a puzzled look. The Ancient ships still in the air all pointed at Sheppard as well, as if they too were puzzled. The colonel sighed and didn't have to fake a yawn.

"I'm kinda tired, McKay. How about a short nap, huh?"

Rodney looked crestfallen, puppy dog eyes on full. "But, but..."

"We can play again when you wake up, okay? Just a short nap. Aren't you tired?"

McKay frowned, rubbing a little at his head, as if he had a headache. "No."

"You yawned a little bit ago. And I bet your head's hurting again, isn't it?"

"M'not tired! And it's not. I'm fine. I wanna play!"

"McKay..."

"I don't wanna sleep! Come on!" He brightened again. "Wanna play with something else? I can make anything, you know. Whatever you want!"

Sheppard grinned. Yeah, the old McKay probably could have made anything. The grin faded, though, when he saw that the blue eyes watching him intently were no longer those of the old McKay. He hadn't really realized it before, but the sharp intelligence that used to shine out of them had faded. The child staring at him, rubbing at his eyes and trying to pretend he wasn't tired, was not as focused, not as quick, not as McKay as he used to be.

"Not right now, Rodney. I think we both need a short nap. It's almost five now. How about we sleep until six, and then we can do something else?"

McKay frowned, slumping a little, and he kicked at a nearby toy.

"McKay," Sheppard warned. "Don't be like that."

Rodney stared back at him, still sulking, then sighed. "Can we sleep here?" he asked quietly.

"Sure," the colonel said, smiling.

"And you won't leave?"

"No. I promise."

McKay seemed to accept that, and looked around with a resigned air. He stopped when he saw some pillows in the corner. He headed over to them and sat down. A moment later, he was on his side, curling into the pillows, trying to get comfortable, drawing up his legs to his chest. Sheppard followed him over and sat down so that his back was against the wall next to the boy. McKay glanced at him, harrumphed, and moved closer, nestling his head against Sheppard's side, getting comfortable. It seemed natural for the colonel to rest a hand on the boy's back, rubbing away the shivering.

Looking up, the colonel dimmed the lights with a mental request, and then watched McKay. Slowly, but surely, the blue eyes closed, albeit reluctantly...and then he was asleep.

Sheppard smiled again, and closed his own eyes.

[{O}]

A tiny whimpering woke him up, and Sheppard blinked, eyes taking in the dark room. Suddenly, McKay shrieked with all the power a child's lungs could carry and Sheppard saw his tiny form explode away from him to run and cower on other side of the room.

Sheppard was on his feet in a second, because he saw what had terrified the boy. He scrabbled for the 9MM at his hip, which he knew would not be much help.

A Wraith stood not five feet away, grinning evilly at him.

"McKay!" Sheppard yelled, "Run!"

But Rodney didn't move. He had climbed up on a bench on the corner and had wedged himself in, looking frozen to the spot. His eyes were huge and terrified. Sheppard glared at him.

"I said, run!"

"Look out!" McKay yelled back, giving Sheppard just enough warning to jump out of the way and shift to another side of the room as the Wraith leapt at him. The creature turned and hissed in anger, arms lifting from its side like a praying mantis.

Moving a few more steps back, Sheppard quickly clicked his radio. "This is Sheppard! There are Wraith in Atlantis! Sound the alarm!"

"Colonel?" a sleepy voice replied, "This is the control room. There's nothing on the sensors. Are you sure?"

"YES!" Sheppard dived out of the way as the Wraith leapt at him again, the hideous creature missing him by mere feet. "I'm sure! There's one with me and Rodney in the nursery! I need help! Hurry!" As he recovered, he shot a few bullets at the creature. It flinched as they impacted, but it did little more than piss it off. Around them, the alarms burst to life through the halls. "Rodney," Sheppard shouted, "You have to get out of here! Get to the door!"

"Not without you!" McKay yelled back. That actually sounded like the old McKay there for a second.

Sheppard yelped as the Wraith attacked again, and this time it managed to hit him, sending him flying backwards several feet into a wall. Sheppard pushed himself back to his feet, rubbing his shoulder, and glared at the Wraith. He could no longer see McKay—the Wraith was blocking his view now. At least it wasn't focused on the boy.

"McKay, that's an order!"

"No, no, no!"

"You are all so pathetic," the Wraith hissed, stepping closer. Sheppard shot it a few more times. The bullets managed to slow the creature, but, as before, didn't stop it. It just kept coming.

"All right, fine!" Sheppard said, lifting the gun up to point it directly at the creature's head with both hands. "Now you listen to me, you sorry sack of shit, I don't know where you came from or how you got here, but you're not leaving this room, understand?"

"This room," McKay muttered from wherever he was behind the creature. "Oh my God...the nightmare," his boyish voice rose in pitch, getting louder. "This is a nightmare! I did this!"

Sheppard grimaced, "McKay, stop babbling nonsense and get the hell out of here!" And he finished the statement by shooting more bullets at the Wraith, one after another...

Just as the Wraith suddenly dissolved. As if it had never been. The very real bullets that Sheppard had just shot, however, kept on going.

Horrified, Sheppard's eyes widened as the little boy on the other side of the room flinched and rocked back against the wall. A tiny hand was pressed against his left shoulder...which was already turning red from blood. The shocked blue eyes lifted up to meet Sheppard's, the boy's lips trembling.

"It was...a hologram..." the boy whispered out, just before falling off the bench and collapsing to the ground in a heap.

"MCKAY!" Sheppard screamed, running across to the boy. Reaching his side, he pressed a hand desperately against the bleeding wound, yelling into his radio now for a medical team. McKay's now half-lidded eyes blinked up at him, tearing from the pain.

"I'm sorry," the boy whispered, "I'm so sorry..."

"Shhh," Sheppard hissed. "It's okay. It's going to be okay. You're going to be fine."

But the boy's eyes were closed.

Sheppard breathing was rapid now, and he twisted to look behind him at the door, furious at the fact that help still hadn't come yet. He opened his mouth to shout some more, when he saw something against the wall that made the words die in his throat. He realized that had been what had bothered him before when he had first surveyed the room...but he hadn't made the connection until now.

Perfectly rendered and standing proudly against the wall halfway to the door was Doctor Who's TARDIS.

[{O}]

A/N: My heart - it is empty. Julie has not come back. The yaks saw her ass disappearing over the next rise. I'll miss the donkey, too. I don't know what to do... what to think... I.. ah... You know, I honestly don't care what happens to that little twerp McKay. His story is like ashes in my mouth! JULIEEEEEE! Come back to me, oh, Cow of my heart!

A/N: Maybe if you post nice reviews for me, I'll feel like posting more of the story tomorrow. You can try to cheer me up. Otherwise, I'll be in the barn, curled up in a corner, clutching Julie's sweet blankie, crying. JULIEEEE!