Stuck!
A/N: I pulled over at a shop that sells coffee and allows internet hook up. It is named after a character from a Herman Melville novel. Why? I don't know. I continue my search for Julie. I am currently searching West Virginia. Wisconsin will be next. Julie, my sweet! Come to me! Woodchucks... IHOPs. Where? Someone please help my find my cowwwwww!
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Chapter Sixteen: Jack and Jill Went Up the Hill
Elizabeth Weir hovered in the door of her office, watching Zelenka and a frantic team of gate technicians dismantle the biometric sensor array with the speed and efficiency of a NASCAR pit crew.
Every few minutes, her desktop computer let out a soft chime, letting her know yet another department head was weighing in with yet another wild theory that might or might not save Rodney and Teyla.
She ignored the e-mail alerts and turned back to Zelenka's team. From what she understood of the Czech's rapid-fire briefing, they were after the specialized sensors that allowed the city's scanners to differentiate Wraith life signs from human, or one member of the crew from another.
On the other side of the room, another group was sheepishly re-assembling the DHD. It had been worth a try — after all, those crystals had allowed them to pry two consciousnesses out of McKay's body just a few months earlier. But after hours of frustrated testing—and the messy demise of a small colony of white mice—Zelenka had been forced to concede that the gate control crystals were useless for this task. They simply weren't designed for this sort of matter transmittal. The Gate transmitted matter all at once—not just part.
Rodney had, however, supplied the answer to that as well—the matter transmission sequence could be effectively supplemented using the interface from the downed Wraith ship, which was more sensitive. Rodney's notes pointed out that it swept for DNA, not for objects, which was why it was able to collect just people as opposed to trees or rocks or whatever else it came in contact with.
And so it was Rodney to the rescue again. Elizabeth smiled sadly, still amazed that the pathetic little figure she'd last seen cuddling a stuffed cat in the infirmary still had enough of the old Rodney McKay in him to pull off one more miracle. Or at least let them hope for one.
There was a sudden flurry of activity and then the scientists were on the move, leaving the gutted sensor array scattered in pieces while they scuttled toward the exit with their salvaged crystals and components. Radek glanced back and gave her a distracted little wave, letting her know he would report as soon as he had anything to report.
Elizabeth spotted a crumpled bit of paper in the rubble and moved to retrieve it. Crouching, she smoothed the paper and studied the schematic for an elaborate bit of alien technology, painstakingly rendered in orange crayon. Around the edge of the page, orange kittens cavorted.
She carried it back to her office, still staring at the adult draftsmanship mixed with the untidy childish scrawl. The cats were little more than fat circle bodies, triangle ears, stick legs. McKay's cats beamed up at her with crooked, innocent smiles.
It really was very good work for a 4-year-old. The sort of thing a proud parent might tack up on the refrigerator door. Elizabeth propped the picture next to her computer and buried her head in her hands.
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For the first time since he'd made Atlantis his home, Ronon Dex wanted to run. Run as fast and as far away as he could get from this infirmary and the smell of puke and the soft hiccupping sobs of a dying little boy and the slowing cadence of an old woman's heart monitor.
Instead, he paced, up one side of the infirmary and down the other, never letting McKay and Teyla out of his sight.
Sheppard was back, damp hair dripping on the collar of his clean shirt. Like Dex, he was pacing, but in the narrow aisle between the two beds. He held Rodney in his arms, wrapped in a large, pale blue blanket. The boy's head was buried in the crook of his neck as Rodney cried himself to sleep, now naked arms tightly wound round the man's neck. The boy's clothes had been soiled by vomit and blood and they had no clean replacements. Beckett felt it would be easiest to leave him 'au naturale'. Sheppard, at first, was squeamish at the thought of carrying a nude McKay around—wrapped only in a blanket—but even he had to admit that there was very little of Rodney McKay left at this point. The boy was only a sick child—a child named Rodney.
The colonel walked him back and forth, back and forth, muttering bits of reassuring nonsense to the boy and to the withered woman who watched them sluggishly from the bed.
"Everything's going to be just fine," Sheppard was saying, whether to Teyla or McKay, Dex could not tell. "The Answer Man figured it out, just like always. Now you just need to hold on a little bit longer. Just a little while longer, guys."
Sheppard paused and reached out to encircle Teyla's bony wrist, shaking it lightly to get her attention. "Fight, Teyla," he said. "Remember? You promised me you'd fight this."
Teyla blinked at him, her hazy gaze sharpening to something close to alertness. She nodded, and breathed out, "Fight."
They stood there, like three generations of one family. Two days ago, they'd been his team. His family. Dex kept pacing. Fifty steps to the far wall, pivot right, and walk.
Sheppard gave Teyla's hand a final approving pat and returned to his own restless pacing. McKay was quiet now, and Dex watched uneasily until he was certain he saw the slow rise and fall of the child's ribcage. Apparently Sheppard felt the same fear — his free hand now rested on the boy's back, rising and falling with each breath.
"Carson? He's burning up," Sheppard called out quietly.
The doctor pushed away from his computer and hurried over. Dex turned away and paced toward the farthest corner of the infirmary, not wanting to hear Beckett run through the long, long list of things that were going wrong with McKay's body and mind...again.
A heap of discarded objects on an examining table caught his eye. The trophies the little man had been carrying when they retrieved him from the storage room. Dex stared blankly at he pile of toys and curious bits of rubbish for a moment, then reached out to pick up one of the objects. It was a soft thing, shaped curiously like a yellow feline with purple spots. He remembered the little one clutching the thing when he arrived in the infirmary yesterday. One of the nurses must have taken it away from him while he slept.
The pacing began again. Another hard right and Ronon was heading back toward the beds. The stuffed cat dangled by its tail in his grip, bouncing off the side of his knee.
"Kiki."
Dex would have missed the soft call if he hadn't been listening for it. Wordlessly, he held the thing out to McKay, who was straining over Sheppard's shoulder, trying to reach the toy. The child's cheeks were flushed bright scarlet and his eyes were glazed with fever. But he broke into a delighted smile as he caught hold of the cat and tugged it down to snuggle beside him on the colonel's chest.
Dex could see very little of the old McKay in this newcomer. The sharp intelligence, the waspish insults, the nonstop self-congratulatory patter... all gone. And it saddened Dex more than he ever would have expected.
"Better, little man?" he asked solemnly.
"Better," McKay agreed, yawning as he snuggled even more deeply against the cat and the colonel.
For a moment, Sheppard and Dex locked eyes, then looked away and resumed pacing, in opposite directions.
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"We have it!"
Zelenka's triumphant cry crackled over their headsets, startling them all.
Weir, who'd joined the vigil in the infirmary hours earlier, tapped her radio and spoke for them all. "Radek. Are you sure?" She looked up and found Sheppard staring at her with a worried frown. He was still walking with a sleeping McKay and the cat cradled against his shoulder. The boy had slipped into an unresponsive stupor, rousing only to cry whenever Sheppard tried to set him down or pass him off to someone else and rest his aching arms. He finally decided his arms could take it.
"As sure as we can be under the circumstances," Zelenka said, striding into the infirmary in the middle of the sentence, arms waving. "Please have everyone ready to travel in ten minutes."
"What? Where?" Elizabeth spluttered. Clearly, Zelenka had left a few things out of his briefing.
"Back to the planet! Back to the Ancient device!" Zelenka said. "The crystals work in laboratory testing, but we must reassemble the original equipment. The bulk of the device remains in the Ancient medical center. So..." He shrugged and gestured toward the exit.
Sheppard and Weir still looked dubious, but Beckett, who was fussing over Teyla's monitors, looked up with an expression of alarm.
"Whatever we're going to do, we need to do it soon," he said.
One of the bedside alarms went off with a shriek.
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A/N: The young man with the green apron is urging me to leave. He has a ring in his nose. He doesn't seem to understand that I am a ruthless leader of the Genii special forces. I could break him like a stick. He calls me to the counter and gives me my third 'Caramel Macchiato, venti, breve, double-shot, extra carmel, extra whipped cream with a dusting of cocoa powder' and tells me, "You are frightening our customers with your glare and your vicious mooing." I go. The Winnebago awaits. GIVE ME MORE REVIEWS! Only reviews will help me find my cow!