He saw Beckett in the mess the next day. The Scot looked exhausted but Zelenka garnered a small portion of relief that a string for a teabag trailed from the man's mug. A large sandwich was being devoured as Zelenka came to stand beside him, the mesh of the chair back cold under his fingers.

"Go see him, Radek," Beckett said around a mouthful of bread and meat. "Maybe you can convince him to stay in bed without me having to restrain him again."

"Again?" Zelenka echoed before he could stop himself.

Beckett stared at him for a moment, then glanced around to be sure they wouldn't be overheard. "It's been difficult," and his eyes wandered away from Zelenka for a long moment then snapped back. "Very difficult. Fortunately for us he's a pig-headed bugger! Even still…" and he trailed off.

"I did not realize it was so serious," Zelenka said slowly, old, bad memories leaving a taste like blood in his mouth.

"Go see him, Radek," Beckett repeated. "He could use the distraction and I could use the time away," and he huffed with an exasperation Zelenka knew was exaggerated.

"You mean to keep your staff from killing him?"

"That obvious?"

"I have worked with Rodney." Zelenka smiled a little.

"Ah. Yes. Well . . ."

He nodded and started to head towards the infirmary but Carson stopped him.

"We moved him to his quarters once he was out of danger." Beckett shrugged, shoulders dropping heavily. "No reason to keep him in the infirmary and his room was more private."

Zelenka looked at him and scratched his head nervously, then snatched his hand back. "But he's ready for visitors? You are sure?"

Beckett smiled wearily. "No, but I'm sure he's ready to see a friend's face. I mean, besides mine."

Zelenka gnawed at his lip uncertainly, then nodded and headed slowly towards McKay's quarters. He had no idea what he would say. Before he was ready, he was at the door. Taking a deep breath and muttering under his breath in Czech, he knocked. No answer. He knocked again, more loudly.

"Yes, what is it?" demanded a croaky voice imperiously. "If that's you, Carson, you can just leave now. I'm fine and I don't need any more of your magic pills and powders."

Zelenka tried to speak and had to clear his throat. "It is Radek, Dr. Zelenka."

The door whooshed open, the aroma of unwashed clothing and scientist spilling out. Underneath the smell of dirty laundry, he could detect the sharply sour tang of old vomit. McKay stood in the doorway, three day old beard, slept in clothing and hair rumpled and pointy enough to rival Colonel Sheppard's. Zelenka started to smile until he noticed McKay's eyes, red-rimmed and exhausted.

"May I come in?" he asked in a softer voice than he normally spoke in. McKay glared at him suspiciously for a long moment, then hobbled carefully out of the way, wincing as he sat down heavily on the bed, his gaze bright and glittering on Zelenka's face.

"Carson send you?" he asked, the words a little fast and high-pitched.

Zelenka raised an eyebrow and before answering, tipped a chair forward, spilling clothes onto the floor and sat down. "I asked how you were. He said to come see for myself." He glanced around the room, noticing several of McKay's highly prized diplomas and pictures were askew on the walls. Something glinted, and he realized it was a shard of glass from something that had been hurled at the wall, it's contents staining the smooth whiteness.

"Yes, well, about time you showed up. I hear you were the one Weir sent through to try and find the gate address of Ford's planet?" McKay's tone was perfectly neutral but Zelenka felt his ears turning red.

"I am sorry. I was not able to pinpoint the address."

He was silenced by McKay's dismissive gesture. He tried not to notice the fine tremors that ran through McKay's body.

"Forget it." Despite his disheveled appearance and hoarse voice, McKay was as high-handed as ever. "Not even I could have done that. But I've been considering during my few lucid moments," and he grimaced slightly, "that maybe we're over thinking this. Maybe something as simple as – "

"Fingerprint powder!" Zelenka interrupted excitedly.

"I am not sure I'd be so pleased to have been on the same wavelength as a chemically overdosed individual," McKay replied nastily, looking peeved, "but yes."

Zelenka rolled his eyes. "You are just annoyed that I already had thought," and he smirked at McKay, then stared in horror as McKay's eyes rolled up in his head and he started shaking so violently he landed on the floor, bashing his head against the metal bed leg. The blood smeared on the white floor in a bizarre Jackson Pollock design. Zelenka clapped a hand to his com so hard his ear rang.

#"Dr. Beckett to McKay's quarters immediately"!#

#"I'm nearly there, Radek".# came the calm response.

Zelenka knelt beside McKay, trying frantically to remember if he should be holding him down or talking to him or stuffing something in his mouth. Beckett shoved him aside, not ungently and peeled back one of McKay's eyelids, flicking a light to check for dilation.

"What happened?" he asked as he quickly and economically took vitals and injected McKay with something.

"We, we were just talking!" Zelenka's hands fluttered. "About finding gate addresses in DHD's using fingerprint powder."

Carson shot him a quick stare. "Why?"

Zelenka shrugged, eyes wide. "Just a puzzle. It is problem that will come up again." He gestured helplessly and stared down at McKay who was now just twitching. "It was something to speak of, something…" and he waved a hand awkwardly.

Beckett's face relaxed into lines of regret and he nodded. "Something beside this," and he jerked his head down towards where McKay now lay, blinking, breathing heavily. Carson sat back on his heels and let out a long breath.

"Yes," agreed Zelenka. He became aware he was kneeling in something dark and smelly and lifted his hand with a pained expression.

Beckett's lips twisted into something that was almost a smile. "He's fine, or he will be. Help me get the silly git onto the bed." He grunted as they wrestled the unresisting McKay up onto the bed. "He's just still dealing with the fallout from the withdrawal. I tried to keep in an IV since his stomach is still touchy, but they kept getting ripped out." He pulled an alcohol swipe and bandage from his pocket and cleaned and bandaged the cut on Rodney's head.

McKay roused and started wildly striking out from side to side and shouting. Beckett caught at his wrists and spoke loudly.

"Rodney! It's Carson. You're just having a dream." McKay's eyes flew all the way open and color washed across the stubbled cheeks. He sat up, jerking his arms away from Carson when he tried to help him and fixing his eyes on an invisible point on the other side of the room.

"Tis only to be expected, Rodney, and nothing to be ashamed of," remonstrated Beckett gently. "Your body's undergone a trauma. You need to give yourself time to recover."

"Yeah? Well, Colonel Sheppard doesn't have time, so my body's just going to have to get with it!" McKay shouted furiously, voice cracking. "I injected the enzyme, I got back here and now it's over! I don't need you telling me what I am and am not capable of!" and McKay turned his back and started scrabbling through the piles of debris on the floor.

Beckett exhaled heavily through his nose. Without another word he rose and headed for the door. When Zelenka got up to follow him, McKay whirled around. "Not you, Radek." . For the first time, Zelenka noticed the red weals on McKay's wrists. Rodney noticed his gaze and yanked down his sleeves to cover the marks.

Zelenka looked from McKay's stubborn gaze to Beckett.

The doctor's face softened. "Stay with him, lad, if that's what he wants. I'll be close by if ye need me, Rodney."

McKay didn't even look at him. "The sooner I figure out where that Hive ship was going, the sooner the Daedalus can get there to look for Sheppard and the others."

"Rodney, if you push too hard you'll just have a relapse," Beckett said, his voice completely neutral.

"If you're not willing to help me, Carson, just get out!" and McKay punctuated the last three words with a poke to Beckett's chest. Beckett just gazed back at him impassively, and Zelenka caught McKay when his legs gave out, easing him gently back down onto the bed. He buried his face in his hands.

"I'm sorry, Carson." The words came muffled but audible. The Scot just squeezed McKay's shoulder.

"I know you are, lad," and with a last look at Zelenka, he headed out of the room. They sat in silence for a moment after the door shushed closed behind him.

"This isn't supposed to happen to me," McKay said, raising his face from his hands. "I couldn't think of what else to do. I had to get away. I had to take enough to be sure I could get away."

"And you did. What did you tell Weir?" and Zelenka pitched his voice higher, imitating Rodney, "'I was amazing.'"

McKay laughed a little, gulping. "I've got to figure out the planet coordinates, Radek. This can't be for nothing." Zelenka closed his eyes momentarily against the anguish in McKay's voice.

"Rodney," and he spoke very carefully. "No matter what happens, is not for nothing. 'No one has love greater than this, that someone should surrender his soul in behalf of his friends,'" he quoted softly.

"And if the friends still die it is meaningless!" McKay replied harshly. "I don't have time for this drivel. I need you to smuggle me in a laptop and my notepad." He snapped his fingers rapidly, gazing off into the distance but before he could continue specifying his other demands, Zelenka was shaking his head. McKay's glare would have frozen a lab tech at forty paces but Radek was immune.

"Rodney, you cannot pretend this never happened. You cannot convince me this is just all part of your brilliant plan to save Colonel Sheppard and your team."

The crooked mouth took on an ugly expression. "As you can see, I'm perfectly well." McKay spoke rapidly as always, but the hands that gestured as widely as ever were shaking. "Since it's obvious no one can get that power hungry pseudoscientist to release me, I need your help so I can get back to work!"

Zelenka's words fell heavily into the silence that followed. "Carson is just trying to protect you from yourself." He winced at the expression of betrayal in McKay's eyes. It was rapidly drowned in the anger that rose.

"Just because you wouldn't have had the courage to do it you're trying to make sure I fail," McKay lashed out.

Zelenka took a deep breath through his nose and adjusted his glasses with trembling hands, muttering in Czech under his breath. "When Dr. Beckett says you are well enough then I will help you."

"As if I needed help from you," McKay said, lip curling contemptuously. "You'll always be nothing more than my comic sidekick and it just eats you up. I'd thought that for Colonel Sheppard you'd at least be able to rise above your petty jealousies."

"You didn't need my help for the Arcturus experiment. Who was the joke that time?" The words hung in the air between them.

Zelenka ripped his glasses off carelessly and rubbed his eyes, grinding the heel of his hand into the sockets painfully, horrified at his loss of control. "I am sorry, Rodney. You are ill. I should not be saying such things to you."

Rodney was shaking his head, shoulders slumped. All the animation had completely left his face. "I've got to do something, Radek. I can't just sit here," and his hands jittered where they rested on his legs.

oOo

"Carson says he's all right." Weir regarded him steadily over her steepled fingers.

"Then he is all right," Radek replied with more assurance than he felt.

"I'd like your opinion."

Zelenka blinked nervously and adjusted his glasses. "My opinion? Surely Dr. Beckett is more qualified to decide if he has recovered."

Weir raised an eyebrow, her mouth quirking. "You are one of Rodney's closest friends, Radek. I'd like to know how you feel he's doing. You've spent time with him over the last few days. Do you believe he's ready to start working again?"

The faint scent of Elizabeth's perfume reached him across the desk. It smelled like lilies. Water lilies. Much better, Radek decided, than Rodney's room. The low hum of the gate tech talking with one of the new arrivals morphed into McKay's voice desperately pleading to go back to work.

"Will Dr. Beckett be distributing tranquilizers for the rest of us?" he joked a little feebly. At the expression on her face he cleared his throat uncomfortably and straightened. "No," he said, his face a little sad. "I do not believe he is ready." Weir's face didn't change and he went on. "But I believe you must let him go anyway."

She hadn't taken her eyes from his face while he spoke. He shifted in the chair, grateful not to be in the man-eating couch. Weir smiled suddenly, a brilliant heart-stopping rare smile.

"Thank you, Radek. That's exactly what Carson said."

Zelenka smiled back. "That is what I thought he told me." Elizabeth's smile widened and she glanced down at her watch.

Zelenka leaped to his feet so violently he knocked the chair over. "I am sorry, I know how busy you are," he began before she could speak as he grabbed the chair and set it back upright, hastily edging towards the door of her office.

"Radek," she stopped him. "I was going to ask if you'd eaten dinner yet?"

Zelenka goggled at her for a moment before he could respond. "Uh, no, I have not."

"Would you care to join me?" she asked smoothly.

He shoved his glasses back up his nose. "I would be honored."

oOo

Zelenka firmly closed the door to Beckett's office behind him and settled in the chair in front of Carson's desk. Beckett looked up from a file he was reviewing, a little startled.

"Something the matter, Radek?"

Zelenka cocked an eyebrow at him and crossed his arms. "So why did you say Rodney was ok to go back to work?"

Beckett laid down his pen and leaned back in his chair. "Why did you?"

Zelenka snorted. "Because his brain was actually going faster than his mouth for once. Something was going to blow."

Chuckling, Carson Beckett nodded. "I know exactly what you mean. I couldn't handle one more diva outburst. He might still melt down out there, but I suspect Major Lorne is more than able to cope with it. He appears to be a capable man. Surely they'll bring the Colonel and his team back safely."

"I am just wishing I could be there when he finally speaks to Colonel Sheppard."

Beckett had been taking a long drink of tea which he snorted through his nose at Zelenka's words. Grabbing a wound compress, he mopped the spilled tea up off the report. "Can't you just hear him?" And he began gesturing wildly and said in a slightly nasal voice, "Do you know the agony I went through to locate you, Colonel! It makes childbirth labor pale in comparison!"

Zelenka started giggling himself, then ran his fingers through his hair so it stood on end and slouched back in the chair, throwing one arm over the back and drawled, "Oh, come on, Rodney, you interrupted me with Wraith Queen. Couldn't you have given me a few minutes more?"

"Why am I not surprised you were playing the Captain Kirk card, while I was fighting that voodoo sheep loving Scot to release me so I could save you!" Beckett managed to snark out and then collapsed in mirth.

Zelenka tried to smirk like John Sheppard, though it just looked like he was constipated, and said, "I always considered myself more the Chekov type than Kirk. There's something so charming about those Eastern Europeans."

Wiping away the tears of laughter, Beckett flailed a hand weakly. "Oh my Lord, Radek, wouldn't it just be priceless!"

Zelenka was laughing himself, smoothing his hair back down, when his hand found the old computer chip in his pocket, and he was suddenly cold with the remembrance that he had, yet again, nearly lost one of his comrades. He looked at Carson, all traces of laughter gone. "Do you know this would not be nearly as funny if we had not just nearly lost him? And I am afraid perhaps, after all this we will have lost him still."

Beckett sobered as well. "I know it," he said heavily. "But he'll be all right. It will just take some time."

Zelenka's fingers traced the worn edges of the chip, the once sharp metal dulled by long years of handling. He pulled it out and studied it, then glanced up at the other man. "I know, Carson. I'm just surprised how much I'll miss the annoying bastard until he's back."