"What do you mean he's gone?" Beckett said shooting up from his seat and looking at Elizabeth.

Mckay had just burst into her office and was panting as he tried to catch his breath, "That..nurse…the foreign one, I think she's from-"

"Rodney," Beckett warned.

"She said he wanted water and when she returned with the glass he had gone," he said leaning forwards and breathing heavily.

"We need to find him," said Beckett.

"I'll inform his men," said Elizabeth, but as she stood Beckett held out his hands.

"I think we should keep this between us for now. He cant have gone far, he still has a fever and I know Sheppard. He wouldn't want his men to find him right now."

"Beckett's right," said Mckay.

Elizabeth walked over to the large pane of glass in her office and stared out of it thoughtfully, "Okay, you two go, but if you haven't found him in an hour we'll have to get help."
Beckett nodded and pushed Mckay out of the door.

----------------

Sheppard dangled the gun between his legs and fished into his gown pocket for the pills he had taken from the meds cabinet. These little pills had caused him trouble, they had made him lose control and what's worse he had probably lost what little respect he had with his friends.

Yeah life at the moment was just great.

-------------

Beckett and Mckay had separated and had both taken a section of Atlantis to begin searching, "What is he doing?" said Mckay as he swung the flashlight down a dark corridor, "And where am I?" he muttered.

"Don't tell me you're lost Rodney," he heard Beckett say over the radio.

"We've checked everywhere he's likely to be and he hasn't been there, so what now?"

"My nurse said some pills were missing. If he's having a relapse we need to find him before he takes them or he could be setting himself back even further."

"He wont do that," said Mckay.

"You didn't see him last night," said Beckett, "He begged me to give him something to stop the pain."

"You claim to know Sheppard. Then know he wont have taken any."

--------------

Sheppard tossed the pills over to the other side of the room and heard them hit the end wall with a clatter. The echo made him squint when it hurt his ears and he laid his head back onto the cold shower tiles.

His mind felt as if it was all over the place but he had needed to get out of the infirmary to find some semblance of clarity.

That was extremely hard when merely looking forward sent your world spinning.

"No John, you wont be sick," he said to himself as he shifted.

He lay down, letting his forehead touch the cold floor.

He was feeling hot and even the cool touch of the floor didn't seem to permeate the barrier of heat.

-----------------

"Try his radio."

"He hasn't got his radio."

"This is Sheppard, if he left the infirmary he'll have his radio on him."

"Rodney."

"Sheppard, Sheppard are you there." Mckay said as he activated his ear piece.

---------------

Sheppard opened his eyes briefly when he heard distant voices in his head.

He turned towards his earpiece he had bought with him. That was the main purpose of his stop at his quarters, to grab his ear piece. If he was going AWOL he at least wanted to know that if something happened he would still be able to react to it. It was his vague attempt to convince himself that he wasn't, and hadn't been, totally irresponsible. He had grabbed his weapon as an afterthought.

Mckay was trying to find him and he hadn't heard his name being called out over the tannoy yet so he presumed they must be keeping his disappearance under wraps. Thank god for small mercies, he thought.

He closed his eyes again and listened to the persistent voice.

------------

"He's just ignoring me," said Mckay, "He does that when he's not ill."

"That's if he has it," said Beckett angrily.

"I'll check his quarters again, he might have stopped by there."

-------------

Sheppard heard some scratching from the corner of the shower room and he held his breath as he listened to the noise.

He could feel sweat run down his nose and drop off the tip.

Finally he turned his head to the side to the source of the noise.

There was nothing there but his brain started to play tricks him. His mind seemed to be making connections despite his attempts not to and instead of an empty corner his mind superimposed an image of Davey's bloody body.

"No," he said slowly as he raised his head dizzily and moved back to the wall, "I'm…. hallucinating," he said scrubbing at his face. "That's it," he tried to convince himself.

Across from him Davey continued to sit, opening and closing his mouth to say something but all the while no sound was coming out.

Sheppard watched the image and remembered every sensation from that day. It made his stomach coil and cramp as he fought his visceral instincts. "I'm sorry." He said leaning back against the wall and closing his eyes. "But you don't need to haunt me, please," he said trying not to panic.

After all, hallucinations couldn't hurt you.

Well, not physically.

He'd tried to save Davey that day. Tried to talk to him as if he could solve all of his problems, but Davey was beyond saving.

He looked down at his hands and remembered when they had been covered with his blood. Red and glistening and he had sat and stared at them until they had been found. He'd been forced from the room, perhaps that's how he injured his shoulder, and taken to their equivalent of the infirmary.

Only, there were no kind words or understanding stares, just the stalwart attitude of get better and get on with it.

------------------

Beckett rounded the corner and bumped straight into Mckay. His first instinct was to shout at the man but when he saw Mckay's deflated face he thought better of it.

"I hope he hasn't done anything stupid," he said running a hand through his hair.

Mckay was looking down the corridor with wide eyes, "He won't have."

"No sign of him."

"No," said Mckay sadly.
"I think I have a theory as to why Sheppard is doing this again," said Beckett as he started to walk down one of the corridors with Mckay hot on his heels. "I've been thinking about it as we've searched."

"What?" asked Mckay.

Beckett stopped abruptly, "There's no denying that Sheppard is usually in control and rarely shows explicit emotions. In the sense of pain, regret, he hides them well," he said despondently, "I don't think he grieved for Davey's death. I believe that when he stopped taking those pills he believed he had closed the door but really he had only stopped his addiction and not the emotional baggage which caused it."

"So, what, he hasn't accepted Davey's death so this time-"

"He's doing the same. He'll repeat this until he accepts that what happened was not his fault."

--------------

Sheppard could still hear movement on the other side of the shower room, but he also knew he was delusional.

He reopened his eyes to look across at the figment from his mind, "I'm sorry I couldn't stop you," he rasped. He thought talking to the image might make him less afraid of it.

Davey continued to stare at him, his mouth still moving.

"I thought I could help you."

"I was always going to do it."

Sheppard snapped his head to his right to the source of the voice and found Davey right next to him, kneeling down on the cold tiles dripping blood from his head wound onto the floor.

Sheppard instinctively moved away from the image, "You're not real."

He opened his eyes to find the image of Davey gone and to see that he was the only one in the washroom again. The blood he had previously seen drip to the floor was no longer there.

"What do you mean?" he said into the silence. His voice echoed around him, "You would always do it? What the hell does that mean?"

He pushed himself up into his feet shakily and went around in a circle to seek out his fevered minds image, "You were a selfish son of a bitch," he said, "You left your wife and your son. You left your friends and me, you made me go through shit. Show your face you son of a bitch," he said letting out a groan as his stomach twisted and he went back down to his knees, "Davey."

If he hadn't of turned away and left him he could have stopped him from pulling that trigger.

"What do you mean by you would have always done it?" He dropped his head back down to the tiles and his mind reeled.

------------

"Davey must have been pretty unstable to shoot himself in the first place," said Mckay as they continued to walk.

"I'd say," said Beckett. "You hear about these kids joining the army or the Air Force because of the big guns and fast planes. They have no real concept of the reality of it all."

"And you think Davey was the same?"

"I don't know," said Beckett, "But we need help to find Sheppard. Its been an hour."

----------------------

Sheppard looked up suddenly and let out a shaky breath.

Facts which had remained buried suddenly resurfaced and hit him like a ton of bricks.

He remembered being in that helicopter on the way to the Rangers.

"Davey, I'm know where the Rangers are." He said as he controlled the craft with practised ease. "I'm gonna drop you off a mile from the base."
"No way man, we do this together."

"Don't be stupid. You have family," he remembered saying.

Davey was already cocking his weapon and sitting forward obviously on edge, "I'm with you all the way. This is what I joined for."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh come on, you're like me. An adrenaline junkie. For us this is kids play."

He ignored the comment and tried to press the seriousness of the issue.

"We'll probably get shot down if the Afghans see us so-"

"I'm doing this. Better to go out in a blaze of glory."

Even then evidence of his unwilling to go back for his family presented itself and Sheppard continued to let his mind go over events. When he had landed the Helicopter and they had started to exit the craft Davey was already running towards oncoming Afghans when he should have been laying cover for Sheppard to reach the Rangers. He missed the Afghans who fired on Sheppard and if he had truly waited he would have seen the Afghans were Americans. He was too eager, too trigger happy and he paid the ultimate price.

Sheppard raised his head and licked his lips. Davey had had a death wish from the start. "Blaze of glory," he muttered as he sat up.

Davey was young, inexperienced and unfortunately the idea of the Air Force had appealed to him for the heroics of war. Of course if he wasn't going to die in a fight, he was always going to turn on himself. Davey wouldn't have been found out but at his age he would have been kicked out of the army for not following the most basic of orders.

For him that was a death sentence in itself.

"Shit," said Sheppard, "Shit!"

------------

"You hear that?" asked Beckett as they walked passed one of the bathrooms.

Mckay nodded and they pushed the door too.

"I don't think we need to get anyone else involved yet," said Beckett when he saw the figure beyond the door.

-----------

"You would have always done it," Sheppard said standing up and swaying unsteadily, "Its not like the movies." He dropped his head.

He felt the hand on his shoulder and he moved back in shock. Expecting to see Davey's bloodied face he instead was confronted by Beckett, "Beckett," he said quietly. "How did you find me?"

Beckett was scanning the room and it was Mckay who picked up the bottle of pills form the floor, "Did you have any?"

Sheppard shook his head, "I didn't come here to overdose," he said as he felt Beckett's fingers tighten around his arm. "I needed space to think."

"Who…were you talking to?" he asked.

"Davey."

"He's obviously delusional," said Mckay.

"Yeah my delusion," he muttered, "Davey was here and he told me it wasn't my fault."

"I'm glad you finally realised it." said Beckett calmingly

"I know," said Sheppard nodding now, "I couldn't ever of stopped him." He said quietly, "He would have died in war either way."

Beckett touched Sheppard's shoulder, "I know." He fixed his eyes with his own, "Let it go."

Sheppard looked into his eyes, "Let go of what?"

"You know what I mean."

Sheppard stared at him for a moment and both Beckett and Mckay watched as his eyes dropped and his face contorted into an expression of pain.

Sheppard looked at the corner where he had previously seen his friend and dropped the gun to the floor with a clatter. He dropped his head down and felt the first miserable descent of a tear.

He swiped them away angrily not wanting them to fall but the sense of relief he felt in doing so nearly matched the high of those pills.

Beckett helped him to the ground when his legs went from beneath him. He could feel his face scrunching up and he wrapped his hands around his knees as he cried for his fallen friend.

Beckett sat beside him and kicked away the gun and patted Sheppard on the shoulder.

He was silent, not sobbing but merely letting out the emotion he had kept pent up for so long.

Beckett sat down beside him and crossed his legs and on the other side of Sheppard Mckay did the same.

"What are you doing?" Sheppard mumbled from within his knees.

"We're sitting," said Mckay, "I thought you were supposed to be clever."

Sheppard continued to keep his head down, What's going to happen?" he asked quietly.

"Nothing," said Beckett, "We're all just going to sit here and be quiet."

Mckay crossed his legs, "Its quite nice in here. Aside from the fact we're sitting where many diseased verucaed feet have walked." He peered to the side to see that Sheppard was wearing a gown, "And your ass is touching it all."

"Rodney." Beckett warned.

Mckay looked at Sheppard's dropped Shoulders and nodded.

"It wont be easy, but you'll be okay," said Beckett patting him on the shoulder.

------------

THE END

Okay so I had to get this finished and I therefore apologise if some of it is..well…pants. I really didn't want to leave you all hanging.

I thought I would finish here rather than rush it all to the end.

Its often far more realistic to leave it with a slightly sad ending then rush and not get it right at all.

Plus there's always a chance to tidy it up and have a sequel when I get back.

Thank you for your reviews. I really do appreciate them and I hope you all have a fantastic new year. I'll be in New York! Yeah!