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Chapter Seven: O Canada, why oh why?

After coordinating with Zelenka and Major Lorne's team and checking on Katie Brown, Elizabeth was finally able to get back to her quarters for some much needed sleep. It had only been a few hours until she was woken up by someone at her door. Slow to get up she shuffled over to her door and opened it.

An exhausted looking nurse was standing there. "Dr Weir, Dr Biro needs you in the infirmary as soon as possible."

The request made her stomach knot up in worry. Being roused at this hour by Dr Biro did not mean any good was to come of this. She pulled a robe on and followed the nurse back to the infirmary.

"Dr Weir, I'm glad you're here," said Dr Biro when she saw Elizabeth come into the infirmary. "Things don't look so good for Sheppard and Ronon."

Elizabeth's blood ran cold, she hadn't wanted to consider something like this happening, but it looked like she would have to face up to reality. "What happened?"

"Remember that toxin I told you the bacteria were producing?" Dr Biro handed Elizabeth a stack of lab results, "Well it's worse than we originally thought."

The lab results looked like Greek to her but she nodded her head as if she understood them anyway, "How much worse?" She handed back the results.

Biro exhaled loudly in frustration, "We've had to put them both on ventilators. We believe because they have a low body fat percentage there was less fatty tissue to absorb the toxin, like Teyla and McKay's bodies have done to a certain degree. It's a good thing in the long run because recovery time will be faster, but right now, it's given the toxin more time to destroy nerve endings and muscle tissue. And Dr Beckett, although he is over his fever and fairly lucid, is showing the beginning symptoms of multi-system organ failure."

"What can we do?"

The doctor looked a little nervous about her next suggestion, "I need several samples of blood from the local population of Dolosus. We think that they may have a chemical in their blood that neutralizes the toxin, explaining why they're only sick for a short time with no long term effects."

Elizabeth nodded and was silent for a moment. She was still waiting for Zelenka to return with a gate address and they needed to know if these locals were hostile towards them before risking anymore personnel. "I'll see what I can do."

The addresses that Zelenka provided them with proved to be fruitful. After running them through the Ancient database and finding several good prospects they stepped through the gate to see what they could. Three hours later they returned.

Morose and silent Major Lorne and his team trudged out of the gate room. Dr Weir was eagerly waiting to hear what they had discovered.

"Major Lorne, did you find anything?"

The soldier cleared his throat as if he hadn't used in a long while. "We found out plenty. I highly recommend we never step foot on Dolosus again. In fact if Dr McKay would like, he would be doing the galaxy a service if he destroyed this planet too."

Elizabeth was afraid they would find out their new trading partners were an unsavory bunch. "Major, what did you find on the planet?" She spoke softly as she could see that he had been highly disturbed by what he had seen.

"They were all dead." He stared blankly at a point behind her. "Every human was dead. The streets were littered with corpses that had to be months old." His face hardened, "We also noticed that every piece of technology or possible trade items had been stripped from most places, it's likely the Dolosians were scavenging."

She stood quiet for a moment trying to sort out her thoughts. There were no longer dealing with a peaceful agrarian society, they were now hostile scavengers. It changed everything.

Rodney lay with his eyes closed. A soft regular clicking noise had woken him. Slowly he turned his head towards the source of the sound. Opening his eyes to investigate the sound he had to blink several times until he realized his blurry vision was something that wouldn't be fixed by merely blinking. He could barely make out a blue, thing, which seemed to be moving in rhythm to the clicking noise.

Dr Biro entered the room and noticed Rodney trying to focus his eyes on the Colonel's ventilator. "Dr McKay, how are you feeling?"

"Like I wish I hadn't spit out that lemon," he said quietly. He barely had the strength to even laugh at his own joke.

The doctor was relieved by his comment, it was good that Rodney was still cogent despite the danger of slipping into a coma from the encephalitis. "Is your vision a bit blurry? I noticed you were having trouble making out the Colonel's ventilator."

"Ventilator?" he sounded worried, "when did he have to go on that?"

"About ten hours ago, you've been in and out of consciousness for some time now." She checked the drip on his IV before turning back to him. "We'll be adding another patient in a few minutes. Her tests results came back positive with the bacteria." From McKay's confused expression she realized he didn't know what was going on. "We sent a team to check on the produce on Dolosus and Dr Brown had an accident and was exposed."

"Dr Brown? My Dr Brown?"

Biro smiled behind her mask, "I wasn't aware she belonged to you."

"Who belongs to whom?" Katie Brown appeared next to Dr Biro, she was dressed in scrubs and had a large bandage on her hand. Rodney could see her blurry figure and couldn't help but stare. She smiled at his attempts to focus on her and she patted his foot. "Rodney, how do you feel?"

"Better now that you're here. I mean, not that I'm glad you're sick now too, just that well… I mean…" he was screwing this up big time and opted for a quick way out. He moaned and clutched at his head dramatically, "Dr Biro, I think I've got an aneurism."

The doctor was sharp enough to know that he was covering for his failed attempt to flirt with Katie. She nodded, "Ok, Rodney. I'll get something for that in a moment." Turning to Katie she pointed to one of the empty beds, "You can settle yourself here, one of the nurses will be in shortly to start you on an IV so that we can try a couple of things to perhaps slow down whatever it is that you're infected with."

Katie squeezed the physicist's foot, hoping the gesture came off as being reassuring. Her fear was also growing as she looked over the five patients in the room with only Rodney being the one currently conscious. She didn't want to die, for that matter she didn't want to get sick in the first place, but it looked like she was in a tough spot now. She sat down on the bed Biro indicated and drew her knees up to her chest and sighed.

"Are you all right lass?" The weak sounding question came from Dr Beckett. His back was turned towards Rodney and he had been facing the empty bed Katie not occupied. The doctor looked very sleepy and feverish, but his concern for her was touching.

"I'm not feeling too bad yet; my hand just hurts a little." She displayed her bandaged palm. "You don't look well though."

"Aye, I don't. I almost wish I was as blissfully unaware as our other three roommates." They heard Rodney start to hum 'O Canada', "Dr McKay on the other hand is his usual acerbic self one moment then becomes…something else." He couldn't think of a way to describe the delirium Rodney would go through. He had been treated to a badly rendered 'O Canada' in both English and French followed by an explanation of how he had gotten his cat, also in English and French.

He looked sadly at Katie, "Let's just hope we lapse into a coma before he starts in on a lecture about his experience as a pianist."