Elizabeth hadn't started feeling better yet; in fact, she was feeling worse. The thing she wanted most was to go get a nap, and she hadn't taken a nap since kindergarten. "I'll be back later," she told one of the officers in the control room as she left her office. "If anybody asks, you don't know where I am, and you don't think I have my radio with me."

The man smiled. "Yes, ma'am."

"Beckett to Dr. Weir," she heard over her headset before she could take another step.

"Yes, Carson?"

"I think you need to come down to the infirmary."

"What happened?"

"Ronon brought Colonel Sheppard in. He's seems to be suffering from aphasia." Elizabeth frowned.

"Did you just say aphasia?"

"Yes, now you understand my concern. He's completely unable to communicate coherently. I've started doing scans, but I thought you should know what's going on."

"Thank you. I'll be there soon…So much for the nap," she muttered to herself once the radio connection had been broken.

As she started down the stairs, Rodney began hurrying up them towards her. "Ah, just the person I was looking for," he said.

"Aren't you supposed to be working on the Daedalus with Hermiod?" she asked.

"Well, yes, but I got another idea and turned things over to Zelenka for the moment."

"Is this an emergency, or can it wait until later?"

Rodney frowned. "Why? I'm here, you're here…"

"I was actually just leaving."

"Oh. Well, I'll walk with you and talk on the way."

They left the control room together with Rodney chattering a mile a minute and Elizabeth doing a good job of pretending to pay attention. "So, what do you think?" he finally asked.

"Cab-lirk-ed-wek."

They both stopped short. "I'm sorry?" Rodney asked.

"El-kad-less-mer." Elizabeth looked just as surprised as he was.

"Elizabeth…can you understand me?" She just stared – what he was saying to her didn't make any more sense in her head than what she was saying to him. Rodney sighed. "Oh, God."

A few minutes later, Beckett suddenly had two patients that had mysteriously developed the same major symptom. Of course, neither one of them could communicate either verbally or on paper to tell the doctor what else had been going on. The medical team got them both set up in a corner of the infirmary to get some rest while they waited for the rest of the test results.

"Well, we can rule out causes like stroke or other brain trauma," Carson told Rodney, Teyla, and Ronon as they met in the conference room to discuss their situation. "It's near impossible that both of them, on different sides of the city, suffered the same injury with the exact same results."

"Unless it was foul play," Ronon spoke up.

"Do we have another virus in the city?" Rodney asked the doctor.

"I don't think so. The city's defenses have not been enabled, and no one else has reported any symptoms."

"But you still do not know for sure what is causing this?" Teyla inquired.

"No. Right now we need to find anything that the Colonel and Dr. Weir may have come in contact with."

"Things like what?" Ronon asked.

"Any items that may have been acquired off-world, anything found in random areas of the city…And as much as I hate to say it, we have to consider things they may have eaten or drank." That got everyone's attention, especially McKay.

"Wait, you think that the food supply in the city has been tampered with?"

"Not all of it, Rodney, or else we'd all have been affected."

"You think somebody poisoned them," Ronon deduced.

"I hope not," Carson replied.

There was still the possibility that whatever had caused the aphasia had been an airborne agent on something in their belongings, so Beckett had Sheppard and Weir's quarters quarantined and searched by the medical team. Rodney had been left somewhat in charge, along with Major Lorne on the military side, which was keeping them busy. Ronon and Teyla helped out with the investigation by trying to track down information what the city's leaders had eaten for the past couple of days. Teyla was the one that found a still-half-full coffee cup on Elizabeth's desk in her office.

"It's definitely not just coffee," Beckett revealed a couple hours later after tests had been run, "Although I'm not certain what the chemical in it is. I found traces of the same thing in the pot in Dr. Weir's office as well."

"So they WERE poisoned," Teyla said, just to clarify.

"It certainly seems that way. We don't know, though, if this was part of the plot for Colonel Caldwell's Goa'uld, or if someone else is to blame."

"It's possible," Rodney said. "There probably was enough time for Caldwell to have done something during the whole crisis, and no one would've noticed. I'm not sure how that would fit with the rest of his mission, though."

"His plans with the transmitter weren't immediately clear, before," Carson pointed out.

"True."

"I don't think it was Caldwell," Ronon spoke up. "There's no threat to their lives – "

"That we know of," Beckett cut him off. "We have no idea what the effects of this poison will be, if it's survivable, or how long it will take to run its course."

"I don't think it was him," Ronon repeated, simply. "It doesn't feel like a tactical move. More like something personal."

Rodney frowned. "Personal?"

"Yeah. And if that's the case…anyone else thinking the same person I'm thinking?" Ronon asked.

"Aye," Beckett told him. "Although we have no evidence of his guilt."

"We don't need evidence. Apparently all I've got to do is walk in the door and his spine melts."

"Dr. Kavanagh has already been falsely accused once," Teyla pointed out. "Luckily, there was no damage done. What will happen if you are again incorrect?"

"I'm willing to take that chance," Ronon replied.

"We have to at least talk to him," Beckett agreed. "If he is responsible, he's the only one who knows exactly how dangerous whatever he gave Colonel Sheppard and Dr. Weir is."

"Resorting to violence will most likely not be necessary," Teyla tried again. "If he is guilty, I do not believe he will be ashamed."

TBC...

please R that's the only way I know if I should keep going