Beckett wanted to keep both John and Elizabeth in the infirmary for at least the rest of the day for observation, since he still had no idea why it seemed that the poison had worn off early. The drug was still in their bloodstreams, but there didn't seem to be any side effects.

John decided to start filling a sheet of paper with a list of things to do to Kavanagh once they were released. Elizabeth was pretty sure that he had no chance of getting away with most of them.

"You think we could put together a firing squad?" he asked at one point in the evening. Someone was supposed to be bringing them dinner soon, and Beckett had agreed to consider releasing them to sleep in their quarters for the night. "Or better yet, shut the gate down with his hand in it."

" John!"

"I've gotta pass the time somehow. This is…therapeutic or something."

"I'm sure."

"And no offense, but I think I'm going to pass the next time you offer me coffee in your office."

She smiled. "I think I'm going to as well. The walk to the mess hall isn't all THAT far."

"Yeah, think of it as exercise."

Elizabeth froze at a sudden sensation like someone cranking up the volume level in her head to full blast. Every noise around her was amplified: footsteps across the floor, the med techs talking on the other side of the room, the beeping of the machines, even her own breathing. It was all loud enough to be painful, and she instantly put her hands over her ears, wincing at the sound of her palms touching her head.

John watched her, concerned. " Elizabeth?" he asked, but his voice only made it worse. A moment later, she could tell that he was struck by the same affliction. One of the nurses noticed that something was wrong.

"Doctor!" she called to Beckett, who was in his office, as she hurried across the room. The word had the same effect as a spike being driven through John's skull.

Beckett and a few of the other med techs hurried over. "What's wrong?" he asked, and could see the reaction they both had to his voice.

"Too loud," John managed to force himself to say. Beckett sighed; he knew things had seemed too easy.

"I've had to sedate them," Carson told Rodney, Ronon, and Teyla, when they came by the infirmary late that night at his request, "Although I don't like it, and I'd rather not continue to do so. We have no idea if there's going to be some kind of reaction between what Kavanagh gave them and ordinary medicines."

"You can't let them wake up, though," Rodney said. "I mean, you said you couldn't even try to help them without hurting them."

"I know. That's why we're moving them out of the infirmary."

"To where?" Teyla asked.

"A section of the north pier. No other people around, but they're far enough in the city that they're isolated from ocean noise. Right now we're setting up camera systems so that we can still monitor them. By the time they come out from the sedative, there will still be approximately sixteen hours before this wears off, and we have no idea what other surprises are in store."

"I can go talk to the mad scientist," Ronon offered with a grin.

"Someone should try. At this point, I'm inclined to think that it would be quite fitting if someone laced the little bugger's rations with a dose of his own medicine."

They'd thrown Kavanagh into the cell that was usually reserved for Wraith, and the guards had had some fun when he discovered the hard way that they actually had turned the force field on.

"How's the eye?" Ronon asked him as he came into the room. Kavanagh just glared; his right eye was almost completely swollen shut.

"As if you didn't know," he shot.

"Hey, you really should be more careful on the stairs."

"What do you want now?"

"Well, it seems you weren't entirely forthcoming when Dr. McKay spoke to you about the effects of whatever you gave Sheppard and Dr. Weir."

"He only asked if it was going to kill them," Kavanagh replied. "If you don't have the right questions, you don't get the right answers." Ronon rather ceremoniously removed a knife from his boot, and then nodded to the guard, who lowered the force field and opened the door to the cell. That made their prisoner a little more cooperative. "What do you want to know?" he asked. Ronon put the tip of the knife under Kavanagh's chin.

"What else is this poison going to do to them?"

"Increased sensitivity to sound."

"What else?"

"That's all!"

"You do understand that if you're lying, I'll be back."

"You can't kill me. SGC will know!"

Ronon smirked. "If I have to pay you another visit, getting killed will be the least of your worries."

TBC...