A/N: Almost there now. Just one more to go.

- Chapter 18 -

"McKay, I swear, if you don't sit down now, I'm going to staple your butt to the chair and find some superglue for you to chew on. NOW…SIT!"

So Rodney could move fast if he wanted to.

They had already been waiting for five hours. Elizabeth had come and gone twice, as had Radek. Teyla had been called to the mainland again and had left, albeit reluctantly. The evacuation and resettlement had worked more or less smoothly, but there was still a lot of work to do in the Athosian village.

Radek had gone after the wish to kill McKay had become overwhelming. Rodney's life was safe from that particular danger now, but John's patience was wearing thinner by the minute.

The physicist had plotted out a tour from the main entrance of the infirmary, twice around the little column in the waiting-room, past John's chair, stopping temporarily at the window before turning around to do the entire thing all over again. Over and over and over again. He had been walking this trail for two and a half hours now. And if that wasn't bad enough, he hadn't shut up once in that time.

It was driving John nuts. Nuts!

But his little outburst had helped, and Rodney had finally deflated like a balloon and sat slumped, a picture of misery, in a chair next to him. John considered talking to him, but the last couple of days had depleted his own supply of optimistic energy.

Rodney's supply of all kinds of energy seemed thankfully depleted, too, so they sat in silence…

"They really should be finished by now."

…for all of 23 seconds.

"They should, shouldn't they? Major?" McKay was wringing his hands again, leg muscles tensing in preparation for getting him back to his feet, but John intercepted him by grabbing a handful of Rodney's sleeve.

"McKay, listen." He knew the lower his voice got and the more pronounced the "s-sounds" became, the more intently people tended to listen to him. "They will be ready when they're ready, then we'll know. Until then, I strongly suggest you sit down and keep quiet. Because", he added, "like this, time will automatically pass faster. Einstein's theory of relative sanity."

"Oh please…"

"McKay!"

"Shutting up."

And to John's surprise he did.

Revelling in the silence for a few minutes, he looked over to the physicist and saw the other man had finally fallen asleep. He lay sprawled awkwardly over the chair, his feet endangering the stability of the coffee table where they were propped up right on the edge, promising a few sore muscles when he woke up.

John straightened up in his chair then rested his forearms on his knees and watched his hands thoughtfully.

It had all been too close. Far too close.

For a while he had thought he handled things well. Now, he wasn't so sure anymore. Maybe with the exception of Beckett and Rodney, everyone else obviously still thought so, but it had left a mark on him.

It. The situation. The attack. The siege. People were addressing it differently, but nothing felt appropriate. Nothing really did it justice.

They had lost so many people; and the entire concept was still too new to him. Yes, he had lost people under his command, but before coming to Atlantis he had never been on top of the military food chain.

So far there had always been superiors; people he could secretly blame if something went wrong, men who told him what to do; who were making the decisions for him. And as much as it had annoyed him at times, and as hard as it sometimes was to follow their orders, they had been guidelines; either to follow or to disobey.

But all these months ago, things had suddenly changed. He lost this liberty, when Sumner…died. Now it was he who gave the orders, and he was too aware what a bad one could cost them. And even good ones could mean people died. He was working without a safety net now, and John physically felt the great empty space beneath his dangling feet.

Now, people were dead. A lot of them.

He wasn't a naïve man. He knew it was nothing short of a miracle that not more, not all of them were dead, but still… He had known almost all of these men and women. Not all had been friends, but every single one had entrusted their lives to him. People whose names he couldn't remember, even people like Kavanaugh.

A small hiccup to his left drew his attention back to the present. Leaning back in his chair, Sheppard watched Rodney's sleeping form. And then this. When Teyla had told him about what happened near the power room, something inside him had snapped.

People tended to think giving your life for a higher cause was something to admire, that such people were braver than others. That was bullshit and he knew it now. It was easy to do that really, because, quite literally, you weren't the one who had to live with the consequences. Others had to, though.

Walking into the jumper and navigating it to the Hive ship hadn't felt that much different from a Sunday afternoon stroll through the neighbourhood. Your brain just wasn't clever enough to process that you were actually about to die when no-one was pointing a gun at you or your heart suddenly decided to stop beating. It didn't work that way.

Watching your friends die or seeing them endanger their lives was a whole different story. Rodney had come so close to getting himself killed because of his carelessness; an attitude John had spent endless hours trying to eliminate.

Rodney could be dead now. By all rights he should be. And this knowledge had made John angrier than anything. There was this possibility he could have come back from his oh-so-brave suicide-mission only to discover that his best friend was dead.

Simple concept, really.

He had been able to shove all this thoughts back into the farthest corner of his consciousness for a while, but not far enough. When he found out about Carson, his carefully built wall had crumbled for good, and all the anger, the helplessness and excessive demands the previous weeks had caused, had kind of bubbled out of him.

But, damn it, this had hit too close to home.

It had been cruel what he'd done to his friend; showing him the video and then storming off to let him deal with it all on his own. But everyone had his breaking point; and John thought he had come close to his. Unlike everyone else in the city, however, he wasn't allowed to show it.

He had screwed up.

"Do I have a pimple somewhere?"

"What?"

"'Cause if I don't, then stop staring at me like you want to mug me or something."

"Do you have something worth mugging you for?" John had been startled when Rodney had suddenly spoken, eyes still closed. But – even though he'd rather gnaw on his own dying body than admit it – he was glad the silence was gone again.

Rodney patted along his jacket and trouser pockets and came up with a power-bar that he ripped open immediately. "Just that."

"Thanks" John reached over, snatched it out of unsuspecting fingers and took a bite before Rodney had a chance to utter his already famous:

"Hey! That's mine. It's chocolate chip!"

"I know. It's good."

Taking pity on Rodney's pathetic expression, John ripped off a little less than a quarter of the bar and offered it to the physicist. When all his friendly gesture accomplished was a deadly stare from his companion, the major quickly stuffed the remaining piece of chocolate into his mouth, inwardly smiling; the friendly banter between them was back.

He'd missed it so much.

oOo

Some time later, a painful jab to his ribs woke John from a nap he hadn't even wanted to take. Looking around in confusion, he saw Rodney walking out of the waiting room towards an approaching Dr Robinson.

Quickly getting to his feet as well, he hurried after the physicist.

"And? He's good, right? Will be fine, right as rain? He is, isn't he? Oh god, he's dead. Please tell me he's not dead! I knew this couldn't…"

"Dr McKay, calm down." The doctor laid a hand on the nervous man's shoulder, crumpling a surgical mask into a tiny ball with the other. "He's most certainly not dead." The dark skinned man turned a little to address both McKay and Sheppard now. "Surgery took a little longer than we expected, but I've just been in to see him, and they are finishing up as we speak. We successfully removed the bullet and there doesn't seem to be any damage to the spine or surrounding tissue." Robinson smiled.

"So, he'll walk again." Rodney blurted right into the other man's last sentence, and John stiffened in anxious anticipation of the response.

"At this stage, we still don't know for sure, I'm afraid. The fact that there is no visible damage improves his chances greatly, but only the next few days will tell, once the swelling had a chance to go down. I'm sorry. I know it's not the answer you wanted to hear, but it's all we can say so far."

Behind the doctor, the door to the surgical suite opened and released a bunch of people directing a bed into one of the cubicles. Rodney immediately started towards it, but was quickly stopped by the tall doctor.

"We have to get him settled in first, Doctor. I promise someone will get you once he's ready." He nodded at John, who silently agreed to take care of the physicist in the meantime.

"Come on, McKay. I might have some peanuts we can share", John told him, effectively blocking his view of ICU and steering him back into the waiting room.

oOo

Carson had looked worse than ever.

When they had finally been allowed to see him, he wasn't even breathing on his own. The original assortment of IVs had been doubled in Rodney's opinion, and he had the sneaking suspicion that three quarters of them had only been added by Biro because she rarely got the chance to exercise her art on live things.

He'd said so, and had taken her murderous look as confirmation. Why Sheppard had looked at him in exasperation he still couldn't understand. As if he hadn't thought the exact same thing.

Apart from the added machinery around the doctor, Beckett's face was deathly white, the dark circles around his eyes adding to the overall corpse-like appearance. It was quite disturbing.

And for the next two days all they could do was wait.

Rodney wasn't all that good at waiting. By the time the doctors removed the ventilator, he had already rearranged parts of the infirmary into a makeshift lab. Unfortunately, at some point during the night, he'd dozed off, pillowing his head on the softly vibrating computer casing. The sound of falling metal and paper had woken him up. Just when a not amused night nurse was busy wrapping his stuff messily into a sheet and depositing it outside the front door. She looked threatening enough for Rodney to wait until her shift was over to get his stuff back.

Rodney really was too tired to do more than put the sheeted ball back on the bed, before settling his head on his arms on the metal rails encircling Carson. A while ago, he'd thought Carson would finally show some signs of life when he became a little restless, but a new dose of painkillers had settled him back into motionlessness.

His colour had improved somewhat during the night and the, now slightly inclined, headrest made Carson look more comfortable; not to mention the less intrusive nasal cannula now replacing the breathing tube, which had Rodney gagging whenever he looked at him.

The still of the night however, made the physicist a little tingly and he wished the Major were there to keep him company. The few nurses and doctors on the night shift moved around with too much stealth and he jumped whenever someone came in to check on their patient.

Finally, dawn broke and the dull grey of night merged into sunlight, made colourful by ten thousand year old glass.

Shortly after the day shift began, Biro came for the first test. The Major had also made his way to the infirmary, bearing food. He'd relinquished his seat to Rodney during the night, since the staff strictly kept to Biro's 'one at a time'-rule.

Carson still wasn't awake. It was now almost 11 hours after he'd come back from the OR. The energetic doctor, standing at the foot of the bed, assured them though, that all was well, as far as they could tell.

'As far as they could tell' Earth was flat and revolved around Vulcan, but Sheppard's warning look kept Rodney from saying it out loud.

"Okay, Gentleman," Dr Biro addressed the handful of people standing anxiously around the bed; even Elizabeth had somehow managed to be there. "I want you to understand that it's still quite early, and even though we successfully removed the bullet, the swelling could still be quite severe, so no response doesn't necessarily mean there's permanent damage. To the contrary, we're actually quite confident after seeing the results of the surgery and the MRI that, with time, Dr Beckett should regain full mobility."

"But you don't know for sure." Someone had to ask and since everyone else seemed unwilling, Rodney took the task himself.

"There is unfortunately no guarantee, Dr McKay, especially where the spine is concerned. All we know is that it looks promising, as far a…"

"As far as you can tell, yes. This is getting kind of old."

The small doctor shot the physicist a warning look that told him her patience with him was waning fast. After a second, she apparently came to the decision that he wasn't worth her time, and she pulled out a pencil from the breast pocket of her lab coat. Uncovering Carson's feet she took hold of his right ankle and ran the tip over the entire length of the sole. The sight alone made Rodney's foot twitch in sympathy.

Carson, however, showed no reaction at all.

A/N: Did I mention just how much I appreciate each and every review you guys have sent? I did? Well then: THANK YOU AGAIN !