Yet another tag to Irresistible. Sheppard thinks it over.
Standard disclaimer that of course I don't own any part of Stargate Atlantis, and am just borrowing the characters for some fun. Money? I wish.
I made him cry.
It's not something I'm particularly proud of, but it wasn't really my fault. I was tired, and half-sick, and they'd all chewed on my last nerve. He was beginning to come down from his Lucius high by then anyway, so probably anything could have set him off. I do feel bad about punching him in the shoulder. Not bad enough that I wouldn't do it again if I had to, though.
Atlantis dodged a bullet. I have to consider what might have happened to the city, and the mission, and most importantly, the expedition members, if I'd succumbed to Lucius Lavan's little love drug. That's my job, to consider all the possibilities, even when they rend my nights with bad dreams. By now, we'd all be dead and Atlantis would be a ghost city riddled with dried corpses. That idiot would have got us all killed for his herb. Just because he couldn't make people love him any other way.
Some of what happened was my fault. I didn't get truly angry until I came back from getting more of the drug from Lucius' wives and found the gateroom completely unguarded, and McKay yucking it up with Lucius over marmots. Okay, Ronon held him against the wall, so he couldn't help it. But the sight of him laughing and mooning over Lucius was more than I could take. He could have hidden himself until I came back. He could have disabled the DHD right away, like I asked him to. I couldn't help thinking these things, even knowing he probably never had a chance to do any of it.
Even then, angry as I was, I didn't appreciate how serious the situation was until Ronon, Teyla, and Beckett came barreling through the gate in a hail of Wraith gunfire. Until Ronon shoved his gun in my face. I knew in that moment he would have shot me without a qualm --- which he subsequently proved --- that, in fact, all of them were willing to do me harm in defense of Lucius and his precious herb. It galled to make excuses for myself, and to apologize to that smirking snake. But I wasn't going to make it out of the gateroom if I didn't.
So maybe when I hit Carson, I was getting a little bit of my own back. Shooting him with a stunner in order to kidnap him didn't count. I had to do that in order to get him away from Atlantis. I don't feel bad about that part. When I think about it, I even wish a little bit that I'd had an opportunity to clock McKay too, if only for the maid trick.
Carson asked me later why I thought it was necessary to provoke Ronon into shooting me. Obviously I had my doubts. For one thing, there was no guarantee that he wouldn't set his weapon on kill. I didn't think he would lie to me about it, though. When Ronon wants to kill you, he doesn't mind telling you so if you ask.
For another thing, I certainly wasn't looking forward to the pins and needles either. It feels more like nails and roofing staples, if you ask me, and it makes you want to hurl. But if Ronon shot me before hauling me back to Atlantis, he wouldn't be holding me up against a wall while Lucius and I had a heart to heart, at least not for a while. I couldn't depend on my clogged up nasal passages to protect me forever. Being stunned would buy me time while Carson worked on the pheromone counter agent.
I almost cried myself when I started to come to on the floor of the jumper. My chest felt like it was on fire, and I needed to cough but couldn't, and my arms and legs wouldn't move even though my nerves and muscles were humming like too-tight guitar strings. Nobody was paying any attention to me. They were too busy arguing with each other because the jumper wouldn't go faster back to Atlantis. Carson was nowhere to be seen, which meant he was probably flying the other jumper, and I prayed that his head was in the right place. There hadn't been much time for the pheromones to wear off. I could only hope that he managed to make it back into his infirmary without encountering Lucius again. He had the vial I'd brought back, and he'd seen Rodney's research, so he had an idea of what he needed to do. It was out of my hands, and that was just as well. Lying on the floor of the jumper, I felt bad enough to not care for a while what was going to happen.
Ronon wasn't too gentle about hauling me over his shoulder and dumping me on the cold, hard floor of that holding cell. Right about then I started caring again. I crawled into a corner of the cell, hawking up phlegm, feeling like two shades of death, and made a mental note to myself to bring up Ronon's treatment of me in the next debriefing. I knew he wasn't himself. None of them were themselves, and I vowed I wasn't going to let them forget it any time soon. The revenge of Sheppard would be a powerful thing to behold.
That comforting thought sustained me until I started feeling better. By the time Lucius came to see me, I was up and pacing the cell, building up my desire to get him in my clutches. On the mainland. Alone.
Looking into his eyes, I saw a gleam of the evil I hadn't seen before. Somehow, even having been stunned by my own team member, and locked up in a holding cell because of this guy, I didn't think it was his basic nature. He was under the effect of the drug as much as anyone in Atlantis. It didn't make me hate him less, but it gave me an edge. I wouldn't lose control in front of him, no matter what happened. Calmly, I backed away and sat down.
I'm tellin' ya, it was fate.
See, that's the great thing about this herb. Nobody gets hurt. They just want to help me all the time, what's wrong with that? I never make them do what they don't want to do.
Six wives, I reminded him.
Sometimes all at once, he said, which was way more information than I wanted.
You know, when you get over this cold, you and I are gonna have a long chat, face to face. And I got a feeling we're gonna be best of friends. And you're gonna want to help me all the time. And you'll love it.
A momentary vision flashed through my head of myself as Lucius' willing slave, and cold anger filled my gut.
"Just a warning, Lucius," I said quietly, "you get close to me, and it'll be the last thing you do."
He wasn't intimidated. He thought he had it all under control. He was off to get his ATA gene therapy and become absolute master of Atlantis --- at least until he attracted the attention of the Wraith, inadvertently causing the destruction of us all. He couldn't know, and wouldn't have cared, how frightened I was that Carson might not have been able to avoid being seduced back into his fold, that I was stuck in this cell until he chose to come for me, that my last gamble hadn't paid off.
When Carson finally showed up, my knees went weak with relief.
After I kidnapped Carson and fled in the jumper, I'd radioed Halling and requested that he set up a camp in an isolated spot on the mainland, several miles from the Athosian village. That's where I took Lucius. I didn't want to chance having him come into contact with any of the Athosians until I knew for sure his "charm" had worn off, and I didn't want to make it easy for anyone from Atlantis to find us in case they came after us. Luckily, as Carson had predicted, it only took a couple of days for the drug to wear off. I don't know how much longer I could have handled the constant carping and whining. Lucius is a very unpleasant man when not seen through the prism of a love drug, or maybe he was just going through a withdrawal of his own. I don't know. I didn't care. Running complicated math problems through my head saved him from early death, or a thorough beating at the least. I practically sang with relief when Carson radioed that the serum had been administered to everyone, and they were getting back to normal.
When I arrived back in Atlantis, everyone was sheepish and contrite. I had to specifically order Ronon not to hurt Lucius until we could take him home. The temptation was great, but Elizabeth was watching me, and while she no doubt suffered agonies remembering her behavior with Lucius, she wasn't going to let us kill him. I wasted no time, however, in putting the Sheppard revenge into action against my fellow Atlanteans. I plan to wring every last drop of entertainment out of it. And it will be even more awe-inspiring when I think up something to do to McKay for using Lucius' pheromone drug on me.
One thing I didn't do. Carson Beckett has saved my life on more than one occasion, and he didn't hold it against me that I stunned and kidnapped him. So I didn't embarrass him by telling anybody who would listen about what happened in the jumper.
But someday he'll have me on his table again, badgering me about not taking better care of myself, forcing me into one of those humiliating gowns, poking me full of holes. I don't look forward to it, naturally, but this is the Pegasus Galaxy. I know it'll happen.
That's the day I'll invoke my right, held in reserve, to tell all the nurses about the day I made him cry.